Mtanzania ajumuishwa kwenye orodha ya gazeti la Independent (UK) la wajasiriamali wanaolibadilisha bara la Afrika
Mwanzilishi wa kampuni ya AIM Group ya Tanzania, Hafiz Juma aliyeanzisha kampuni hiyo pamoja na ndugu zake, Nadeem na Shaista Juma amejumuishwa kwenye orodha ya Waafrika wanaolibadilisha bara la Afrika ‘African dawn: Meet the entrepreneurs transforming their continent’ ya gazeti la Independent la Uingereza.
Hafiz Juma
Hivi ndivyo lilivyoandika gazeti hilo.
The AIM Group in Tanzania was founded in Dar es Salaam by three siblings; Nadeem Juma, Shaista Juma and Hafiz Juma. The company initially focused on infrastructure deployments that made use of digital content such as interactive kiosks, motion-controlled projections and installations. It is now involved in a number of projects, including the Dar es Salaam International Academy and Efulusi Africa, a research and development company for mobile payment solutions.
“We are fifth-generation Tanzanians – we can trace our roots in the country to at least 1890,” Juma tells me. “We are of Indian descent and make up a minority of Indian Tanzanians, who have a complicated history in themselves.
Juma studied in New York before co-founding Efulusi Africa in 2004, a company that deployed the first mobile banking platform in Tanzania. Then, in 2011, he created the AIM Group. In the past 18 months, the company has grown from a team of three to 25.
This success apart, the tech environment in Tanzania is still emerging compared to its neighbour, Kenya, which attracts money, investment and development by IT behemoths such as IBM. The company’s recent launch of IBM Research-Africa, in Nairobi, is the company’s 12th global laboratory and the first commercial research lab on the continent.
Juma recognises that Kenya is ahead of Tanzania in tech and economic development. “As a Tanzanian, I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but we definitely face stiff competition from Kenya that has begun the process of creating a culture for innovation. It also has a much more educated working population, so you will often see Kenyans in management positions in Tanzania,” he says.
But Tanzania is also putting itself on the international stage through events such as the highly influential TEDx talks that have proliferated around the world. Juma was instrumental in setting up the first TEDxDar event in 2010. “It is one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve ever had,” he says.
“Economically, Tanzania is in a transitional space. Like everywhere else on the continent we are as caught up in the hype of ‘Africa rising’, it being the next hot-bed for growth, the ‘final frontier’ and all the rest of the conventional rhetoric about investment in the region,” he concludes.
