A company based in Cameroon and run by a 26-year-old entrepreneur is building high-tech drones for African customers with more than 50 contracts across the continent.
Entrepreneur William Elong is the CEO of Will & Brothers, a company he founded in 2014 as a consulting firm-turned-drone manufacturer, according to Weetracker.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 24: Delane Parnell
Jamarlin talks to prodigy Delane Parnell, founder and CEO of high-school esports company PlayVS, which just raised a $15M series A round.
In 2016 Elong made the Forbes Magazine list of most promising African entrepreneurs under the age of 30.
Elong earned a bachelor’s degree in sales management from HEC Business School Yaounde at age 15 before traveling to France in 2012, where he earned his MBA.
He became the youngest graduate of strategy and economic intelligence at the School of Economic Warfare in Paris, BusinessinCameroon reported.
When he returned to Cameroon, Elong started a consulting business to help African investors, startups, and governments understand the value of information technology.
He soon discovered the potential of drone technology and raised $200,000 to fund a project in the Will & Brothers portfolio named DroneAfrica, according to ENCA.
This project was dedicated to manufacturing civil drones for use in multiple applications.
Four years later, in 2018, the company produced its first drones and now has more than 50 contracts to manufacture them for clients across West and Central Africa, Weetracker reports.
Clients include Piccini, an Italian construction firm that is building a local soccer stadium, and CRIFAT, a Cameroonian company that monitors agricultural projects in the country, according to AllAfrica.
The drones are able to help businesses and public enterprise with a variety of services including cartography, media coverage, support for agriculture and even the detection of gas in mines, TheCitizen reports.
At the beginning of 2019, Elong raised $2.27 million for the expansion of the Drone Africa project, according to Afrikatech.
Elong did not disclose who the investors were.
