MEST Africa to honour Dusit D2 terror attack victim

The Meltwater Educational School of Technology (MEST) will honour an American techprenuer who died during the Dusit D2 attack in Nairobi earlier in the year.

MEST, the Pan-African tech training program of Silicon Valley firm Meltwater, will re-name its building based in Accra, Ghana after Jason Spindler, an American who was among the 21 people killed during a terror attack in Nairobi in February.

Spindler was the founder and managing director of I-Dev International, a business development firm based in the Kenya. He was also a friend to Meltwater founder and chief executive Jorn Lyseggen.

“In memory of Jason Spindler, we have decided to name the MEST building in Ghana,” said Lyseggen.

The Meltwater CEO made the announcement to honour Spindler during the opening of the MEST Africa Summit on June 11 that was held at Radisson Blu, Upper Hill.

“Here in Nairobi, there is one friend that I don’t see, and that’s Jason Spindler,” he said.

The Silicon Valley based techpreneuer described Spindler as “fantastic, smart, optimistic, and passionate.”

Lyseggen also revealed that Spindler was instrumental in ensuring that Nairobi was a host city of the Pan-African summit.

“He was a big proponent to bring MEST Africa summit to Nairobi. The plan was to bring it to Nairobi in 2018,” he said, before the political mood in the country made it to be switched to Cape Town, South Africa.

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“Jason should have been here, sadly he is not. We lost him too early along with the others who lost their lives at the terror attack,” he said.

MEST is a Pan-African entrepreneurial training program, seed fund, and incubator. It was launched in 2008 in Accra, Ghana.

The program estimates that it has trained over 330 individual entrepreneurs, with nearly 60 tech companies having been launched via seed funding and mentorship.

It held its fourth Pan-African summit in Nairobi from June 11-12 where three startups emerged victorious in the pitch competition, MEST Africa Challenge.

Kenya’s WayaWaya, Oze from Ghana, and Snode Technologies from South Africa were granted the Ksh5 million equity investment from MEST and Ksh25 million in credit from Microsoft for having the most competitive pitches.

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