8 African Tech Experts Establishing Africa Presence On The Global Stage
8 African tech experts establishing Africa's presence on the global stage
Africans are frequently maligned in the media, but they are so much more than the negative stereotype frequently advanced.
They have consistently contributed to society's growth and development, and in honor of International Day of People of African Descent, here are ten Africans who are making the continent proud in the field of technology.
Tope Awotona
Only a select few founders can claim to have built a unicorn. That number shrinks even further when discussing black unicorn founders, of which Tope Awotona, founder of scheduling tool Calendly, is a member.
Despite repeatedly hitting roadblocks while building Calendly, including flying to Ukraine during a war, the Nigerian demonstrated remarkable fortitude in building a company worth more than $1 billion.
Yonas Beshawred
Yonas Beshawred founded and leads StackShare, a platform that enables software developers and technology companies to share the tools they use and how they use them.
Prior to founding StackShare, the Ethiopian entrepreneur worked at Accenture in IT consulting, as well as at Cube. From a side project on a WordPress blog, StackShare has grown to over 500,000 developers and raised more than $5 million in funding.
Beshawred's work with StackShare is impressive in light of how difficult it is for black founders to obtain funding, and demonstrates that with a great idea, recognition is only a matter of time.
Rediet Abebe
Rediet Abebe is an Ethiopian computer scientist and a University of California, Berkeley assistant professor. Abebe is also a co-founder of Blacks in AI, a community of Black researchers working in artificial intelligence, and Mechanism Design for Social Good, an organization that brings together researchers from various disciplines to solve problems.
Her research focuses on the use of artificial intelligence and algorithms to increase opportunities for historically marginalized groups. This has included collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education in order to connect high school seniors with public universities.
Chinedu Echeruo
Chinedu Echeruo is a Nigerian-born serial entrepreneur who rose to prominence in 2013 after Apple acquired his travel app, HopStop, for $1 billion.
After experiencing difficulty locating directions while traveling in the United States, Echeruo developed HopStop, an app that provided real-time directions while taking the bus, train, hiking, or biking. The enormously popular service was available in over 600 US cities until Apple decided to discontinue it.
Following HopStop, he worked as an investment banker at Constant Capital Partners before founding MindMeet and Tripology. He is also the inventor of US patent #7,957,871, entitled "Methods and Apparatuses for Urban Navigation."
Sam Udotong
Sam Udotong, a Nigerian-born CTO and co-founder of Fireflies, a meeting transcription service, exemplifies resilience. Udotong turned down six-figure job offers and graduate school after graduating from MIT to build the startup, frequently subsisting on pizza.
Success did not come easily, and Fireflies gained traction as a transcription service after several iterations, including a brief stint as a delivery service. Since its inception in 2017, the startup has raised more than $15 million in funding.
Omolabake Adenle
Omolabake Adenle is a Nigerian-American investment strategist, engineer, and founder of Aja.la Studios, a mobile application development studio focused on African languages.
Adenle received his PhD in Bayesian Signal Processing from Cambridge University and previously founded SpeakYoruba, a defunct app that assisted children in learning the Yoruba language. She was recently recognized by Women in Voice (WiV) with the DEI In Voice award for her exceptional contributions to the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion in voice.
Makinde Adeagbo
While numerous Silicon Valley companies assert that they have programs in place to increase workplace diversity and recruit more software engineers, racial disparities persist. According to various estimates, black software engineers make up between 1% and 2% of the workforce.
Makinde Adeagbo was born in Nigeria and has worked at Facebook, Microsoft, and Pinterest. He founded dev/color in 2015, becoming one of the first non-profit startups to be accepted into Y Combinator. dev/color serves as a catalyst for black software engineers, technologists, and executives to advance their careers. Since its inception, dev/color claims to have assisted over 600 black software engineers in advancing their careers, learning new technologies, and founding new businesses.
Asmau Ahmed
Women, particularly black women, have historically been underrepresented in the workplace, and this trend continues in the technology sector. In a world where fewer than 100 black women have raised $1 million in venture capital funding, Asmau Ahmed, Founder of Plum Perfect, is a role model for women.
After struggling to find a lipstick that matched her skin tone, she founded Plum Perfect. With just a selfie, the app analyzes the colors of the user's skin, eyes, lips, and hair before making result-based recommendations.
Likewise, the company offers BeauTV, a service that allows users to watch makeup tutorials and receive personalized recommendations based on their skin tone. Additionally, the Nigerian-American has worked for Bank of America and Deloitte.
