Five African startups will join counterparts from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in taking part in the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Global Business Forum (GBF) Mentorship Programme, which aims to foster cross-border cooperation and help participants expand their global presence.
This is the second part of a programme that began when the startups participated in the Chamberthon event at the Africa Tech Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, earlier this year, which saw 20 UAE and African startups worked together to develop the structure and criteria of the GBF Mentorship Programme.
Ten startups, five from Africa and five from the UAE, will now take part in the next phase, which involves intensive training and mentorship sessions. Following the three-month period, selected startups will be given an opportunity to participate in a session at the Global Business Forum on Africa in November in Dubai.
The five African startups are Nigeria’s FarmGate Africa, which uses advanced technologies to connect international buyers and farming clusters; quip.link, a UK-based but Africa-focused marketplace for renting and selling construction equipment; Ghana’s Complete Farmer, a crowd-farming platform focused on building sustainable farms; Rwanda’s Engineering Hub, a provider of IT services and solutions for mobile and banking integration platforms; and RideSafe, a Kenya-based mobile application offering real-time health solutions.
The five UAE-based startups are members of Dubai Startup Hub. Hamad Buamim, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the mentorship programme was a unique opportunity for African startups to explore collaboration and expansion opportunities with their UAE counterparts in key areas of mutual interest.
