Appfrica Labs: Almost a Year Old!

Appfrica Labs has been incredibly fortunate over the past ten months. We’ve operated on a shoestring budget, performing what I liked to call ‘alchemy’. That is, creating the applications and services people have come to know us by, without much in the term of internal resources. We’re scrappy and agile and I couldn’t be prouder of our staff for truly making this company what it is today. In two months we’ll be one year old! (This blog is six months older than the incubator.)

As we move in to 2010 we’re already making major changes. To prepare for my work setting up the Ten Thousand Hour Initiative, a year of heavy travel and another mystery project, CTO Ivan Kavuma (pictured above) has been promoted to Managing Director of the company. You may remember Ivan from Appfricast 8 where he and the staff discussed the future and what the IT space looked like from a Ugandan perspective. Ivan has proven himself to be a fantastic mentor and advisor to the staff over the past few months, drawing upon his time in the United States working with companies like Siemens and Microsoft. He’s a ‘natural born coder’ and a true asset to our group.

Due to my increasing involvement with a number of projects (TED, QuestionBox and others included), I will move to the Appfrica Labs Board of Directors, currently held by myself, MBA Glen Mehn and investor Herve Cuviliez. I’ll still manage our relationship with certain clients, legalities, financial aspects and quality control aspects of the company, but Ivan is taking over most day to day operations. He has already overseen the release of Open Question and will now work towards launching our second platform and our first start-up to leave the incubator. Moses Mugisha will take over as lead developer across all products supported by developers Emma Oluka and Jerry Opolot. Barbara Birungi and Frankie Raiderson will handle administrative and sales work, respectively.

To the readers of this blog thanks for your loyalty and continued support. To the clients we’ve worked for this year, thank-you for giving us the benefit of the doubt. To the clients that we let down for whatever reason, thank-you for helping us to mature, in a few months we’ll celebrate our first birthday and all of these experiences and more are shaping our future!

Sincerely,

Jon Gosier

CEO, Appfrica Labs (U) Ltd.