Africa-focused Uganda-based Mara Mentor has launched Mara Mentor app in a move to help young and ambitious entrepreneurs to connect with both experienced business people and peers in their fields.
The app will allow users to access the Mara Mentor community through their smartphone – anytime, anywhere and is free to download onto iPhone, Blackberry, Android and several Nokia smart phones. The app is already available in the iTunes, Blackberry, Google Play, Samsung Apps and Nokia Ovi stores.
To use the app, entrepreneurs just use their email address and password to log in while mentees without smart phones can continue to access the web platform here.
Mara Mentor, which is an online tool to help young and ambitious entrepreneurs connect with experienced business people and peers in their industry was launched in July 2012 by Ashish Thakar, the founder of Mara Group.
At the launch, Thakar told Forbes that the idea of the site started as an offline venture by Mara Foundation which had mentored 120 companies by then and him and the team felt the need to reach out to more youths in Africa and other emerging markets via the internet. The launch of the mobile applications makes takes it a notcher as most of Africa’s youthful population is accessing internet over smartphones.
UPDATE: The release is not a ‘launch’ per se, but a pilot of the app amongst a select group of registered users (nationwide) and a closed group of new users in Nigeria’s Imo State. The finalised app has not been launched.