If you have ever been on a road trip, then your heart should definitely bleed at the fact that you were not on this one - the StartupBus African Tour. With a Harare - Cape Town route, nothing could have beaten such an experience.
StartupBus is an initiative by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs based in San Francisco. Its aim is to create a global community of highly motivated and networked, tech entrepreneurs. The first StartupBus toured 2009 in the USA, and since then more than a dozen busses a year have visited a variety of cities all over the world. This time around, Africa was the latest destination for the Bus.
Out of over 200 applicants, 15 African and 15 international entrepreneurs from 14 countries all over the globe were chosen to participate on this unique journey and were accompanied by 10 mentors. On the 5-day journey the entrepreneurs, who had never met before, built startups. Once on the bus, they pitched their startup ideas to the rest of the “buspreneurs” and formed teams. The newly formed teams then got started on building a prototype over the next five days. When the bus finally got to Cape Town, the teams pitched their products to a panel of investors and serial entrepreneurs. This year’s pitch took place in a township near Cape Town.
The participants
of StartupBus Africa consisted of 50% software developers, 25% graphic
designers, and 25% business developers. And for the first time in StartupBus history, half of the
buspreneurs were from Africa and half were from the rest of the world, and
30% of them were female .
Shaun Benjamin, one of the participants from Zimbabwe felt extremely honoured to have been part of the Tour and in his words, “StartupBus was an awesome experience." And according to Fabian-Carlos Guhl, the Conductor of StartupBus Africa, the tour was very successful, the applicants exceeded expectations so much that the Bus is definitely coming back to Africa.
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