Photo courtesy Taurai Chinyamakobvu
This article is one in
an AFKInsider series that follows some of the young African
leaders chosen to participate in U.S. President Barack
Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). The initiative is a U.S. effort to invest
resources in the next generation of African leaders and entrepreneurs.
Paying for things without
cash can be a major hassle in some African countries. Some businesses just
don’t take credit cards — one of the reasons mobile payments are on
the rise on the continent.
Zimbabwean Taurai Chinyamakobvu is
the co-founder of FloCash Zimbabwe, opening shop in Africa via a joint
venture with a U.K.-based company.
For Chinyamakobvu, participating in
President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) as a Mandela
Washington Fellow was a transformative experience.
So much so, that it helped him
develop and grow not one but several businesses in Zimbabwe. He
attended Yale University for six weeks in 2014 as a Mandela Washington
Fellow — one of the inaugural group of young Africans to participate.
Chinyamakobvu is passionate about
innovation, e-commerce, and increased global trade in Africa. He’s all
about bridging the gap between government and public policy, creating
partnerships, joint ventures and organizations from the ground up. These
include the FloCash online payments joint venture. He’s also advised
large corporations.
Besides being a partner and investor
in Flocash Zimbabwe, Chinyamakobvu is also the founder of Pazimba, an online
marketplace and shopping mall. The platform enables Zimbabweans to open their
own online shops and trade as sellers. He is also the co-founder of Neolab
Technology, a startup that is working on bringing free Internet access to the
public. He co-founded NeoEffect, a social startup working towards the
empowerment of underprivileged youth through IT literacy in southern Zimbabwe.
Fluent in Japanese, Chinyamakobvu
acts as a consultant to Japanese companies that pursue business opportunities
in Africa.
Chinyamakobvu discussed with AFKInsider
how his Young African Leaders experience helped his business.
How did you get into
YALI?
Taurai Chinyamakobvu: I was one of the 500 inaugural fellows selected out of
51,000 applications. It’s much harder to get into the fellowship than it it to
enter an Ivy League university in the U.S.
What did you get
from the experience?
Taurai Chinyamakobvu: I got a chance to meet, share, and engage with other African
fellows from across the continent. This is very useful for networking and
exploring business opportunities across the continent.
We got a chance to learn from the
best pool of skills available at an Ivy League university. We had access to
some great learning resources, professors and outside facilitators at Yale.
I also made connections with a great
network of people in the United States that I remain in contact with and I
bounce ideas off on from time to time.
More importantly, I took away great
lessons about social entrepreneurship.
Were the
things you learned transferable to the realities of your African country?
Taurai Chinyamakobvu: I am firm believer in the philosophy of adopting and
adapting. So in many ways, a number of ideas are transferable to African
realities. However, others are not. For example, the U.S. has a dynamic
ecosystem for technology and start-up companies which does not exist in Africa.
So in practice, venture capital, private equity financing, and angel investment
opportunities are either few and far between or nonexistent.
What about the
experience was unique for you?
Taurai Chinyamakobvu: In my case, it was meeting Barack Obama himself.
Why did you launch
FloCash?
Taurai Chinyamakobvu: FloCash was established in the U.K. in 2010 with the vision
to build Africa’s first open payment network. Today, FloCash has established a
direct connection with financial institutes covering 39 countries in Africa and
can reach 100 million account holders in these territories. In Zimbabwe, we
launched Flocash in 2013 with a view to stimulating e-commerce by enabling and
aggregating local payment solutions such as mobile money to enable ordinary
users that do not have credit cards.
How does Flocash
work?
Taurai Chinyamakobvu: Flocash enables local and global businesses to accept mobile
and card payments online in Africa while managing the risk of fraud that can
arise.
Flocash secures and processes card
payments such as Visa, MasterCard and UnionPay; local and closed-loop card
networks issued by local banks; mobile payments (for mobile networks across
Africa); and bank transfers
For businesses, Flocash simplifies
the collection of funds online through a single connection and settlement
account. A merchant can accept multiple payment options in local and global
currencies, in the process giving merchant customers a wide choice. For
merchant customers, they get a convenience and a wide choice of payment
options.
Did you face any obstacles
being a young entrepreneur?
Taurai Chinyamakobvu: Yes, they are innumerable. They range from funding obstacles
to ecosystems not supportive of entrepreneurship to over-regulation to an
environment that is not ready for advanced innovations.
What has been
your biggest business lesson?
Taurai Chinyamakobvu: Building business is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s also
important to learn continuously from successes and failures.
Obama Young African Leader: Some Things Just Aren’t Adaptable To Realities Of Africa
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