ICTworks by Inveneo

Medair International provides emergency relief and rehabilitation to the most vulnerable and difficult-to-reach regions in Africa and Asia in natural disasters, conflict areas, and other extraordinary crises. Medair HQ in Lausanne, Switzerland is seeking an ICT Specialist to help provide operational guidance for country programs and activities, along with technical support for relief workers in the field. The ideal candidate should have a strong IT background in order to provide technical support to HQ staff and country program activities, as well as experience in international relief work and a strong Christian identity.

Eligibility is limited to Swiss or EU citizens, or those with a valid work permit. Deadline is January 31. See here for more information.

The International Executive Service Corps is a Washington, DC-based not-for-profit with a focus on private sector growth. IESC is recruiting for an experienced Jordanian or Jordanian-American ICT Venture Capital Specialist for the anticipated USAID Jordan Competitiveness Program. IESC is a subcontractor, responsible for the Access to Finance component of the program, to a large prime contractor that is submitting a proposal to USAID Jordan. The ICT position will likely be based in Irbid, Jordan.

The individual in this position will be responsible for venture capital financing with an emphasis on the ICT sector, and will set up effective angel networks. Deadline is January 27. More details here.

UNDP’s OCHA is looking for an ICT Associate to be based in Nairobi, Kenya, who would implement ICT systems and strategies, provide daily technical support to users of information management tools and technology infrastructure, including provision of daily technical support to OCHA Somalia systems, network infrastructure and corporate productivity tools, and support and training of business applications and new technologies.

The candidate should have a strong background in IT in order to provide helpdesk services as well as experience in ICT for development. Deadline is January 27. More details here.

Aquaya, based in San Francisco, is dedicated to improving global child health by increasing access to safe drinking water. Aquaya believes that innovative ICT systems have the potential to improve the efficiency and accuracy of data reporting and management in the water sector and to strengthen institutional linkages between field staff and their managers at various administrative levels.

The organization is seeking an ICT Program Associate to manage the technical aspects of its field deployments in South America, Africa, and Asia and to expand its ICT project portfolio. More information about this unique opportunity here.

About VC4A Questions:

VC4Africa seeks to connect entrepreneurs with the network, capital and knowledge they need to build promising businesses on the continent. We have members from 156 countries that network via our online platforms and offline via our VC4Africa Meetups. Our matchmaking site VC4Africa.biz is a tool for entrepreneurs to publish their venture and connect with possible business partners and investors. Our matchmaking program further supports entrepreneurs in their business planning and support entrepreneurs seeking venture finance. So how do we support the community with knowledge?

Building a business is hard and having access to the right knowledge and information is critical. Unfortunately, in the African space information is too often lacking. What do the changes in local tax code mean for the tech sector? What are the import duties for heavy machinery? What are the key points investors look for when reviewing a cash flow prognosis? What are the legal issues I need to consider when expanding across borders? VC4A Questions is a collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by the VC4A community. Together we are building a community generated database of knowledge. A few points that make VC4Africa Questions & Answers unique:

A Growing Knowledge Base

People use VC4A questions to document their African business adventures. Over time, the database of knowledge should grow and grow until almost everything that anyone wants to know about doing business in Africa is available in the system. The information is organized, the history of the questions is archived and the information is freely accessible for anyone with the same question today or tomorrow.

Community Managed

Each question makes use of tags that make them easier to find across multiple search queries. This also helps members link new questions with existing discussions and further centralizes the conversation. Members can find similar questions they can borrow from when outlining additional context. Each question and answer is also rated and sorted by the users. This ensures that only the most pertinent questions rise to the top of the landing page and search results. It helps push prominent issues into the forefront and crowds out any unwanted messages or noise.

Follow Discussions

Members can follow topics they are interested in. Any updates are automatically forwarded per e-mail and this helps maintain an active dialogue. Members, the VC4Africa team and officers can also ‘recommend experts’ with certain questions and encourage them to share their expertise and input. This further serves to mobilize an active network and adds to the growing knowledge base.

VC4A Reputations

VC4A Questions is linked directly to member profiles. The system tracks who posted a question, who responded, how many responses were recorded and whether or not the questions and answers were valued by the VC4A community. This feedback is part of a reputation the user builds via the system. This helps other users appreciate the quality and level of a user’s contributions and serves to recognize the members who contribute the most and are otherwise experts on certain subjects or specific fields of interest.

Moving forward,

Please visit the new section of the website http://vc4africa.biz/questions/. We encourage you to take a look and play around with this new tool. Please add your own questions or share feedback with the community. We look forward to building this resource together and for the benefit of the entrepreneurs and investors working to build promising businesses on the continent.

Regards and happy networking!
The VC4A Team

eVentures Africa Fund (eVA Fund) is a venture capital fund that is dedicated to mobilize capital and experience in the Netherlands/Europe to invest in small and medium sized African digital media (internet and mobile) related companies. The target region is sub-Saharan Africa. For our new office in Nairobi, Kenya we are looking for a fund manger.

ABOUT EVA FUND

eVentures Africa Fund (eVA Fund) is launched in January 2010 by Vincent Kouwenhoven and Brian Hirman. Both founders form the board of directors of eVA Fund and combine years of experience in business development, management consulting, online business, digital marketing and venture capital.

The ultimate goal of eVA Fund is investing capital and knowledge to strengthen small and medium sized internet related enterprises thus securing and creating jobs and income for large African communities and with that, generating attractive financial returns for investors.

Currently eVA Fund has invested in companies like ExplainerDC (Ghana), Umuntu Media (SA), Pesapal (Kenya) and Jumuika (Kenya). More investments are expected on short term.

VC4Africa was started as a LinkedIn group in the spring of 2008 and has grown organically into what is now the largest online community dedicated to Venture Capital in Africa. The VC4Africa community and related platforms have always been free for anyone to join, and the entire network and its content remain open and accessible.

Currently the community can be found on social networking platforms like LinkedIn (+/- 3.900 members), LinkedIn Incubators (+/- 2.200), VC4Africa.com (+/- 3.300 members), VC4Africa.biz (+/- 3.400), Facebook Group (+/- 550 members) and Twitter (+/- 5.000). Members of the VC4Africa community use these social platforms to connect with other members and to exchange knowledge, information and contacts.

A core vision behind the project is that VC4Africa is only a platform within a larger social movement. Open communication and collaboration is encouraged and all members are invited to become active participants in both growing and developing the project. This means members are encouraged to invite new members, post content, start discussions, initiate networking events and join the VC4Africa management team in a more concerted effort to grow, develop and evolve the concept. Every member is expected to contribute in some meaningful way.

A few key points that make VC4Africa unique:

1. SME Pipeline:

We work to help entrepreneurs connect with the external partners or needed investment. Entrepreneurs crunch their venture by choosing icons that represent some of the standard answers that a business plan must provide. Members can vote for ventures and their input is used to rank the projects per country, stage of investment and sector. The output is a dynamic Digg.com style feed that sees the best projects rise to the top of their respective field so we can connect them with capital. See the VC4Africa Ventures section and registration.

2. Matchmaking:

Organizations and individuals interested in investing in African businesses are able to register their investment profile with VC4Africa. Once registered as an investor we can facilitate targeted e-mail updates with 'high potentials' that match their investment criteria. This is currently a manual process that we look to automate in the next phase of development. See the registration process.

3. Member initiated networking events:

Second to networking online, VC4Africa makes use of the Barcamp model for events and organizes its own VC4Africa Meetups. These are informal networking events initiated by any member in the network interested in bringing together members in their own area. These events are organized without a budget, agenda or speakers. It is exactly the community initiated format and informal structure that allows for effective networking. Meetups have already been hosted in Johannesburg, Kampala, Nairobi, Kigali, Abuja, Lagos, Tunis, San Francisco, Atlanta, New York, Washington D.C., Amsterdam, Leuven and London. See a video about a VC4Africa Meetup. Want to bring together members in your area?

4. Open Source Approach:

VC4Africa is an open source project built on open source software. Anyone can contribute or access code to the VC4Africa platform. We are also working on an open Application Programming Interface (API) that would allow anyone to access VC4Africa data and repurpose it for their own use. See the VC4Africa Developer’s Wiki for the community wish list and concept notes. VC4Africa content and network are also open to anyone who wants to join the community and we do not require any fee to participate. That said, interaction or direct engagement with the network requires registration and an obligation to abide by the community established rules. See the Terms of Reference.

5. Officers Program:

The VC4Africa community also initiated an Officers Program used to engage active members in running and building the network. Officers take on different tasks in managing the community and are responsible for specific functions i.e. someone that manages the blog, someone that invites new members on LinkedIn or is responsible for growing the network on Facebook. These individuals are instrumental to the vitality of the project and help spread the word virally through their own networks. Moreover, they bring in new ideas and make valuable contributions that help define the scope and focus of the project. To this extent VC4Africa only builds what members demand.

Given the current structure members are well empowered to interact, find and share information within a network dedicated to building innovative businesses in Africa. Moving forward we are looking to improve our matchmaking capabilities and took the first step with the November launch of the new VC4Africa.biz matchmaking platform. We are pleased to share some of our first testimonials:

1) “Hey guys, Market Fleas already has a potential investor, so big ups on the platform. We tried many different platforms and none of them even gave us a response, but after only three days we got a response here. Keep up the good work and i’ll be spreading the word.” Rick

2) “Being an entrepreneur, I've been around the block when it comes to sites of this nature. And I must say; awesome! If you are able to attract investors successfully, this will become the one-stop shop for African business development. The site is easy to use and best of all, unique. All the best and thank you!” Louis

3) “Your web site has been very helpful to me. I was able to connect to a company that wants to represent Next2.Us geosocial sms network throughout Africa. We have executed a Framework Agreement. We are finalizing a relationship with a SMS provider that will allow Next2.Us Africa to offer our geosocial network service in Kenya in the coming weeks.” Brian

4) "That sounds great, I believe that through this platform (with its business plan crunching) is going to help many entrepreneurs." Wikins

5) “Please let me know how to support your work with the "Start-up Tool Kit" for entrepreneurs in Africa, perhaps including intellectual property and creativity content, templates, etc. and also by providing feedback to investors about valuation, due diligence, strategic guidance and advising, etc. for innovation and IP-based companies started in Africa, whether they're planning on being a regional or international business.” JiNan.

6) "VC4A Team: Thank you for your kind welcome and above all for being one of the the founders of this medium. I believe it is going to be a very useful tool for entrepreneurs from everywhere who have the best interest of Africa and Africans. I will look forward for more interactions in the future.” Kebede

7) "Hi Team, thanks for the thumbs up. Great platform you have founded here! Looking forward to meeting up with those interested in getting involved in my business with either funding and/or mentoring." Nicolette

Want to get involved? Has VC4Africa been useful to you in any way? Do you have a venture you would like to promote/share with the community? Please reach out and share your ideas and experiences with us!

Ever go to a website where you had to spend 3-4 hours uploading your business plan? And maybe then you never heard from a real person again? There is probably nothing more frustrating to an entrepreneur. I mean lets face it, time is money and every second you spend on documentation you could spend doing business.

So on the new VC4Africa website, we've launched a business plan cruncher to make a better matchmaking between you and investors.

Our matchmaking platform does things differently. Using plan cruncher we can get your plan online with a few simple mouse clicks. Any entrepreneur can breeze through the questions (with a Twitter limit of 140 characters) and actually have fun selecting the icons. Before you know it you have crunched your business idea into one page and it's online.

Investors and other members can quickly scan your idea and ask you questions if they need clarification. They can also like your idea and help rank it to the top of the list. We capture all of this activity and interaction. At the end of the day it's the best ideas and the most serious entrepreneurs who claim the top spot. It is these entrepreneurs that are the most likely to secure investment.

If you'd rather talk about your business plan in person, then come to our VC4Africa Meetups - the next one is 27 November at Toubab Dialaw in Dakar, Senegal.