Jessica Francisca Colaço

Jessica Francisca Colaço is a TED fellow and co-founded Brave Venture Labs based in Nairobi and San Francisco with Ibanga Umanah; East Africa’s first Network Science Lab and Brave Academy. Brave Academy is career accelerator for emerging professions in data science, design, and entrepreneurship.

She co-founder the iHub with Erik Hersman in 2010 and served in various leadership positions – She was the Director of Partnerships and Community at iHub, the Founding Manager between 2010 and 2011 at iHub and Research Director between 2011 and 2013 at iHub Research. She is currently writing a book about her journey at iHub and how it all happened (The genesis of the Silicon Savannah).

She is passionate about Innovation, Research, Mobile and Robotics Technology, Mentorship and Entrepreneurship in Kenya and as an African Startup Evangelist and Mobile and Robotics Tech Evangelist and uses her position in Kenya to court local, regional and international stakeholders to adopt Kenyan-made and African-made solutions. As an angel investor, she courts local and international investors to invest in great tech ideas and companies at idea and concept stage.