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Non-profit organisation RemitFund has launched an investment fund for African diaspora-led impact businesses.

RemitFund aims to leverage remittances flows for greater social impact on the continent, by enabling Africans in the diaspora to donate a percentage of their remittances to an investment fund.

The African Diaspora Investment Fund (ADIF) will provide investment for African and African diaspora-led businesses that work for the continent’s advancement in SDG-aligned sectors such as agribusiness and clean energy.

“Remittances in the traditional sense are a form of diaspora-driven development and provide a huge safety net for many families,” said RemitFund’s founder and executive director Grace Camara.

“However, without the prospect of sustainable and growing economies, remittances in their current form will not provide sufficient investment to curb the “brain drain” of skilled Africans who struggle to find employment and so look for opportunities abroad. If we do not start creating employment opportunities for Africa’s youth, dysfunctional migration will reach unprecedented levels. We must act now.”

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from Disrupt Africa http://bit.ly/2smBbTL

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Five agri-tech startups have been selected to join the Senegal Startup Accelerator run by Kosmos Innovation Centre and Reach for Change; receiving six months’ incubation and US$2,000 seed funding.

The Senegal Startup Accelerator aims to support young Senegalese entrepreneurs with innovative ideas tackling the challenges facing the agriculture sector using technology.

The programme – run by  run by the Kosmos Innovation Centre and Reach for Change – helps selected entrepreneurs to develop their commercial solutions and maximize their impact, through a six month schedule of intensive and expert training, as well as organised visits to established businesses for market research and professional mentoring. The chosen startups also receive US$2,000 each in seed funding, with the chance to secure additional funding upon completion of the programme.

Five Senegalese ventures have been selected to join the accelerator, which kicks off this month.

The cohort comprises Jappandil – a platform that connects farmers to qualified agricultural experts, service providers and materials needed to improve farming practices and access the latest innovations; Tool Bi, which works to facilitate irrigation with an electronic innovation and improve agricultural yields; Fraisen/Waalu Ma Aagri – an efficient way of producing organic strawberries locally in Senegal at an affordable cost; Sigle:Senphytomed Suarl, working in the conservation of medicinal plants; and food waste solution GIE Senbioagro Corporation.

“Through this accelerator programme, we’re delighted to do our part to ensure young, promising entrepreneurs have the skills and support needed to help turn their innovative business ideas into reality. Each winner will be guided through the process of developing a product that is ready for market and meets a real market need, contributing to the creation of a healthy and competitive agricultural sector in Senegal. Look out for five exciting new products coming to the market in just six months’ time,” says Mamadou Mar Faye, external affairs and corporate social responsibility (CSR) manager at Kosmos Energy.

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from Disrupt Africa http://bit.ly/2Rx46me

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“I will never forget her. Her name was Hope.”

Several years ago, Dr Moses Owoicho Enokela tried desperately to stop Hope Okoro dying on the delivery bed of a rural hospital.

“We couldn’t save her. She died along with her unborn infant and she died because nobody knew her placenta was obstructing her birth passage. She never had an ultrasound examination in the entire course of her pregnancy, and she never had one because she couldn’t afford it or the associated costs,” Enokela told Disrupt Africa.

This is a problem across Africa, and why 99 per cent of maternal deaths occur in rural communities in developing countries like Nigeria.

“Like Hope, hundreds of thousands of women will continue to lose their lives every year to preventable pregnancy complications if nothing is done. This is our motivation and what inspired SonoCare,” Enokela said.

Founded in 2015, SonoCare is a last-mile mobile diagnostic medical imaging solution delivering conveniently accessible and low-cost life-saving diagnostic imaging interventions, such as ultrasound sonograms and echocardiograms, at point of care that can help detect pregnancy complications conveniently and affordably.

“We found the main reasons behind the problem were accessibility and affordability. Hospitals and available solutions were not readily accessible, and even when they were they were still very expensive,” said Enokela.

SonoCare was the first company in Nigeria to deploy a web and mobile resource for patient information transmission and interdisciplinary collaboration. Offering both fixed site and mobile solutions, the startup provides cost efficient programmes scaled to the needs of hospitals, satellite clinics and healthcare providers using a combination of the most advanced imaging systems and highly trained, registered technologists as sonographers.

So far, it has screened over 26,000 women from 17 rural communities, and detected over 15,000 high-risk pregnancies. In November, the startup raised US$250,000 in funding from Gray Matters Capital to scale its operations by developing a mobile app and deploying more mobile units for catering to 200,000 pregnancies by 2020.

“SonoCare targets the entire Sub-Saharan Africa market. However, we currently operate in the Nigerian market with plans for expansion across West Africa and the wider Sub-Saharan Africa in the nearest future,” Enokela said.

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from Disrupt Africa http://bit.ly/2CUthGU