Denis Opudo
A young entrepreneur called Bethelhem Dejene, who is 23 years old now share an ice-breaking activity together with fifteen other colleagues. She is one of the 2018 Bega-batch lucky innovators who secured a chance to join the BlueMoon organization. The organization is one of the largest agribusiness oriented business incubators in the continent. She has an idea on how to make paper out of bamboo and straw without the use of wood. These young innovators assembled together so as to acquire knowledge on how to run their business as well as gaining investors. The incubation process was scheduled to run for four months. However, in three weeks’ time, Bethelhem Dejene had already acquired useful tips on how to run her business.
The bluemoon environment provides office spaces for upcoming entrepreneurs in need of consultancy and mentoring services. Due to its ability to incorporate a large number of entrepreneurs from a different background, the organization creates diverse business opportunities. Globally, there are instances of slow tech development. Africa, on the other hand, focuses on market opportunities for a business boom. In Ethiopia, the first innovative hub, iceaddis was launched back in 2011. According to the founder of the iceaddis, Markos Lemma, there were six hubs of same kind in Africa.
GSMA’s Ecosystem Accelerator survey showed that there are now 314 tech hubs as well as 93 incubator center across major cities in the continent. This survey, it is evidence that these tech hubs have rapidly grown in less than 7 years time. The reasons behind this success are linked to good startups ecosystems, increase the number of youth’s participants among others. Most of the tech startups Africa are concentrated in disciplines such as agriculture, health, transport, education, and business.
The main organizations which accept startups ideas and applications in Ethiopia are iceaddis, xHub Addis, and BlueMoon. In the year 2014, xHub Addis was launched by Tewodros Tadesse. The core objective of this initiative was to provide mentorship to new startups. The programme accepted an application from tech-based, social and business-oriented incubation process for a minimum of one year.
