After about 17 months of being one of Nigeria’s most celebrated and innovative taxi hailing applications, Afro (formerly Afrocab) kind of went silent. Afrocab just wasn’t in my face anymore coupled with the fact that it had become a very competitive ecosystem. Then, first week in May, my google plus and twitter friend, Aniedi Udo-Obong updated his Linkedin profile to new post as General Manager at Afro!
Elated does not begin to describe how that news made me feel! Aniedi has got to be one of the most courageous techies I know. In less than two years, he has worked at Paga (1 year), Dragnet (Six months) and the story at these companies was not a fairy tale for Aniedi. Moreso, he took up the role as CEO for Audax Solutions; a code school which won Google Rise Awards 2014 for contribution to the growth of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). After leaving Audax, he joined the then Afrocab technologies as Chief Technology Officer for a year plus before being promoted to GM this month.
Sometimes after working for several companies in a short time, one can feel uninspired and exhausted. I asked Aniedi about his excitement level at Afro and this is what he had to say; “this is a challenging role and it is up to us to give consumers choice, convenience, comfort, transparent pricing, spread rapidly into multiple cities across Nigeria in 3 months! We are positive that this will energize our pan-african vision and establish Afro across a few African cities before end of 2015.” I was tempted to endorse him for motivational skills on Linkedin.
But from all indications, the new Afro team, whose major investors are a group of accomplished and tech savvy African professionals and businessmen have hit the ground running. After the news, I visited the new Afro website afrocab.com and checked out the mobile application on the Android platform (while we wait for it to be available on the others) and I observed things are definitely looking better already.
The website screams metropolitan! It screams day and nightlife! Resonates very well with life on the town! However, changes on the mobile app are more gradual. We still see the (former) Afrocab logo (Silhouette of the big haired lady in black and yellow –which I absolutely love by the way). You’d be impressed to know that setting up the mobile app does not require credit card details; cash is paid to the driver at the end of the ride. Also, a customer can set the price they want to pay for a ride before the cab actually comes and even more, you can choose the type of car you want; Taxi, Private or Luxurious. I thought these options upgrade was brilliant. So, here’s wishing the new team all the best, hoping everyone sports an Afro soon. Not the haircut, the cab!