Umati Africa is derived from a Swahili word “UMATI” which in English translates to mean “CROWD” or “PEOPLE”. Umati Africa is a business entity that was registered and established in June 2015 to provide advertising platforms through the use of motorcycles.
Umati Africa, founded by Nganga Muiruri is a socially minded technology company that aims to improve the welfare of workers in a variety of informal sectors throughout East Africa and beyond. They partner with motorcycle riders registered and operating as groups or Sacco’s, motorcyclist who are experienced and trusted in East Africa, to provide various services, including motorcycle transport, motorcycle advertisement, and home delivery of products among others.
Basically, Umati Africa is a social company that only needs to change the effective system of motorcycles through modern operational modernization. They have even developed app that operates similarly to taxi operating systems.
Research indicates that each motorcycle transport provider has a minimum of 20 regular clients who utilize their services regularly, and another ten with whom they are well acquainted. Hence, a consolidated network of 750,000 motorcyclists-a goal set to be reached by the organization in future-would reach just over 20 million customers.
Further research revealed that Kenyan companies spent 85 billion shillings on advertising in 2014 compared to 79.2 billion in 2013. Big spenders such as Telecommunication companies, marketing and E commerce companies are willing to spend colossal amounts of money to either increase their customer base or introduce new products and services to the market.
Despite these huge spending by companies, very little of the advertisement revenue has trickled to the rural areas, Umati Africa intends to change this by giving opportunity to the Kenyan youth to earn income, as they continue providing courier and transport services. Once motorcyclists join a Sacco, those in the Sacco can then register to benefit, earn from advertising, transportation and other services that Umati Africa will be launching over time.