A Tech Safari in Cameroon

I recently returned from an eight day trip to Cameroon. I had the privilege of traveling there at the invitation of a fellow member of the global Women in Tech community, Amina Gerba. Amina founded and runs two companies - Afrique Expansion and Kariliss Laboratories. The goal of the trip was to meet some women in tech and entrepreneurs and figure out ways for us to collaborate between Silicon Valley and Cameroon more.

I had not been on the continent of Africa since I was four years old and visited my grandparents who were teaching in Côte d'Ivoire, and wasn't sure what to expect.

Our safari started in the capital city of Yaounde. The first day on the ground, we had a chance to meet with a Peace Corps volunteer, Laura Preston, who is working with a Technovation Challenge team in her post in Bafia. After discussing some of my experience as a Technovation mentor, we attended a local golf tournament and were joined by some other tech women and business community members interested in developing a digital economy.

On the second day, Laura served as our guide, taking us to some institutions in the capital. The first was the Multi-lingual Institute. They specialize in online courses for English and French learners. The country is divided along linguistic lines, and rather than being bilingual, they are more dual-lingual - either speaking French or English and a mother tongue. In my experience, not many people speak both colonial languages. Our second stop took us to the AIMS Teacher Training Center. AIMS is working on training the next generation of teachers to teach math-oriented disciplines to primary and secondary school students around the country. They certainly understand the importance of math, computers and engineering in the knowledge economy around the world. Before dinner, we did a round table with eight women who had been part of the Techwomen program. For dinner, my husband and I were hosted, along with many local entrepreneurs, at the home of Jean Claude Ottou, who has been a leader in the telecommunications industry in West Africa for many years, along with his wife, Crescence, who is also an entrepreneur. A highlight of the evening was attempting some local dance - I am clearly a better engineer than dancer and should stick with my day job.

Our last day in Yaounde, we traveled to Tassah Academy, started by one of the winners of this year's ABI Awards, Janet Fofang. Tassah is a STEM-oriented primary and secondary school, where Janet spends time teaching the kids how to program Arduinos in the STEM club. We visited each of the classes and told them about what we do as engineers and quizzed them to define what software and hardware are. Following that stop, we headed to ISSE, which is an IT training center run by two of the other TechWomen we met. Finally, I received a pitch from a local startup called Allo Doctor, that was looking for seed funding.

Following our visit to Yaoundé, we traveled to the biggest city in Cameroon, Douala. We were accompanied by Béatrice Bediang, who is VP of Kariliss Laboratories and works with Amina. We enjoyed a hike on the slopes of Mt. Cameroon in the afternoon of our travel day. The next day, we attended a startup pitch event for students called Digital Thursday. They were kind enough to let me address the audience in English!

Our last stop was to a digital advertising agency Accent Com run by Natacha Ndjamba. She promotes Digital Thursday and is interested in starting an incubator. We walked her through some of the possible structures for incubators in Silicon Valley, so she can work on translating those ideas to a local context.

Our last two days were spent sight seeing in the beach town of Kribi and Campo Ma'an National Park courtesy of local hosts Georges Dooh Collins, who works in media and Lionel, his friend.

I really enjoyed this chance to collaborate and learn from local technologists and entrepreneurs in a completely different context. And, I look forward to continuing the dialog over the coming years. A huge "thank you et merci" to those who hosted us during the journey.