Young African Entrepreneurs Featured in Silicon Valley Documentary

Lions@frica, a global venture launch-pad that offers African startups with a platform to showcase their products and services to the global market, is set to release the new documentary “Venture: An Entrepreneur’s Journey,” featuring four young African entrepreneurs who won the DEMO Africa 2015 competition.

The documentary gives viewers rare access to the entrepreneurial journey of four African entrepreneurs and documents their experiences in Silicon Valley as well as their interactions with successful entrepreneurs who found their break in the valley.

The four entrepreneurs include Kelechi Anyadiegwu (Nigerian), Bayo Balogun (Nigerian), Gagan Hayer (Kenyan), and Karogi Kamau (Kenyan).

As the winners of the 2015 edition of DEMO Africa, an entrepreneurial contest that brings together African entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to potential global investors and innovation stakeholders, the four were awarded with a one-week trip to Silicon Valley for the LIONS Innovation Tour. There, they got a chance to share knowledge and network with successful entrepreneurs.

During the trip, the entrepreneurs got a chance to meet with reputable investors, industry leaders, sector experts, and management teams of prestigious companies, including Ernst & Young, IBM, Airbnb, Salesforce, and more.

They also attended curated symposiums, where they pitched their business ideas and received firsthand opinions from global entrepreneurs. Their trip ended with a stop at the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) at Stanford University in Silicon Valley, California, where they mingled with top-tier investors from across the globe.

Struggles & Successes 

The film gives an honest lens in to the struggles that entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley go through as well as the kind of impact such challenges can have on a promising young entrepreneur.

It also peels back the mask of the valley environment from the African entrepreneurs’ perspective and highlights the role African expats, immigrants, and indigenous afropreneurs play in redefining the future of entrepreneurship in Africa.

With this documentary, Lions@frica also focuses on the role that female African entrepreneurs are playing in technology and other key sectors and works to demystify the demographic, geographic, and sectorial differences that often exist in entrepreneurship.

A screening for “Ventures” will be held on February 20th in San Francisco, California.