Emmanuel Chebukati, Co-Founder, Hepta Analytics

Bringing Hybrid Cloud Computing to East Africa

While Emmanuel Chebukati (ENG 2018) and his classmates were studying at Carnegie Mellon University in Africa, they were asked the same questions again and again.

Can you work on my IT infrastructure?
Can you make it go faster?
Can it be more scalable?

Now with the technical skills he gained at CMU-Africa, Emmanuel and his team of five fellow Carnegie Mellon alumni at Hepta Analytics can answer those questions. These scientists and engineers provide hybrid cloud-based business solutions that didn’t previously exist in Kenya and Rwanda.

“We take advantage of the cloud and all the impressive features that it provides to deliver critical services for citizens of East Africa,” Emmanuel says. “We add local context and augment existing technologies to meet the specific needs of our communities. Our work means that local companies can scale infinitely and globally, creating new opportunities for our region.”

In East Africa, local laws mandate that financial data can’t leave its country of origin, and big cloud computing players like Amazon Web Services don’t have a strong presence locally. This void created the opportunity to implement hybrid cloud solutions, but the company’s impact extends even further.

Hepta Analytics also developed a method to analyze youth aspirations data, a bill pay system and an audio data collection platform that tracks cases of retrogressive traditional practices against vulnerable girls.

“We are the techies that are able to work within our countries as opposed to bringing in foreign consultants who may not understand and embrace the local contexts like we do,” he says.

Story by Elizabeth Speed