Meet our MEST Africa Challenge Tanzania Country Final Judges

On July 8th, 2020, the MEST Africa Challenge: Tanzania finals will bring together the best and brightest entrepreneurs from around the country to pitch their startup ventures to a panel of expert judges.

Join MEST, Microsoft, and Tanzanian ecosystem partners Sahara Ventures, Seedstars Dar es Salaam, and RoboTech in the search to find Tanzania’s next great tech startup!

Judges for the country finals in nine different markets across the continent — Ethiopia, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Nigeria, and South Africa, include local investors, business leaders, and community players. Here is a closeup of the MEST Africa Challenge Tanzania Country Finals judges, who will select the winning pitch to make it to the MEST Africa-wide finals to compete for $50,000 in equity investment.

Emmanuel Senzighe

Sahara Accelerator Lead, Sahara Ventures

Emmanuel is a Savvy Digital Communicator and Innovator. He is an experienced startup builder, using technology to open opportunities and address the challenges in Africa. Today, He works with companies and International organizations exploring the role of entrepreneurship, technology, innovation, and local knowledge in creating paths to sustainable development.

Innocent Mallya

General Manager, Seedstars

Innocent is a technology fanatic from the banking sector who joined the fast-growing tech ecosystem in Tanzania in mid-2018 managing Seedspace Dar es Salaam, one of the largest hubs in East Africa with a focus on emerging markets tech startup investing. Over the past year, as the Seedspace General Manager, Innocent has worked closely with Tanzanian startups helping them to grow their businesses and getting them investor-ready. This role gives Innocent hands-on and direct access to support talent in Tanzania as they build new ventures for the future.

Lawrence Muthoga

Microsoft, Developer Audience Lead

Lawrence is the Azure Developer Audience Lead covering Africa where he specializes in developing, nurturing, and growing the Microsoft developer ecosystem across the African continent. He manages Microsoft’s engagement with African technical communities, startups, and developers and is responsible for their growth and success.

This role is aligned with Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. To achieve this, Lawrence works with Innovation Partners, Hubs, and technical communities to deepen existing relationships and come up with new strategies to enable technical growth across the board.

Prior to this role, Lawrence worked as a Breadth and Community manager in Microsoft 4Afrika which was preceded by his role as Technical Evangelist in Microsoft 4Afrika. His role was to empower and inspire Independent Software Vendors, and developers with tools and technologies that allow them to unlock new and unique opportunities across cloud technologies and build scalable solutions.

Lawrence has held multiple customer and partner-facing roles at Microsoft. From an Office365 Solution Sales Professional to a Partner Technology Strategist to a Technology Solutions Professional for Dynamics 365.

Ashwin Ravichandran

MD, MEST Africa

Ashwin currently works with 40+ African tech companies based out of the MEST Africa incubator network in Accra, Lagos, Nairobi, and Cape Town and 60 entrepreneurs in training to support them in launching their startups across the continent.

He joined MEST in 2015 as a Technology Teaching Fellow and has since served as the Incubator Manager for MEST Accra and Director of Portfolio Support and Country Director of Ghana. With a background in Computer Science and Engineering and previous experience working in the innovation team at Honeywell and building startups in India, Ashwin brings extensive technical knowledge to his executive management experience at MEST.

In his role as Director of Portfolio Support, Ashwin has overseen the growth and development of highly successful MEST portfolio companies such as Complete Farmer, Asoriba, Leti Arts and Kudobuzz, working to maximize their growth and success in terms of business development, product management and raising further rounds of funding.

MEST Africa Challenge Country Finals: Tanzania

Join MEST and Microsoft on July 8th for the Tanzania Country Finals of the MEST Africa Challenge. The top tech startup from the Tanzania finals will go on to compete against winners from eight other countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Côte D’Ivoire, Senegal, Ethiopia, South Africa, Kenya, and Rwanda, for the chance to win $50,000 in equity investment and to join MEST’s Africa-wide startup support network. Register, here.