Kuza launched its location-based mobile business platform at the recent Demo Africa event in Nairobi. Kuza was one of 40 African startups selected for this event from over 500 applicants. Demo is the world’s pre-eminent launch platform where well-known companies and products like Adobe Acrobat, Sun’s Java language and Netscape Navigator were launched. It requires presenters to do a live demo of their product in no more than 6 minutes. Kuza CEO Pieter Nel did a live demonstration of the product in front of an audience of investors, journalists, policy-makers and fellow entrepreneurs.  See...

The final 40 startups for the first ever DEMO Africa conference have been announced. The 40 entrepreneurs chosen for the conference have gone through “three rigorous screening processes with the final vetting and adjudication done by a pan-African panel of judges comprised of entrepreneurs, VCs and Academia,” say the event organizers. The conference, which is part of the global DEMO conference series, touts itself as a “launchpad for emerging technology and trends”. The event believes that noteworthy startups are being created in Africa, developing real-world solutions, worthy of...

Blogger and photographer Anton Crone produced an article on Kuza Mobile at www.brightcontinent.co.za.  Anton shares our views on Africa being full of entreprenerial talent and opportunity and we really enjoyed chatting to him.  From his blog: “With Kuza, Nel and Maunder built a simple solution allowing people to create a web presence from a basic feature phone in about 5 minutes. They can create micro ads on their phone that are instantly broadcast to users in their area, accept recommendations and feedback from customers through various digital channels and even create business cards on their...

When Pieter Nel takes a break it means getting as far away from technology as he can. So, after leaving MXit as chief technology officer, he decided a stint in the Himalayas would be just the thing. There, amid remote glaciers and mountains, trudging in the wake of yaks and sherpas, Nel heard the shrill flutter of Peruvian pipes and thought he had finally found contentment – but Peruvian pipes? Then a Sherpa fished around in his pocket and answered his phone. Expanding access to mobile communication Of course this will be of no surprise. We live in a shrinking world due to our ever expanding...

Kuza co-founder Andrew Maunder was interviewed for a short article on the future of mobile applications in the South African Sunday newspaper Rapport.  The article in Afrikaans appears below.

“More than half of Africa’s one-billion people have a mobile phone. Last year a report by the GSM Association showed that the number of subscribers on the continent has grown almost 20% each year for the past five years. By the end of 2012, that rate of growth will put Africa’s mobile subscriber base at close to 735-million. Despite these encouraging figures, information about local products and services are not readily available. Opportunities for emerging market entrepreneurs are are often time-critical and trade is very localised due to lack of efficient transport. Tradesmen rely on...