Rarebirds Podcast

Welcome to episode 198 of series 10, a Rare Birds Collaboration with Ghanian-based Startup Lounge Africa a series of podcasts featuring some of the West African Startups featured on their West Africa Tour. To kick off this series I sat down with the Founding Partners of Startup Lounge Africa: Samuel Opuku, and Prince Kelly Anyomitse.

This is series 10 a Rare Birds Collaboration with Ghanaian-based Startup Lounge Africa. Start Up Lounge Africa is on a mission to continually organize useful information and relevant networks that prioritize the collaborative growth and sustainability of African startups. They are pioneering a special project titled 54 Days Across Africa. 54 Days Across Africa is an initiative geared towards showcasing innovative startup solutions through a continent wide virtual tour to herald their recently launched digital matchmaking platform called Kutana Africa. Listen in for more.

This is Conversations with Jo-Ann, a small bites episode where you get to learn a little more about the motivation behind the series and what to expect next. Listen in to installment four whereby she wraps up the series and provide some details into what’s to come this autumn with series 10: Startup Lounge-54 Days Across Africa, a Rare Birds Collaboration.

About Idowu Founder CEO, Startup Coach, Innovation Ecosystem Builder, Blockchain Community Builder and Board Member. His goal for the next 20 years - having achieved some degree of success over the last - is to nurture (coach, mentor, inspire) the next generation of tech talent. To this end, he currently acts as a coach for product teams, technology teams, and startup teams across the globe. Working through global startup/innovation hubs such as the Founder Institute, Impact Hub, BridgeForBillions, VC4Africa and Innovation Support Network, sometimes this coaching manifests as an Agile Coach, and other times as Product Coach, Technology Coach, Developer Advocate, Technical Evangelist or Startup Mentor.

About Precious Precious Omusuwe is a Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect project  and Coordinator of Blockchain Enthusiasts, a platform focused on blockchain education. His biggest asset is his ability to communicate complex information in user-friendly language and since 2017 has been actively involved in blockchain education at the grassroots. Outside the blockchain space, Precious is an ardent soccer analyst, Software Support and Implementation consultant and a loving husband.

MORE INFO ON STEVEN Mr. Jasmin is Group Chairman and Managing Director of Smart City Clearing Company Ltd. a BVI based frontier market Merchant Bank. The bank’s focus is working with High Net Worth and Institutional clients across all aspects of the Alternative Investment Class as they look to invest and participate in Guyana’s growth. His practice focuses on four key markets: Commercial Real Estate, Oil & Gas Service Companies, Infrastructure Development, and Technology. ​ To learn more about his origin story, follow the LinkedIn Article he posted: "Finding the Path to El Dorado in Guyana". With over 15 years of experience as a Management Consultant and Investment Banker for Fortune 500 and Middle Market Companies, he has experience spanning all aspects of business but prefers to focus on Corporate Finance and Investment Banking. ​ He is able to bring a deep and significant skillset as well as an extensive world-wide network with key relationships to bear for his clients and partners. Some of his clients

ABOUT PRETTY Pretty’s management consulting focus across a decade ushered her into an industry disruption through the co-founding of Coronet Blockchain - an emerging technology solution geared to shift how hair exchanges hands across Africa's ZAR 100 billion per year sector. A responsibility that sees her reshaping the future of this sector through blockchain driven supply chain digital infrastructure inputs leveraging blockchain technology to evolve the salon sector from hand to mouth into a bankable economy. Future-proofing the salon sector, in a post-Covid reality, ensuring their sustainability, re-tooling, and bring about employable key industry skills whilst fulfilling consumer expectations.

MORE INFO ON STEVEN Mr. Jasmin is Group Chairman and Managing Director of Smart City Clearing Company Ltd. a BVI based frontier market Merchant Bank. The bank’s focus is working with High Net Worth and Institutional clients across all aspects of the Alternative Investment Class as they look to invest and participate in Guyana’s growth. His practice focuses on four key markets: Commercial Real Estate, Oil & Gas Service Companies, Infrastructure Development, and Technology. To learn more about his origin story, follow the LinkedIn Article he posted: "Finding the Path to El Dorado in Guyana". With over 15 years of experience as a Management Consultant and Investment Banker for Fortune 500 and Middle Market Companies, he has experience spanning all aspects of business but prefers to focus on Corporate Finance and Investment Banking. He is able to bring a deep and significant skillset as well as an extensive world-wide network with key relationships to bear for his clients and partners. Some of his clients hav

ABOUT SONIA Sonia John is  blockchain developer, writer and speaker.  She is passionate about the decentralized web and all the endless possibilities within it! She believes that it is not enough to know and be willing but to act.  She is working on Porium, a web3-focused distributed online learning platform and is currently an Ecosystem Developer at Filecoin. 

MORE INFO ON STEVEN Mr. Jasmin is Group Chairman and Managing Director of Smart City Clearing Company Ltd. a BVI based frontier market Merchant Bank. The bank’s focus is working with High Net Worth and Institutional clients across all aspects of the Alternative Investment Class as they look to invest and participate in Guyana’s growth. His practice focuses on four key markets: Commercial Real Estate, Oil & Gas Service Companies, Infrastructure Development, and Technology. ​ To learn more about his origin story, follow the LinkedIn Article he posted: "Finding the Path to El Dorado in Guyana". With over 15 years of experience as a Management Consultant and Investment Banker for Fortune 500 and Middle Market Companies, he has experience spanning all aspects of business but prefers to focus on Corporate Finance and Investment Banking. ​ He is able to bring a deep and significant skillset as well as an extensive world-wide network with key relationships to bear for his clients and partners. Some of his clients

MORE ABOUT OUMAR Oumar is a Senegalese web expert with 20 years of experience.  He is specialized in the development of high-end web solutions.  As a self-taught engineer, he loves being challenged and engaged with projects that require him to work outside his comfort and knowledge set. Continuous-learning is part of what defines him.  Additionally, he is a web engineering leader valued for driving quality and consistency throughout all phases of software development projects to produce high-quality, user-friendly and (as much as possible) bug-free software.

MORE INFO ON EMAN Eman is a blockchain full stack developer with a great enthusiasm for learning and adopting new technologies. Her work relies on building rich responsive web apps & Dapps. She is the Founder of Arabs in Blockchain, Blockchain Lead at StartFi, Devcon Scholar Alumni at the Ethereum Foundation, Ambassador at ConsenSys Qurum and Status.Im, Regional Organiser and CoFounder at Arab Blockchain Week.

Mr. Jasmin is Group Chairman and Managing Director of Smart City Clearing Company Ltd. a BVI based frontier market Merchant Bank. The bank’s focus is working with High Net Worth and Institutional clients across all aspects of the Alternative Investment Class as they look to invest and participate in Guyana’s growth. His practice focuses on four key markets: Commercial Real Estate, Oil & Gas Service Companies, Infrastructure Development, and Technology. ​ To learn more about his origin story, follow the LinkedIn Article he posted: "Finding the Path to El Dorado in Guyana". With over 15 years of experience as a Management Consultant and Investment Banker for Fortune 500 and Middle Market Companies, he has experience spanning all aspects of business but prefers to focus on Corporate Finance and Investment Banking. ​ He is able to bring a deep and significant skillset as well as an extensive world-wide network with key relationships to bear for his clients and partners. Some of his clients have included: D

About Tarek Tarek is bringing value to business through blockchain technology.  He is the Founder of K2LIS, A Paris based company that supports customers from all sectors to anticipate, innovate and deliver high value through innovative projects based on Blockchain technologies. They bring an end-to-end state-of-the-art Blockchain expertise: - Acculturation and training for Business and IT people - Strategy and consulting to identify appropriate and high-value use cases - Solutions development and deployment support.

 Roselyn describes herself as a Digital Economy Advocate, Economist, Professional Speaker, Blockchain Consultant and Educator and Youth Mentor. She is dedicated to serving and having an impact.

Pascal is the CEO of SaukiBit.  He is an expert in the respective fields of telecommunications, decentralized computing and software development with over nine years of experience in designing, optimizing and operating complex multi-million dollar digital systems. SaukiBit is driving innovation and choice for customers, businesses, fintech companies and banks with modular API standards. We are in the business of simplifying the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystems for the African focused next gen data driven market. SaukiBit are building a powerful API and payment platform offering the easiest way to create sophisticated wallet addresses for Blockchain assets of choice and digital financial solutions.

About Peter An entrepreneur who is passionate about providing solutions to problems in emerging markets through technology, innovations and marketing. He has led growth and B2C marketing campaigns in VC backed companies in technical industries and scaled products to millions of people. Five years ago he discovered Bitcoin. Ever since he has had an amazing journey working in the marketing teams of multi-million dollar blockchain projects and educating thousands of people about the technology & the career opportunities available in the industry. Oluwashina is skilled in blockchain knowledge and fundamentals, marketing (B2B & B2C), copywriting, content creation and content marketing.  He is an avid learner of human psychology and behavioural economics which helps him in his marketing campaigns.  Peter also writes about Blockchain & Cryptocurrency, Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Societal Psychology. You can visit his blog via www.oluwashinapeter.com/blog

About Abdel The foundation of my education and understanding is built on a unique Geopolitical and Societal diploma completed in the early stages of my growth. This prepared me for an approach not only with a business mind but with a political understanding too. I have grown from financial consultancy experience, language expertise and a large amount of political work to a strong passion in the world of Technology. With my Oxford University Blockchain Strategy Knowledge of the Blockchain Ecosystem/ Innovations in Value Transfer/Decentralized Apps and Smart Contracts/Transforming Enterprise Business Modules and the Blockchain Frontiers as well as my vast understanding and experience in the political and financial arena – my approach to the development of this new technology is unique given my established networks and full stack strategy. I am driven by the desire to succeed and make a difference in all I do – that said, I intend to actively be a part of supporting the education and development.

Aurra is a  multi-potentialite with a very broad portfolio. She is currently the Headmistress ofSt. Anne’s Primary School (est. 1947), Executive Director & Co-Founder of Africa Is Digital and Chairman of Aurra Nicole Group. She is the  2019 Africa Science Week (Next Einstein Forum & Purple Futures Trust) – Appreciation Award recipient.  She received this recognition for her outstanding work and with sincere appreciation for her tireless efforts in using science and technology for the betterment of society. In 2018 she was the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, Women in Commerce Award Winner in the Social Enterprise category for Little Entrepreneurs.

Abbas is a dynamic, flexible and results oriented product development, operations professional & entrepreneur. Collaborating with a wide range of stakeholders and learning about the needs of new sectors from scratch to bring innovative ideas and business success. Having worked on a number of product launches in the US, Europe and Middle East. He spent two years spent in Paris working at Ledger.com helping to scale operations revenues from $10M to $90M. Spent five years in Dubai on Product capacity at Careem, Starz Play, and Yahoo!. All this has given him the ability to put on wider lenses when getting an idea off the ground. Addressing all types of issues from finance, HR, sales and marketing. Have good speaking and understanding of Arabic, French and German (elementary). On leaving the Horn of Africa country after the war, he gained degrees from the UK in BSc Economics & Social Policy and Post Graduate in Computing. His first technology job was with French online price comparison, Kelkoo.com. In 2004