Making Futures brings together 18 young entrepreneurs from 14 countries doing incredible work across the continent. Their stories are both inspirational and aspirational; providing a template for readers who might be interested in embarking on their own entrepreneurial journey, and allowing others to see the incredible energy and work that is happening across the continent. There’s the story of David Sengeh, who has worked on combatting malaria and lack of energy in Sierra Leone before turning to custom-made prosthetics, to Farida Bedwei, co-founder of the largest microfinance banking software platform in Ghana. These are entrepreneurs who are helping to reconfigure the narrative about Africa by simply making things for the masses of their population. They represent what is possible and what can be scaled up in different African contexts, despite the dysfunctionality witnessed across the continent. With such diversity of stories, readers have access to potential business ideas, while learning a little about the history of that country and what it takes to build a business in an emerging economy. These men and women have done it and are doing it! This collection equips readers with intimate knowledge about the markets and growth across the region, and how young creative entrepreneurs are identifying problems as opportunities and seeding growth in a continent that has been long overlooked, but is poised for explosive growth and opportunity, enabled by technology.
