AfricArena announces more top speakers for Tunisia summit

Africa’s leading tech ecosystem accelerator, AfricArena, says North African start-ups between the seed and growth stages can still apply to showcase their innovative business solutions at the upcoming Tunisia summit.

Held on 30 and 31 August 2022 in Tunis – the origin city of the so-called Arab Spring in 2010 – the two-day conference will feature pitches from more than 20 start-ups from countries in this region. This includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, among others.

Among the latest speakers announced for the summit counts Abigail Thomson, a senior capacity development advisor at FMO, the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank. Joining her in Tunis is Thapelo Masoko, chief investment officer at Edge Growth Ventures, and Karim Beguir the co-founder and chief executive of InstaDeep.

In January this year, InstaDeep, a Tunis and London-based AI start-up that creates decision-making systems for solving real-world problems, raised $100 million in series B financing led by Alpha Intelligence Capital and CDIB.

AfricArena has also confirmed the attendance of Tarek Chelaifa, senior manager at GSMA, a global organisation unifying the mobile ecosystem to discover, develop and deliver innovation foundational to positive business environments and societal change.

North Africa start-ups are urged to register online as a series of virtual pitching sessions are set to commence soon. 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.

“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.

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