SoFi

The financial market has been going though many changes thanks to the growth of the digital economy and availability of app-based mobile devices. Mobile payments are one obvious area in which the financial industry is evolving. Square is a clear leader in the U.S., Canada, Japan and Australia, while companies, such as Ezetap in India, are cornering the market in developing nations.

Another emerging sector turning traditional banking on its head is online financing. San Francisco-based SoFi (which stands for Social Finance) is set to disrupt the banking sector through its unique approach to lending and wealth management. What launched in 2011 as a financial services company to refinance student loans has expanded to mortgages, mortgage refinancing, personal loans and wealth management. The company touts its proprietary technology, customer service and products, while marketing itself as a “non-bank.” Instead of going to a local bank branch to obtain a loan, SoFi allows members to apply online or over a mobile device—making it particularly appealing to Millennials.

What Sets SoFi Apart? There are other companies that offer online financing and wealth management, but SoFi’s management team and their ability to partner with major financial institutions give them strength and credibility. Japan-based SoftBank Group was so impressed with SoFi that they provided $1 billion in funding to help the company charge lower rates on student, personal and home loans, as well as help fund plans to expand into wealth management and deposits.

23andMe

I recently went to my doctor for a yearly physical. As part of the process, I underwent several blood tests and had a heart stress test. What if, in addition to these tests, my doctor could also analyze my DNA to better understand my genetic mix and its relationship with my health? He might be able to predict and help prevent certain hereditary diseases. That is the potential behind 23andMe.

For the last ten years, the company has been developing a suite of genetics tests to provide customers information on health, ancestry and traits. The company claims more than 1 million customers and says it has built one of the world’s largest databases of individual genetic information. Though not currently cleared to use genetic information to predict the likelihood of a disease, the potential is there and investors have taken note. The potential revenue of an FDA-approved test for diseases is so significant, the company could be well on its way to an IPO.

What Sets 23andMe Apart? The company’s success is tied to the persistency of founder and CEO, Anne Wojcicki, who spent a decade in healthcare investing, primarily in biotechnology companies, before co-founding 23andMe. She understands the market and has been able to navigate some major hurdles, including gaining FDA approval for the company’s direct-to-consumer genetic testing business. Though the company had to regroup a bit, 23andMe relaunched in early 2015 with guns blazing—and hasn’t looked back since.

Udacity 

Online education is making it easier for many people to learn new things or brush up on skills to help advance their careers. While many e-learning platforms, such as Courseraand Khan Academy, offer courses across a wide variety of topics, Udacity is focused on technology. Its mission is to “bring accessible, affordable, engaging and highly effective higher education to the world.”

Udacity was created almost by accident. Co-founder, Chairman and President, Sebastian Thrun, and Peter Norvig (currently the Director of Research at Google Inc.) offered an “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course online to anyone, for free. Some 160,000 students from more than 190 countries enrolled. Not long afterward Udacity was born.

Today the company focuses on teaching skills that industry employers need and delivering credentials endorsed by these employers—at a fraction of the cost of most traditional schools. One of those employers is Google. The company recently announced a partnership with Udacity to offer a Google Android Basics Nanodegree designed for people with no programming experience.

What Sets Udacity Apart? The Co-founder, Chairman and President, Sebastian Thrun, recognized the opportunity to monetize courses teaching the skills employers are looking for—and he seized it. He brought in the right team to make it work, including CEO Vish Makhijani who has years of executive leadership experience working with companies including Zynga and Yahoo. The market has taken notice. Udacity has received funding from major investors, including Bertelsmann, Charles River Venturesand Andreessen Horowitz. It is currently valued at $1.1 billion and is set to become a leading provider of educations services.

Oscar 

If you are confused about your health insurance policy and bills, you aren’t alone. The insurance market in U.S. is not working well, especially when compared to most other developed nations. We pay huge premiums and still have expensive medical bills—and that’s just for the insured.

Enter Oscar Health Insurance. The company was created in 2012 partially because co-founder Josh Kushner was frustrated over trying to make sense of a health insurance bill. He and fellow co-founders, Mario Schosser and Kevin Nazemi, wanted to use technology to improve how customers find health care. According to its website, Oscar is “reinventing how to manage care, process medical claims, control healthcare costs and provide transparency. With all the complexity hidden behind an easy experience for our members.”

What Sets Oscar Apart? Oscar is changing a broken industry by offering a common sense solution to health insurance. It uses sophisticated technology to make it easy for customers to find information and be able to make decisions. Though currently only offering plans in parts of New York, New Jersey, California and Texas, the company is growing rapidly. It currently has more than 145,000 customers and is valued at $2.7 billion. Investors include Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst Partners and Goldman Sachs.

WeWork

Great ideas don’t have to be all about technology, but they should be about the market and customer needs. If you can identify and solve a market challenge, you can win.Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey did just that when they founded WeWork back in 2010. Both were independently employed and were working out of a partially vacant office building. They convinced the landlord to let them rent out the empty parts as shared workspace—and WeWork was born.

Today the New York City-based company fills the need among entrepreneurs for a work space that won’t cost an arm and a leg. It currently serves close to 50,000 people in cities across the U.S. and around the globe. Part of the appeal of WeWork is that it doesn’t just provide an empty desk. Membership includes access to a number of perks, from free coffee and craft beer on tap to Wi-Fi, printing and even meeting rooms with ping pong tables. Just the type of hip appeal that many of today’s entrepreneurs and independently employed persons are looking for.

What Sets WeWork Apart? The company recognized that technology is not always the path to success – marketing is. It’s not just enough to offer office space for rent—it has to appeal to the mindset of the self-employed generation. Though this startup is not tech-based and has a pure and simple business plan, it’s attracted the attention of Benchmark, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price, who have funneled $1.4 billion into the company—putting it at a valuation of $10.2 billion.

These five companies have all approached business a little differently and, in so doing, have made their way into the “billion dollar club.” One size does not fit all when it comes to building a company, but studying the approach of these success cases is a good way to find inspiration for your own business plan. Strong partnerships, a good leadership team, persistency, common sense solutions and a solid marketing plan can make the difference between an average company and one that takes the market by storm.

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The ICT sector has proven to be a strong driver of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in nations across the world. From developing countries to developed nations – the ICT sector has played a part in the success of each of these nation’s economies, the advancement of its people’s skill-sets, capabilities and positioning the nations as a place for global firms to move efficiently conduct business.

Over the past decade – ICT has been a major economic driver to boost the social and economic landscape of the African continent. The ICT sector is better positioned to leverage businesses and the continent to some impressive growth of economies. The ICT sector witnessed double digit growth and if this trend continues upwardly – ICT expenditure in Africa could exceed $150 billion by 2016. The ICT expenditure would continue to include computer hardware and software, computer services (computer and network systems integration, data processing services) and communications services (voice and data communications services) and wired and wireless communication equipment. African countries have made positive progress on access to ICT services – however there is still work to be done in terms of ICT readiness. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Development Index – it indicated that the African region has made slower progress when compared to other regions in the past two years – with roughly half the improvement on an aggregate basis. Access to ICT still remains a huge challenge for most African countries.

ICT have become ubiquitous – as it now plays an important role in transforming people’s lives globally. In Africa – ICT is set to transform many lives on the social and economic level. Africa has witnessed success of ICT initiatives from mobile banking in East Africa to smart apps that are now being used across the entire continent – apps designed to fulfill different purposes and solving diverse issues. Africa has seen tremendous growth in the last decade and a half – ICT growth has been primarily fueled by mobile cellular communications; mobile penetration; affordability and access to mobile telephony; internet access uptake (one in six people are online in Africa); submarine cable have enhanced international connectivity – the continent now has more than 10 terabytes of submarine connectivity around Northern Africa since 2014; 7 terabytes around Eastern Africa and 4 terabytes around Western Africa. These developments in infrastructure and solutions in Africa – signify and represent a renewed confidence and optimism in Africa’s digital future.

A great amount of work still needs to be done though – as of 2014/2015 more than 80% people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) were still offline – deprived access to the incredible knowledge wealth and riches that the internet can bring into their lives and also the ones who have access – it is still vastly expensive with mobile broadband costing 40-60% of average income in SSA.

The digital revolution has brought many private benefits and a look at a day in the life of the internet reveals some interests trends:

• 7 billion Emails sent
• 8 billion YouTube videos watched
• 2 billion Google searches conducted
• 3 billion Gigabyte (GB) of web traffic
• 803 million Tweets
• 186 million Instagram photos
• 152 million Skype calls
• 36 million Amazon purchases

This digital revolutions also has some benefits that economies can  reap from these trends – digital technologies are transforming more businesses (advent of e-commerce); digital technologies are transforming people’s lives – through digital payments/mobile money accounts/mobile remittances (number of mobile accounts worldwide stood at 300 million as of 2014/2015); digital technologies are transforming governments – with the implementation of digital identities in some parts of the world and also digital technologies promoting development on various scales – expanding the information base, lowering information costs and creating information goods.

We might be privy to these trends; however, a significant digital divide still remains as:

• 6 billion people still without Broadband
• 4 billion people still without Internet
• 2 billion people still without Mobile Phones
• 4 billion people still without A Digital Signal

The ICT sector is among the most profitable and successful – has revolutionized the way the world communicates. Through a combination of forward looking government policies and regulatory reforms; international standards; industry innovation and investment in infrastructure and new services – billions of people have been brought in to the information society in a remarkably short period of time.

ICT entrepreneurs, small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups have a specific role in ensuring economic growth in a more sustainable and inclusive manner – as they continue to be involved in the development and innovative ICT – enabled solutions with a unique potential to make a long lasting impact in national, regional and global economies and also as an important source of new jobs. The fundamental role of ICT innovators and SMEs is also reflected in the outcomes of the World Summit in the Information Society (WSIS) which was supported by the World Telecommunications and Information Society Day (WTISD 2016) which was celebrated on the 17th May 2016 – with a theme aligned to ITU’s work in unlocking the potential of ICT’s for young innovators, entrepreneurs, innovative SMEs, start-ups and technology hubs as key drivers of innovative and practical solutions for catalyzing progress in achieving international development goals – with a focus on SMEs from developing countries.

There is progress in Africa in the advancement of ICT in transforming the economy of the continent. Bringing Rwanda under the spotlight here – as the Global Information Technology Report (GITR) 2015 – ranked Rwanda first globally for government success in ICT promotion to drive social and economic transformation and according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Report – Rwanda scored 6.2 points out of 7. Overall Rwanda was ranked No 83 out of 143 countries – positioning Rwanda as the first country in the region and the 5th in Africa. Upon the release of the GITR 2015 report – Rwanda’s Minister of Youth and ICT stated that “Rwanda continues to be one of the fastest growing African countries in ICT and there are several avenues for growth for the ICT sector – from e-commerce and e-services; mobile technologies; applications development and automation to becoming a regional centre for the training of top quality ICT professionals and research”. A robust ICT industry creates wealth, jobs and entrepreneurs.

New developments in Rwanda’s ICT scene include KLab, a youth innovation hub; Think, a technology hub in Kigali; Rwanda Media Hub; The Office and YouthConnekt. Also, the new Kigali Innovation City attracted the first Carnegie Mellon University campus in Africa.

Whereas South Africa is ranked No 5 in ICT infrastructure in Africa – after Seychelles, Libya, Mauritius and Algeria, Rwanda’s high performance was boosted by its One-Laptop-Per-Child policy which saw a distribution of more than 200,000 laptops to grade schoolers.

Various ICT initiatives have also leveraged the transformative opportunities presented by this sector in Africa. The initiatives borne by the ICT sector in developing Africa’s digital economy include:

• Connect Africa Initiative: a global partnership mobilizing the human, financial and technical resource needed to bridge major gaps in ICT infrastructure across the continent which saw a pledge of more than $55 billion.
• International Fibre Connectivity: a number of submarine cable backbone projects proposed in recent years with coverage of 70, 000 km coastal line and estimated cost of $6.4 billion (East African Submarine Cable System; SEACOM; The East Africa Marine System TEAMS)
• East African Broadband Network (EABN): implementing an integrated East African Broadband ICT Infrastructure Network – providing cross border connectivity between 5 East Africa Community partner states (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda)
• South Africa Region Backbone – SATA Backhaul: aimed at improving cross border links that would interconnect the SADC member states through optical fibre networks and link them to submarine cable system including the Eastern African Submarine cable System (EASSY).

In conclusion,  ICT’s has the potential to transform businesses and governments in Africa – driving entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth. ICT has and plays a pivotal role in enhancing African regional trade and integration as well as the need to build a competitive ICT industry to promote job creation, innovation and the export potential of Africa companies. The future looks certainly bright as Africa seizes the opportunities and employ the transformative power of ICT’s to accelerate its development. ICT driven Africa is a continent where its people prosper – where communities connect and flourish – where businesses thrive – where government enable strong and sustainable development. Africa’s ICT is certainly poised for stupendous growth.

By Dipolelo Moime, CEO, Legato Consultancy Ltd.

Follow him on twitter: @DipoleloMoime 

I like that Graham is sparking dialog on this important topic. He puts himself “out there”, even if it means being exposed to some withering critiques.

His essay caused me to step back and reflect on the fact that I am seeing more entrepreneurs inspired to harness the power of some of the forces he describes – entrepreneurship, technology, innovation and shockingly fast productivity – to make a positive societal impact. I would like to see this trend continue. I’d like to see more Impact Entrepreneurs (a concept I first saw coined in an article in Wired Magazine by Adam Levene) not just wealth-creating entrepreneurs. Impact entrepreneurs are inspired to direct their entrepreneurial energy and skill to make a difference, help a group in society, right a wrong or turn around an injustice. Not just build the next Candy Crush Saga.

Don’t get me wrong – I love wealth-focused entrepreneurs, too. As a venture capitalist, investing in and supporting entrepreneurs focused on turning Flybridge’s seed and Series A investments into something very valuable is my day job. But if we want to unleash the full power of entrepreneurship and technological innovation to better society, more entrepreneurs need to direct their energy to truly making an impact. This effort can take a few forms. Some examples and trends are:

• Mission-Driven, Double Bottom Line – Double bottom line companies measure their success on both financial performance and social impact. They are typically mission-driven companies with founders who are passionate about the mission for its own sake rather than financially driven where the company’s focus is a means to an end. One of our portfolio companies (sprung out of Paul Graham’s Y-Combinator), Codecademy, aspires to teach the world to code for free. The founders are focused on helping millions of people learn to code so that they can improve their job prospects and move up the income ladder. A company I co-founded back in 2000, Upromise, is focused on helping families save money for college, a necessary ticket to the American Dream. At its peak, Upromise helped over 10 million families save over30 billion. Both of these companies are mission-driven, bottom-line for profit companies that raised lots of venture capital money, hired great people and built businesses focused on generating profits. There are many others like them, particularly in the world of education, health care and financial services.

• Impact Investing – A new class of investors is emerging at the intersection of financially-driven investments and social initiatives called impact investing. I am seeing impact investing funds popping up all over the world (e.g., one from Israel came into my inbox this morning). Deval Patrick, former Governor of Massachusetts, recently joined Bain Capital to start a new impact investing fund to find a sustainable, middle ground between profitable investments and social responsibility. The field is still unproven and there are many questions to be sorted out (e.g., should the investment return target be similar to “regular” investing or consciously lower?), but this notion has led folks to talk about “triple bottom lines” for firms: financial, social, and environmental.

• Public Entrepreneurship – Another powerful trend is directing entrepreneurial skills and efforts to innovate in the public sector. At Harvard Business School, Professor Mitch Weiss teaches a class called Public Entrepreneurship that focuses on this area. The notion is that entrepreneurs can work with civic leaders to make a difference in the world through technology, social change, and/or political transparency. Public Entrepreneurship can be for profit or not for profit. Not for profit examples include President Obama’s Open Government Initiative, which has included making massive amounts of government data available to the public in machine readable form. Google’s ambitious Sidewalk Labs is a for profit effort in this area, focused on applying technology to solve urban problems. The thesis of many public entrepreneurial efforts is that if both the government and the private sector can cooperate across silos, sharing information and tools to innovate together, we can materially improve the infrastructure and welfare of our communities.

• Social Entrepreneurship (aka Non-Profits That Act Like For Profits) – Social entrepreneurs are non-profits that draw on business techniques to address social issues, but explicitly in a not-for-profit structure. EdX, an ambitious joint venture created by MIT and Harvard, is an an example of a non-profit that acts like a for profit. EdX hires top engineers and marketers focused on building an online learning platform that teaches college-level courses worldwide for free, radically expanding global accessibility to high quality education. Another example isGoogle.org, whose mission is to develop products that give nonprofits the technology or the funds they need to implement change. Since 2010, they have raised over20 million to fight human trafficking and child abuse, which was given to multiple organizations that are ready to use the money quickly and effectively.

Each of these examples represents relatively new models for blending innovation, technology and entrepreneurship to achieve a social good. There are really interesting hybrid models forming, which is why Mark Zuckerberg did not create a charitable fund when he created his multi-billion dollar initiative, directing his wealth to social impact.

To further this trend, perhaps Y Combinator, Techstars and other accelerators should be creating a social entrepreneurship track. And more business schools should be creating public/social entrepreneurship courses to inspire young entrepreneurs to take their passion for social change and find ways to create scalable, positive impact.

Human progress is often the result of multi-disciplinarian efforts. I am optimistic that the trends Paul Graham points to – and is in the midst of helping accelerate – are going to ultimately have a very positive impact on society at all levels. But it will take some inspired entrepreneurs to get us there.

By Jeff Bussgang