Newsletters | Sauti

September Update

Towards a Just(ice) Economy

Our investor, the HiiL Innovating Justice Accelerator, produced a short documentary on the justice needs of small & informal business owners in Uganda. Starring our Field Manger, David Orega, the video features Sauti as one of the innovative social enterprises leveraging East Africa’s fast paced trade and business environment to empower business owners and relieve the justice needs of SMEs. The video was produced and directed by Nathalie Dijkman and co-produced by Daug Mulumba.

Sauti Visits Kampala

In July, Sauti traveled to Kampala, Uganda to meet with our partners EASSI, Infotrade, Farmgain and key government and civil society stakeholders, […]

June Update – Pilot Launch

You may remember that we were last preparing for the soft launch of our platform. The Sauti mobile platform is now live! Read the latest on our continued efforts to build a sustainable startup, one determined step at a time.

Soft Launch of Our Mobile Platform

As a culmination of Sauti Africa’s efforts to date, we held the ‘soft’ – or test – launch of our platform mid-June on the Kenya-Uganda border town of Busia! Building on the results of months of preparation, our energetic team spent the week in Busia training 40 Kenyan and Uganda women cross-border traders.

Although we began with just 40 traders, since then […]

April 2017 Update!

This newsletter comes on the heels of a busy month as we prepare for the soft launch of our platform! We won’t bother you with all the internal machinations of getting a company started, but we can assure you: it always takes longer than you initially plan and there isn’t a boring moment. We’d instead like to bring you our most interesting content. Read the latest on our continued efforts to build partnerships, engage with traders at the border, and forge a path to sustainability for Sauti.

Sauti Wins Palladium LMIP Challenge Fund

We are thrilled and honored to be named a winner of the Palladium Group’s Let’s Make It […]

February 2017 Update

We’re excited to announce new support to our pilot through the EAC-GIZ Incubator for Integration and Development in East Africa (IIDEA) and generous pro bono legal support from the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Also, please give our new Customer Discovery Report a read!

Sauti and EASSI Awarded GIZ-EAC IIDEA Prize

The joint proposal we submitted with our partner, the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI), has emerged best out of 100 applications in the prestigious EAC-GIZ Incubator for Integration and Development in East Africa (IIDEA) competition. IIDEA is a joint initiative between GIZ and the East African Community (EAC) designed to […]

January 2017 Newsletter

Happy New Year from the Sauti Team!

As we prepare to launch our platform, we are excited to have the results from our initial research and engagement with traders at the border. Entering 2017, we would like to thank our investors, partners and most importantly future platform users for supporting our vision!

Key Findings from Customer Discovery

Over the last four months, Sauti has been engaged in a process of customer discovery, involving both quantitative and qualitative fieldwork at Busia and Malaba border crossings. Through surveys, focus group discussions and informal conversations we have worked closely with the traders to develop a unique, mobile-based solution to the […]

Welcome to the Sauti Newsletter!

Sauti, meaning voice in Swahili, is a mobile-based trade information and social accountability platform for SMEs engaged in cross-border trade in the East African Community. We want to secure economic justice for traders by empowering them with information on trade procedures, documentation and taxes and enabling them to rate their border experience and report any incidents of corruption and harassment. Through the generous support of the D-Prize Challenge and the London School of Economics, we are now piloting our platform at the Busia and Malaba border crossings, with the goal of servicing the whole East African Community within 2 years.

The purpose of this […]