[8][9] MEST was unveiled in 2007 when Meltwater founder Jorn Lyseggen announced plans to establish an entrepreneurial training program in Africa.

[11] In 2015, MEST cut down the duration of its main Training Program from 2-years to one year, reducing classroom time in favor of practical exposure and enabling trainees to start building their businesses sooner.

[12] In January 2015, MEST partnered with Vodafone Ghana to sponsor a 48-hour hackathon to help develop access to information, simplify transactions and shorten business processes.

[15] MEST hosted the first Africa Technology Summit in November 2015 in Accra, Ghana, with the event featuring panels and keynote presentations from a variety of global and African businesses.

[23][24] In December 2016, MEST hosted the second Africa Tech Summit in Lagos, Nigeria, including speakers from Google, Uber, Interswitch, Vodacom and Samsung.

MEST sponsors aspiring African entrepreneurs to complete a 12-month program focused on software development, business fundamentals, and entrepreneurship.

[34] Upon completing the training program, the best business ideas are provided seed funding and incubated as MEST portfolio companies.

[40][41] Since then, MEST has organized the competition each year offering up to $50,000 in equity investment to African entrepreneurs as they build and scale businesses on the continent.