Photo : UNCTAD, CC BY-SA 2.0
Rebecca Enonchong
Tech entrepreneur, leading figure of African tech and ICC vice-chair
Born in 1967-07-11
Related city : Buéa
Who are they?
Rebecca Enonchong was born on 11 July 1967 in the South West Region of Cameroon; her father, the barrister Henry Ndifor Abi Enonchong, helped found the Cameroon Bar Association. Moving to the United States as a teenager, she earned a BS and an MS in economics at the Catholic University of America, then worked for the Inter-American Development Bank and Oracle. In 1999 she founded AppsTech, an enterprise applications company based in Bethesda, Maryland.
What made them famous
She is best known for championing African start-ups: she chairs ActivSpaces, an incubator in Buea at the heart of the ecosystem nicknamed Silicon Mountain, and the board of AfriLabs, the pan-African network of innovation hubs. As early as 2002 the World Economic Forum named her a Global Leader for Tomorrow. On 18 June 2026 she became a vice-chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, the first African woman in the role.
Key facts
- At 15 she was selling newspaper subscriptions door to door, and by 17 she was a manager at the same company.
- Her handle, @Africatechie, has become her nickname in tech circles.
- In 2014 Forbes listed her among the 10 Female Tech Founders to Watch in Africa.