African Tech Roundup

Uganda’s most closely contested election in decades pitted the victorious incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, against seven other candidates, including his former doctor, Kizza Besigye, and ex-prime minister, Amama Mbabazi.

While polls leading up to the election showed that Mr Museveni had a comfortable lead over his nearest rival, there was still the open question of the winning candidate needing to secure more than 50% of the vote to avoid a run-off with the second-ranked contender. (Mr Museveni eventually won 60% of the Ugandan vote.)

Following a government-ordered social media blackout, many Ugandan journalists, activists and even some presidential candidates spent last Thursday (election day) posting social media updates on ways people could access social media via VPN Services like Tunnelbear. And while it’s widely believed that Mr Museveni engineered the social media ban to ensure his victory, it has to be asked, was this a legitimate attempt to keep elections free and fair, or simply an outright violation of human rights?

Joining Andile Masuku on the African Tech Round-up this week to debate that question as well as to give his candid take on other high-profile legal issues to come out of Africa’s digital tech and innovation scene of late, is lawyer turned co-founder of LexNove, Kyle Torrington.

Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Facebook is still smarting from having Free Basics kicked out of India. Clearly no one was more upset by India’s emphatic rejection of Mark Zuckerberg’s walled garden project than venture capitalist and Facebook board member, Marc Andreessen, who took to Twitter last week to express his frustration at the country’s decision— a move that was met by global outrage.

Nevertheless, we have Andreessen to thank for inspiring our discussion on this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-up, and re-igniting the debate around net neutrality, and whether companies like Facebook ought to be supported in their efforts to provide "internet lite" to the world’s poorest who would not otherwise access the web at all.

Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Siyabulela Xuza is a young engineering graduate from Harvard, who got his start in science very young, experimenting with rocket fuel in his mother’s kitchen in a little rural town in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

While still very young, he would later become quite well-known for his prowess in the field of energy engineering, winning numerous awards and endowments from around the world— so much so that he even had a planet named after him.

These days, he’s back on the continent, and alongside spearheading a business focusing on the commercialisation of solar cells and related solar technologies, he serves as Brand Ambassador for French oil giant, Total.

This chat features Siya, and Total’s GM for the company’s Marketing Services Competency Centre (Pty) Limited, Dr Jerry Gule.

No doubt about it— it’s an unsettling time to be an Uber driver in Kenya. This past week, more reports of intimidation and violence against Uber drivers have been reported in Nairobi. And you can be certain that the beef is not over Uber’s shocking new logo.

It appears Uber’s presence in the East African nation has begun to to seriously offend the nationalist sensibilities of some Kenyans. In this week’s discussion on the African Tech Round-up, Tefo Mohapi and I try and wrap our minds around the angst surrounding Uber in Kenya and ask a simple question, “Should Uber Leave Kenya?”

Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

The soul-destroying Twitter outages and more recent SEACOM broadband disruptions notwithstanding, the team at the AfricanTechRoundup.com has been extremely busy since we properly got 2016 on the go a few weeks ago. So busy in fact, that Tefo Mohapi was unable to join Andile Masuku on the show this week. (Heads up. This week’s episode will be uncharacteristically short, but informative, nonetheless.)

Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

We had to face a tough truth this week. The fact is that we are complicit in the perpetuation of horrible crimes against humanity. And if you’re reading this right now, it’s likely that you are too.

If you’re an enthusiastic user of the useful tech products made by the likes of Apple, Sony and Samsung (as we are), then you’re contributing to the on-going exploitation of children as young as seven years of age in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-up, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku discuss the disturbing implications of an exposé recently put out by Amnesty International and African Resources Watch (Afrewatch), which names and shames leading technology manufacturers who use cobalt sourced in the DRC in lithium-ion batteries found in their products. (Fast fact: The DRC produces at least 50% of the world's cobalt.)

There’s no doubt that there’s an argument for how companies and governments need to be held to account, but we as consumers need to realise that ultimately, it is we who wield the greatest economic leverage to influence commercial and political interests to act ethically.

The pertinent question is therefore less, “What will they do about it?” but more, “What are we going to do about it?”

Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

African lawmakers are struggling to come to grips with the opportunities and threats presented by various important innovations being spurred by technological advancement— this as they carry out the unenviable task of safeguarding public welfare.

In this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-up, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku discuss some of the more troublesome regulatory issues that are cropping up in countries like South Africa, Kenya and even Morocco— where VoIP apps have recently been banned unless they operate under telecommunications licenses.

Also in this week’s show, a snippet from a conversation Andile Masuku had with Rohan George— a Nigerian-born, South African Art Director who is now based in Mexico. Find out what Rohan considers to be invaluable to helping empower youth in the developing world to solve some of the most critical problems facing society.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

We’re just loving this trend of brilliant Africans crashing our podcast recordings. The last time that happened we had a total blast with Rebecca Enonchong, Mark Kaigwa and Thebe Ikalafeng.

This week, Nigerian software engineering heavyweight, Emeka Okoye, literally walked into the room as Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku were chatting about about how Africa seemed to be responding to Netflix’s surprise roll-out of its service to pretty much every corner of the planet. Be sure to listen in to hear him share his thoughts on the impact (or lack thereof) that Neflix’s entry into the Nigerian video-on-demand market is likely to have.

Then, in place of our regular discussion segment this week, we’ll be sharing an interesting chat Andile had with Aaron Fu, Managing Partner (Africa) at NEST— recorded when he and Tefo hung out with him during his first proper visit to Johannesburg recently. They talked about everything from what he’s personally looking forward to in 2016 to what strikes his fancy in his professional capacity as the head of a leading VC firm on the continent.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Happy New Year!

The African Tech Round-up team is only one week away from being back on strike to bring you the most important digital, tech and innovation news from across the African continent.

This week though, we round off our coverage of the Annual Round-up 2015 with two awesome keynote addresses. The first is one is entitled, “Where To From Here” presented by Musa Kalenga who is Africa Client Partner at Facebook, as well as Head of Brand, IAB (SA). And the second talk entitled, “Digital African: Your Ides Matter” is presented by Founder & CEO of SeeSayDo, Kali Ilunga. (Apologies for the poor sound quality in the first half of Musa’s talk.)

We couldn’t think of a better way to ring in the New Year. After all, the only thing better than a single dose of inspiration is two.

Digital Africans, charge!

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

We let you in on a panel discussion from the Annual Round-up 2015 that covered some of the past year’s highlights from from a gadgets and apps perspective.

Andile Masuku leads this laid-back conversation with Deputy Editor of Stuff Magazine and Technology Analyst, Craig Wilson, Director of Project Fable, Kojo Baffoe and Digital Content Specialist at Caxton Magazines and Contributor at TechGirl.co.za, Jade Brennan.

While we talked about everything from wearables to virtual reality— highlighting what tickled our fancy in 2015, we did eventually have to come to terms with what we, as African tech enthusiasts and early adopters, ought to care about far more than we currently do. After all, TIA.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0