Interview with Dieudonné Kayembe, founder of Motema based in Kinshasa

This article was contributed to TechCabal

Noel Ok. Tshiani, founder of Congo Business Network, speaks in this unique interview for TechCabal with Dieudonné Kayembe, founder of the startup Motema. It goals to supply telephones and tables straight from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Tell us a bit about your self and your skilled background.

My identify is Dieudonné Kayembe Kabukala, managing director of Flèche Technologie (Flechtech) and Motema LLC. I’m a pc scientist who graduated from the University of Kinshasa with a level in arithmetic and data expertise. And I maintain a number of patents, certificates, and deserves at each nationwide and worldwide ranges. I’m a younger Congolese from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who got here from nothing, and I’m a passionate dreamer and visionary.

Aware of the wealthy potential of the underground and the strategic place that my nation occupies in the centre of Africa, my dream is to offer the Democratic Republic of Congo with a strong expertise business and a digital coaching centre of reference.

I need to arrange a producing and meeting plant to supply telephones and tablets domestically in Kinshasa.

What does your startup do and why did you launch it?

The venture Motema is an element of the enlargement of the actions of Flèche Technologie, a Congolese startup. This firm operates in the expertise innovation sector. It specialises in the design and manufacturing of digital units reminiscent of telephones, smartphones, tablets, and laptops produced domestically beneath the Motema model.

The identify Motema means “heart” in Lingala, one of the nationwide languages spoken in the DRC. This phrase embodies the fervour and love that the creator of Motema has for the African continent in basic and for the Democratic Republic of Congo in specific.

The basic goal is to make our contribution to the realisation of the imaginative and prescient of the Head of State Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo “to make the Congolese digital sector a lever for integration, good governance, economic growth, and social progress”.

How are you going to resolve the issue of supplying electrical energy to your manufacturing facility?

First of all, we selected to arrange our manufacturing line in Gombe to resolve the problem of electrical power, as a result of in Gombe we now have good electrical energy in comparison with different locations in Kinshasa. Despite this, we typically have energy cuts, and we use the generator and photo voltaic panels.

As far as expertise is anxious, the place did you discover technical expertise to work in your startup and do you could have coaching for brand new staff?

To be aggressive in the market, steady coaching is an obligation for us. We have a programme known as Motema Academy, a coaching centre for Congolese youths on digital jobs, with a number of modules on skilled training.

What can the federal government do to assist tech startups in order that they’ll succeed?

The nationwide authorities can certainly work with the startup ecosystem to make sure that our actions bear fruit by constructing on the promulgation of the legislation on startups that the President of the Republic put in force final September.

The measures to be taken under consideration embrace: placing in place an efficient framework to assist Congolese startups; facilitating entry to credit score; offering exemptions; and giving simpler entry to contracts for the availability of tablets, telephones, and computer systems in all private and non-private establishments.