Over 100. That’s how many innovations Brink has supported across East Africa in the past seven years.
Even I was surprised by how big that number is (just to be sure, I double-checked it, and honestly, it may even be an under-estimation!).
Through Frontier Tech, Assistive Tech, COVID-Action and many more, we’ve coached ventures and start-ups in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, including early movers like Ampersand in Rwanda. We’ve worked with Rising Academies via Elimu Soko, and through EdTech Hub supported Kenya’s Ministry of Education and implementers like EIDU.
We partnered with the City of Kigali as they tested ideas for digital transformation through the Africa Smart Towns Network, and we continue to collaborate with the Ministry of ICT & Innovation on their national innovation ambitions. Our Hanga SRH work has now backed 40 ventures across the continent, and Go Muhazi has just selected seven agritech teams looking to scale here in Rwanda.
None of this is “ours” alone, these are shared stories, with so many brilliant partners here in East Africa and beyond. It speaks to the region’s vibrancy and reminds us why we chose to build teams here.
Brink was first set up in London, but we soon saw a few reasons to build teams in East Africa. We knew that being closer in context would lead to deeper impact for the programmes we were already delivering, and it would create chances to grow from the region.
In truth, we had always had ambitions to be global, and when the pandemic forced our studio in London to shift to being a remote company, it sped up the opportunity to explore those ambitions. My colleagues James and Asad mapped the world to decide where to place bets, and decided to set up in Rwanda, and make our first East Africa hire in Kenya (Ciku).
That decision has shaped how we work and who we are today. We now have a team of seven across Rwanda and Kenya driving the work here, a network of freelancers we draw on regularly and access to Brink’s global bench. Over the last four years, our narrative has shifted too. It’s no longer about being “nearer” because we’re a truly global organisation now. We are grounded in the context, and we connect local and global perspectives.
Fast forward to late 2024, and I have arrived in Rwanda to take on the role of East Africa Director. I began my time here by talking every morning, with founders, civil servants, donors, operators - about the barriers and opportunities they saw around them.
Then came the abrupt halt in USAID funding. Rather than panic, we convened. I invited 20 friends from the sector to dinner at my house to talk about what we were seeing around us. In the months following, Brink went on to convene over 100 people all over the world, (those conversations have now been synthesised into our report, ‘A Dispatch from 2035’, which you can download here).
Below is a roundup of the themes I heard in East Africa, specifically those topics which will be shaping the work Brink will be doing in the region in the near future:
As development money dwindles, there’s an accelerated shift from grant-led programs to investable ventures as a pathway to impact. It’s not as new as some groups are making out, we can leverage what we already know about how the private sector drives impact. Alongside that, there is an opportunity to do more with diaspora capital but it needs better vehicles.
There are so many talented people. But there are some ingrained assumptions about who is “allowed” to innovate - in some cases it’s academia who dominate R&D, others it’s start-ups who’ll singlehandedly solve these persistent challenges. We need more nuance, and we need to support local actors to achieve their goals and be considered trustworthy by funders.
Leaders in Rwanda and Kenya are tremendously excited about AI, while the global community is fearful of the unintended consequences. The job to be done is to translate that excitement into outcomes, while being rigorous on safety, ethics, and equitable reach. A lot more needs to be done to unlock access to data on key areas in the region, as a driving force for innovation.
Narratives about aid, and the assumed wisdoms about which global actors are to be trusted, are in flux. Some admitted to me a feeling of “good riddance” when USAID shut down. The next decade’s legitimacy will be local and “what good looks like” must be authored here, not imported. Now is the time to shape how innovation, development, and leadership in Africa are perceived.
The job now is to make it easier for the right people to move in the same direction. We’ll keep convening and building coalitions across ministries, founders, and funders. We see our role as the bridge between worlds that don’t always speak the same language. And we’ll be deliberate about our rooms: smaller, sharper, with clear decisions and follow-through - often at Isano Lodge - so relationships translate into progress.
We’re pragmatic on AI - excited by what’s possible and disciplined about what’s safe and effective. The opportunities presented by this technology will not materialise by themselves, so we can’t afford to navel gaze. We think the promise of AI can only be fulfilled by understanding human behaviour and getting humans and AI to work together.
We also want to help shape the way funding happens in East Africa, rethinking models that might not be fit for purpose. We know that grants should focus on being catalytic, and there needs to be more availability of alternative investment options like revenue-share structures. We want to enable the diaspora to contribute with a chance of upside, and we need to promote capital flows that encourage sustainability and local ownership.
If you’re a funder who wants to crowd in the right kind of capital to the region, a policymaker with a mandate but no safe place to experiment, or an implementer with proof of impact but no pathway to scale - we should talk.
