Usually, when I hear about startups they are often stories about American entrepreneurs that create businesses in America. That, however, may be due to the fact that most news publications I read are also based in America. I therefore decided to research African startups so as to compare the entrepreneurial landscape between the aforementioned continents. IT News Africa published an article in which it details that ABAN (African Business Angel Network) will partner with Gust (one of the biggest sources for managing early stage investments). That is great news for African entrepreneurs as a direct source for finding investors will boost their ability to generate new startups.
I could not help but compare how different Gust and one-fore-one business model firms target economic development in Africa. On one hand, Gust provides a platform in which African ideas can be materialized, creating employment within the economy as well as providing consumers with choice. One-for-one firms, on the other hand, can be said to only ameliorate poverty rather than modify the economic structure of a country or continent as a whole.
While at first glance it may seem that foreign direct investment is a much better form of aid than one-for-one, one of my peers in the Comm101 lecture had an interesting point. He said that a wound in society – poverty in this case – has to first be managed and mitigated before it can be cured.
