AfricArena announces more top speakers for Tunisia summit

With organisers announcing more high-profile speakers, the official countdown has begun for AfricArena’s upcoming North Africa summit hosted in Tunis, the capital, and the largest city of Tunisia.

Held on 30 and 31 August 2022, the two-day conference will feature pitches from more than 20 start-ups between the seed and growth stages. With a growing start-up culture in Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania and Libya, investors will be keen to meet the movers and shakers solving some of the region’s challenges through technology.

This, as AfricArena announced that angel investor Zaghnin Aya has also been confirmed for the summit held in partnership with the GIZ, Expertise France and Smart Capital. As an early-stage investor focusing on pre-seed and seed start-ups in the Middle East and Africa, she sits on several fintech, logistics, retail and healthtech boards in the African ecosystem.

Also, Aya is an advisor to the GIZ-SAIS investment readiness programme which targets start-ups in agriculture, among others. Having been featured as a shark on the Moroccan version of the Shark Tank TV show, she is passionate about empowering a new generation of African investors.

Top speakers to touch down in Tunisia

Besides Aya, Satoshi Shinada, a partner of Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures will also make his way to the Old City of Tunis. Since 2019, the Harvard graduate has led investment in nearly 50 start-ups across West and North Africa.

Earlier, Satoshi was the investment manager at Sojitz Corporation in charge of investment in infrastructure and energy projects. Based in Lagos in Nigeria, he also served as director of Sojitz Corporation Nigeria from 2010 to 2014.

Furthermore, AfricArena has secured Dr Ola Brown, the founder of Flying Doctors Healthcare Investment Company, and journalist and Express FM animator producer Wassim Ben Larbi.

Other top speakers include Open Start-up Tunisia chief executive Dr Houda Ghozzi, Breega founder Ben Marrel and Zach George and Mohamed Karar, both from Launch Africa Ventures. Besides being managing partner, George is also the co-founder and chief investment Officer of Startupbootcamp Africa, the leading multi-corporate backed venture accelerator program in Africa.

Start-ups are urged to register online as a series of virtual pitching sessions are set to commence in August already. Successful start-ups will then go through to the Tunisia summit to showcase their innovative tech and business solutions. Delegate tickets are also currently on sale.

AfricArena VC Unconference

“We are extremely excited to hold an exciting week of events starting with the AfricArena VC Unconference followed by the AfricArena North Africa Summit, which is going to assemble investors from the different corners of the region,” says Christophe Viarnaud, the founder of AfricArena and chief executive of technology firm Methys.

Two days before the Tunisia summit, selected start-ups will also be invited to take part in a day-long bootcamp facilitated by Start-up Village, a community of start-ups and network partners with a focus on AI and Quantum, and The Dot, Tunisia’s leading hub for digital innovation and entrepreneurs.

Also, parallel to the founders bootcamp will be the much anticipated, invite-only North Africa Investor Unconference. This is where Africa-focused start-up investors and venture capitalists will take part in discussions and workshops centred around co-investing and how to ease the process in investing in tech start-ups on the continent. Between 20 to 30 investors are expected to attend.

AfricArena is a leading African tech ecosystem accelerator. Through a series of online and offline events, it accelerates the growth of tech start-ups and the ecosystems in which they operate by providing a platform where they can share their business models, gain valuable networks and attain funding.

Super early-bird tickets to the Tunis summit can be secured online.

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