American Inventor Finds Opportunity in Africa

Posted by Joni Holderman on Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 8:24am.

Peter Hansen is in the vanguard of a new breed of American entrepreneurs - those who are eager to do business in Africa.

Hansen is co-founder and chief scientist at PointCare Technologies. His company manufactures a device that helps public healthcare agencies in rural and urban areas with limited resources diagnose AIDS.

The African adventure hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Hansen or his employees. He recalls the time an employee making sales calls in Burkina Faso tried to travel to the Ivory Coast. Unfortunately, sporadic hostilities between the two countries had flared up. The salesman was detained at the border and accused of being a spy.

After a few tense hours during which he was shoved by customs agents, the employee was left alone in the interrogation room for a few minutes. He quickly dialed Hansen on his mobile phone. Hansen in turn called the American Embassy, who were able to assure the Burkina Faso authorities that the “spy” was actually a legitimate salesperson.

“The same salesman still travels between Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast,” Hansen notes. “But now he connects via London. It’s a longer, more expensive flight, but it saves misunderstandings.”

Despite a few setbacks, Hansen says that the potential for sales in Africa is too big an opportunity to ignore. Across the continent, the economy of Africa is growing as fast as that of China. Some countries including South Africa, Namibia,  Mauritius, Botswana and Kenya have booming economies that welcome new investors and established businesses.

Some other problems are minor issues of culture and language. Hansen emphasizes that vendors who wish to do business in Africa must appreciate that every country has its own culture, business climate and social mores. “Botswana is as different from Kenya or Burkina Faso as it is from Singapore,” Hansen says. “Business people, especially American or European business people, need to understand and honor the culture.”

“We gave the Burkinabe testing agency two units to try out,” Hansen notes. PointCare management was amazed when the units failed to perform. After a number of phone calls, Hansen learned the reason. The testers had replaced the English-language QWERTY keyboard with a French-language one. That was a logical step to take in Burkina Faso, where the official language is French. However, the machine was not set up to handle the alternate keyboard.

Hansen’s co-founder and wife, Petra Krauledat, concurs. “The headaches of Africa are no different than the headaches of Russia or China” in terms of doing business there. In fact, Krauledat has compared Africa today with the tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs in Russia shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Some of the company’s most successful installations have been in Africa, including a mobile HIV-clinic in the back of a specially outfitted four-wheel-drive. The new “hospital on wheels” permits a single doctor to provide care for more than 40,000 residents in Uganda.

Despite the drawbacks, Hansen says there are enormous rewards for those who do business in Africa. He notes that at one clinic in Kenya, townspeople wept when the new equipment was installed, because they would finally be able to get the care they needed. Hansen’s voice grows husky when he says, “Nobody’s going to cry in Chicago.” He adds that knowing they are helping people makes it all worthwhile.