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This Week In Tanzanian Startups 🔥🔥
A community-based, women-led, tourism enterprise has secured a spot in social innovators programme.
Rose Rwegasira, Beatrice Mwella & Furaha Benedict
July 30, 2024
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Ms. Sairis Lucia Bugeraha, founder and Program Coordinator of Pugu Hills Eco Cultural Tourism (PHECT) is representing Tanzania in 2024 Social Innovators Programme (SIP) organized by LEAP Africa, joining other fellows from different African countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Benin, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
The programme brings together leaders who are driving change and making real impact in their communities. The programme equips participating fellows with skills, mentorship and networks needed to scale their innovative solutions to social challenges.
Pugu Hills Eco Cultural Tourism (PHECT) is a community-based, women-led, tourism enterprise that offer local and natural experiences at Pugu Hills Forest Reserve and Kisarawe district. Local experiences focus on promoting Zaramo cultural experiences such as food preparation, beauty and herbal treatment, traditional dances, art and craft. Natural experiences involve hiking to Pugu Hills Forest Reserve, canoeing to Minaki swamp, bird watching and healing in nature walk.
PHECT is driving social impact by engaging the local community in providing the local experiences to the tourists, selling their crafts and cultural products thus improving livelihoods. Also, it is dedicated to conservation of the forest reserve in ensuring continuing preserved beauty.
A social enterprise is a business that focuses mostly on societal impact as its primary purpose instead of profit. Social enterprises aim to maximise profit while maximising benefits to society and environment.
They operate with a triple bottom line, a sustainability framework that revolves around three P’s: people, planet, and profit. By maximizing all three bottom lines, organizations are more likely to have a positive impact on the world while still improving financial performance.
The success of a social enterprise is thus measured not only by financial gains but also by their impact on society and the environment. The impact is usually in support of sustainable development goals (SDGs) with regard to effects enterprise’s activities have on the community and environment. Quantifying social impact is one of the major aspects of social enterprises and metrics may include reduced carbon emissions, number of lives touched, reduced school drop-outs rate, and so forth.
Photo Credit: Leap Africa
TanzMED with New AI-Powered Mobile Application.
TanzMED, a Tanzanian health tech startup, has launched an innovative mobile application that supports English and Kiswahili and leverages Artificial Intelligence to assist users in health assessment and management. The app features a chatbot-like interface, providing answers to health-related questions and personalized health recommendations. Additionally, users can book hospital appointments and consult medical experts via video call.
TanzMED is transforming healthcare access in Africa by offering a suite of products and services designed to promote health awareness and proactive management. These include:
Women’s Health Tools: Period tracking and pregnancy support.
Mental Health Support: Resources and tools for mental well-being.
Personalized Health Knowledge: Tips and advice tailored to individual health needs.
AminaMD: An AI assistant that offers recommendations based on users' symptoms.
Medical Appointment Booking: Easy scheduling of doctor visits.
Private Messaging: Secure follow-up consultations with doctors.
Virtual Doctor Consultations: Remote access to medical professionals via video calls.
Since its inception, TanzMED has expanded its reach to over nine African countries, boasting more than 270,000 active users. This widespread adoption underscores the app's impact in improving healthcare accessibility and efficiency across the continent.
For more information about TanzMED, visit TanzMED
Exciting News for Startups in the Health Sector! 🚀
The Tanzania Startup Association (TSA) has announced a groundbreaking initiative in collaboration with the Tanzania Medicines and Medical Devices Authority (TMDA). This initiative introduces a series of exclusive incentives to support startups and innovators in medical device manufacturing in Tanzania. 🩺
Public Notice From TSA
LIMA AFRICA Lecture To Aspiring Agribusiness Entrepreneurs.
In an enlightening session at the University of Dar es Salaam, the co-founder of LIMA AFRICA shared invaluable insights with aspiring agripreneurs. Addressing a captivated audience, the co-founder highlighted the perfect setting that university offers for budding entrepreneurs to launch their journeys.
Key Insights:
Embrace the University Environment: Universities are ideal places for students to begin their startup journeys. They provide a unique space to learn, experiment, and leverage the wealth of knowledge from lecturers and resources available.
Learn Through Doing: The entrepreneurial path is about trial and error. It’s about doing it wrong until you get it right. The co-founder emphasized that failure is a crucial part of the learning process.
Startups as Learning Platforms: If every student engaged in building a startup, the skills they would gain—from problem-solving to resilience—would be invaluable. Startups teach lessons that go beyond the classroom and prepare students better for the workforce.
Photo Credit : Arnold Shoko, CEO LIMA AFRICA
Words of Wisdom.
“Imagine if every student worked on a startup. The skills gained would be priceless, shaping the next generation of decision-makers who have learned from failure and persevered. Startups are the perfect training ground for future leaders.”
Think Like Investor : Understanding Burn Rate and Churn Rate.
When evaluating startups, two critical metrics investors often scrutinize are the burn rate and the churn rate. These indicators provide valuable insights into a company's financial health and customer retention, which are essential for sustainable growth and long-term success.
Burn Rate 🔥🔥
Burn rate refers to the rate at which a startup spends its capital before generating positive cash flow. Essentially, it measures how quickly a company is using up its cash reserves to cover operating expenses. A high burn rate indicates that a company is spending rapidly, which can be risky if not matched with strong revenue growth or subsequent funding rounds. Investors look at burn rate to assess the startup’s runway – the amount of time the company can continue operating before needing additional capital.
Key Points:
Monitoring Burn Rate: Regularly track your burn rate to manage cash flow effectively and make informed financial decisions.
Optimizing Spend: Focus on essential expenditures and consider cost-saving measures to extend your runway.
Revenue Growth: Prioritize strategies that accelerate revenue generation to balance the burn rate and sustain operations.
Churn Rate 💧💧
Churn rate measures the percentage of customers who stop using a company’s product or service over a given period. This metric is crucial for understanding customer retention and satisfaction. A high churn rate suggests that the product may not be meeting customer expectations, or that there are issues with customer support, pricing, or market fit.
Key Points:
Reducing Churn: Implement feedback mechanisms to understand why customers leave and address their concerns promptly.
Improving Customer Experience: Enhance the user experience and provide exceptional customer support to retain existing customers.
Value Proposition: Continuously communicate the value of your product or service to keep customers engaged and loyal.
Events and Communities Highlights 🌟🌟
Pitch at Harambee Evenings Register today!
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Funding opportunities 🎇🎇🎇
KPMG Private Enterprise Global Tech Innovator Competition 2024
The Global Tech Innovator competition is helping to accelerate that journey by putting founders and their technology innovations and tech-enabled solutions in the global spotlight. All with the support, guidance and expertise of an extensive network of business professionals during — and after — the competition. 🌍👩💻
MEF/UNEP Low Carbon Earth Accelerator (LCE) Program 2024 LowCarbon.Earth is a climate tech accelerator supporting startups that are building sustainable goods and services to solve climate change, nature loss, and pollution. If your venture aims to make a significant impact in these areas, this program is for you.
Winners get 1-to-1 coaching & personal introductions with potential investors, partners and clients. Receive the Deep Tech Pioneer recognition & get a chance to be featured in reports and invited to speak at future events. €100K Grand Prize, €25K 2nd prize and €25K pre-VC stage prize – all equity-free, no strings attached.
Innovate Africa Fund
Backing innovators committed to solving rather than merely exploiting problems.
An open competition for organizations to submit applications to support innovative solutions to bolster media literacy as well as support information integrity efforts that enhance civic engagement in local elections. Participants can present tech-based solutions – including, but not limited to, education programs, gaming platforms, fact-checking tools, content-authentication tools, synthetic media detection etc.Deadline, August 13 2024
Global good fund Fellowship
Are you ready?? Applications for the 2025 is accepted. This fellowship is annual in-person Summit! The summit is a 12-month Fellowship, a pivotal moment when entrepreneurs transition from working one-on-one with their professional leadership coach to collaborating closely with their executive business mentor.
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