Mwonyaa is a media company founded in 2020 by Jacob Odur, an entrepreneur and technologist based in Gulu. Mwonyaa is an Acholi word describing satisfaction, something beautiful and admirable and Jacob, his co-founder, Patrick Okello and their colleagues are building digital and analog tools that enable African entertainers and creatives to easily curate and monetize their works. Their latest product is Mwonyaa stream which is a hybrid audio streaming and e-commerce platform.
The birth of Mwonyaa came about because much of African entertainment is not digitized and very difficult to access this means that it is largely unorganized and under monetized making it almost impossible to find all works by an African musician in one location and in a way that users can easily access. Furthermore all current foreign offerings are not built for the way Africans consume entertainment and build their culture
The Mwonyaa engineering team is focused on improving and building our core product; the streaming platform while the Content and growth team works with creatives around Africa to get their works on the platform. It also aims to create a hybrid model that allows for both analog and digital access keeping in mind the current digital divide access and internet connectivity challenges around Africa. The team’s efforts are currently capped because of the small size of the enterprise so it is looking at raising funds to increase team size especially in the engineering and growth departments.
As a social enterprise Mwonyaa focuses on working with creatives to preserve African culture for future generations, to be innovative and to experiment and to improve access while earning income and living dignified and fulfilled lives. A key aim is to make it easier for Africans to create and interact with the wider African entertainment sector. A second important aim is to create dignified and diverse income streams for people involved in the creative sector including but not limited to traditional artists and creatives by providing business development, technology access and label services.
Though the enterprise is new the reception has been very positive with an ever increasing number of creatives using the current beta version of the streaming platform.
Good luck to Jacob and Patrick and their team!