Sitting on some of the world's largest untapped oil and natural gas reserves, the region is experiencing a surge in investment and construction. Five-star hotels are dotting the skyline and luxury condo complexes with names like "American village" are opening on the outskirts of the city.

If not for a view of the ornate Uganda National Mosque or the sprawling, congested taxi park in the distance, it would be hard to tell that Outbox, a technology incubator and accelerator, is in a high-rise in Kampala (Uganda’s capital city) and not some non-descript office building in Silicon Valley. The vibe is intense and laid-back all at once. Modern, cushy chairs and long conference tables are used by casually-dressed young people typing furiously on MacBooks in a quest to create the next big thing.

INDIAFRICA, a shared future which was launched in Nigeria in August 2011 at Lagos Business School is "a unique people to people and youth outreach programme that brings Africans and Indians together through competition, creative exchanges and collaboration". The finals which held last September at the City Hall, Lagos, featured presentations by 9 teams from Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and India.

Rather than encouraging and welcoming entrepreneurs, America is turning them away in droves.

Competitors, be it hard currency (trade) or hardware and software (information technology), India and China are, and have reasons to be, competing in exercising their soft power as well. Inheritors of ancient cultures that have influenced others for centuries, both vigorously "export" them as part of "soft diplomacy".

Several weeks before, in Algiers in December 2010, the U.S. State Department had launched the North African Partnership for Economic Opportunity (Napeo), bringing together over 300 entrepreneurs from Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya.