Techbuild.africa, a pan-African digital news and information platform, has instituted a pan-African advisory board comprising Sheilah Birgen (Kenya), Lanre Basamta (Nigeria) and Rene Parker (South Africa).
Commenting on the new board, Chukwuemka Fred Agbata, Jnr (CFA) said, “as a truly Afrocentric platform, we want representation from across the continent, not just in our stories but also on our Advisory Board. We have deliberately sought out ecosystem builders to support us, as our work at techbuild.africa will align with their personal interests of contributing to the thriving African tech, innovation, and entrepreneurship ecosystem.”
The newly appointed Advisory Board members are
1. Sheilah Birgen – Kenya
Sheilah has experience in entrepreneurship, coaching, mentoring, technology and innovation with a knack for the ecosystem, community building, as well as African startup policies. She is the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Cord.
Under her leadership in 2015, mLab was listed in the top 10 best accelerators 2015-2017 in the World by UBI Global Benchmark, the only accelerator from a developing country.
She was listed by Root magazine as one of the top six women leading the charge to grow the technology sector across the African continent. She has also worked with over twenty international partner organizations on projects including the World Bank, Spider, USAID, HIVOs, Intel, Samsung, Nokia, Google, Facebook, Governments (Kenya, Finland) to mention a few.
2. Lanre Basamta – Nigeria
Lanre is a business leader with a bias for strategy delivery, marketing execution and sustainable growth. His passion is to deploy skills, experience and passion in business and brand management, communications and marketing to positively influence business prosperity, consumer perception, stimulate increased public engagement and drive incremental growth for forward looking brands.
He has held leadership positions previously at SystemSpecs, Sidmach Technologies, and Cellulant.
Lanre is the current Group Head of Mobile Financial Services at Interswitch Group.
3. Rene Parker – South Africa
Rene is the Managing Director of RLabs and played a leading role in transforming RLabs into an award-winning global social enterprise from the humble beginnings of a community project in Cape Town.
She has expressed great passion for empowering women in technology and business and entrepreneurship. She has been the driving force for RLabs Women training programs and the founder of Junk.fund an innovative crowdfunding platform that serves as a support network for women-led businesses.
In 2019 and 2020, she was an Africa Netpreneur Prize Judge, a program created by Jack Ma and run by the Jack Ma Foundation, which aims to support and showcase African Entrepreneurs. .
Rene also served as a board member of the Living Labs in Southern Africa (LLiSA) network where she fulfilled the portfolio of capacity building, community development and communications and is a founding member of the Western Cape Government youth development network.
Rene was a Winner of the Inspiring Fifty South Africa 2019 Award, an initiative that aims to increase diversity in tech, by boosting the visibility of female role models in STEM.
Rene is an international speaker with a strong focus on innovation, Living Labs and empowering women through technology and entrepreneurship. She is also a leader who provides a variety of consulting services in International Development and Community Innovation to both the private and public sectors.