THE NORTH AFRICA COM 2021 AWARDS

Amal has been a committed supporter to the growing ecosystem in North Africa. Amal fueled her conviction through funds of funds investment to develop the venture landscape through investments in Flat6labs and Algebra Ventures as well as direct investments in entrepreneurs including Dawi, SmartCare and Brimore. Since joining Global Ventures, Amal more than doubled the size of the team on the ground in North Africa and doubled the firm’s investments in NA from 3 to 7 investments to date including NowPay, Thndr and Yodawy. Amal pours her energy and expertise engaging with portfolio companies to accelerate their growth, mentoring early stage startups and encouraging young professionals with an interest in venture capital to broaden access to the ecosystem and deepen the sector’s expertise.

Elyes Jeribi is responsible for managing the e-commerce leaders in Tunisia 3 years on. He deployed the Group strategy working side to side with central teams and local teams and manages close to 500 employees.

Elyes has helped position Jumia as the top e-Commerce site in Tunisia, ahieving YoY triple digits growth and steady MoM double digits growth.

Ibrahim Sagna is a technology enthusiast and angel investor in some of the leading and most innovative tech startups across Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa. He also is a frequent judge on key technology venture selection panels on the continent. He is a seasoned executive with over 25 years' experience in global finance and an extensive track record in telecom, outsourcing and technology related investments.

Mr Sagna serves as Global Head & Director of the Advisory & Capital Markets arm of AFREXIMBANK - the Cairo based investment grade rated Pan-African Development Finance Institution (DFI) with over US$ 20 Billion of assets. AFREXIMBANK is Africa’s leading force in Intra-African Trade and Export Development. Prior to this, Ibrahim was Head of Financial Advisory Services for the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), an investment grade rated DFI focused on continental’s infrastructure.

Mohamed Al Fowey as Telecom Egypt CTO has led a renaissance in TE network and pioneered a digital transformation in local and international connectivity. In a time of global pandemic, connecting people is not merely a business, it is a critical human mission. In a country of 100M people, TE successfully enhanced its digital connectivity by achieving a 700% increase in internet speeds, all while absorbing a 55% increase in traffic.

The critical role TE plays extends beyond its boundaries as Egypt is a major regional digitalized hub. Mohamed Alfowey is the Network legend and a leader role model with a new vision and supportive spirit 

Moustapha Bekheet held the strings between different industries during a very challenging pandemic era to lead a new venture. With limited investments, they built a strong brand, distinguished equity, all with exponential financial growth in its first two years of operations. They the heritage of the mother group to create some pioneering partnerships with more than 60 regional and international entities from Telecoms, Banking, FinTech, Hardware Manufacturing, FMCG, Real Estate, and many other sectors. They managed that all in harmony while putting the quality of service to the end-user as the highest priority, was a story to tell and a base for more successes in the future for the company and the team.

In April 2021, Ooredoo Algeria team led by Isabelle Hajri, launched a gem in the global TELCO industry, the ‘YOOZ’ lifestyle application came to life equipped with its very own personalized 3D avatar based interactive AI companion ‘Roogy’. Customized as a culturally significant figure in Algeria, this feature brings together all services offered through this platform, making it the first of its kind in self-care applications.

Isabelle Hajri led this ambitious project from concept to reality with a highly dedicated team working from home in a pandemic-stricken backdrop that undoubtedly challenged us all in unprecedented ways. 

As CEO of Orange Money Maroc, Nawal Gharmili Sefrioui is committed to promoting digital and financial inclusion in Morocco through more inclusive and accessible financial services, especially towards women, young and low income population.

Nawal is passionate about mobile money and is dedicated to making it succeed in a competitive market where banking penetration is high.

Ericsson is a global leader in 5G. Ericsson has signed 139 commercial 5G agreements or contracts, has switched on 86 live networks in 43 countries globally. Ericsson switched on two of the first live commercial 5G networks in Africa – with MTN in South Africa and Telma in Madagascar.

In 2021, Ericsson has been named global 5G leader by Gartner and market leader in global 5G network infrastructure by Frost & Sullivan. Recently, ATU and Ericsson published recommendations to enable governments and regulators across Africa to accelerate ICT - a proof point of Ericsson’s role in the ecosystem.

Huawei entered Africa in 1998. Since then, we have worked with African customers to enable more African people to connect to high-quality telecommunications networks so that they can enjoy digital life equally. Over the past two decades, we have focused on building a better connected Africa. Today, they have deployed more than half of the wireless base stations in Africa, more than 70% LTE high-speed mobile broadband networks, and more than 50,000 km of optical fibers.

Huawei mission and vision is to bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected and intelligent world. Connections are the foundation of digital economy and should be equally available to everyone.

Vote for innovation. Vote for Inwi.

 Throughout the years, inwi has succeeded in establishing itself as a leading telecoms company, thanks to the high quality of its innovative digital solutions which include its dedicated modules for e-education, the largest data center in Africa, a networking platform named inwi INNOV, its pioneering status of 4G provider, etc. In addition to offering free and unlimited wifi to all users of the Casablanca tramway, the operator has also created inwi Money which has become the first meaning of mobile payment in Morocco. Inwi has succeeded in establishing itself as the 1st 100% digital operator in Africa with win by inwi.

“We believe that an agri-fintech platform focused on small farmers, like Mozare3, would revolutionize the way farmers finance, grow and sell their crops,” said Abou Bakr, founder and CEO.

“Egypt has 20 million farmers and their families owning less than 5 acres of farmland each, and we are happy to build the 1st dedicated tech company to serve them” said El Raghy, co-founder and MD of Acumen Ag-tech VC Fund.

Tarek Assaad, MD at Algebra Ventures, said “Agriculture suffers from price opaqueness, supply shocks and high levels of fraud, to name a few of the challenges. We believe that the small farmer can benefit the most from tech efficiencies.”

Okasha, co-founder & former co-founder of FAWRY (1st Unicorn in Egypt) said, “We are confident that Mozare3 will digitally transform this market and enable farmers access to finance and market information in a very innovative way.”

Changing the market norms and affecting the ecosystem from the very early entry point up to the end-user was a challenge we accepted at WATCH iT!

Disrupting the very competitive media industry in the MENA region was an obstacle for many trials before, but we at WATCH iT! managed to do it in less than 25 months of operations by introducing a financially-profitable business model, with the highest technology standards, and trendy user experience.

The SVOD service became the largest in Egypt and ranked amongst the top 5 paid services in the MENA region, and considered as a pivotal number in the Arabic content industry. From content acquisitions to original production, from mass marketing to telecom partnerships, and from social media activities to fighting piracy; WATCH iT! had clearly did a great job with a team of 35 rock stars

Ooredoo Group is committed to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to eradicate extreme poverty, fight inequalities and injustice and fix climate change. While our impact relates to many of the goals, our approach is focused on the below three goals and related targets. Detailed information on how we work towards each goal can be found here.

In Ooredoo Algeria and in line with our commitment to the SDGs, we seek to support the development of local communities and create an all-round healthier world for tomorrow. Initiatives Ooredoo Algeria has implemented include:

• Launch with the Algerian Red Crescent of a vast operation to raise awareness and distribute hygiene kits to population in landlocked and rural areas across Algeria.
• Granting Ooredoo lines to the COVID-19 crisis units spread throughout the country and to hospitals and health establishments in the areas most affected by the epidemic.
• Support for the iMADRASSA platform which offers online tutoring to pupils in primary, middle and secondary school examination classes.
• Free access for Ooredoo subscribers to the online teaching platforms of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, in partnership with the Ministry of Telecom.
• Donation of 36 900 masks for the benefit of medical front line workers.

As a pioneer of green network, Orange commits to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. Orange Mali is also committed to build a green network to realize sustainable development in Africa

To provide network coverage in area without mains, operators usually use diesel generator to power the base station, but more carbon emissions are generated by this way. To avoid this, Orange Mali takes action on green transformation of site. In 2020, Orange Mali took the lead in adopting Huawei‘s comprehensive energy saving solution for site modernization.

The traditional base station in Mali uses generator as a source of energy, which consume huge amount of fuel per year, result in lots of carbon emissions. Orange and Huawei work together, using Huawei advanced hybrid power solution to transform this site to be a green site. With Huawei solution, especially the industry leading lithium battery, for the same condition site, we can remove the generator to achieve 0 fuel consumption. Go a step further, we also use solar energy as input to minimize the carbon emission, and meanwhile, using Huawei iSolar technology, we can get more 15% energy yield. We also use the intelligent O&M system to build a visible, manageable and Optimizable network, improving site energy efficiency. Benefits from the end to end design, Orange Mali greatly reduces the use of diesel generators. With same condition, the carbon emissions of the site are reduced by more than 50%, site NUR (Network Unreliability Ratio) improve 57%.

So far, the 182 upgraded sites will reduce 1,249 tons carbon emissions every year, equivalent of 67,000 trees planted.

Orange will continue to promote green network transformation and contribute to green Africa.