Entrepreneur   Designer   Traveler

Mark has founded six companies, written five children's books, and traveled to over 66 countries. Born in Wales, he studied Social Anthropology at Cambridge, drove ice cream trucks, waited tables, written and interviewed for TV, and crewed hot air balloons. His passion is where Technology, Anthropology and Development meet. Currently working on a health app and mentoring startups, he lives in Lisbon, works in Accra and vacations in Salvador.

METROBEAT (CITYSEARCH)

First Online CityGuides 1995 (Founder)

The award-winning Metrobeat innovated new editorial formats and live content technology. Serving all events and activities in New York, Metrobeat merged with CitySearch in 1996 to establish guides throughout North America and Australia. CitySearch merged with Ticketmaster and had a successful public offering in 1998.

FIRST TUESDAY

Global Matchmaking Events 1999 (Co-Founder)

Along with Adam Gold and Nick Denton, First Tuesday was founded to connect the internet community in London. Quickly finding traction as a matchmaking opporutnity for investors, entrepreneurs and media, FirstTuesday spread into 40 countries with over 500,000 members and was sold to an Israeli Venture Fund in 2001.

BUSYINTERNET

Ghana Incubator 2001 (Founder)

An old gas-bottling factory in Central Accra was converted into a cutting edge technology centre offering public access, private offices, acceleration services, and public debates around the opportunities technology could offer to Ghanaian entrepreneurs. A controlling stake was sold to Afrimax in 2016, who re-focussed the company as a 4G mobile data service.

ESOKO

Info Services for African Farmers 2008 (Founder)

An innovative content and technology platform that collected, curated and distributed agricultural and nutriional information for smallholder farmers in over 15 African countries. Currently Esoko has expanded content and channels (voice, IVR, callcentres) and is leveraging the technology and field teams to facilitate access to rural communites for other service providers.

RACKAFRICA

Accra Co-Location Services 2012 (Co-Founder)

Along with Thomas Hess and Heman Shah, RackAfrica is a Tier4 co-location faciity in central Accra offering professional secure data housing and colocation services. RackAfrica sold a controlling stake to a pan-African co-location startup called PAIX in 2017.

SPARKFUND

Groital Farms, Flame Cuisine (Investor) 2017

Proud to participate and assist in the first two investees for an early stage accelerator fund. The approach is to identify highly talented entrepreneurs facing difficulties in raising first angel or investment rounds. The fund requires the participation of the entrepreneurs as mentors and peers to eachother.

KIPLING PRESS

5 Children's Books 1991 (Author)

Working as managing editor at a small bespoke childrens publishing company, Kipling Press, and authored five books for young adults including a reformulation of the Brer Rabbit stories, some instructional books, as well as the first biography of Malcolm X for young adults.

PRESS

Various Articles & Videos

On the edge from the beginning, the press has tracked Metrobeat as the first local city guide, FirstTuesday as the first UK dotcom matchmaker, BusyInternet as the first large-scale shared techspace in Sub-saharan Africa, and Esoko as the first mobile content provider across rural Africa.

 

2018