Why did we invite Ben & Bill?
Founders of VC4Africa (Venture Capital for Africa): ‘Connecting Entrepreneurs and Investors’. This is a network of investors and entrepreneurs dedicated to building businesses in Africa.
How do we describe them?
Bill Zimmerman is a serial entrepreneur and has successfully built and sold companies. He is the founder of Cameroon’s leading technology incubator ActivSpaces. Having lived in Cameroon for four years, Bill has a unique insight into what it takes to build a technology driven company in Africa. He has worked side by side with entrepreneurs and played an instrumental role in helping build some of Cameroon’s most promising startups. Bill is a founding member of AfriLabs, an organization that brings together a network of African technology incubators. He is a driving force behind VC4Africa, a fast growing peer to peer network for connecting entrepreneurs with the connections, information and capital they need to grow and scale their business.
Ben White is a serial entrepreneur who joined his first start up at the age of 24. He helped launch the Business News program Africa Report in South Africa. Next he joined the social venture Africa Interactive and AfricaNews, now a media network comprised of more than 2000 African based reporters, photographers and film makers. Ben has done extensive ethnographic research on the emergence of software cultures in and around Kampala, Uganda for an upcoming publication. He helped establish the East Africa ICT Entrepreneurship program at Hivos (a Dutch based co-financing organization) and teaches a course in Interactive Media and Entrepreneurship. He is also a founding member of AfriLabs, an organization that brings together a network of African technology incubators and in 2007 he founded VC4Africa as a community for entrepreneurs and investors dedicated to building innovative companies on the continent.
Twitter
@billzimmerman
@zia505
What are their Twitter Bio’s saying?
Bill: ”A software engineer, ex-Microsoftie, co-founder of @ActivSpaces in Cameroon and @VC4Africa. Drawn to innovation, creativity & all things tech. Bike lover.”
Ben: ”Exploring the link between technology and entrepreneurship in Africa. Founder of VC4Africa.biz, a platform for connecting entrepreneurs and investors.”
Linkedin
Connect with Ben on Linkedin
Connect with Bill on Linkedin
Website
http://vc4africa.biz/
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