Sauti selected as one of the 15 Most Promising Startups at Nairobi Innovation Week. Sauti will be presenting it’s pitch to investors and partners on Fri, Mar 9 for a chance to win KSHS 500,000. Follow us on Twitter for regular updates! […]
We launched the Swahili version of our platform, making Sauti the first trade information platform available in both English and the official language of the EAC. We added new currencies to our real-time exchange rate information service and… […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]