Hey, welcome to our touchdown with an influencer, where we discuss anything and everything tech with tech Ambassadors. Today we have Fabian-Carlos Guhl of AMPION, an organization that serves as a catalyst for entrepreneurship and innovation in the emerging world. Please, enjoy the interview.
CFA: Please, tell us about AMPION?
Fabian: Our Venture Buses are 5-day startup-competitions: international and African entrepreneurs, team up to create innovative solutions to local challenges – on a bus. On the road the entrepreneurs get in touch with local tech communities.
We encourage our participants to develop solutions in many functional areas, be it healthcare, education, energy, finance or agriculture. For 2015 we are currently working out on how to collaborate with Transparency International to launch an anti-corruption bus. We combine these fields with IT solutions which functions as an enabler, reducing barriers to entry, lowering cost, speeding up growth, extending reach and, thereby, enhancing the potential impact of the business ideas or social businesses.
At the end of the Venture Bus tours our entrepreneurs pitch their business models to a jury of high-level investors and business experts. For 2015 we have requests of partners and sponsors to also launch incubation and acceleration projects to help the Venture Bus teams with their market entry. We want to make sure the positive impact these startups are aiming for can fully unfold and benefit their communities. We are still in the very early stages of setting this up though.
CFA: How did it all start, i.e., whose idea was it?
Fabian: The idea of putting entrepreneurs on a bus together stems from about 2010. Related initiatives have been launched across Europe and the United States. With some of my team 
members I have been working since 2011, when we brought the concept to Germany for the very first time.
When founding AMPION, we were looking for a way to support entrepreneurial talent that has high potential but lacks a big stage to present it to likeminded people and international investors.
CFA: What is your core mission?
Fabian: We want to support as many talented people as possible in successfully taking the path of entrepreneurship. There is plenty of entrepreneurial energy in Africa. The Venture Bus is giving ambitious and determined coders, business experts and designers access to an international audience while also connecting them among each other – so they can team up and create innovative solutions for their local communities. Ideally, this is a win-win situation: Investors learn about the possibilities of the growing African markets and talented young people get access to an important network which is mandatory to start an own business. Meanwhile, the ventures tackle real life day-to-day problems and create jobs by Africans for Africans.
CFA: Why Africa?
Fabian: As mentioned the concept stems from the US and Europe. However, when we started to organize the Venture Buses in Africa, we quickly realized that the demand for entrepreneurial inspiration is possibly as high as nowhere else in the world. Entrepreneurs in the US and Europe value bus hackathons as a nice time off and rarely follow up on their 
startups developed in the bus. In Africa, our participants longed for this life-changing opportunity and were determined about actually following up on their projects. So the Venture Bus impact is twofold: On the one hand it inspires Africans to start their own company by introducing them to a global business network. On the other hand it introduces international investors and companies into the emerging African markets in just a few days.
Our expertise and partnerships across the African market in regards to ICT, startups and innovation are unrivaled amongst international organizations operating in Africa.
CFA: Any Success Stories?
Fabian: While obviously, not all Venture Bus startups go on to steamroll the market, there are quite a few success stories. The Venture Buses from 2014 have only taken place a few months back, but several of the startups are working on developing their prototypes and are in advanced sponsorship talks. The Zimbabwean startup roadrules (@getroadrules) has been invited to exhibit their app at AppsWorld in Berlin, Germany. E-Maji, a 
startup that developed a device to measure the quality of water in real-time to fight the problems of water pollution in Africa, has been invited to the Harvard Business School as one of the 10 finalists for the New Venture Competition 2015. Halt Ebola, our winners in West Africa has recently been featured on the Guardian. There are many other success stories. Our alumni from sterio.me have won several awards and have now started to employ their own staff. All Venture Bus alumni will always remain part of the network and create valuable business ties all across the African continent.
Last but not least, AMPION itself has won the GLOBAL INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM AWARDS for its achievements in developing and growing the innovation infrastructure across Africa. My colleague Marianne Kuhlmann is currently at the Global Innovation Summit in Silicon Valley to accept the award on AMPIONs behalf.
CFA: How do you deal with the issue of ensuring that Africans see this idea as their own idea?
Fabian: AMPION itself, whilst being founded in Germany, would not work at all without our 
team members in Africa who know the local markets and help us set up the schedules for our events. Without the support of people like Francis Chiwunda in Zimbabwe or Tshuutheni Emvula in Namibia, we could not have been able to operate on the pan-African level as fast as we did.
But of course even AMPION itself is merely a facilitator; the great ideas, startups, the designing and the coding behind it – it is all developed by Africans, albeit at times in cooperation with like-minded international entrepreneurs, but always on a high level.
CFA: How long have you been together as a team?
Fabian: With some of the team members, I have been working together ever since 2011, when we organized the first bus hackathons in Europe. However, since it has been a volunteer job for such a long time, some went on to explore new opportunities, some even with startups created on the Venture Bus – like Christopher Pruijsen who co-founded sterio.me.
CFA: What keeps you guys going?
Fabian: It’s the same as with any entrepreneur: First is the 
belief in your vision, which for us is to fundamentally change the world’s perspective on the African market and help the talent on the continent to unleash its full potential, and secondly, the benefit of being able to set up your work environment on your own terms; without an employer holding you back from following your vision.
CFA: What are your future plans?
Fabian: The Venture Bus will remain at the core of our work, as the tool to inspire people all across the continent. We want to repeat the four routes of last year and possibly add two new 
Venture Buses in 2015 to make it a total of six. But we also see the need for continued support with some of the startups. This is why we are in talks with potential partners and sponsors to create our own incubation and acceleration process to walk the ventures through all the steps from team building on the bus right until the final market launch. The depth of this “startup factory” as we currently call it, will depend a lot on the amount of investment we can expect from our partners. We also have plans to add a specific theme frame to some of the Venture Buses. For example, we have been speaking to Transparency International and are considering bringing an “anti-corruption” bus to West Africa which will focus on developing citizen engagement and transparency solutions and raise awareness to the issues in the countries we travel.
CFA: Should we expect to see a physical structure by AMPION?
Fabian: This will be the case if we build the complete “startup factory” including some sort of incubation and acceleration process. If we do this, it will definitely include a physical working space to provide daily mentoring, coaching and guidance.
