American entrepreneur Daniel Epstein, founder of the Unreasonable Institute, told HumanIPO he believes Africa has great opportunities.
HumanIPO met Epstein at the Unreasonable at Sea pitching conference in Cape Town, South Africa, on Tuesday, March 26.
With a trip named Unreasonable at Sea, a team of 11 startups cruise worldwide on an entrepreneurial trip to spread the idea of the world transforming power of technology through entrepreneurship.
Residing in South Africa for a week as part of the 100 day journey to 13 countries, the team has the opportunity to pitch to the local crowd with a few Cape Town based events.
Speaking to HumanIPO, Esptein said: “Africa is definitely the future, there is no doubt.”
He referred to the continent as having fastest growing population group. “There is a massive opportunity,” he believes.
Nils Flaatten, chief executive of Wesgro (the Western Cape Desination Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency), spoke yesterday (Wednesday) at a networking event in Cape Town for the Unreasonable at Sea ship members, on the importance of entrepreneurial investment in Africa as he believes it is to become “a crowded space”.
HumanIPO reported yesterday on the view of the SAP, a partner in the Unreasonable journey, which described Africa as “Disneyland for entrepreneurs” during an opening speech at the event on Tuesday, March 26.
“Empathy builds empires,” Esptein said, explaining that he hopes empathy is the most important thing the tech startups gain on their trip around the world.
He views this value as a “deep rooted” skill.
According to Epstein, the idea of the startup cruise emerged from the vision to have entrepreneurs on one island, away from everything with the island becoming the ship.
He relates being on this journey, away from the rest of the world, as carrying a certain “sense of weightlessness”.
Inspired by his label as being ‘unreasonable’, Epstein started the initiative as part of the Unreasonable Institute in Colorado.
In his speech on Tuesday, Epstein shared the quote by American author George Bernard Shaw, on which his ‘unreasonable mission’ rests: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
“Whatever comes our way, we are going to have to adapt,” Epstein said.
Kamran Elahian, chairman and co-founder of Global Catalyst Partners, said in his speech: “Entrepreneurs are agents of change”. Elahian was also one of the judges at Tuesday’s pitching event, which was won by oil spillage clean up robot startup Protei.
HumanIPO reported yesterday on the interest from various South African sectors in the Unreasonable initiative and the startups that pitched on Tuesday at the One and Only Hotel.
Almost half of the tech startups are currently aiming to expand into the African market.
Furthermore, Africa is represented on the journey by Botswanan startup Solar Ear which manufactures solar-powered hearing aids.
After the unreasonable visit to South Africa, the team will travel to Ghana.
The next Unreasonable at Sea pitching session will take place in the Bandwidth Barn, in Woodstock, Cape Town, today at 3pm SAST, as the entrepreneurs will present and connect with startup accelerator 88mph’s ten startup teams.
