Africa’s entrepreneurial explosion: a space ripe for the taking

“Africa’s current environment is ripe for gaming to take off,” says Michael Szymanski, the Director of Business Development for the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), an incubator that manages the MEST seed fund in Accra.

Of course Szymanski would say this to a room full African entrepreneurs and geeks at Net Prophet. What’s interesting is one of the companies that MEST looks after is actually plays in Africa’s mobile gaming space.

MEST provides training and mentoring for aspiring African software entrepreneurs with the goal of creating wealth and jobs locally in Africa.

According to Szymanski most MEST entrepreneurs look to the trends to see where the market is headed and innovate based on those trends.

This market he reckons is being driven by mobile phone manufacturers. He says that big global players are rolling out smartphones that are targeted at Africa and looking to capitalise on the “last frontier” in mobile.

In a continent where it is not just mobile first sometimes but mostly mobile only all of the time it’s easy to see where he is coming from. Africa is the fastest growing mobile region, littered with internet enabled devices.