Seven African start-ups have made the World Economic Forum’s list of 100 ‘technology pioneer’ companies. This will give them the opportunity to participate in WEF discussions and events for the next two years.

The seven include m-Health, a Ghanaian start-up that reduces the prices of medical products by negotiating bulk purchases, and Kenya’s Sokowatch, a logistics company that offers digital delivery and financing solutions to small-scale businesses in East Africa.

“These companies show great potential to not only shake up their industries but offer real solutions to global problems,” said Susan Nesbitt, who heads WEF’s Global Innovators Community, in a 15 June statement.

“They’ll bring great value to the World Economic Forum’s mission of improving the state of the world with their participation in the Technology Pioneers community,” she said.

The 2021 list also includes 54gene, a company specialising in African genomics based in Nigeria and the United States. The recognition is “truly an honour,” said the company’s director, Abasi Ene-Obong, in a statement.

“This is testament to the outstanding collective output of the 54gene team to address global health disparities, and to imagine a world where precision medicine applies equally to all irrespective of one’s geographical location or economic status,” he said.

The other African companies on the list are:

Cambridge Industries (Ethiopia)—turning waste to energy and creating sustainable cities

FlexFinTx (Zimbabwe)—producing digital identity wallets for paperless Africans

Kuda (Nigeria)—offering e-services for credit and banking in Africa

Moringa School (Kenya)—training young Africans in technical and soft skills