Mobile Entrepreneurship in Ghana
Year-Two Report (April 2011 - March 2012)
April 2012
Author
Max Froumentin (maxf@webfoundation.org)
This document summarizes the second year of the Mobile Entrepreneurship in Ghana project, and studies its outcomes, as well as the prospects it offers for the third and last year of the project. It tries to record as many aspects of the project as possible, in order to be used in the future, as a reference for other similar initiatives, by the Web Foundation and others.
Table of Contents
The goals of the first year of the project were:
Those goals were all achieved and the year culminated in March 2011 with the successful completion of the first training session.
This favorable outcome allowed us to define the goals of the second year as planned at the beginning of the project and, for each of those goals, the achievements can be summarised as follows:
Following the first two years we are now ready to start the final one, confident that Mobile Web Ghana will continue thriving once the Foundation's involvement is over.
The Mobile Entrepreneurship in Ghana project, made possible thanks to a grant provided by Vodafone, started in March 2010. The goal was to implement the Web Foundation's concept of Mobile Entrepreneurship Lab in Ghana, over a period of three year. After a successful first yearMobile Entrepreneurship in Ghana - Year One Report, World Wide Web Foundation, April 2011, public.webfoundation.org/2011/04/MEA_Y1_Report/ , this document shows that the second year ended with a similar amount of success. The project is now progressing through the third year, which will see the lab's transition to self-sustainability as the involvement of the Web Foundation closes.
The following section recalls the previous objectives and current objectives of the project. It also outlines the next goals, specifically for the third year. Each of those goals is developed in the subsequent sections.
The overall goals for the whole project were listed in the original proposal as:
The implementation of the vision is based on the building of Mobile training labs that will transfer appropriate expertise in business and mobile technologies to entrepreneurs enabling them to create new content and services.
Our global objective is to demonstrate that it is possible to create self-sustaining self-perpetuating Mobile training labs all over the Developing World that could virally expand in size and numbers. The success, sustainability and scalability of these labs are ensured by:
For the first year, the objectives were worded as:
Select the appropriate partner in the targeted country, set up a mobile training lab facility, and define a long-term sustainability model and business plan for the lab Identify the key empowering technologies and associated tools that could enable potential entrepreneurs to become content and service providers Identify the key business models applicable to the selected technologies, and the key elements (from the regulatory and technical perspective) required for their implementation Develop training material for both the technical and business side of the mobile training lab Organize a first campaign of participant selection Organize a first training session.
And for the second, they were:
The following sections of this document follow the five objectives listed above. They show how the activities of the first year have led to the realization of some of those goals, or how some were adapted or dropped as the project went on.
Objective: consolidate the community building through the organization of monthly physical events and setup of online tools for cooperation and sharing.
One of the main ongoing tasks of the project is to consolidate and grow the community formed at the beginning of the project. The last year has seen many events organized by Mobile Web Ghana (MWG), which have successfully contributed to the continuing interest from current or new community members. Beside those face-to-face events (listed below), an important amount of activity happened online, showing that the MWG community is alive and well.
A month after the first training session, which ended at the end of March 2011, MWG organized its first "mobile entrepreneurship awards ceremony", an event designed to reward the best project developed during the training sessionMobile Web Ghana's 2011 Mobile Entrepreneurship Awards, mobilewebghana.org/training/awards.html. The ceremony took place on 30 April, and gathered all the participants of the first session, as well as three judges, in charge of not only electing the winners, but also providing advice to all the participants. Vodafone Ghana kindly sponsored the event and provided the prizes: 10,000 cedis ($6,000) for the winners, and 5,000 cedis ($3,000) for the second best. Each team presented their project, showed their market research, explained the business model, and demonstrated a prototype of the proposed service. Eventually, the judges (Nii Quaynor, from AFNOG, Mark Davies, CEO of Esoko and John Totoe, CEO of Mobile Content) gave each team an insightful evaluation of their work and provided valuable advice on how to continue developing their project. The winners were: Alfred Anyan, Gerald Abraham and Martin Zonyrah for the Music Request Service, and David Agbenyega for MobitixMobile Web Ghana Awards Results, Web foundation, www.webfoundation.org/2011/05/mobile-web-ghana-awards-results/. We provide further details on their projects in section .
Similarly, the second ceremony took place following the second training sessionMobile Web Ghana's Second Entrepreneurship Competition, Web Foundation and Mobile Web Ghana, www.webfoundation.org/2011/11/mobile-web-ghanas-second-app-competition/, https://www.mobilewebghana.org/mwg-projects-presentation/ Following the same model, the session participants competed by presenting their project and tried to convince the jury that their project was the best. The winners were Alloysius Attah and Emmanuel Owusu Addai for Farmerline and Victoria Arkorful, Eliezer Ayertey for ikweryFarmerline Wins Mobile Web Ghana Second Apps Competition, Mobile Web Ghana, www.mobilewebghana.org/farmerline-wins-mobile-web-ghana-second-apps-competition Again, further details on the projects are given below. This time, the prizes were jointly donated by MWG and Lastminute.com.
The third ceremony will take place in May 2012, following the April 2012 training session.
Other than the training itself, the main activity that MWG had started on the first year was the so-called "Mobile Event", a regular evening gathering of people interested in mobile-technology, including presentations and networking sessions. Those gatherings were organised in collaboration with Ashesi University CollegeAshesi University College, Accra, Ghana, www.ashesi.edu.gh/ which provided the venue. However, around mid-2011, Ashesi relocated outside of Accra, which caused an unfortunate interruption in the organization of the Mobile Events. But now that MWG has its own physical space, the events will soon restart.
The Mobile Entrepreneurs Congress is a yearly conference organized by MWGMobile Entrepreneurs Congress, Mobile Web Ghana, me-congress.org/site/ It held its first instance on December 10thMobile Web Ghana organises Mobile Entrepreneurs Congress, Web Foundation, www.webfoundation.org/2011/12/mobile-web-ghana-organises-mobile-entrepreneurs-co
The goal of the congress is to increase the public and the IT industry's awareness of the fusion of the web and mobile phones. Apps, smart phones, mobile websites, SMS or voice services, and mobile entrepreneurship are all components of this fusion, and the congress explored them in the context of Africa. Through presentations by some of the main actors in the mobile industry in Ghana, as well as directed discussions within the audience, the congress provide good insight into the global and local mobile landscapes.
The congress was of course geared towards specific African and Ghanaian topics, which included:
The congress fulfilled its goal to consolidate the local community of mobile entrepreneurs. Many of the 45 people who had attended MWG's training sessions were present. Another 30 people interested in the topics addressed by the congressed also joined.
Mobile Monday Accra started in April 2011. Mobile Web Ghana was one of the main initiators in what was the first West African chapter of Mobile Monday. The Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT is in charge of organizing the event every monthMobile Monday takes place on the first Friday of every month, Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, www.aiti-kace.com.gh/content/mobile-monday-takes-place-first-friday-every-month- and MWG are regular participants.
MWG were a co-organiser of the Mobile Apps Ghana showcase, initiated by Mobile Consortium Ghana, a strategy consultancy advising governments and business on the future of mobile technology on the African continentMobile Apps Ghana Showcase, mobileconsortiumgh.com/events.php). The event took place on September 24th in Accra, and attracted around 80 people. Max Froumentin and Florence Toffa from the Web Foundation were invited to deliver the opening speech.
The showcase also hosted the App Circus contestApp Circus Accra, appcircus.com/event/appcircus-mags2011-accra a competition for the most interesting app locally developed. MWG were part of the jury.
As last year, MWG sponsored and co-organised BarCamp Accra. Barcamp Ghana is a project being run by the GhanaThink Foundation, an NGO based both in Ghana and the USA. A BarCamp is a user-generated conference (or "unconference"). It is an open, participatory workshop-event, whose content is provided by participants. BarCamp is the largest ICT event network in Ghana, with chapters in Tamale, Kumasi, Ho, Sunyani, and other cities.
The TEDxUG conference was organized by the US embassy in Ghana. It brought together entrepreneurs, students and other interested people. MWG were present, and Florence Toffa did a presentation on the mobile entrepreneurship project in GhanaTEDxUG conference, www.mobilewebghana.org/speaking-at-tedx-ghana/.
The training01 mailing listtraining01@mobilewebghana.org mailing list archive, https://lists.mobilewebghana.org/wws/arc/training01 originally created for the first session trainees and trainers was extended to include trainees from the second session, and will soon include those of the third. With more than 50 participants, it provides a regular stream of mobile-technology-related news and discussions1.
The MWG Facebook page (called Mobile Entrepreneurs in Africa, Ghana) is also very activeMobile Entrepreneurs Group on Facebook, www.facebook.com/groups/160501704015054/308395535892336/ It counts 694 members, who regularly post links, often starting discussions and trigger many "likes". There is also a Facebook Group, with 57 members, and Twitter page, with 377 followers. MWG has also strong ties with mFridaymFriday Community, www.mfriday.org/, a very active community of mobile web enthusiasts, based at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. The group meets weekly to share ideas and develop mobile applications. The community also communicates through its Google groupmFriday Google Group, https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups&hl=en#!forum/mfriday and Facebook pagemFriday Facebook Group, www.facebook.com/pages/mFriday/258391540902799?ref=nf.
As the list above demonstrates, there is a significant number of events related to mobile technology in Ghana, and MWG is participating in most of them. That number is growing, and MWG will continue making sure it participates, or is represented, in all of them.
Another event that is likely to dramatically improve the mobile community in Accra is the opening of MWG's mobile entrepreneurship lab, announced on 3 April 2012Our new Mobile Application Lab, Florence Toffa, Mobile Web Ghana, www.mobilewebghana.org/our-new-mlab-physical-space/. A physical space is likely to greatly increase the number of community members, raise the level of participation, and increase the amount of sharing of resources and knowledge. Practically, the lab will:
Another very important way of fully exploiting the existence of a physical space will be to explore the feasibility of making it serve as a "tech hub" in Accra. The success of initiatives such as the iHubiHub, Nairobi's Innovation Hub for the technology community, ihub.co.ke in Kenya shows that it is possible to attract and maintain a very active community around a physical area. The idea is to make that area into a community cybercafé: people can use it to go online, but can also attend events organised there. The layout of the space itself, quite unlike the rows of computers in a standard internet café, is designed to make it easy for people to interact and not just be online. A specifically designed charging model, based on subscriptions rather than on one-off fees, also ensures that members will likely go more than once. See section 8 for further details.
Objective: Consolidate the training sessions. This includes updating the training program based on the feedback received during the first session as well as monitoring new sessions taught by local trainers trained during the first session. At least 2 new sessions will be delivered in year 2.
Our observations, as well as trainee and trainer feedback, gathered following the first sessionop. cit were (unsurprisingly) valuable in order to design the second and third ones. Specifically, we took into account these main lessons learnt:
Additionally, we adjusted many logistical parameters that improved interaction between trainees and made it easier for some of them to combine the training with other occupations. We believe that as a result of those change, feedback from the trainees and trainers of the second session improved, compared to the first. It also showed in the quality of the projects developed.
Publishing the complete set of training material was also beneficial, as we found it helped people following the incubation program to review specific points of the training. It also provided publicity, as potential candidates could get a better idea of what they could learnMWG Training Material www.mobilewebghana.org/?page_id=208. Naturally, it is possible that it was copied or plagiarised, but in fact that was one of the main points of publishing it. Just accessing the material is clearly not a replacement for the training, but it introduces anyone who finds it to locally applicable technologies that they may want to learn more about. In numbers, the material includes 16 sets of slides and notes for six modules, adding up to more than 1100 pages.
The second session took place during September 2011. For three weeks, another 20 people were introduced to mobile services, and were taught how to develop their applications and business ideas.
While the content of the training essentially remained the same, the trainers were now all local. Proceeding according to plan, we identified attendees of the first training as potential future trainers. They indeed became the trainers on this session. Some of the previous trainers that the Web Foundation had brought in to kick start the training attended the second training in order to make sure that the quality of the new training was acceptable. All the trainers were thus from Ghana:
Like for the first training, local professionals came present additional aspects of mobile entrepreneurship, addressing specifically Ghanaian issues: CEOs of successful companies and network operators, lawyers and members of regulation bodies. A few of the previous trainees were also present, to talk about their experience of the first training, and the subsequent months spent pursuing their project.
We submitted the same feedback form for the second survey. The results were unsurprisingly better, as we had tried to respond to the constructive criticism we had originally received.
Recommendations to improve the training further included:
Because they can be contradictory, it may be difficult to implement all the recommendations. Regardless, we found them to be valuable and a sign of general satisfaction.
The latest session started on 26 March 2012, and is currently ongoing. The 3-week day preventing us to fulfill the objective to deliver two training sessions on year 2 (we did, however start two) is due to our decision to wait for the lab to be available in order to host the session. The delay is largely compensated by the better teaching conditions and the simplified logistics.
The second awards ceremony took place on November 12th. The projects presented were:
The projects that showed the most promising prospects, and were thus selected as the winners were Farmerline and iKwery.
The third session is currently ongoing. It tries to improve the quality of the training even further, based on the two preceding sessions. The trainers are the same as for the previous time. Changes are expected in the future, but we are now confident that a transition can be made smoothly and without any loss in the quality of the training.
Objective: Incubate the first sets of trained entrepreneurs. This includes helping them to access capital and to access market, and mentoring them from the business and technical perspective through regular face-to-face meetings and online support. The objective is to launch at least 3 startup companies in year 2.
The first and second sets of entrepreneurs represented 45 people, forming 16 projects. While incubation obviously started earlier for the first set (who followed the training in March 2011) the second did, in fact, better.
The first activity that is part of the incubation process is the project competition. As explained above, each team had a month, following the session, to develop their project and submit it to the competition. Selected judges elected the best two projects, and each received a prize in cash, gratefully donated by Vodafone Ghana and LastMinute.com.
The first awards were given to Alfred Anyan, Gerald Abraham and Martin Zonyrah for the Music Request Service, and David Agbenyega for Mobitix. The second awards were won by Alloysius Attah and Emmanuel Owusu Addai for Farmerline and Victoria Arkorful, Eliezer Ayertey for ikwery.
The cash prizes were only to be spent on developing the projects further, therefore each team had to present a budget. That budgets included milestones, which defined conditions for the money to be distributed. The tables below show the submitted first-tranche budget for the Mobile Request Service and Mobitix projects.
| Music Request Service | Price Estimate in USD | GHS at 1.6 exch. rate |
|---|---|---|
| Voice Application Server | $1,400 | 2240 |
| UPS and AVR | $249 | 398 |
| Shipping and Clearing | $250 | 320 |
| E1 phone connection | $1,500 | 2400 |
| Total | $3,399 | 5358 |
| Mobitix | Budget (GHC) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Desmond Frimpong salary | 365 | July to September |
| David Agbenyega salary | 100 | October |
| Company Registration | 320 | |
| Website Domain and Hosting | 110 | |
| Website Design | 600 | |
| Internet Connection | 250 | |
| Github code hosting | 450 | 1-year subscription |
| Test phone (HTC) | 350 | |
| Total | 2,545 |
Currently, Music Request Service has finished the development of the application and they are ready to integrate it with an IVR content aggregator. Farmerline currently has an sms application, which one hundred and fifty agric extension officers are using. These one hundred and fifty extension officers manage two thousand farmers in the North. Both winners are on course to deplore their applications.
While a proper mentorship programme is under development, it is yet to be announced (scheduled for May 2012). However we made sure the trainees had as much direct supervision as possible, from a wide range of people:
The training01 list is fairly active, with an average of 26 emails per month since its creation.
The Facebook group and page are similarly active. With the third training ongoing, the list is about to see twenty more trainees join, and an expectedly proportional increase in activity.
There are currently nine projects that are progressing towards becoming actual commercial products: iKwery, SMS French, Word A Day, Learn Spanish, Learn German, MediText, Farmerline, Music Request Service and Edulink developed by 1VillageNot all of those projects have been developed during the training sessions, but have been instead been started following the training, often as variations and adaptations of training projects, by the same participants.
None of those projects have yet attracted real venture capital, although Farmerline has secured a grant from The Indigo TrustThe Indigo Trust, indigotrust.wordpress.com/ to be received very soon. However, many of them have taken advantage of the prizes offered on the two competitions and of the business networking opportunities that MWG and the WF have provided. They are thus able to continue moving ahead at a encouraging pace.
Also worth mentioning is that three of our projects were among the winners of the Startup Weekend Competition in AccraDropifi Wins First Accra Start-up Weekend, www.mobilewebghana.org/dropifi-wins-accra-start-up-weekend/. Dropifi won the first prize
Other training participants, whose projects have not (yet) taken off, have nevertheless been offered jobs, thanks to Mobile Web Ghana's increasing visibility within the local ICT professional community.
The increasing number of events and competitions (Accra Startup Weekend, VC4Africa, apps4africa, Apps Show Case, appcircus, Ericsson Application Awards), have also contributed to some of our projects gaining recognition and visibility. The apps4africa award won by Farmerline has attracted much attentionMy Top 50 Africans of The Year, Marime Jamme, mariemejamme.com/blog/my-top-50-africans-of-the-year-2011/Apps4Africa Winners Honored at TEDxChange in Ghana, TED Fellows, tedfellows.posterous.com/apps4africa-winners-honored-at-tedxchange-in and negotiations are on their way to make the project succeed.
The third year of the project will see even more activity (and hopefully results) around incubation. This will be made possible through three avenues:
Objective: Prepare the future replication of the concept and run preliminary investigation about a possible franchise model.
The WF's Mobile Entrepreneurship Initiative, which includes MEG and other similar labs the foundation has started, will be considered as a real success on two conditions: each lab eventually becomes independent from the WF and continues beyond its involvement (See section ), and each lab has the capability of spawning new labs, nearby or abroad, in order to grow the Foundation's Mobile Entrepreneurship Network, a concept we are currently developing:
The network will help the labs reach scale, create synergies and join efforts for tasks that would be beyond feasibility for a single lab, (e.g. platforms creation, continuous update of training materials, International mentorship programs…). In specific the MEN will:
In the case of MWG, replication starts in the city of Ghanaian city of Kumasi.
Originally we considered replication in another country. However we have now discarded that objective for now, for several reasons:
Replication abroad remains part of our objectives, but it is unlikely to happen before MWG has sufficiently grown to be able to invest enough effort in order to overcome those obstacles.
Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana and hosts KNUST, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and TechnologyKwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, www.knust.edu.gh/pages/ A group of ICT students have formed a community called mFriday, which has its own website, mailing list, Facebook page and monthly face to face meetingsop. cit.. One of our roadshow presentations in Kumasi resulted in great interest from mFriday. On the training session following that presentation, a large proportion of the trainees were in fact mFriday members, who had come all the way to Accra to attend.
MWG decided to tap into that enthusiasm and decided that it was logical to consider Kumasi as the location for the second chapter of MWG.
It is worth mentioning additional activities that, just like the roadshow in Kumasi that led to the link with mFriday, extend MWG's reach and create the connections in other parts of Africa.
Through the lessons learned so far on the MEG project and the dissemination activities (which have already led to the creation of our labs in Senegal and Kenya), as well as the reach of the WF in other countries, we have developed two new prospects for the opening of new labs: the first is in Kigali, in cooperation with the Rwandan Development Board and the second is in Monrovia, with iLab Liberia.
Objective: Establish and validate the self-sustainability of the lab.
Like replication, sustainability is a key element of the future of the WF labs, and MWG in particular.
The main component is, naturally, income: so far, MWG's income originated from the project funding, as well as, marginally, training fees as well as sponsorship. Once the project funding stops in April 2013, other avenues of income will have to be established, or furthered.
Starting in April 2012, the physical lab will enable MWG to offer a full range of income-generating services.
But another way to achieve both regular income and to maintain and grow MWG's community is to offer services similar to the iHub in Nairobi, or the Hub network, present in many Western citiesThe Hub - a distributed global network of independent local spaces, www.the-hub.net Each of those hubs offer a shared space where members can come and work, sit together and exchange ideas, or attend events (including training sessions). Usually, this model is based on a subscription model: members can use the facilities depending on their level of membership. There can also be a pay-as-you-go model, similar to an internet café. MWG also expects to get grants from agencies, and revenue from corporate weekend classes
MWG will spend the next few months developing a business model around those possibilities, studying the feasibility of each, its cost structure, its potential market and competition.
The objectives to reach at the end of the year have been listed as follows:
MWG's progress so far lets us envisage the next year with confidence. We've already outlined, in previous sections, some of the prospects and opportunities that we have in front of us. The main one is the lab. The physical space will play an essential part in MWG's evolution towards sustainability, through more income opportunities but also through increased visibility, literally putting MWG on the map.
However, just having pros