The Global Startup Movement - Startup Ecosystem Leaders, Global Entrepreneurship, and Emerging Market Innovation

KGB (Kevin Gordon Barrow) is the Founder & CEO of Mark Labs, a software company which helps organizations effectively manage the risk associated with funding social impact projects. He is a serial social entrepreneur, having worked on startups dealing with education, environmental protection, campus safety, mobile health, and rural broadband access.

Prior to embracing his inner social entrepreneur, KGB earned his stripes in the fields of law (GE), banking (ABN AMBRO), and management consulting (Deloitte and Booz Allen Hamilton).

KGB completed his higher education in the UK earning an Honours Law Degree from Durham and an MBA from Oxford. He is an an avid reader, lover of Sufi poetry, and an aspiring surfer.

Moe Odele is a cofounding parnter at Vazi Legal and the founder of the widely popular community, Scale My Hustle. Moe is an international attorney experienced in Business and human rights, Innovative financing, Impact Investing, Gender & inclusive finance, ESG Advisory (Due diligence & Intergration), Private Equity and Venture Capital, FinTech, Startup advisory, and Social entrepreneurship. She has worked with entrepreneurs, funds, family offices and foundations who are dedicated to solving some of the most pressing challenges in emerging markets.

Andrew Mack is the Founder and CEO of Agromovil, an app-based platform that helps make the match between producers, transporters and off-takers. It allows farmers to match with the transport they need, when they need it and to find buyers that use the platform (called the MATCH). It enables transporters to build optimized routes picking up from various small farmers, making transport more efficient and profitable, and getting crops to market when needed (the BATCH). And, it enables all parties to pay on the platform, avoiding the need to take large amounts of cash to the field, making transactions safer and helping bring small farmers into the banking system and building credit histories (the PAY). Today some 30% of crops in the global south that are harvested never make it to market -- they're lost, stolen, never picked up or arrive too late to be used. With initial support from Toyota and Carnegie Mellon, Agromovil is creating an app-based platform that will change that, bringing together micro insurance, cellphone banking and ride-hailing technologies (like Lyft) to get more food, and fresher food, to hungry tables around the world.

Rebecca Enonchong is founder and Chief Executive Officer of AppsTech, a leading global provider of enterprise application solutions. She is also cofounder of I/O Spaces, an inclusive coworking space in the Washington DC metro area. She is Board Chair of Afrilabs, a Pan-African network of over 150 innovation centers supporting over 500,000 entrepreneurs in Africa. She chairs ActivSpaces (African Center for Technology Innovation and Ventures) supporting entrepreneurs from two tech hubs in Cameroon. She also sits on the board of Venture Capital for Africa (VC4Africa), of Salesforce.org, the African Media Initiative, Eneza Education and iamtheCODE. She is cofounder of Cameroon Angels Network and cofounder and Vice-President of African Business Angels Network. Ms. Enonchong currently serves as a mentor/advisor to several technology startups.

Host Andrew Berkowitz unveils our new studio at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. Each week from here on out will feature in person interviews with leaders in business and entrepreneurship in frontier and emerging markets. Each month will feature a live event panel session at USIP. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter to catch all of our livestreams and new video content.

Idriss Al Rifai is the founder of Fetchr. Ecommerce in the Middle East is still nascent – local and international brands have a challenging time navigating the market in which inefficient processes and the lack of post addresses lead to long delivery times and high return rates. Fetchr (formerly, MENA360) provides businesses a solution for entering the ecommerce space in the region and for reaching customers via their mobile devices.

On this episode you'll learn:

What are differences between the GCC countries and the North Africa ecosystem?

How developed is Ecommerce in the Middle east?

What platforms are Ecommerce happening on in the region?

Lanre Akinlagun is the Founder & CEO Drinks.ng, a Lagos, Nigeria based e-commerce company specializing in drinks with an extensive range of beverages comprising both alcohol and soft drinks. Before starting Drinks.ng, Lanre was an early executive at Iroko, where he worked alongside Jason Njoku before discovering the problem of finding wholesale liquor in Lagos. Trying to purchase bulk liquor at an open air market on Lagos Island is what inspired Lanre to leave to start Drinks.ng.

On this episode you'll learn:

Why is Nigeria's e-commerce market so fragmented?

How mature is the e-commerce ecosystem in Nigeria

What other African markets does Lanre view as similar to the Nigerian market?

Eric Osiakwan is the Managing Partner of Chanzo Capital, a growth capital firm investing both capital and mentoring in high-tech startups and scaleups in Kenya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa (http://www.kingsofafrica.info/ (KINGS)) – these countries make up the "KINGS" of Africa's digital economy.

Eric is a serial Entrepreneur and Investor with 15+ years of ICT industry leadership across Africa and the world. He has worked in 32 African countries setting up ISPs, ISPAs, IXPs and high-tech startups. He co-founded Angel Africa List, Angel Fair Africa and Chanzo Capital.

On this episode you'll learn:

-What African countries are catching up to the big 5 KINGS markets?

-How does ICT infrastructure in North Africa and Subsaharan Africa compare?

-What are the challenges regarding last mile internet infrastructure across the African continent?

Andile Masuku is a former Zimbabwean broadcaster and entrepreneur based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Andile produces a portfolio of popular audio podcasts covering tech and innovation on the African continent— including the African Tech Round-up, the African Tech Conversations series, and #AndilesTake , as well as developing and executing content strategy and tactical media plays for leading companies. He also writes a weekly syndicated tech column for Business Report and African Independent.

Dotun Oloworopoku is a General Partner at Ventures Platform. He is also the Managing Partner at Starta, a platform that makes it easier to build, discover and track high growth businesses in Africa. He is the founder of Yhello Technologies (previously meals.co.uk) an on-demand food delivery platform in the UK. He exited the business after successfully partnering with Just-eat.co.uk, the no.1 food ordering platform in Europe.

Dotun advises funded startups such as YC-backed Flutterwave on growth marketing, helping them build a growth team that can execute. Dotun is an active mentor at other accelerator programmes including Ignite in the UK, and the World’s Bank XL Africa programme.

On this episode you'll learn:

-What are the best channels to reach a consumer audience for audio content in Africa?

-Who will drive the last mile internet infrastructure in the least developed countries in Africa?

-What countries are the most ahead in terms of universal internet penetration?

On this episode we dive into our top 5 episode that we've ever done with leaders in the African startup ecosystems. Featured guests include Eghosa Omoigui, Zekarias Amsalu, Johnni Kjelsgaard, Osarumen Osamuyi, Konstantin Tsanis.