There are 442 active tech hubs in Africa. This is according to research by the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator.
The new research carried out between January and March 2018, looked at both Asia Pacific and Africa, which together are home to a thousand active tech hubs.
The research defined tech hubs as “physical spaces designed to foster and support tech startups” and includes incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces, fab labs, makerspaces, hackerspaces, and other innovation centres.
Lagos has now taken over as the African city with the highest number of tech hubs (31) and potentially the leading innovation hub on the continent, according to the report, this follows MEST, Google and Facebook announcing the opening of local tech hubs between 2017 and 2018. It is followed by Cape Town with 26 tech hubs.
According to the the report, countries like Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, for instance, have experienced a significant growth in the number of active tech hubs over the past year.
Since 2016, the Ghanaian ecosystem – home to hubs such as MEST and iSpace – has grown by 50% (from 16 to 24). Similarly, Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire has gradually positioned itself as the new catalyst of innovation across Francophone Africa and has seen its number of active tech hubs double. Zimbabwe (13) and Uganda (16) led the way in ‘tier 2’ ecosystems in Southern and East Africa respectively.
See below for more details about Africa’s Tech Hub Landscape.
