1. Jean-Claude Bastos
de Morais
Angolan-Swiss Entrepreneur
www.jeanclaudebastosdemorais.com

2. Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais
Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais (born October 28, 1967 in Fribourg) is a Swiss-
Angolan entrepreneur who has founded and led several businesses over the course
of his career. Among these are Quantum Global Group, an international investment
group with a particular focus on Africa and Banco Kwanza Invest, Angola’s first
investment bank.
Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais is an entrepreneur and innovation specialist with a
deep interest in African socio-economic development. In 2007, Mr. Bastos de Morais
founded Quantum Global Group, an international group of companies focused on
African development, particularly in the fields of corporate finance advisory, asset
and private wealth management, real estate and investment consulting.
As Founder and Group CEO, he provides instrumental guidance on financial
markets, especially across Africa and other emerging markets. In 2014, he
established Quantum Global Research Lab, which aims to provide bottom-up
econometric models for inclusive development in Africa.
In 2008, Mr. Bastos de Morais founded Banco Kwanza Invest, Angola’s first
investment bank. As a Member of the Board, he advises on the bank’s strategic
direction.
At the core of his innovation-related work is the African Innovation Foundation (AIF),
an organization he founded in 2009 to drive African-led development through
fostering innovation. The AIF implements the annual Innovation Prize for Africa
(IPA), which was launched in 2011 in partnership with the United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa (UNECA). In 2012, the African Union (AU) and the United
Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) passed a resolution to promote
an innovation-based society in Africa.
Mr. Bastos de Morais is on the advisory board of the Official Monetary and Financial
Institutions Forum (OMFIF) and the University Of Cape Town Graduate School Of
Business. He is a member of the International Board of Foundation for
Globethics.net, a leading global network that advocates ethical corporate and social
practices.
Beyond his work, Mr. Bastos de Morais also has wide-ranging interests that span
literature, music, art, science and community service.

3. The Publicity-Shy
Entrepreneur Unleashing
Innovation in Angolan Slums
I first heard about the Innovation Prize for Africa in 2012, when my Nigerian friend
Julius Akinyemi, an entrepreneur-in-residence at the MIT Media Lab told me about
his involvement with the prize as well as with the Zurich-based African Innovation
Foundation, the organisation behind the prize. ‘You have to find a way to meet
Jean-Claude,’ Julius told me. ‘You and he have a lot in common.’
Having found out that he started the African Innovation Foundation in 2009 with a
mission to ‘unleash Africa’s dormant potential and support sustainable projects that
improve the lives and the future of people in Africa,’ I started asking various people,
mostly my African entrepreneur friends, about Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais.
I was told that he was a controversial, enigmatic, publicity-shy Swiss-Angolan
businessman who began his career as a management consultant and eventually
made a fortune in technology, banking and real estate businesses while in his
thirties. Now 49, he runs a multi-national conglomerate that spans several high-
growth industries from Switzerland to Angola and beyond.
Organising the TRUE Africa interview itself was no easy task, because we discovered
several layers of protection around Bastos, who tends to stick to a small group of
advisors, including Pauline Mujawamariya, a Rwandan-American dynamo of a lady
who runs the Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA). I caught up with Jean-Claude via
Skype on December 5th, the day after I met his communications advisor Walid El
Alaoui Mrani in Lomé.
Walid had flown to Lomé, the city where I was born, where he announced, on stage
as we were about to give the grand prizes for this year’s edition of our Forum of
Young Entrepreneurs that the total prize money for the IPA 2017 was US$150,000,
including $100,000 for the first prize. Walid encouraged our young Togolese
entrepreneurs to apply, noting the fact that in 2014, one of the winners was from
Togo. He was referring to Logou Minsob, who invented the now popular Foufou Mix
machine.
The African Innovation Foundation’s delegation had recently embarked on a series
of West African roadshows in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Togo to meet with
government officials, industry leaders, investors and partners and discuss the
bidding process leading to one of those three countries hosting the next Innovation
Prize for Africa event, in 2017.

4. Jean-Claude Bastos de
Morais: Africa’s innovation
guru
Thank you for your time Jean-Claude. Among much more, your passion for
education, knowledge and innovation is very palpable and laudable. To begin
with, what drives this passion?
I guess you could say that I’m driven to create. I’ve always been that way, pushing
the envelope, defying norms and testing new ways to do things better and faster. In
a way, the passion for innovation is in my blood. My grandfather invented the light
feature in watches way back when Swiss-watch making was still a very traditional
industry. I must have inherited some of his traits because I am drawn to disruptive
ideas that shift mindsets and influence positive change
You are considered one of the Most Influential Africans- named so in the New
African Top 100 in 2013- how do you measure the impact your influence has had in
Africa, more so through AIF and IPA?
For me it’s not about measuring impact. I invest in Africa because I believe in Africa’s
potential. I feel so grateful that I have a chance to contribute to the continent’s
incredible growth story even if in small measures. But if I had to single out one
example, the defining moment would be in 2012, when AIF awarded the inaugural
Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) during a joint conference by the African Union (AU)
and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa.
During that conference, African Ministers passed a resolution to support AIF in
promoting innovation-based societies across the continent. Today, we have created
a movement. We have the largest database of African innovators, over 6,000, and an
expanded network of multi-sectoral audiences who are driving African innovation
forward. Of course, there’s so much more to be done but it’s gratifying to see more
and more African nations joining this movement for innovation-led growth.
While everyone agrees that innovation, more so homegrown innovation are key to
Africa’s still fledgling development – the sector is one of the hardest to achieve on
a broad and impactful level. What do you consider to be the worst hurdles
affecting innovation in Africa today? What holds us back?
I think you’d be somewhat surprised if you scratched beneath the surface. There is
an inherent innovation spirit that is stealthily fueling its way across the continent.
And it’s not just a fad, it’s very real indeed. Despite the fact that we’re a continent
made up of 54 countries, the one thing that is uniting Africans is this spirit. The
continent is seeing a sharp rise in home-grown innovative solutions (as reflected in
initiatives like IPA) across the agriculture, healthcare, environment, transportation
and technology spectrum.

5. Jean-Claude Bastos de
Morais: Africa’s innovation
guru
That said, let us look into the area of Agriculture for example, which is extremely
crucial to Africa’s development and food security, and hence innovative ways of
scaling up this sector are key. In the same vein, agriculture in Africa is largely
female-led, yet this is the demographic that is inarguably at the bottom rung in
terms of educating girls and women in innovation and technology. Girls are still
largely encouraged to take up domestic/social subjects as opposed to sciences or
STEMs – which are mainly linked to innovation. Does the AIF have some deliberate
policies to help encourage girls and women into sciences, tech and innovation?
AIF isn’t in the policy-making space but we do of course try to strategically influence
policy through our flagship programs such as IPA. While IPA applications from
female innovators have remained below 20 percent, we know they’re out there. We
know they’re fronting incredible innovations that solve African-specific challenges.
Last year, one of the second prize winners was a young South African woman,
Imogen Wright, who invented a software solution that enables healthcare workers
to determine HIV positive patients’ responsiveness to ARV drug treatment. In 2015,
another South African woman, Prof. Lesley Erica Scott, won second prize for her
invention that examines the accuracy of machines used to TB detect and diagnoses.
For IPA 2017, which will be held in Ghana this July, AIF under the patronage of the
First Lady of Ghana, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, will introduce a workshop aimed at
nurturing and encouraging a vibrant ecosystem of women innovators across Africa.
As women are crucial to the overall prosperity of the continent, we need to step up
efforts to mobilize key enablers across the innovation, education and business
spectrums to catalyze female innovators in Africa.
It’s the 6th IPA being celebrated this year. Looking at the roll call of the top entries
and winning projects, Africa truly has some outstanding talent. In six years, which
of the project/s do you believe has been most impactful and sustainable?
All of the top entries and winning projects are impactful and sustainable because
those two facets are central to the judging process. We also judge on the basis of
commercial viability and scalability since a great idea can only go so far if it cannot
sustain itself as a commercially viable solution. All past IPA winners have gone on to
do well for themselves, taking their innovations further while impacting key sectors
such as healthcare, agriculture, ICT, energy, environment and water, and also
manufacturing and services.

6. Sources
www.jeanclaudebastosdemorais.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Bastos_de_Morais
www.africaninnovation.org/jc.bastos.html
www.newafricanmagazine.com/jean-claude-bastos-de-morais-africas-innovation-
guru/