African Tech Roundup

Dayo Akinrinade is the Founder of Africlick, "a new dating/networking app for professionals and creatives of African and Caribbean heritage".

Dayo holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from the University of Manchester and a Masters in Technology Entrepreneurship from University College London and has spent over ten years working in IT Management Consulting— delivering analytics and financial transformation programmes at Accenture and Deloitte. While embedded at those firms, she designed solutions and led global teams at the likes of the London Stock Exchange, Lloyds Banking Group and the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria.

Dayo formerly served as a Director at YSYS Consultancy Ltd, where she worked with Capital Enterprise and the JP Morgan Chase Foundation on the OneTech programme, which aims to raise a total of £15.1 million of investment for diverse, female founders. While inhabiting that role, she also delivered "diversity in technology advisory" to Space Camp, Startupbootcamp and Techstars. Currently, alongside running Africlick, Dayo advises two African fintech startups, Akkiba and DTL Cafe.

This podcast is the first of a two-part London Village Diaries-themed conversation, which was taped at the fringes of the London stop of Afrobytes' 2018/19 International Event Series. Listen in to hear Andile Masuku catch up with Dayo to gauge the temperature of London's growing community of African Diasporan tech innovators and to learn how Africlick is using unique user profile data to help people connect on the basis of shared culture.

Image credit: Supplied

This bonus podcast miniseries episode features Lauren Servin, the American Founder and "Chief Tree Officer" of the Desert Date Company. The Desert Date Company is a natural ingredient supplier and skincare brand based on the banks of the Nile River in Northern Uganda.

Lauren was previously SPARK’s South Sudan Country Manager – a role she inhabited for four years. In that role, she implemented an agribusiness entrepreneurship development programme focused on value chain development.

In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Lauren explains how she and her team are looking to merge the conservation of threatened desert date trees (Balanites aegyptiaca)— which combat climate change, and a focus on creating meaningful wealth for women in an economically-challenged region of East Africa, with ambitious capitalist ambitions involving the mainstream commercialisation of desert date oil.

Editorial Disclaimer:

SPARK is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is part of an African Tech Roundup miniseries focused on inclusive economic progress being made in vulnerable states.

African Tech Roundup retains full editorial control over all published content. Opinions expressed by the host, Andile Masuku, and his guests, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the presenting sponsor, SPARK.

This podcast series was taped at the fringes of SPARK’s 6th annual IGNITE Conference - a premier gathering of refugees, entrepreneurs, educators, private sector actors, government leaders, academics and NGOs.

Image credit: Kelly Sikkema

Kenyan Margaret "Maggie" Nyamumbo is the Founder and CEO of Kahawa 1893, a San Francisco-based coffee company intent on revolutionising the global coffee supply chain and closing the industry's abhorrent gender gap.

Prior to launching her bid to "disrupt fair trade" in the international coffee sector, Margaret worked on Wall Street evaluating retail and consumer companies, and, before that, she was a Private Sector Development Consultant specialising in emerging economies at the World Bank. Margaret holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and studied Economics at Smith College and at the London School of Economics.

In this conversation with Andile Masuku - published in celebration of International Women's Day 2019 - Margaret eloquently unpacks the economic inequity that persists in the global coffee industry and explains how blockchain technologies could be used to help small coffee farmers get paid more fairly and to efficiently track the journey of speciality coffees from farm to cup.

Former live theatre production specialist Heidi Lovett is the Executive Director of Swerve Robotics, a Washington-based organisation which uses applied-STEM education programmes to empower young people to pursue advanced STEM studies and career opportunities.

Heidi initially started Swerve Robotics club (originally the Gothic Lawn Gnomes FIRST LEGO League team) as a means to channel her son's creative engineering inclinations at a young age. She enjoyed coaching his team so much that when he left for college, she kept doing it. She has been active with the FIRST programme for more than 10 seasons in many different capacities.

Listen in to hear Heidi unpack the merits of the global FIRST initiative which has so far enabled over 320,000 youthful participants from 98 countries to engage in competitive STEM challenges which promote critical thinking, team-building and a solid work ethic. Heidi also shares Swerve's plans to ignite enthusiasm for STEM in Botswana's youth by introducing FIRST programmes in that country.

Image credit: Jelleke Vanooteghem

Mere days before 2018 came to a close, Andile Masuku sat down two bright, young Zimbabwean entrepreneurs to learn what it takes to engineer business success in Harare.

Simanga Mdhlabuta is commercial sales and business development professional and Wits MBA who gained invaluable corporate experience working for leading Zimbabwean entrepreneurial giants such as Innscor, Econet and Africom. Simanga has also made meaningful entrepreneurial plays of his own in the investments and property industries, and in doing so, gained an enviable grasp of the nuances of Zimbabwe’s investment potential. He is currently Co-curator and Head of Partnerships at Zimbabwe Investment Tours.

Wisdom Gakaka is Co-founder and CEO of Cyrex Business, a group of companies which spans high-end corporate branding, flatpack furniture manufacturing and serviced office operations. In just over ten years, Wisdom and his co-founder Annabelle have grown a modest branding solutions brokerage into a profitable business with impressive in-house production capabilities.

This podcast offers invaluable insight into the pragmatic realities of leveraging long-term entrepreneurial investment strategies to crack one of Southern Africa's most promising markets.

Image credit: Henry Hakulandaba

Alain Nkurukiye is a Corporate Strategy and Economic Policy MBA who hails from Burundi, but has lived and worked in the Netherlands for the better part of 10 years. Through his startup, Wajenzi, he aims to channel all his professional competencies into narrowing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) financing gap by stimulating the African Diaspora to invest systematically in their countries of origin.

Listen in to hear to hear Alain explains why he's all fired up about Wajenzi's mission and to hear Andile Masuku push back on his apparently limitless passion for the work his organisation has undertaken.

Editorial Disclaimer: SPARK (spark-online.org) is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is part of an African Tech Roundup miniseries focused on inclusive economic progress being made in vulnerable states. African Tech Roundup retains full editorial control over all published content. Opinions expressed by the host, Andile Masuku, and his guests, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the presenting sponsor, SPARK.

This podcast series was taped at the fringes of SPARK’s 6th annual IGNITE Conference (bit.ly/IGNITEConference2018) – a premier gathering of refugees, entrepreneurs, educators, private sector actors, government leaders, academics and NGOs.

Image credit: Rawpixel

Co-founder and Co-MD of Secha Capital Rushil Vallabh joins Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga for the very first in-studio taping of 2019. Andile, Musa and Rushil chat through some notable signals and trends they've observed in Africa’s digital, tech and innovation ecosystem over the last month or so, then unpack issues raised by a New York Times (NYT) article entitled, More Start-Ups Have an Unfamiliar Message for Venture Capitalists: Get Lost - penned by Erin Griffith - which caused quite a stir on social media.

The NYT piece raises some contentious issues currently being debated within Africa's early-stage startup investment scene— some of which were tackled on episode 124 entitled, Is Venture Capital a Ponzi Scheme? feat. Grant Phillips of PhilTech Consulting, which, incidentally, featured Rushil as guest host.

Listen to hear why African startup founders might do well to embrace the "joy of missing out" aka JOMO by rejecting investment doctrine that prioritises raising ever increasing rounds of capital and pursuing growth at all costs over building sustainable/profitable ventures. To skip straight to that discussion, head to [55:12].

Topics discussed in this episode:

AMA.ZING, part of the Zing Group, withdraws from Zimbabwe [4:52]

The Econet Group is beasting right now [12:46]

Econet Group Chairman Strive Masiyiwa vs Minority Shareholders [16:25]

Vodacom's #PleaseCallMe PR Nightmare [20:51]

Naspers now controls Russia’s largest classified advertising platform [30:50]

Andela closes $100 million funding round [34:52]

Cairo Angels claims to have invested $2.3 million in 24 startups [36:36]

Egyptian bus-sharing startup Swvl is expanding to Kenya [38:37]

Xiaomi plans to establish a formal presence in Africa [48:27]

Facebook and Google compromise Apple's privacy regime [49:47]

Image credit: Erwan Hesry

Jordanian Raneem Muqbel is the co-founder of a social manufacturing enterprise called TEENAH that works with Syrian refugees and their host communities in Jordan to produce high-quality custom printed bags for clients across the MENA region and in Europe. Raneem also happens to be a specialist in economic empowerment projects with the Jordan River Foundation, a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and a Swedish Institute Fellow.

This conversation offers a brief glimpse into how entrepreneurship is being used to deliver social and economic gains in a country grappling with one of the world’s most severe refugee crises.

Editorial Disclaimer: SPARK (https://spark-online.org) is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is part of an African Tech Roundup miniseries focused on inclusive economic progress being made in vulnerable states. African Tech Roundup retains full editorial control over all published content. Opinions expressed by the host, Andile Masuku, and his guests, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the presenting sponsor, SPARK.

This podcast series was taped at the fringes of SPARK’s 6th annual IGNITE Conference (bit.ly/IGNITEConference2018) – a premier gathering of refugees, entrepreneurs, educators, private sector actors, government leaders, academics and NGOs.

Image credit: Janko Ferlic

This podcast features two separate conversations Andile Masuku had with senior executives working for the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB). Both exchanges yielded intriguing insight into the values, investment outlook and business MO of the world’s preeminent provider of sharia-compliant development finance.

The first part of this episode features a brief chat with Musa Sillah, the Director of the Africa and Latin America Department at the IsDB. Sillah explains what distinguishes the IsDB from other leading development institutions like the World Bank and the African Development Bank, and offers insight into some of the work they are doing to promote sustainable economic development within the organisation’s 57 member states.

The second half of the episode features a conversation with the Lead Fragility and Resilience Specialist at the IsDB, Mohamed Alhadi. Alhadi sheds light on how the IsDB frames the notion of "fragility" and how that informs the development and implementation of constructive policies that deliver real value to the IsDB's membership.

Editorial Disclaimer:

SPARK is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is part of an African Tech Roundup miniseries focused on inclusive economic progress being made in vulnerable states. African Tech Roundup retains full editorial control over all published content. Opinions expressed by the host, Andile Masuku, and his guests, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the presenting sponsor, SPARK.

This podcast series was taped at the fringes of SPARK’s 6th annual IGNITE Conference - a premier gathering of refugees, entrepreneurs, educators, private sector actors, government leaders, academics and NGOs.

Image credit: Hala Alghanim

South African Dylan Richts is Head of Partnerships at WeThinkCode, a Cape Town-headquartered non-profit organisation which works with public and private partners to "source and train world-class African digital talent" and provide students with a path to employment within the continent's tech and innovation ecosystem.

Dylan formerly worked for the Mayor of London's promotional agency, assisting global tech companies looking to expand their operations to the UK, as well as London-based tech businesses chasing growth. After spending 5 years away from Africa, he returned in 2017 to work for MEST as a Senior Partnerships Associate and then assumed his current role at WeThinkCode one year later.

Dylan holds International Relations degrees from the University of Pretoria (Honours) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (Master's). He is also co-founder of Tech London Advocates Africa and a WEF Global Shaper.

In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Dylan explains how WeThinkCode's business model differs markedly from its more well-publicised peers, Gebeya and Andela. He also talks a little bit about the organisation's Pan-African growth aspirations and about the challenges of scaling their model.