Where will the next mobile money innovation come from?

Where will the next mobile money innovation come from?

Kenya grabs a lot of attention with mobile money, but is all the innovation happening at the top of the food chain? We don’t think so. In fact, working with FSD Kenya and some great ex-Unitus folks, we’ve found a veritable hotbed of Kenyan entrepreneurs spinning out one exciting idea after another. But as exciting as their ideas are, nearly all these entrepreneurs are somewhere in the “valley of death”, past funding from friends and family, short of commercial investment.

There are some good resources out there. iHub and Mobile Monday have surged into the gap providing a space — literal and figurative — for networking. In fact, Mamakiba’s founders were introduced through the iHub. Several incubators provide training, work space and some other forms of support: particularly exciting is the new Mobile Application Lab supported by Nokia, the Government of Finland and infoDev. There are also a few high profile contests. Outfits like Virtual City have won big awards from Nokia. The Kenya ICT Board ran a successful competition. And the US Department of State’s Apps for Africa contest handed out a $2,000 prize to Mamakiba and a few other designers addressing development issues. While these help get entrepreneurs excited, and raise the profile of the winners, no one can build a business off the small, infrequent sums. Full article via CGAP.