Episode overview:

Natasha Blycha's path into emerging technology law started in an unlikely place. As a gap-year volunteer teaching English and economics at a school outside Gweru, Zimbabwe, circa 2000, she was simultaneously working for a small rural law firm on constitutional questions — an experience she credits with shaping the questions that have driven her career since.

In conversation with Andile Masuku, Blycha — who co-authored the Oxford Smart Legal Contracts textbook and was named the Financial Times' Most Innovative Lawyer — traces a line from those early days to advising global banks on whether their crypto experiments were even legal, to building LexChip: technology that embeds enforceable contracts directly into AI-powered devices.

The conversation spans smart contracts (the technical kind and the legally binding kind — they're different), why crypto adoption in Nigeria and Ghana has less to do with speculation and more to do with broken banking infrastructure, and what Jensen Huang's "five-layer AI cake" means for nations trying to build sovereign AI stacks without the energy, chips, or legal infrastructure to hold them together.

Blycha's central argument: if we can't put code in jail, and AI systems are becoming economic stakeholders that can book a million flights or displace entire workforces, then the law as currently designed has a problem. Her proposed contribution — smart legal contracts that act as referees inside AI systems, capable of stopping a device when it breaches its own rules — sits at the intersection of contract law and responsible AI.

Key insights:

• On why this isn't Y2K: "This is so much more complicated, so much more geopolitically complicated. And if we said that Y2K didn't happen, it was one day we got to find out. What we're seeing already with AI systems is we're already getting the proof in the pudding that they are working." Blycha argues Y2K was a manageable vector of complexity compared to AI. The difference: AI systems are actively delivering on their promise, and big tech's mandate to reach AGI means we can't simply wait for one day to find out.
• On why Africa's slower adoption might be an advantage, not a liability: "If I cannot keep the power on, am I really talking about agentic AI?" But Blycha points to a counterintuitive upside: countries without legacy infrastructure can leapfrog, just as India and parts of Africa bypassed landlines for mobile. Crypto adoption in Nigeria and Ghana demonstrates this — populations using blockchain not as a speculative instrument but as functional money in economies where traditional banking fails them.
• On the difference between smart contracts and smart legal contracts: A smart contract is code that executes on a blockchain — "if this happens, do this." It's a technical term, not a legal one. A smart legal contract, by contrast, is a real, enforceable agreement where specific clauses are automated. Blycha uses the example of a lease where rent adjusts automatically based on CPI. The distinction matters because conflating the two obscures where legal accountability actually sits.
• On the fundamental legal problem AI creates: "The law needs a person to ascribe responsibility to." Bitcoin was invented by someone who may not exist. Decentralised autonomous organisations insist the code is responsible, not them. But you can't put code in jail. As AI agents proliferate — booking flights, managing finances, making hiring decisions — the gap between what the technology does and who the law can hold accountable is widening faster than regulators can respond.
• On smart legal contracts as AI's conscience: Through LexChip, Blycha's team is embedding contracts directly into AI edge devices — robotics, autonomous vehicles, hardware with embodied AI. These contracts can monitor behaviour in real time and, critically, act as a referee: stopping a device safely when it breaches its rules. "You've taken an analog thing, you've turned it into a performance-based contract and it can speak to an AI system."
• On Ubuntu as an AI governance framework — with a warning: Blycha was moved by the Ubuntu principle of interconnectedness during a family visit to South Africa. She sees it as a potentially powerful ethical framework for AI policy — but cautions against using it as "window dressing for someone to write a wishy-washy policy that then doesn't deal with the hard stuff." The hard stuff: GPU clusters, cloud compute, sovereign data infrastructure. Values without investment are just declarations.
• On who opposes all of this — and why: Peter Thiel and a portion of Silicon Valley divide the world into accelerators and decelerators. In their framing, lawyers like Blycha are slowing down progress toward a post-human, transhumanist future of brain-computer interfaces and infinite lifespan. Blycha's response: "This is not a lawyers versus the tech bros conversation because there is an extremely large majority of the tech bros who are also saying there is a big problem here."

Notable moments:

1. The first text message: At the Bata Club in Gweru, Zimbabwe, circa 2000 — a social venue attached to a Canadian shoe factory — Blycha saw her first SMS travel between England and Zimbabwe on a feature phone. "It wasn't a smartphone, it was a dead phone." She'd bought her flight to Zimbabwe on the day of the Y2K bug because tickets were cheap. That moment — witnessing a communication revolution in a country experiencing currency crisis and fuel shortages — frames the conversation's central question about technology adoption in constrained environments.

2. The Mennonite test: Visiting Amish communities in Ohio, Blycha learned their approach to technology adoption. "They don't prohibit technology at all. They ask two questions: does this technology bring me closer to my family and does this technology bring me closer to God?" Asked how everyday people should think about adopting AI tools, Blycha offered this as her "heart answer" — a striking conclusion from someone who has spent her career at technology's legal frontier.

3. The McKinsey displacement reality: Blycha points to McKinsey's replacement of significant portions of its workforce with AI agents as evidence that displacement is not theoretical. The legal question this raises: how do you write an employment contract with an AI agent? And when that agent — operating at a scale no human can oversee — breaches the law, the "human in the loop" principle that underpins every AI governance framework starts to break down.

Resources referenced in this episode:

• Natasha Blycha on Shirtloads of Science podcast — Natasha's previous long-form conversation on AI law and the "responsible machine problem": Listen here 
• "Can AI be trusted? with Jania Okwechime & Wessel Oosthuizen" (African Tech Roundup Podcast)  —  Kate Byrne engages two senior AI specialists at Deloitte on the myths surrounding AI while reflecting on its impact in Africa: Listen her...

Episode overview: Prince Nwadeyi spent years providing market research that unlocked South Africa's R600 billion (~USD 34.4 billion) informal economy for blue-chip clients. The likes of Swiss Re, Liberty, NASPERS all wanted the insights. Few wanted the execution risk. In conversation with Andile Masuku, Nwadeyi explains why his holding company SAG Ventures stopped selling insights and started building businesses. From Mustard Finance Group (formerly Setana Capital) providing working capital to township spaza shops (micro convenience stores), to Purchase Pal embedding funeral cover into everyday groceries, Nwadeyi's ventures share a common thread: aligning incentives across entire value chains whilst playing a longer game than quarterly-focused corporates can stomach. His journey from UCT postgrad researcher to operator deploying millions in credit with a claimed 99.9% repayment rate offers a masterclass in strategic patience and the power of granular consumer understanding. Key insights: - On why insights alone don't create impact: "We realised that some of the executives were not willing to take the risk, not for any risk of their own, but really just how the incentive structure set up within corporate." Nwadeyi discovered that knowing differently doesn't translate to acting differently when bonuses hang in the balance. The solution? Stop asking permission and build the innovation yourself. - On aligning incentives to unlock impossible markets: Working capital finance to informal retailers seemed impossible until Nwadeyi mapped the ecosystem. Wholesalers wanted more sales but couldn't offer credit. They did have transaction data. "Can we build a technology solution that interprets that data at scale to enable unique insight that traditional finance institutions don't have access to?" The result: finance the stock purchase to the wholesaler, the SME repays over 14 days, everyone wins. One of their spaza shop clients recently scaled from one store to three and bought her first house for R1 million (~USD 57,400) cash. - On thinking in decades whilst executing in months: "You don't have to think in days. You have to think in decades." Purchase Pal (what Nwadeyi claims to be "the world's first FMCG-embedded funeral insurance") represents one piece of a five-year strategy spanning multiple financial services verticals. The long game enables patient execution whilst maintaining corporate relevance. "What's my exit point? What's my entry point? Am I wanting to build this alongside?" - On why research beats assumptions every time: A tearful interview during his MPhil research - a woman describing the humiliation of borrowing money to bury her mother whilst neighbours gossiped about her poverty - sparked the Purchase Pal concept. "What if we could unlock quote unquote, what I call, no cost insurance?" Years of ethnographic research revealed the margin structure in FMCG goods, the cost burden of traditional insurance intermediation, and the customer stickiness problem facing consumer goods manufacturers. Research made the impossible obvious. Notable moment: The pivot from consultant to operator: Walking through a Cape Flats township, Nwadeyi's co-founder encountered a spaza shop owner struggling for financing. "All I ever wanted to do is to feed myself, feed my family or feed my business." That human story, repeated across thousands of township retailers, shifted SAG from insight provider to solution builder. Traditional finance wouldn't touch these operators. Nwadeyi's team reportedly deployed over R100 million (~USD 5.7 million) and achieved 99.9% repayment rates. Image credit: SAG Ventures

Episode overview: April Long spent two years fighting reality. The co-founder and CEO of "Afro-Asia Cross-border payment infrastructure" startup Pyxis was so determined to serve Africa's small merchants - the "bottom of the pyramid" she'd read about in Harvard Business Review - that she nearly bankrupted her fintech ignoring the bulk traders actually driving Africa-China trade. In conversation with Andile Masuku, Long delivers uncomfortable truths about impact theatre versus impact reality. Her journey from receiving President Xi Jinping in Tanzania at 23 to finally accepting who actually moves goods between Africa and China at 35 offers a masterclass in entrepreneurial humility. Key insights: -On impact delusions: "I used to defend, I was like, 'No, no, no, no, no. It's that you don't get to this market.'" Long admits she lived in a bubble, desperately wanting to believe SMEs were ready for direct China trade. The truth? "90% of African trade is still happening in a more traditional way" - through the aggregators she'd dismissed as insufficiently mission-driven. - On the cost of stubbornness: Despite zero demand after six months embedded in Nairobi's wholesale markets, Long refused to pivot. "I was quite stubborn. I was like, no, we have to work with SMEs." The result: burning 90% of her time on unprofitable small traders whilst the 10% spent on bulk traders kept her company alive. - On acceptance as strategy: "The future is not here yet. And we need to build the future by serving who is there currently." Long's breakthrough came from accepting that Chinese trading companies scaling from $0 to IPO in a decade were the real infrastructure of Africa-China trade - not the romantic vision of empowered individual merchants. - On being un-fundable forcing clarity: Without millions to burn on market education, Long had to face reality faster than her funded competitors. "I'm grateful I didn't have money to burn, or else I could have burned myself." Notable moments: 1. The marketplace wake-up call: Walking through Nairobi's famous Gikomba market as a Chinese woman, traders shouted "China, China, what are you selling?" They wanted products, not payment rails. Long built the wrong solution for the right market. 2. The Eric Simanis paradox: The same Harvard Business Review article that inspired her Africa move warned against oversimplifying "bottom of pyramid" markets. Long spent years learning what she'd initially misread. 3. The three Aprils: Long describes fragmenting into Chinese April, Western April, and African April - "these narratives are so vastly different" that keeping them separate became exhausting. Building Pyxis became about reconciling these selves. The aggregator revelation: Long's former Standard Chartered clients - the Chinese trading companies she'd tried to convince to take loans in 2015 - transformed from traders to manufacturers to near-IPO giants in under a decade. They were the real story of Africa-China trade, moving containers whilst she chased individual merchants moving parcels. "These Chinese trading companies making impacts in Africa, making products super affordable... because of the storytelling, they are not recognised." Her role shifted from trying to bypass them to helping them operate more efficiently. The present tense: Long's current focus on settlement infrastructure for bulk traders isn't the sexy SME empowerment story she'd imagined. But with a 12-person team across four countries and actual revenue, she's building what the market needs today whilst preparing for the SME future she still believes will come. Image credit: Pxyis

Episode overview: Andrew Hall faces a unique challenge: building profitable telecommunications infrastructure across one of Africa's largest countries with one of its smallest populations. As managing director of Paratus Namibia, Hall oversees operations spanning vast distances where traditional business models struggle to pencil out. Andile Masuku invites Hall to share on the realities of building networks where "you'll see three fibres running next to the road" instead of shared infrastructure, why COVID accelerated their consumer business, and how recent oil discoveries are reshaping Namibia's economic landscape. Key insights: - On geographic challenges: Namibia's vast distances and sparse population create unique infrastructure economics where covering remote areas requires careful return-on-investment calculations across extended payback periods. - On competitive landscape: Operating alongside two state-owned enterprises creates complex market dynamics where regulatory considerations and different organisational mandates influence infrastructure deployment strategies. - On infrastructure sharing: Despite logical benefits, competitive dynamics often result in duplicated infrastructure: "three towers standing next to each other" rather than collaborative deployment approaches. - On consumer versus enterprise: Traditional enterprise focus (75% of business) provided stability, but consumer growth since 2016 now drives expansion, particularly accelerated during COVID-19 periods. - On technology transitions: Moving from WiMAX limitations (4-10 Mbps) to fibre required strategic timing; balancing asset sweating against customer retention as bandwidth demands increased around 2018. Notable moments: 1. Hall's description of infrastructure redundancy: "If you drive down the road, you'll see three fibres running next to the road. If you're driving from one town to the other, you'll see two or three towers standing next to each other" 2. The COVID-19 catalyst: Consumer business performed "very, very well" as people became "100% reliant, work-wise, education-wise, entertainment-wise on connectivity" 3. Recent oil discoveries creating positive economic outlook with increased foreign investment interest and improved business confidence The development question: Hall addresses the expectation that telecoms should "unlock growth economically for an entire nation" by emphasising education as the foundation. Paratus's corporate social responsibility focuses on educational sector connectivity because "for children to have access to the internet, it makes the world a lot smaller." His perspective reflects broader African infrastructure challenges: balancing commercial sustainability with development impact, managing investor expectations whilst serving diverse stakeholder needs, and building institutional capacity in environments with limited technical specialisation. "I think access to the internet plays a crucial role. And I think it starts at grass root level in the form of education... for children to have access to the internet, it makes the world a lot smaller." Image credit: Paratus Namibia

Episode overview: Bernard Laurendeau has a mission: to stop African business leaders from asking for "patient capital." The Ethiopian-French management consultant, now operating from Tokyo, believes this standard pitch fundamentally misunderstands how global investment works and fails African markets. It's a contrarian stance from someone who's spent 15 years advising Fortune 50 clients and building institutions across three continents. After co-founding Arifpay, Ethiopia's first licensed Payment System Operator, and serving as senior advisor to Ethiopia's jobs creation commission, Laurendeau has repositioned himself in Japan's corporate heartland with Laurendeau & Associates and Enkopa Lab. From his Tokyo base, Laurendeau delivers what he calls "execution horsepower" to both African governments and Japanese corporations seeking African market entry. His client portfolio spans Google and Cisco to UAE's Ministry of Finance, applying strategic frameworks honed at BNP Paribas to emerging market challenges. Key insights: - On financial sovereignty: Despite supporting fintech innovation, Laurendeau advocates fiercely for African countries maintaining control over their financial services infrastructure. - On Japanese business culture: Japanese organisations bring uncompromising quality standards to everything—"there's no such thing as downgrading." Whilst this limits their market share compared to Chinese competitors offering multiple price points, it creates superior knowledge transfer opportunities for African partners. - On data-driven decisions: Investors don't want to "think long-term"—they want confidence in their decisions. Laurendeau's experience with big data analytics in Silicon Valley informs his approach to providing real-time, actionable intelligence rather than outdated World Bank reports. - On innovation vs infrastructure: African entrepreneurs risk becoming "lazy" by chasing trendy technologies whilst neglecting "boring" fundamentals - On institutional building: African countries need people willing to do "Gov-preneurship": embedding with governments to build policies, institutions, and strategic frameworks. Most leaders are "lonely" and welcome diaspora expertise, contrary to corruption narratives. - On execution over ideology: Management consulting in emerging markets requires output orientation, not retainer relationships. Clients want expert advice immediately, not consultant armies producing fancy acronyms and quadrant analyses. Notable moments: 1. Why Laurendeau switched from mechanical and aerospace engineering (ENSTA France, Georgia Tech) to management consulting after realising security clearance barriers would limit his US career prospects 2. His observation that at Africa-focused investment conferences in Japan, "people were talking about Africa...with no Africans in the room" 3. Reflections on Arifpay achieving profitability and dividend distribution, proving African fintech could build sustainable, high-performing teams rapidly 4. His frank assessment that young Africans show more "thirst" for knowledge and change than their counterparts in developed economies, despite having fewer resources The contrarian take: Laurendeau's most provocative insight challenges the "patient capital" narrative that dominates African investment discourse. Rather than asking investors to adopt longer time horizons, he argues African markets should provide the confidence and data quality that enables rapid decision-making. Image credit: Enkopa Lab

Episode overview: Guidione Machava has a confession: he's tired of being called an "African designer." The Mozambican product designer, now based in France and fresh from stints at Shopify and Paris-based 23point5, reckons that geographic qualifiers automatically strip away a third of your professional value before you've even started. It's a provocative stance from someone who's built his career bridging African markets and global tech giants. Since launching- MozDevz - Mozambique's largest developer community - over a decade ago, Machava has been methodically executing what he calls his "Maria Sharapova strategy": a systematic approach to becoming world-class that he lifted from a Tim Ferriss podcast. The strategy worked. From building communities across six African countries to creating a business directory that attracted 300,000 SMEs, to founding Kabum Digital (Mozambique's leading tech publication), Machava has consistently punched above his weight class. His secret? "Piggybacking" on successful people and refusing to let his environment dictate his ambitions. Andile Masuku probes Machava on the realities of designing for African versus Western markets, why physical product development taught him to appreciate software's forgiving nature, and his mission to prove that world-class design talent can emerge from anywhere, provided you're strategic about how you position it. Key insights: - On strategic positioning: Despite building African communities and solving African problems, Machava deliberately brands himself as a "world-class designer" rather than a "world-class African designer." His reasoning? International clients and collaborators unconsciously devalue geography-qualified talent, even when they won't admit it. - On market realities: Designing for Western markets versus African markets isn't just about different user needs, it's about fundamentally different quality bars. "In Africa, designing a product that works well is a plus. In France, it's the bare minimum," he observes. - On the intersection economy: His time at 23.5—building design tools for made-to-order, sustainable fashion—taught him that the intersection of digital and physical economies is where the hardest, most rewarding innovation happens. Unlike software, physical products offer no "rollback to previous version" option. - On manufactured serendipity: Rather than waiting for opportunities, Machava systematically identified people in positions he wanted to occupy, then found ways to provide value to them. The approach landed him interviews with executives from IDEO, Google, and Facebook for his World Class Designer podcast. Notable moments: 1. How a Tim Ferriss interview with tennis champion Maria Sharapova became Machava's career template for achieving world-class performance in design 2. Why Shopify's hierarchy of priorities—solve merchants' problems first, make money second, never reverse that order—fundamentally changed how he approaches product design 3. The brutal economics lesson he learned at 23point5: physical product margins are tiny, error tolerance is minimal, and mistakes literally end up in landfills 4. His unconventional path from economics degree to postgraduate design studies, convincing Open Window Institute for Creative Arts & Technologies to let him skip three years of undergraduate work The contrarian take: Machava's most provocative insight centres on geographic positioning. Whilst celebrating African innovation has become fashionable, he argues that leading with continental identity in global markets is a strategic error. "If you say just 'world-class designer,' it's a completely different perspective," he notes, drawing from conversations with international colleagues who've confirmed his suspicions about unconscious bias.

Episode overview: In this conversation, South African strategist Wabo Majavu, executive strategy and business operations leader at Africa Data Centres, unpacks how technical expertise at organisations like MTN and Intelsat laid the foundation for her distinctive approach to strategic leadership and digital activism. From building radar applications at the CSIR to optimising cellular networks through late-night, township-sourced sheep's head dinners with seasoned veteran technicians, Majavu's journey illustrates how hands-on technical experience and savvy adaptation becomes the bedrock of strategic thinking. She discusses navigating workplace discrimination, helping transform organisational culture at state-owned Sentech, and her prescient work in AI before it became a global phenomenon. Andile Masuku explores with Majavu how strategists shape a company's future direction, the delicate balance between commercial viability and digital inclusion, and her current mission to democratise coding through native African languages. Key topics: - From radar systems at CSIR to RF optimisation at MTN: building the technical foundation for strategic leadership - How experiences at Intelsat shaped her understanding of managed services and market transformation - The Sentech years: leading digital transformation while learning that culture can eat even the best strategy for breakfast - Studying AI and signal processing before the global AI boom, and formative educational experiences in Malaysia that shaped future vision - Strategic stakeholder management: converting union leaders into product managers and building collaborative ecosystems - Balancing commercial imperatives with digital inclusion through long-term strategic thinking - Where to start learning AI: practical advice for breaking into the field Notable points: 1. Majavu's radar applications work at CSIR and cellular network optimisation at MTN provided the technical depth that informs her strategic decision-making today 2. At MTN, she overcame racial barriers by building relationships with Network Operations Centre (NOC) technicians through after-hours learning sessions, bringing sheep's head delicacies from Mamelodi township to earn their trust and knowledge 3. At Sentech, she learned firsthand that "culture can eat strategy for breakfast," successfully converting a well-respected, highly influential union leader into a turnkey product manager spearheading the roll-out of new digital services 4. Majavu studied signal processing and then AI before it became mainstream, building web crawlers and predictive systems 5. Her approach to change management involves understanding each stakeholder's agenda and finding areas of alignment, demonstrated through her successful transformation of adversaries into collaborators Listen for Majavu's insights on how strategists inform a company's trajectory, why patient capital and technical depth are essential for Africa's digital transformation, and how past experiences become the lens through which strategic leaders view future possibilities. Image credit: Konecta

Episode overview: In this conversation, Verto co-founder and CEO Ola Oyetayo shares the journey of building a cross-border payments platform that tackles the unique challenges African businesses face when making international transactions. Since graduating from Y Combinator in 2019, Verto has established itself as what Oyetayo describes as a profitable and cashflow positive fintech serving multiple African markets. Incidentally, the company recently made headlines after winning the prestigious $1 million Milken-Motsepe Prize in FinTech. He discusses his team's pragmatic approach to addressing payment barriers in emerging markets, why traditional financial institutions have failed to serve these regions effectively, and how technology can disrupt traditional banking networks that have historically excluded certain markets. Andile Masuku engages Oyetayo on the evolution of fintech in Africa, the role of privilege and networks in business success, and the future potential of stablecoins to revolutionise cross-border payments in ways that might prove more transformative for emerging markets than developed ones. Key topics: - Verto's position in the cross-border payments landscape - The strategic decision to focus on B2B rather than consumer payments - The untapped $286 billion trade flow between Africa and China - Why 96-97% of business cross-border payments still go through traditional banks - The innovator's dilemma Verto faces with the rise of stablecoins Notable points: 1. In 2018, Oyetayo launched Verto's business model alongside his co-founder Anthony Oduu after spotting a solutions gap for African businesses making international payments outside of traditional banks 2. Verto has been profitable and cash flow positive for approximately 18 months 3. How a chance meeting with legendary VC Vinod Khosla at YC in 2019 first turned him on to the stablecoin investment opportunity—years before they became mainstream 4. The company operates in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and the Francophone region 5. Despite previous experience in institutional finance, Oyetayo admits "ignorance is bliss" helped him tackle a problem others saw as too risky 6. The potential of stablecoins to solve liquidity, volatility and capital control challenges in emerging markets Listen out for Oyetayo's take on Paystack's B2C play Zap, the fintech ecosystem implications of Moniepoint's "unicornification," and his contrarian insight that stablecoins will revolutionise emerging markets while having minimal impact in developed economies: "This is not a popular opinion... There's just no case for stablecoins in developed markets. People talk about, oh, it's going to disrupt Visa and MasterCard... I don't see that coming anytime soon." Image credit: Verto

Episode overview: In this conversation, David Ogundeko shares the journey of Funema, an impact-focused alternative investment firm operating for nine years across Nigeria, South Africa, and the US. He discusses his approach to venture building for early-stage founders, why Africa needs a unique investment approach, and how his firm addresses the "chicken and egg" challenge that idea-stage founders face: needing traction to raise funds while needing the right talent to gain that traction. Andile Masuku engages Ogundeko on the evolution of venture building in Africa, from being "mocked" five to six years ago to now becoming an essential element in the ecosystem. Throughout the conversation, Ogundeko makes a compelling case for why Africa's tech ecosystem requires patient capital with 15-25 year horizons rather than traditional 10-year VC fund lifecycles. Key topics: - The evolution of Funema's venture building model over nine years - Why service-based businesses can evolve into stronger tech companies - Misalignment between traditional VC timelines and African market realities - The importance of founder emotional connection to problems they're solving - How AI is democratising education and knowledge across the continent - Funema's ambitious plans to scale venture building across Africa Notable points: 1. Ogundeko developed his venture building thesis after working at Seedstars in 2016, flipping their model to focus on founders with their own ideas 2. Funema has a portfolio of 20+ companies built over nine years of operation The firm prefers working with founders who start with service models to develop deeper market understanding before scaling with technology 3. Traditional 10-year VC timelines are insufficient for African tech development, with Ogundeko advocating for 15-25 year investment horizons 4. Funema is planning to reach 1,000 founders over the next two years and train 100,000 venture builders over five years What makes Funema's approach distinctive is his patience and belief in deep market understanding: "We didn't exactly start out with a very sexy business model. But the learnings that we've been able to get from the market, which we've automated into a platform, is becoming a product that you can call a pure tech business."

Meet Marie Lora-Mungai, expert advisor in African creative industries and sports business and founder of Restless Global - whose 20-year journey from CNN journalist to production company founder to industry advisor gives her a unique vantage point on Africa's creative economy. In thought-provoking conversation with Andile Masuku, Lora-Mungai makes a compelling case for African filmmakers to stop seeking funding for traditional productions and instead leverage AI tools to create content independently. Episode overview: The discussion stems from Lora-Mungai's viral Linkedin post warning African filmmakers about AI disruption. She points to a jarring disconnect: while some creators are still trying to raise millions for conventional productions, others are creating professional-quality content using AI tools on a laptop. The conversation explores how this technological shift is redefining what it means to be a filmmaker in 2025 and beyond. Key topics: - The widening gap between traditional film projects and AI-enabled production - How AI tools are eliminating conventional barriers to content creation - The shift from specialised roles to comprehensive creative vision - Why traditional fundraising may be obsolete for many productions - The changing landscape for talent, especially voice actors and performers - Emerging regulatory needs for protecting creative identity in an AI world Notable points: 1. Many Nollywood filmmakers are not yet leveraging AI, though the first AI-themed movie releases this month in Nigeria 2. Independent filmmakers Hussain Sambal are creating professional-quality content using AI with minimal resources 3. Lora-Mungai advises creators to "build in public" rather than spending time seeking traditional funding 4. AI tools are making traditional film specialisations like editing and visual effects increasingly obsolete 5. Blockchain and Web3 technologies may become essential for tracking and monetising creative assets in an AI-dominated landscape Be sure to listen out for a particularly candid moment when Masuku reveals he recently turned down offers from companies wanting to replicate his voice using AI, and Lora-Mungai's forthright response about the inevitability of this transformation. Here's a link to Marie Lora-Mungai's inciting Linkedin post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marieloramungai_african-filmmakers-we-need-to-talk-about-activity-7312399340570918912-uVie?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAGwgRYBG52bgfG6IE0hzny7wKy24y4L_74) Image credit: Restless Global