African Tech Roundup

Last week it was Strive Masiyiwa's Econet Zimbabwe alluding that OTT (over the top) services such as WhatsApp and BBM are the reason they are seeing a drop in voice calls revenue and overall revenue.

Now this week, MTN South Africa CEO, Mteto Nyati, has called for South Africa's communications regulator, ICASA, to look into regulating these OTT players because they haven't invested anything in telecoms infrastructure and they are "reaping large profits".

Is this a fair call?

Isn't it up to us as customers what we use the data we purchase from mobile service providers for?

Or do we need to protect African mobile service providers from OTT services reaping profits from their infrastructure investments?

Also, this week, Tefo Mohapi (Andile Masuku is on medical leave) covers interesting technology, digital and innovation news from Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Tefo Mohapi was invited to speak at Tech4Africa 2015 last week. He shared on the important work that he and his team at iAfrikan are continuing to do in spearheading the ground-breaking Report Xenophobia campaign.

While at the event, Tefo was lucky enough to sit in on a talk by Nic Haralambous, who opened his talk with this outlandish statement, "I believe everyone who starts a business is a bit broken." Nic is the founder of Nic Harry— a successful Cape Town-based “luxury men’s sock company” he built from scratch.

Nic’s thought-provoking views on the realities of startup life and what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur sparked a great conversation that Tefo and Andile Masuku had on this week’s show.

Along with all the week's most important digital, tech and innovation news, do listen in for the low-low on all the cool stuff members of the team at the African Tech Round-up will be getting up to in the final quarter of 2015.

Here's what trending this week:

-- South African tech firm Altron spills how much they made and mostly lost on the doomed Altech Node video-on-demand device,

-- Facebook and Eutelsat set to share the entire broadband payload on Spacecom’s future AMOS-6 satellite,

-- Zimbabwean mobile network operator Econet continues a legal bid to overturn the directive by the Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) for mobile companies to lower voice tariffs, and

-- South African telecoms giant Telkom Telkom is being criticised for exposing customer personal data.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Tefo Mohapi was invited to speak at Tech4Africa 2015 last week. He shared on the important work that he and his team at iAfrikan are continuing to do in spearheading the ground-breaking Report Xenophobia campaign.

While at the event, Tefo was lucky enough to sit in on a talk by Nic Haralambous, who opened his talk with this outlandish statement, "I believe everyone who starts a business is a bit broken." Nic is the founder of Nic Harry— a successful Cape Town-based “luxury men’s sock company” he built from scratch.

Nic’s thought-provoking views on the realities of startup life and what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur sparked a great conversation that Tefo and Andile Masuku had on this week’s show.

Along with all the week's most important digital, tech and innovation news, do listen in for the low-low on all the cool stuff members of the team at the African Tech Round-up will be getting up to in the final quarter of 2015.

Here's what trending this week:

-- South African tech firm Altron spills how much they made and mostly lost on the doomed Altech Node video-on-demand device,

-- Facebook and Eutelsat set to share the entire broadband payload on Spacecom’s future AMOS-6 satellite,

-- Zimbabwean mobile network operator Econet continues a legal bid to overturn the directive by the Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) for mobile companies to lower voice tariffs, and

-- South African telecoms giant Telkom Telkom is being criticised for exposing customer personal data.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

In what is arguably the largest cybercrime scandal affecting cars to date, Volkswagen has admitted to installing software in some of their diesel-powered cars to give out false emission data results during tests.

This scandal affects their other brands like Audi, Skoda and SEAT and has seen the South African government, through the departments of Environmental Affairs and Transport as well as the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications, state that it is investigating into Volkswagen South Africa after the parent company admitted to deceiving USA regulators with the software.

Apart from this raising concerns around the environment and carbon emissions from cars, we also wonder what this large scale software fraud by Volkswagen means for the future of cars given the move to electric vehicles. As you might be aware, electric vehicles are more reliant on software than cars that have an engine and more so driverless cars.

Do we have to worry about cars getting hacked?

Can we trust electric vehicle manufacturers too with their specifications since they'll mostly be software based?

We also have a special guest on this week's African Tech Round-up, Vije Vijendranath. An engineer, startup founder and a co-founder of two children.

Vije gives us his thoughts on the Volkswagen cybercrime scandal as well as on the week's big stories.

Be sure to catch all the week's biggest digital, tech and innovation news from across Africa in this week's episode too.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

In what is arguably the largest cybercrime scandal affecting cars to date, Volkswagen has admitted to installing software in some of their diesel-powered cars to give out false emission data results during tests.

This scandal affects their other brands like Audi, Skoda and SEAT and has seen the South African government, through the departments of Environmental Affairs and Transport as well as the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications, state that it is investigating into Volkswagen South Africa after the parent company admitted to deceiving USA regulators with the software.

Apart from this raising concerns around the environment and carbon emissions from cars, we also wonder what this large scale software fraud by Volkswagen means for the future of cars given the move to electric vehicles. As you might be aware, electric vehicles are more reliant on software than cars that have an engine and more so driverless cars.

Do we have to worry about cars getting hacked?

Can we trust electric vehicle manufacturers too with their specifications since they'll mostly be software based?

We also have a special guest on this week's African Tech Round-up, Vije Vijendranath. An engineer, startup founder and a co-founder of two children.

Vije gives us his thoughts on the Volkswagen cybercrime scandal as well as on the week's big stories.

Be sure to catch all the week's biggest digital, tech and innovation news from across Africa in this week's episode too.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

As avid consumers of new media, it’s hard not to love the ad blocking features Apple has worked into iOS9, and the clever ad blocking apps that are selling like hotcakes on mobile app stores everywhere.

But content publishers are claiming that ad blocking is tantamount to taking the bread out of their mouths, and warn that ultimately you and I will suffer as great content— traditionally funded through ad revenue, will no longer be viable to produce. Meanwhile, it doesn’t help that fake media traffic schemes— powered by bots, are eroding the confidence we all have in the internet’s ability to deliver an efficient and integrous way for advertisers to display ads to targeted audiences.

In this week’s discussion, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku weigh the pros and cons of ad blocking, and discuss how this might shape the future of advertising on the web. Publishers will no doubt need to tweak their business models if they are keep the lights on. It will be interesting to see whether these developments lead brands and publishers to look to native advertising to save the day.

Also in this week's African Tech Round-up, all the week's biggest news from across Africa:

-- South African JSE-listed tech firm, Altron is poised to sell its Autopage subscriber base for an estimated $108 million,

-- Ethiopia rings in the New Year with the launch of Chinese-built light-rail system,

-- Groupon is to withdraw from Morocco as part of its global rightsizing efforts,

-- MultiChoice throws disgruntled Kenyan DSTV subscribers a bone by adding more channels to its "Compact" offering,

-- Kenyan ISP Zuku is keen to woo customers to subscribe for its video-streaming service,

-- A major survey reveals that there is a growing cyberbullying epidemic among South African teens, and

-- Infamous South African Twitter personality, @PigSpotter's identity has been revealed.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

As avid consumers of new media, it’s hard not to love the ad blocking features Apple has worked into iOS9, and the clever ad blocking apps that are selling like hotcakes on mobile app stores everywhere.

But content publishers are claiming that ad blocking is tantamount to taking the bread out of their mouths, and warn that ultimately you and I will suffer as great content— traditionally funded through ad revenue, will no longer be viable to produce. Meanwhile, it doesn’t help that fake media traffic schemes— powered by bots, are eroding the confidence we all have in the internet’s ability to deliver an efficient and integrous way for advertisers to display ads to targeted audiences.

In this week’s discussion, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku weigh the pros and cons of ad blocking, and discuss how this might shape the future of advertising on the web. Publishers will no doubt need to tweak their business models if they are keep the lights on. It will be interesting to see whether these developments lead brands and publishers to look to native advertising to save the day.

Also in this week's African Tech Round-up, all the week's biggest news from across Africa:

-- South African JSE-listed tech firm, Altron is poised to sell its Autopage subscriber base for an estimated $108 million,

-- Ethiopia rings in the New Year with the launch of Chinese-built light-rail system,

-- Groupon is to withdraw from Morocco as part of its global rightsizing efforts,

-- MultiChoice throws disgruntled Kenyan DSTV subscribers a bone by adding more channels to its "Compact" offering,

-- Kenyan ISP Zuku is keen to woo customers to subscribe for its video-streaming service,

-- A major survey reveals that there is a growing cyberbullying epidemic among South African teens, and

-- Infamous South African Twitter personality, @PigSpotter's identity has been revealed.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Citing “increased competition” and “unfavourable market conditions” Altron is puling the plug on the Altech Node console and will discontinue its video-on-demand offering come the end of October 2015.

The news comes in the wake of Naspers’ recent launch of the Netflix-clone, ShowMax, which the tech giant is clearly not sparing any expense in promoting. (By the way, you may as well take advantage of ShowMax’s free seven-day trial offer to check out what all the fuss is about.)

The Node’s spectacular failure to appeal to consumers has led Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku to ponder the question, “What is the best way to build new tech products for Africa?” Perhaps there are lessons that big tech and startups on the continent would do well to learn from Altron’s costly misfire regarding how to effectively build and roll-out relevant and commercially successful products and services.

Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up, all the week’s most important digital, tech and innovation news:

-- Visa has choses to test ground-breaking biometrics technology, for use at ATM’s, in South Africa,

-- Apple is preparing to shut down the transit app, Hopstop— which it bought from its Nigerian founder, Chinedu Echeruo for $1 billion in 2013,

-- WeChat and Nigerian online tech publication, Tech Cabal are set to host conferences in Nigeria, aimed at empowering developers to make use of WeChat’s API, and

-- Mobile phone manufacturer, Mi-Fone, accuses its Chinese rival, Xiaomi, of intentionally using similar sounding names for mobile devices they have recently launched in Africa.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Citing “increased competition” and “unfavourable market conditions” Altron is puling the plug on the Altech Node console and will discontinue its video-on-demand offering come the end of October 2015.

The news comes in the wake of Naspers’ recent launch of the Netflix-clone, ShowMax, which the tech giant is clearly not sparing any expense in promoting. (By the way, you may as well take advantage of ShowMax’s free seven-day trial offer to check out what all the fuss is about.)

The Node’s spectacular failure to appeal to consumers has led Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku to ponder the question, “What is the best way to build new tech products for Africa?” Perhaps there are lessons that big tech and startups on the continent would do well to learn from Altron’s costly misfire regarding how to effectively build and roll-out relevant and commercially successful products and services.

Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up, all the week’s most important digital, tech and innovation news:

-- Visa has choses to test ground-breaking biometrics technology, for use at ATM’s, in South Africa,

-- Apple is preparing to shut down the transit app, Hopstop— which it bought from its Nigerian founder, Chinedu Echeruo for $1 billion in 2013,

-- WeChat and Nigerian online tech publication, Tech Cabal are set to host conferences in Nigeria, aimed at empowering developers to make use of WeChat’s API, and

-- Mobile phone manufacturer, Mi-Fone, accuses its Chinese rival, Xiaomi, of intentionally using similar sounding names for mobile devices they have recently launched in Africa.

Additional Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Launching a start-up in Africa is not for the faint-hearted. Very few promising ventures-- even those that achieve solid traction, can expect to land Silicon Valley-type investment offers that might allow a founder the liberty to concentrate solely on growth, versus say, survival.

This week's discussion is inspired in part by a recent blog post by iROKOtv Founder and MD, Jason Njoku, written in response to a question posted on a popular Nigerian tech message board by someone who was curious to know how many Nigerian startups are in fact profitable.

Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku weren't quite sure of what to make of both the question and and Jason's subsequent response to it, so they decided to bounce some ideas around to try and determine which of these three:

1) Growth,

2) Profitability, or

3) Being cashflow positive,

African startup founders should focus on in order to succeed. Consider this just the start of a very long conversation that will definitely continue.

We are joined by Jovago.com Founder and MD, Marek "Chinedu" Zmyslowski on this week's African Tech Round-up while he was in Johannesburg on business. It was very kind of him to let us hijack him for a couple of hours, and include his two cents on this week's news and discussion topic.

Be sure to catch all the week's biggest digital, tech and innovation news:

-- Kenya and South Sudan are set to start work on a multi-million dollar high-speed fibre optic cable within the next two years,

-- The Consumer Federation of Kenya is leading a boycott of DSTV over high cable subscription rates,

-- Nigerian e-commerce platform Yudala is keen to pull an 'Amazon' as it plans to roll out a traffic-beating drone-delivery service,

-- South Africa’s largest online news platform, News24, has finally opted to disable public comments to articles posted on their website,

-- Facebook 2nd Quarter African User numbers reveal some fascinating trends,

-- Singtel, Orange, Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica are joining forces to launch a VC initiative spanning Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, and

-- A quick reminder to anyone living in South Africa that public comments on the proposed new Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity Bill are to be submitted to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development on or before November 30th.