Hey there!
It’s me, The Digital Diplomat! I’m excited about writing this piece and sharing my take on the Top 10 African Countries Digital Entrepreneurs Should Consider Doing Business. As I am writing this piece, I am reminded of my time in Ethiopia last year before all flights were grounded due to the global pandemic soon after my arrival home to the U.S. In fact, I am smiling right now, ear to ear, because I had the great pleasure of delivering closing remarks at P!TCH Ethiopia.
P!TCH Ethiopia was an inaugural startup pitch and demo event where selected Ethiopian and Ethiopia focused startups got a chance to pitch to top tier investors, customers, and government partners. The purpose was to provide the participating startups with world-class feedback, prizes, and potential investment. Global investors, founders, and startup enthusiasts were invited to witness the future of Ethiopia. The U.S. State Department partnered with the Africa Fintech Summit 2019 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to host P!TCH Ethiopia. In addition to the State Department, strategic partners for the summit include PeaceTech Lab, Corporate Council on Africa, and Startup World Cup. I was recommended by AFTS to provide closing remarks to a room full with more than 150 attendees. I shared a small iteration of a larger speech I’ve been writing illustrating the beauty and power of 54 African nations called Made in Africa.
While I had a temperate check on the innovation taking place across the region, I was still blown away by the Ethiopian startups. Here’s the video from my speech.
As you can see, the room was full. In fact, there were people in and out of the room, so you probably won’t get the full picture watching the video, but you’ll get the point. The point is, there is innovation taking place across the region. There’s a diverse range of opportunities for you to get involved in. But, I know why you haven’t done so, right? You don’t know where to start. No worries. This is why I’m writing this blog post on the Top 10 African Countries Digital Entrepreneurs Should Be Doing Business.
Give or take, the research I’ve done lends itself to a few different African countries. But, for the most part, everyone knowledgeable about the region would agree that the top 10 that I’ve chosen below belong. My list is not in any particular order, but rather the top countries in my personal radar:
South Africa
Nigeria
Ghana
Ethiopia
Kenya
Rwanda
Senegal
Uganda
Egypt
Botswana
There are a lot of services that digital entrepreneurs depending on the specific niche can offer to other product or service based businesses/entrepreneurs in this region. Whether it’s educating on paid advertisements via Google of Facebook, and strategies to sell products or services online to personal and business brand marketing in global markets, capacity building is an area of emphasis for anyone interesting in developing talent across the region. If you are solid in coding and developing custom apps or robust eCommerce websites, there is space for you too.
In fact, we at the Virtual Global Consultant Group secured nearly $19K to travel to Uganda and Malawi to teach entrepreneurs how to build online businesses. We believe strongly in doing business in Africa and it’s the reason we launched Aftown Mall, a marketplace to help sell Made in Africa products around the world.
Now, many sources, for example, TheFortune.Africa, select their top 10 countries based on various ranking factors including: Intensity of R&D (research and development), productivity and variability of technological products, high-tech density such as proportion of high-tech public companies in the field of advanced engineering, energy, defense, chemical, hardware and software, Internet, computer and mobile phone software & services.
If you need support Entering into Global Markets, learn more here. Until next time, find me on all social platforms. I’ve been sharing a lot of nuggets on Clubhouse. Download the app and turn on my notifications.
Signed,
The Digital Diplomat
