Mauritius Moving Forward: First Quarter Recap

Dear fellow world changers!

Greetings from myself and the ever-growing MAFH team and family. Since our soft launch in December 2018, 2019 has seen us grow from strength to strength and the momentum continues! Officially opening our membership in February, we have had an influx of activity and have signed up 16 members over the past 2 months, with a further 27 applications in the pipeline! (Including international members!).

There have been numerous events, activities and projects that have happened as a result of our expanding circle and we look forward to the growing synergies and the ecosystem together. One of our pillars is closing the skills gap and improving the tech talent locally and on the continent. We have currently engaged with five academia in Mauritius (ALU, UTM, Middlesex, Kingsland University and Amity) with the key areas of collaboration being knowledge sharing, skills development and tech capacity building.

To walk the talk of education and open collaboration, our member Horizon Africa, hosted our first workshop on the 25th of March, where 34 students from ALU, UOM, UTM, Middlesex and Amity attended. I would like to thank Horizon for this and in keeping with the spirit of giving back to the ecosystem (this was a free workshop), which aligns with the MAFH membership ideology.

A week later, our event on the 1st of April was a runaway success, with over 200 attendees. The MAFH team and I are looking forward to the road ahead in 2019 and having a quick look at the calendar, it's great to see the jam-packed activities happening throughout the year. I know that together we will build and grow a truly pan-African Fintech ecosystem. More updates next month, and as Mr Spock says, dif-tor heh smusma!

The 1st of April saw our first official global event, Building the Pan African Ecosystem, happen in Port Louis. There were 16 specialist speakers presenting on stage, with expertise ranging from FinTech start-ups to corporates and training institutions. This created a day of networking, learning, and sharing of industry knowledge. A big thank you to all of our speakers for sharing their expert findings and experiences, and to everyone who attended and contributed to making this event a success.

If you missed it, you can view the itinerary on the event page here.

Disruptive innovations and tech
Disruption indeed! A big topic featured at the summit was how FinTech is influencing financial service providers in Africa. There is a need for people and businesses in Africa to embrace the disruptive nature of FinTech and come up with ways to adapt and innovate using these technologies as a resource.

Legislation & licencing
Financial service providers and FinTech businesses are struggling to get legal and regulatory licenses from regulators, underlining the need for hubs in the FinTech space (like MAFH) to jump in and act as a catalyst between governments, regulatory bodies, entrepreneurs and investors.

Market
Understanding the market is vital in order to succeed in the financial technology sector, especially in Africa with over so many diverse cultures.

Digitization
Mobile acquisition/uptake in Africa has greatly influenced the FinTech revolution but financial service providers are still sluggish when it comes to FinTech integration. There is a call for a greater need to digitize the FinTech sector to increase efficiency and we agree!

Business to Business
More start-ups are beginning to focus on B2B as opposed to B2C, as they have noticed consumer-facing services are harder to monetise and are instead shifting focus to enterprise solutions.

Funding, disruption and support for start-ups
This is picking up and accelerating very quickly with a lot more happening in terms of support from incubation to acceleration, which means the future is looking very bright for start-ups looking to bring something new to the table.

Collaboration
There is a huge need for more collaboration between different FinTech ecosystems in order to address the traditional bias and start focusing on the bigger picture.

Manish is a business information technology expert, with experience in systems engineering and business solutions. With his strong corporate links in Mauritius and abroad, Manish plays a crucial role in developing MAFH business strategies and dealing with business challenges.

For the past six years, Manish has been involved in various high-end projects and initiatives, ranging from renewable energy, property development, financial learning, FinTech and innovation.

Manish ran his own successful business in software development, where he now plays the role of a more passive overseer and director, so that he can follow his dream of building a FinTech ecosystem to dominate the globe. As an apt adrenaline junky Manish is the office’s go getter, whether he is closing deals or jumping out of planes. You won’t often find him without a bit of mischief up his sleeve or pun on his lips.

Riddhi is a people-loving person with a meticulous attention to detail and as she is the Mauritius taekwondo champion she is not afraid to crack the whip making sure that all our admin is up to date.

With a degree in Management and Marketing from the University of Technology, Mauritius, Riddhi found herself as a charge officer in the collections department at Barclays (now Absa) before being scooped up by MAFH in March where her role is to keep contact with the MAFH partners and members to ensure we are providing them with everything they need.