Chembe Urban Security Competition 2010 - East Africa

Chembe Ventures is an Irish owned company which provides seed capital to mobile application developers, social media start-ups and web ventures in East and Southern Africa. We’re sponsoring this competition to encourage innovative mobile solutions to assist residents in urban communities address a specific or general security problem. One prize of US $5,000 will be awarded to the winning entry. On top of that, we’re offering a potential further US $5,000 or more of investment and pilot testing capital to the winning team or individual.

Entry Criteria:

• Entrants must be registered as a developer in the Betavine community
• Entries need to be written in English
• Entries must be designed for deployment in one of the following countries: Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa or Tanzania.
• This challenge is all about helping residents living in low-income, densely populated urban areas improve their personal security.

Entries must provide solutions under one or more of the following headings:


• early warning notifications of criminal activity, violence or other security threats
• assistance for families, communities at risk of crime
• reducing crime, preventing the spread of violence
• location, identification and assistance of victims of violence or crime

LimbeLabs - Cameroon startup incubator for startups

From site:

Limbe Labs is a unique community / collaboration space in Cameroon for startups, freelancers, designers, entrepreneurs (esp. internet entrepreneurs) and independent thinkers. Limbe Labs provides not only a great space to work but also opportunities to interact with other like-minded individuals.

African Capital Alliance - Private Equity fund manager West Africa

From Site:

African Capital Alliance (ACA) is a leading private equity firm focused on Nigeria and West Africa. ACA was founded in 1997 with a mission to build Africa’s premier private equity investment firm by mobilizing capital, technology and management resources from local and international sources to unlock Africa’s private sector potential. Through our funds, we strive to improve the economic landscape of Nigeria and Africa while earning superior returns for our investors based on management excellence through professionalism and unquestionable integrity.

Grand Challenges: Point-of-Care Diagnostics Grant Opportunity

The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative is seeking innovative ideas for diagnostics in the developing world. $30 million in funding is available for Phase I of a new grant program to create technologies and components that can be used to assess multiple conditions and pathogens at the point-of-care in a variety of settings.

Letters of inquiry will be accepted December 1, 2009 through February 16, 2010.

Specifically, we seek to create a new class of point-of-care (POC) diagnostics that will be easy to use, low cost and otherwise appropriate so that these new tools achieve significant impact and rapid uptake in resource-poor settings.

Mobile Web East Africa - Feb 3,4 Nairobi, Kenya

Conference on African mobile technology

Mobile Web East Africa is the next in a series of progressive and innovative events to focus on one of the most important technological advances of the 21st century.

By utilising the exceptionally interactive roundtable format, the 2 day conference promises to be one of the leading events of 2010, where the future development of the mobile internet, mobile applications and mobile ecosystem in the region will be discussed and mapped.