Silicon Dar is taking shape, what are we doing about it?

Slowly part of Bagamoyo Road between Bamaga and Morocco junction is becoming the technology district of Dar es Salaam, “Silicon Dar”, with all the major telecom companies and startups establishing their offices in the area. What are we doing about it?

Building a technology park from scratch is costly, at least at some point this was the dream of my former boss and mentor Dr. Hassan Mshinda. His love and passion towards using science, technology, and innovation to address societal problems pushed him to believe technology and innovation are powerful tools to empower young people through technology entrepreneurship.

Dr. Mshinda contributing on the topic, “How Can Dar es Salaam Become a Smart City” during Sahara Sparks 2017 Event.

Our passion towards technology and innovation made us to spent a lot of time learning different models and innovation ecosystems across the globe with the aim of replicating them back home, from what was happening in Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv (Startup Nation), Helsinki, Silicon Cape (Cape Town) to even explore the success of our neighbors in Nairobi. We were so inspired with what was happening at Ngog Road (some hubs have shifted), the stories of Silicon Savannah pushed us to become disruptive and try anything that was coming in front of us. We were at the pick of innovation. The feeling was simply, innovate or die.

Even though we had all this energy the dream of having a technology district was never a reality. The biggest challenge being lack of investment funds and political willingness.

Fast forward few years later, when the dream of technology district aka “Silicon Dar” is looking like is fading away, something interesting is happening naturally. Slowly part of Bagamoyo Road between Bamaga and Morocco junction is becoming the technology district of Dar es Salaam, “Silicon Dar”, with all the major telecom companies, startups, innovation spaces and consulting firms establishing their presence in the area. For those of us with passion in technology entrepreneurship and innovation this is an exciting event to witness happening. It is not everyday you witness the technology district forming up itself naturally without investment or political commitment. The lost dream of having our own tech district in Dar es Salaam is coming back with Bagamoyo road showing us how to do it.

One road where you can find all necessary blocks that support the growth of innovation and technology entrepreneurship in Tanzania, I bring to you “Silicon Dar”. I tried to capture the area using Google Map 3D view.

What is available
All the necessary components needed to support the growth of technology, entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem are aligning automatically in one road. All the blocks are shaping up. College of ICT of University of Dar es Salaam gave us the academic sector block. The existence of all major telcos operating in Tanzania; Vodacom, Tigo, Halotel and Airtel forms the private sector block and technology partner block. Banks provides alternative source of funding, of course when you empower them to understand how startups work. In this same road, you find hubs and incubators such as Buni Hub, Data Lab, DTBI and few meters from Morocco bus stand you find Sahara Accelerator. Also, the public sector organizations mandated for science, technology, innovation and communications are also on the same road, COSTECH, TTCL, UCSAF and the recently established Data Center.

Building blocks that can make a stable startup ecosystem, the same blocks are the one driving efficient technology districts across the globe (We have edited a bit to fit our needs).

What is missing
Even though some components of a functional ecosystem might be missing e.g funding agencies, investment firms, etc but already you have the major three components of the ecosystem, the academia, the public and private sector in the same road. It can’t be easier than this to formalize this place as a technology district and put together policies and strategies to promote and empower young entrepreneurs working in this area. One thing that is also needed is the change of mindset of our academic institutions. The mindset of our academic and research institutions needs to move from just focusing on academic and research to start emphasizing on innovation and entrepreneurship, the concept of third generation University.

The Changing Role of Universities. Our Local Universities Needs To Catch Up.

What I would have done if I was a decision maker
Massive Investment on buildings and infrastructures is no longer needed, what we need now is just a political will, working on strategies to support the idea and promote the concept to investors and partners. You never know, may be this can make Tanzania the first country in Africa with the first formalized technology district at the heart of its financial capital. And finally our long-standing dream of having a technology district can become a reality without using millions of taxpayers money.

Jumanne is a CEO and founder of Sahara Ventures, Sahara Ventures vision is to build Tanzania (Africa) innovation and technology entrepreneurship ecosystem one block at a time. We started with the event Sahara Sparks (tech entrepreneurship event), and then corporate and venture backed accelerator, Sahara Accelerator and soon will be working with partners on launching an investment network for Tanzania entrepreneurs. Join our mission by emailing us at operations@saharasparks.com