Innovators Under 35
INNOVATIVE Visionaries
V4. Abdigani Diriye, 33
Innovate
Ventures, IBM Research Africa
A computer scientist who founded
Somalia’s first incubator and startup accelerator.
“Like
many Somalis, I ended up fleeing my homeland because of the civil war, back in
the late 1980s. At age five I moved to the U.K. because I had family there
and was able to get asylum. I grew up in a fairly nice part of London and went
on to get a PhD in computer science at University College London.
“At
university I started becoming more aware of the world and realized I was quite
fortunate to be where I am, to have had all the opportunities that I did. So,
in 2012, I helped start an organization called Innovate Ventures to train and
support Somali techies. The first program we ran was a two-week coding camp in
Somalia for about 15 people. Though the impact was small at the time, for those
individuals it meant something, and it was my first time going back to the
continent; I hadn’t visited in more than two decades.
“I
started to think how Innovate Ventures could have a much bigger impact. In
2015, we teamed up with two nonprofits that were running employment training
for Somali youths, found some promising startups, and put them through a series
of sessions on marketing, accounting, and product design. Five startups came
out of that five-month incubator, and we awarded one winner around $2,500 in
seed money to help kick-start its business.
“The
next year saw us partner with Oxfam, VC4Africa [an online venture-capital
community focused on Africa], and Telesom [the largest telco in Somaliland],
and we ran a 10-week accelerator for startups. We were hoping to get 40 to 50
applicants, but we ended up getting around 180. We chose 12 startups for a two-week
bootcamp and 10 to participate in the full 10-week training and mentoring
program. The top four received a total of $15,000 in funding.
“This
year, the accelerator will be 12 weeks long, and we’ve received almost 400
applicants. There are some large Somali companies that are interested in
investing in startups and we want to bring them on board to help catalyze the
startup scene. We also hope to persuade the Somali diaspora, including some of
my colleagues at IBM, to donate their skills and invest in the local technology
scene.
“Countries like Kenya
and Rwanda have initiatives to become technology and innovation hubs in Africa.
Somaliland and Somalia face fundamental challenges in health care, education,
and agriculture, but innovation, technology, and startups have the potential to
fast-track the country's development. I think we’ve started to take steps in
that direction with the programs we’ve been running, and we’re slowly changing
the impression people have when they view Somalia and Somaliland.”
—as told to Elizabeth Woyke
—as told to Elizabeth Woyke
MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
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