A promising prototype still needs customers, skills and somewhere to work. In Zimbabwe, Impact Hub Harare has made that awkward next step its business.
It began with Saturday meetups and discounted tea. Now LakeHub connects young Kenyans to software training, employers and a new set of problems out on the farm.
Free digital training is only the opening lesson. Ghana Tech Lab connects local classrooms, startup coaching and seed grants - with a practical question waiting at the end: will anybody buy what you build?
In northern Nigeria, FutureMap Foundation is linking digital training to employers, local problems, and a community clinic. Its most interesting experiment begins where the classroom ends.
Behind Latin America’s Big Macs sits a Montevideo company running 2,520 restaurants, a 115-million-user data engine and one of the region’s largest first-job machines. Its real product is consistency at continental scale.