He Built a Security Alarm After His Mother's Café Was Robbed. What Is Ezedin Kamil Building Now?
Ezedin Kamil went from building a security alarm after his mother's café was robbed to developing software products and digital commerce businesses in Ethiopia.
Remember the 18-year-old Ethiopian inventor whose work drew attention in 2020? One of his early inventions followed a robbery at his mother's café. His name is Ezedin Kamil, and he built a security alarm to help prevent another incident.
Using an old mobile phone, Kamil created a system designed to alert his father whenever someone touched the café door after business hours.
The alarm was one of his early attempts to use technology to solve a problem he had seen firsthand.
The boy from Atat who liked taking things apart
Kamil grew up in Atat, a rural village in Ethiopia's Gurage Zone. As a child, he enjoyed dismantling electronic appliances and trying to put them back together.
In ninth grade, he entered a district science fair and won second place with an app designed to automate coffee and tea orders.
He later received an award from the Wolkite City Education Bureau for his work on the café security alarm.
He joined a STEMpower centre in Wolkite and participated in an entrepreneurship programme run by STEMpower in collaboration with Visa.
He went on to study engineering at Addis Ababa University and software engineering at Istanbul Zaim University in Turkey before returning to Ethiopia to build technology businesses.
Inventions beyond the security alarm
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kamil developed a contactless soap dispenser, a ventilator prototype and a wearable device intended to remind people not to touch their faces.
In May 2020, Deutsche Welle reported that a local university had produced 50 of his soap dispensers for distribution to banks and hospitals in Wolkite. Kamil also spoke about the funding difficulties that limited the wider deployment of his inventions.
ADF Magazine also covered his work that year, including the no-touch dispenser, which has a foot pedal for power cuts.
Another project was X-Fire, a fire alarm system designed to detect smoke and automatically contact designated people and a fire-control agency. He also developed solar-powered transport prototypes, including a three-wheeler designed to run on solar power or electricity, with the aim of reducing reliance on fuel.
From inventions to software and e-commerce
Kamil launched Icon Africa, an IT engineering business, in 2019. He later became involved in other ventures, including Hex Labs and Ibex Technologies and Promotion PLC.
Ibex develops software and software-as-a-service products.
Kamil said the company had developed more than 400 software solutions for clients in seven countries. Its iCard product, which allows users to create digital business cards, had attracted more than 5,500 subscribers in its first 11 months after launching in May 2024, he said.
His work in online commerce took shape through Tina Mart, launched in 2024. The platform connects buyers and sellers through a website and mobile app.
In May 2025,Tina Mart secured US$150,000 in seed funding from Singapore-based Penataran Group for a 10% equity stake. In a December 2025 interview with Addis Media Network, Kamil said Tina Mart had grown to more than 300 shops, 4,000 products and 17,000 registered vendors, and had created 20 jobs.
In December 2025, Tina Mart also announced an agreement with the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange to develop an electronic commodity-trading platform.
The agreement outlined plans to extend digital commerce into commodity trading, though it did not establish that the proposed platform was already operating.
What is Ezedin Kamil doing now?
Kamil's work now extends from software development to online commerce. Through Ibex and Tina Mart, he is building businesses around technology, years after that first security alarm brought his inventive work to wider attention.
A June 2026 profile by Forbes.et described Kamil's portfolio as comprising 37 inventions and 14 patents.