Esoko is an agricultural market information platform. It takes advantage of the explosive growth of mobile communication services in Africa. Managed on the web and delivered via mobile, individuals, agri-business, government and projects use Esoko to collect and send out market data using simple text messaging.

Esoko was founded in 2005 as TradeNet by Mark Davies, who also founded BusyInternet years ago. TradeNet was rebranded as Esoko in April 2009 and its investors are: Jim Forster, the International Finance Corporation, and the Soros Economic Development Fund.

In case you missed the memo, Africa is rising. Having been largely ignored in the development of the Internet, things have been changing rapidly in the past decade with telecommunication companies forming alliances with financial institutions to bring serious data connectivity into Africa, and with it, lots of potential for prosperity. You can thus understand [...]

Enthusiasm for the six African countries that qualified to play in the on-going FIFA World Cup 2010 was very high. Considering the tournament was being hosted in Africa for the first time, the general feeling among Africans was that retaining the cup in Africa would be the best way to crown the historical event. It [...]

MTN, the leading cellular network in Africa, is an official sponsor of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africaâ„¢. They have been leveraging their pan-African presence with ads & promos all geared towards increasing their market share. Since MTN is pan-African, supporting a particular national team would make no sense. Thus, AfricaUnited is born. AfricaUnited is [...]

As the Internet penetrates the world’s second largest continent, there is no better way to reach Africa’s youthful population. The Internet is increasingly becoming a medium of sharing information in Africa and leading brands and media houses are in the loop to take full advantage of this medium, in marketing their goods & services. My [...]

This year’s African Cup of Nations tournament – Angola 2010 – has not been short of drama. A few underdogs have made a mark by spoiling the chances of football giants while some favourites who even qualified for the South Africa 2010 World Cup tournament (Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Tunisia) have witnessed an early exit. Last [...]

26th August 2008 – Grand Bassam, Cote d’Ivoire I get to see more of Grand Bassam today. The main hospital, Cote d’Ivoire Telecom offices, the Police, market square, taxi park, and every other thing typical with a small town in a west African country. One thing sets Grand Bassam apart though, it once served as [...]

Monday, 25th August 2008 My flight to Abidjan from Accra aboard an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 757 jet was uneventful. Landing at the Félix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport gave me a good idea of Cote d’Ivoire today. The airport though having good facilities was largely deserted and the activities way too low for an international airport of [...]

I have been using e-gold for about 5 years now and the journey has been quite good until recent times. These days, using e-gold has become more of a nightmare than anything else. e-gold is quite popular among regular Internet users in some African countries. I am sure of Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. Why? [...]