African Tech Roundup

Professor and Founding Co-Director of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Globalization 4.0 at Thunderbird School of Global Management Landry Signé joins Andile Masuku and guest co-host Iginio Gagliardone for a heartfelt discussion about how the COVID-19 crisis might alter Africa's economic growth trajectory.

Landry is a Senior Fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution and his passionate perspectives about the merits of democracy feature heavily in this episode. His views are coloured, in part, by the live policy-making exposure he's gleaned during advisory assignments such as serving on the Global Network on Digital Technologies for Sustainable Urbanization at the appointment of a United Nations Under Secretary-General.

Using Landry's new book "Unlocking Africa's Business Potential: Trends, Opportunities, Risks, and Strategies" as a springboard for the conversation, the trio interrogates some of the speculation influencing Africa's collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Listen in to learn why, despite what's going on right now, Landry is standing by the bullish notions outlined in his book— views which, for the most part, Iginio buys into given the positive progress points the continent was posting before the whole COVID-19 nightmare set in.

Questions discussed in this episode include:

1) What immediately pops into Landry, Iginio and Andile's heads when they hear ‘Covid-19 and Africa?' [08:34]

2) In light of what is happening in his native Italy, what does Iginio view as key learning points for South Africa, where he is currently based? [18:45]

3) How should 'expert' projections shape Africa's political and economic response to Covid-19? [22:36]

4) Landry unpacks insights from his new book, Unlocking Africa’s Business Potential: Trends, opportunities, risks and strategies. [42:11]

5) Why would anybody consider Africa's population growth trajectory as anything but a good thing? [43:52]

6) How might Africa position to become more competitive in the global economy? [45:30]

7) Is Landry as bullish on Africa’s potential now as he was before the COVID-19 pandemic hit? [49:10]

8) Why might Africans do well to be cautiously optimistic about the continent's recovery prospects? [51:00]

9) What does Landry see as Africa's top unique selling propositions? [58:59]

10) Apart from the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement, what other evidence might there be of increased regional trade cooperation in Africa? [1:08:05]

Image credit: Nick Romanov

Ozow Co-founder & Head of R&D, Mitchan Adams, joins Andile Masuku and guest co-host & Lettuce Co-founder Simon Dingle for this beefy flagship episode to discuss the current state-of-play in South Africa's digital payments processing scene.

Mitch reveals why Ozow is actively recruiting and onboarding new hires right now and explains why the startup is seeing a sharp spike in revenue even as the global COVID-19 crisis continues to unfold.

Listen in for actionable insight about South Africa's competitive financial services landscape, and learn why both Mitch and Simon hope that the country and some of its neighbours in the region will adopt open banking regulation a la Europe's PSD2 dispensation sooner rather than later.

Mitch is a software engineer who, prior to co-founding Ozow (formerly i-Pay) in 2014, worked at a stockbroking firm— developing and maintaining software which interfaced with Johannesburg Stock Exchange's futures, stocks and bond markets. He also served a stint at Setcom, where his knack for online and card-based payment streams properly took root.

To skip all the introductory niceties, head straight to [12:52].

Questions discussed in this episode include:

1) How is Ozow coping with the mandatory national COVID-19 shutdown ordered by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa? [12:52]

2) How might payments processors like Ozow position for long-term success in what is a highly-competitive and increasingly-commoditised digital payments landscape? [23:47]

3) Can open banking-led fintech innovation offer the kind of platform integrity, financial inclusion and system efficiency decentralised cryptocurrency proponents insist blockchain-based platforms like Bitcoin are best positioned to deliver on? [30:57]

4) Is the obsession with building and maintaining walled gardens a prevalent dynamic within the South African banking industry? [44:30]

5) How are mobile telcos shaping fintech innovation in South Africa? [47:28]

6) What unique challenges and opportunities are presented by open banking regulatory frameworks? [53:04]

7) Is fintech startup success possible in South Africa without subscribing to VC-backed hyper-scale, hyper-growth strategy? [1:08:44]

8) In what ways do Mitch and Simon anticipate the world will never be the same again once we recover from COVID-19 crisis? [1:21:05]

Resources referenced in this episode:

Coronavirus Stimulus Offered By House Financial Services Committee Creates New Digital Dollar by Jason Brett for Forbes

Image credit: Ruxipen

In this instalment of the African Tech Roundup podcast, Andile Masuku and Osarumen Osamuyi are joined by Lucy Hoffman, co-founder and head of operations at the Cape Town-based, American mobile content development startup Carry1st.

Listen in to learn why, as glitzy ecosystem trends like fintech and mobility continue to dominate headlines, Lucy and the rest of her team at Carry1st are quietly bullish on the mobile gaming industry’s low-key commercial case and “super-app/super-platform” potential.

Lucy is an experienced American business operations specialist who, prior to joining Carry1st, spearheaded operations at impact investment facilitation startup Nexii and the African Leadership Academy. Before that, she interned for the global diversity and inclusion team at Credit Suisse and spent three and a half years embedded at Morgan & Stanley, where she worked on M&A and capital markets transactions for global power and utility companies.

To skip all the introductory niceties, head straight to [11:52].

Questions discussed in this episode include:

1. What three words come to mind for Andile, Lucy and Osarumen when they hear the words “super-app” or “super-platform” and why? [11:52]

2. Is the hype behind mobile gaming’s super-app potential worth buying into? [16:42]

3. How are mobile gaming startups navigating the power dynamics of Africa’s mobile telco-controlled landscape in order to monetise? [21:32]

4. How much time and effort do mobile gaming startups like Carry1st need to spend on solving for infrastructural and capacity-building frictions as opposed to working on actual product development? [39:50]

5. Why might African mobile telcos do well to take on Google Play in seeking to own a meaningful share of the mobile gaming market? [49:00]

6. What are the exit aspirations of a mobile gaming startup like Carry1st? [51:08]

7. What is the difference between mobile gaming and mobile gambling? [58:23]

8. Are African markets ready to jump on the global e-sports wave? [1:08:47]

Resources referenced in this episode:

The Mobile Economy: Sub-Saharan Africa 2019 by GSMA Intelligence

Image credit: Angelo Moleele

Andile Masuku catches up with Binkabi CEO, Quan Le to learn how his company is working to lower the world's reliance on the US dollar for imports and exports. Listen in to hear how Quan and his team are cutting out middlemen by turning agricultural commodities into tradable assets and automatically matching inbound and outbound trades which enable farmers to directly participate in global trade networks and retain more profits from their harvest.

Binkabi is a London-headquartered cross-border physical commodity trading platform which primarily operates in developing countries. They leverage blockchain technology to solve for the complex frictions that characterise international agriculture supply chains.

Quan is a Vietnamese finance professional who previously worked at PwC London as an auditor and, later, in merger acquisition advisory. During his 16-year-plus tenure at the firm, he worked with leading financial institutions in emerging markets in both Asia and Africa.

Image Credit: no_one_cares (unsplash.com)

Michael Schlein is a huge fintech fan, and as the President and CEO of Accion, one of the world's largest nonprofit impact finance organisations, he's backing startups which seek to advance financial inclusion by giving people financial tools to improve their lives.

In this candid conversation with Andile Masuku, Michael shares useful context about Accion's origins and makes a case for increased cooperation between legacy financial institutions, governments and impact investment non-profit organisations like Accion to advance global financial inclusion. Listen in to hear him address sceptics who hold that the commercial and social impact incentives of the aforementioned parties are hopelessly misaligned.

Michael is an MIT graduate who amassed nearly 30 years of international banking, management and public service experience before inhabiting his current role. Prior to joining Accion, he managed Citi’s network of Chief Country Officers as President of Citigroup’s International Franchise Management. He also previously served as Chief of Staff at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the Clinton administration and served in New York’s City Hall during the Dinkins and Koch administrations.

Image credit: Eva Blue

This brief firelighter conversation was taped live on-stage at SPARK’s 7th Annual IGNITE Conference in Amsterdam (https://spark.ngo/ignite-conference-2019/). It was a discussion provocatively themed “Shift The Power” – for which Andile Masuku (moderator) was joined by the Dutch Ambassador for Youth, Education and Work in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tijmen Rooseboom, Evelijne Bruning, who is the Netherlands Country Director of The Hunger Project and the Executive Director of INJAZ Lebanon, Samar Dani.

Tijmen is a recently-appointed Dutch policymaker whose mandate is to ensure that The Netherlands is optimising the use of public funds earmarked for advancing youth education and employment. Evelijne Bruning is a self-proclaimed “dragon and driver of change” whose high-profile #ShiftThePower activism efforts within Dutch NGO circles often puts her at odds with policymakers and even fellow practitioners in the space. And prior to inhabiting a senior role at one of Lebanon's most well-respected youth-focused NGO’s, Samar Dani led a storied career in her country’s consumer and retail industry.

Listen in as the panel addresses growing calls to change power dynamics within development cooperation between the Global North and the Global South – this, in order to deliver on effective, market-relevant educational and entrepreneurship interventions.

Editorial Disclaimer: While SPARK (https://spark.ngo) is the presenting sponsor of this series, African Tech Roundup maintains complete editorial oversight. Opinions expressed by the host, Andile Masuku, and his guests, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the presenting sponsor, SPARK.

Image credit: SPARK

In this podcast, Andile Masuku chats with Dr Salam Said, a seasoned Middle Eastern economics researcher who specialises in Arab economies, Arab trade policies and the political economy of Syria.

Andile taps Dr Said's extensive professional and lived experience as he attempts to wrap his mind around some of the ways Arab identity and geopolitical dynamics (past and present) inform the socio-economic policies of nations that tend to dominate the global news cycle for all kinds of complex reasons.

Listen in to hear Dr Said factor in candidly on how to properly gauge the economic empowerment of everyday citizens, particularly women, of Arab nations.

Editorial Disclaimer: This podcast is part of a seven-part podcast miniseries interrogating the progress being made in advancing entrepreneurship and job creation in some of the world’s most fragile regions.

The series was taped at the fringes of SPARK’s 7th Annual IGNITE Conference in Amsterdam (https://spark.ngo/ignite-conference-2019)— a premier gathering of refugees, entrepreneurs, educators, private sector actors, government leaders, academics and NGOs.

While SPARK (https://spark.ngo) is the presenting sponsor of the series, African Tech Roundup maintains complete editorial oversight. Opinions expressed by the host, Andile Masuku, and his guests, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the presenting sponsor, SPARK.

Image credit: Florian Wehde

African Tech Roundup and SPARK (https://spark.ngo) have partnered to produce a seven-part podcast miniseries interrogating the progress being made in advancing entrepreneurship and job creation in some of the world’s most fragile regions.

The series uncovers pragmatic first-hand insights about the challenges of deploying market-relevant approaches to entrepreneurship, economic policy design and implementation, education interventions and the provision of business support.

The first episode of the series features a relaxed diary session with Yengi Lokule, Co-founder and CEO of Rural Finance Initiative (RUFI), a South Sudanese microfinance and cross-border remittance firm which serves South Sudanese refugees in Uganda as well as rural and peri-urban residents in his fragile home country. Yengi holds degrees in Agriculture and Development Studies specializing in Micro-finance and has over 20 years’ of professional experience gained in post-conflict environments.

This thoughtful conversation casually addresses some of the oversimplifications related to promoting financial inclusion in post-conflict environments while offering useful insight into displaced people are defiantly building futures for themselves and others in South Sudan and neighbouring Uganda.

Editorial Disclaimer: This podcast was taped at the fringes of SPARK’s 7th annual IGNITE Conference in Amsterdam (https://spark.ngo/ignite-conference-2019) and is an independent African Tech Roundup production. The opinions expressed by the host, Andile Masuku, and his guest, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the presenting sponsor, SPARK.

Image credit: SPARK

So, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have noticed that a 'brick' several hundred million dollars heavy has descended on the continent in an unprecedented period of time, most of it venture capital earmarked for fintech startups in Nigeria.

On this episode, Indian tech founder Arunjay Katakam joins Andile Masuku and Osarumen Osamuyi to extend our conversation about the implications of all the hype surrounding Africa's fintech scene and what the broader implications might be for the continent's tech ecosystem at large.

We’re still vibing off of our last show, dubbed African Fintech Signal Check 2019: Nigeria's Killing It! (Part 1). That show, which guest featured Wiza Jalakasi, unpacked some of the most pertinent happenings in Africa’s emerging fintech landscape and in the legacy financial services arena over the last couple of months or so. If you haven't listened to that show (Episode 134), do that before you dig into this one.

Arunjay Katakam is a former EY consultant who has co-founded three startups, exiting two— one of which eventually sold to Twitter. Today Arunjay is co-founder and CEO of a London-based cross-border remittance startup called Yooz and advises founders at DFS Lab. His extensive tech entrepreneurship experience spans work in developing markets in Asia and Africa, as well as developed markets in the Global North.

To by-pass the pleasantries, head straight to the main discussion: [18:50].

Topics discussed in this episode include:

1) Arunjay suggests that there are three major cost factors/points of friction preventing mobile money from enjoying WhatsApp-level ubiquity and mainstream adoption. [18:50]

2) Can ECOWAS's (Economic Community of West African States) Eco currency plans lay the groundwork for smoother regional money flows? [26:25]

3) Might the recent $20 million investment close by "credit-as-a-service" startup Migo (formerly Mines.io)— mostly designated for taking on the Brazilian market, spark a new trend towards African/Africa-focussed startups taking on key markets outside the continent? [31:54]

4) In what ways might the dynamics of engineering fintech startup success in India be comparable with the same in African key markets? [35:53]

5) Does "a rising tide raise all boats", or will large fintech startups like OPay and PalmPay stifle innovation by smaller players? [51:42]

6) How might African mobile network operators (MNOs) respond to the prospect of wholesale disruption as "OTT (Over-the-top) Application 2.0" takes hold, and what learnings might they draw from the Chinese and Indian ecosystem experiences to inform their strategies? [57:54]

Bonus Topics: Can successful startups be built without having to tell lies, even apparently "harmless" ones? + Is RxAll Africa's very own Theranos in the making? [9:13]

To view resources referenced in this episode, visit https://www.africantechroundup.com/fintech-signal-check-2019-part-2/

Image credit: Babatunde Olajide

The last couple of months or so have been rather eventful for Africa's fintech scene— particularly in Nigeria where Interswitch notably attained unicorn status in November following Visa acquiring 20% of the company for a reported $200 million.

Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey's much-publicised visit to Africa last month also did much to put a global spotlight on the continent’s fintech arena, and the subsequent capital raises by OPay (backed by Opera) and PalmPay (backed by Transsion) drew attention to the on-going race for platform dominance in the space.

In this instalment of the African Tech Roundup podcast, Andile Masuku and The Subtext’s Osarumen Osamuyi are joined by Malawian mobile tech entrepreneur, Wiza Jalakasi, to unpack some of the more pertinent fintech industry signals and discuss their implications for the continent’s tech and innovation ecosystem at large. (To skip the introductory niceties, head straight to [11:58].)

Wiza is a passionate USSD proponent who formerly headed up business development and international expansion at Africa’s Talking. He is currently the head of strategy and business development at Hover.

Questions discussed in this episode include:

1) Is the hype around Jack Dorsey’s recent Africa visit well-deserved? [12:38]

2) Why might PalmPay’s $40 million seed round be the most significant China-related fintech startup play of late? [25:47]

3) Are aspiring ‘banks’ like Google and Facebook well-positioned to dominate Africa’s fintech industry? [28:52]

4) Is there credence to Jack Dorsey’s citing of Bitcoin as a key part of the future of African fintech? [37:55]

5) How significant is the trend towards digital-first and digital-only banks? [50:46]

6) Could the Zimbabwean mobile telco NetOne spark a continental trend by making mobile money transactions free? [1:01:57]

7) How will Google’s new Play Store lending term restrictions for financial services apps impact microlenders on the continent? [1:07:34]

To view resources referenced in this episode, visit https://www.africantechroundup.com/fintech-signal-check-2019-part-1/

Image credit: Namnso Ukpanah