Of Africa’s one billion people, 650 million own mobile phones, yet most still lack meaningful access. Experts project that 750 million Africans are “digitally excluded,” this is because Africa is the world’s most expensive region for data. Martin Stimela, CEO of Brastorne Enterprises is committed to and passionate about affecting these figures and giving all Africans digital access.
Martin Stimela is Co-Founder and CEO of Brastorne Enterprises,an organization in Botswana committed to connecting 750 million Africans, who lack access to today’s digital world to the benefits of digital access. Before founding Brastorne, Martin served as Deputy CEO of Botswana Savings Bank (BSB), becoming the youngest banking executive at the age of 30 years.
He has worked in several other financial institutions and corporations in Information and Technology (IT) Transformation.
His entrepreneurship journey started with the realization that we all have the same need as human beings, the need to connect, belong and to be informed. The internet easily facilitates this and provides a wealth of opportunities to individuals.
However, not everyone has the same opportunity and access to this resource, instead access is limited to those who can afford. This insight inspired Martin to explore SMS (Short Message Service) and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) and ultimately Brastorne Enterprises was born.
To date and as a result of its partnership with telcos in Africa, Brastorne Enterprises has reached 1.7 million users in total, with 300,000 users in Botswana, this being 40% of the Orange mobile network base in the country.
In May 2021, Brastorne Enterprises expanded to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), further launching its mAgri service and within six months had reached nearly 800,000 subscribers. The company is planning to expand its footprint to Cote d’voire, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, Guinea, Cameroon and Burkina Faso by the end of 2022, which is a combined market of 49 million feature phone users.
Founded in 2013, Brastorne Enterprises connects the unconnected in Africa by providing internet access and app-like services to the poorest people, who are unable to afford smart-phones or data. Brastorne has built a suite of products targeting the 300 million feature phone users in Africa, who are amongst the poorest and marginalized.
Through Brastorne services, these under-served communities have access to trade (mobile market-place), information, knowledge sharing, market prices, without the need for data/internet.
