Addressing a packed audience of investors, regulators and international finance managers, Ashish Thakkar, CEO of Mara Corporation, a technology company headquartered in Kigali, Rwanda, was proud to introduce a new mobile phone brand, MaraPhone.

Thakka has had ambitions to develop a smartphone handset made in Africa, by Africans for the African market and beyond. His company, Mara Corporation, has a presence in almost half of the 53 countries in the continent.

Thakkar is passionate about his views that if the Americans have Apple, the South Koreans Samsung and the Chinese Huawei, it is about time Africa has its own brand.

“Finally, Africa has Mara,” Thakkar told the summit gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the first week of November 2018.

Organised to provide a platform for prospective investors and project owners in the continent, the African Investment Forum was held as a first, but more than an event. Admasu Tadesse is president of the Eastern & Southern African Trade & Development Bank (TDB), one of the dozen financial institutions active in the continent who partnered with the African Development Bank in organising the forum. The forum was designed as a “deal-making and transactional platform.”

Although “transactional” was the theme, the three-day forum was characterised as a shopping spree for international capital to put their money in projects like the one presented by Thakkar. His was one of 302 projects that tabled close to 209 billion dollars at the forum. And the biggest lure was the potential in demography, a rising middle class, consumption and potential as an agricultural hub that Africa is believed to offer international capital between now and 2050.

With an estimated size of two billion people, the continent is expected to surpass China and India combined in 30 years. Africa possesses 65pc of the uncultivated land available in the world, with the potential to develop a one-trillion-dollar agribusiness industry by 2030. It has a growing middle class and expanding consumer base with an estimated 5.6 trillion dollars of spending capacity in seven years.

“Think about it,” said Akinwumi Adesina (PhD), president of the AfDB, luring international investors and guests that included Sahle-worq Zewdie, Ethiopia's president, and other heads of state. “Where is the continent that will have the highest number of youth in the world and could become the workshop of the world? Think of China and India today, but it will be Africa in 2050.”

It is a projection shared by Chris Coons, an American Senator, who believes that better than anyone, it is China that figured that “the next China after China” will be Africa.

Nevertheless, the continent has massive deficiencies in public infrastructure from roads, ports, power and transport. Experts at the AfDB estimated that Africa needs up to 170 billion dollars a year in infrastructure financing. Current investment inflow into Africa is only eight billion dollars a year compared to the 45 billion dollars that Latin America receives, a fact that presents both challenges and opportunities. A glass half full is what the energetic and hyperactive President of the AfDB chose to describe it as.

“There is no doubt that we are all here at a historically-defining moment for investments in Africa,” Adesina told the gathering. “We're doing business differently. Africa needs to start believing in itself.”

That difference is about changing the perception by the global investment community that views Africa as a high-risk destination and changing the narrative of the continent riddled with conflict. Launching a high-tech product to break into a highly competitive and cutthroat global market is part of the effort to change these negative narratives.