Hive Colab is an open, collaborative, community owned, work environment for young tech entrepreneurs to focus on projects, access the internet, have a quiet professional environment to develop their ideas in, hold events and generally collaborate. Something very similar to what our friends are doing with the iHub in Nairobi.
It will be a space for nascent application developers to register as freelancers, if they are looking for paying projects that people need to be done around the world. An exclusive list of project and clients available through the pan-African consortium of incubators, AfriLabs.
Participant projects will remain wholly owned by their creators, although there there will be access to a network of investors looking to cherry pick some of the more promising ideas for investment, also through AfriLabs.
The only requirement to membership, is that applicants actually be working on projects, and thereafter they must be able to show progress on their ideas to retain membership. This is to keep energy high and to favour people who remain productive. There will be other types of memberships available to be announced soon.
For those who occasionally need space to host events and trainings relevant to the purpose, we are happy to offer Hive Workspace as an open venue. All applications to use the space will be approved by the board. Our goal is to establish the first Hive at the present location, and eventually expand by opening another Hive in a different parts of Kampala to make it a convenient resource for everyone.
It is important that the Hive operate independent of any contributing stakeholders, so that it is not any one person’s or group’s property. Thus, all decisions are made by a community board.
The Hive board currently consists of Teddy Ruge (Project Diaspora), Daniel Stern (UConnect), Solomon King (NodeSix) and Jon Gosier (Appfrica Labs).
How come the board only consists of Men? Do not need any ideas from Women developers?
I will be glad to join once membership is open.
Actually, the Hive itself is managed by a woman, Ms. Barbara Birungi and we have a women board member who recently joined, Marieme Jamme who founded Africa Gathering.
Barabara wanted to join the board but the Hive has a rule that no more than one person from a company can hold a board seat at the same time. Since I was a founder, and Barbara also works with me at Appfrica, it doesn’t make since to make an exception for Appfrica that we shouldn’t make for any of the other companies.
Furthermore, anyone can join the board. We welcome anyone who’s proactive and ready to be involved.
Kudos to Jon and team ! please stay in kampala,Uganda for life 🙂