Rinchi
TechInAfrica – The Impact Capital Africa Conference was held on 2 – 3 October 2018. The two days event aimed to acknowledge and support the entrepreneurial ecosystem within African countries. One of the keynote speakers, the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator, highlighted at least three main points about the ecosystem of Zambia’s technology that further will be explained in this article.
Through Musanga Mobile App, Zambia the Land-linking Country
Compared to other countries in the world, inland transport costs in Sub-Saharan Africa has a higher proportion of supply chain costs, as what is found by the World Bank. This affects micro, small and medium enterprise (MSMEs) on determining for the price of goods in the region, particularly in Zambia. These MSMEs, thus, offer lower-cost good for their customers in the region.
Zambia is an African country with the population hit 18 million that spread across a landmass of 743 thousand square kilometers and enclose with the other eight neighboring countries. Compared to Kenya, Zambia is way less populated; therefore connecting customers to goods and services will give a big challenge as well as cost to MSMEs. However, coming as a solution for this matter, one the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator portfolio start-ups, Musanga Logistics is designed to make the good and service delivering process simpler by linking in business owners to a truck drivers’ network and bike riders in the country.
Musanga Logistics launched a mobile app, both on Play Store and Apple Store, on October 4 this year that helps in the delivery process. With the help of the app, business owners are now able to run their business and reduce transport cost up to 40%. As a result, more drivers will have a better opportunity to get more jobs and income. Moreover, business owners can now just focus on competitive advantages only due to the removal of the transportation burden on their business’ challenges list.
Need More Approach from Stakeholders to Increase Opportunities
To offer its service as well as gain more customers, Musanga is collaborating with MTN Zambia in order to link their app with MTN’s mobile money service and market their products to MTN’s customer base. MTN mobile money will later be the payment method of Musanga mobile app that is expected to make the payment process less time-consuming and complicated.
Speaking of the role of stakeholders in the ecosystem, it had been discussed during the two days conference at The Impact Capital Africa Conference where many investors, start-ups, tech hubs, government, and private sector gathered to share their experiences. Furthermore, the event also emphasized how important stakeholders support is to unlock more opportunities in the business in Zambia. In conclusion, with the help from many parties, including stakeholders, private sectors, and donors, is expected to bring more values and opportunities for larger communities in Zambia.
Mobile App Holds a Potential
According to GSMA Intelligence data, in the last decade, there has been significant growth in unique mobile subscribers in Zambia, from lower than 3 million subscribers to 13 million subscribers. Meanwhile, FSD Zambia also found that mobile money has also been succeeded in cutting off the gap in financial access in the country by providing financial services to 14% of the local adult population. These facts show how mobile app play role in Zambia’s society.
To support this, RecycleBot, a Lusaka-based start-up develops a blockchain-powered mobile app in order to build an efficient recycling chain. Meanwhile, Outsource Now is also building mobile-enabled point of sale devices to support MSMEs to deal with their finances more efficiently. In addition, in 2017, the Zambia-based PAYG solar startup, Vitalite developed and trialed smartphone and cookstove add-on products for their solar home system (SHS) after receiving grant funding from the GSMA Mobile for Development Utilities Innovation Fund.
Judging from the facts, mobile technology will seemingly play a key role in bringing social impact and values through sustainable business in many sectors in Zambia.
