Across Africa, the wave of open innovation hubs is blowing. Senegal has got its own and it is BantaLabs. Tekedia has reported over the weeks about how iHub Kenya has seeded many opportunities in that nation. We hope that BantaLabs will open a new dawn in Senegal. Congrats guys for the idea.
Bantalabs is committed to empowering people and investing in the community. It is our explicit aim to set up (nearly) free open source training projects across Senegal to introduce people to the wealth of free and open source software that is readily available to them.
Aside from attending and speaking at many international drupal events we’re developing a Drupal training program for graduates and gap year students. In association with the Université Gaston Berger (Saint Louis, Senegal) and Université Cheikh Anta Diop (Dakar, Senegal) two to five students will complete their Information Science internship as part of our Senegalese development team each semester.
ActivSpaces is a unique community / collaboration space in Cameroon for startups, freelancers, designers, entrepreneurs (esp. internet entrepreneurs) and independent thinkers. We provide not only a great space to work but also opportunities to interact with other like-minded individuals. We’re interested in fostering the growth of an indigenous, high-tech startup sector here in Cameroon. We think the best way to do this is to bring people with unique capabilities together in an environment that helps them do what they do best. Our culture encourages collaboration and idea sharing, generates great learning experience for everyone and creates opportunities for people with complementary skills and experience to work together for the benefit of the community.
ActivSpaces believes there are six key elements to ensure a creative work environment for freelancers and start-ups: collaboration, openness, community, accessibility, sustainability and support.
Memberships are available at various levels at no cost to individuals. Drop-in opportunities are also possible so prospective users can have a taste of our stimulating environment.
Hive Colab is an open, collaborative, community owned, work environment for young tech entrepreneurs to focus on projects, access the internet, have a quiet professional environment to develop their ideas in, hold events and generally collaborate. Something very similar to what our friends are doing with the iHub in Nairobi.
It will be a space for nascent application developers to register as freelancers, if they are looking for paying projects that people need to be done around the world. An exclusive list of project and clients available through the pan-African consortium of incubators, AfriLabs. Participant projects will remain wholly owned by their creators, although there there will be access to a network of investors looking to cherry pick some of the more promising ideas for investment, also through AfriLabs.
The only requirement to membership, is that applicants actually be working on projects, and thereafter they must be able to show progress on their ideas to retain membership. This is to keep energy high and to favour people who remain productive. There will be other types of memberships available to be announced soon