Betul Teklu

Ethiopian entrepreneur and founder of Betul Tech, revolutionizing financial inclusion across Africa through accessible fintech solutions

Betul Teklu is a visionary Ethiopian entrepreneur and founder of Betul Tech, a leading African fintech company that has transformed financial accessibility in underserved communities. Established in 2020 during the pandemic's economic crisis, her company developed mobile payment platforms tailored for rural populations lacking traditional banking infrastructure. Through partnerships with local governments and NGOs, Betul's innovations have enabled over 5 million users to access savings accounts, microloans, and insurance products via basic feature phones.

Her groundbreaking work earned recognition from the World Economic Forum's Global Innovators list in 2022 and inspired UNDP's Africa Digital Finance Initiative. Betul's leadership emphasizes gender equality, with 70% of Betul Tech's engineering team comprising women developers. She advocates for tech solutions that respect cultural contexts, such as integrating local currency systems and multilingual interfaces in Amharic, Oromo, and Somali.

In 2023, Betul launched FarmerPay, a blockchain-based agricultural payment system that connects smallholder farmers directly with global buyers. This initiative reduced middleman fees by 40%, increasing farmers' net incomes by an average of 25%. Her TED Talk 'Building Tech for the Last Mile' (available at TED.com) has been viewed over 2 million times.