In this month of April, we have several ideas at the fore. Firstly, there was an earth shattering moment when a Chinese company took the AI world by storm. The apparent ability of this company to do so much with so little is the definition of disruption. It sent shockwaves through the financial markets. To this end we chose to share Nancy Kacungira’s X piece where she explains what these technologies mean for typical Africans. Then I juxtapose this piece with some projects that India has taken on in space exploration. We compare this to what other countries spend (the USA). The ideas is to see if the Chinese and Indian Stories present some ideas that “third world” countries can make use of to leapfrog into a future of dominance by simply building well but cheaply. This will not happen though without an investment in technical skills covering many critical areas.

Next we continue the conversation where we look into the return of the customer. This well written article examines some of the most important ideas that help define customer behavior. We highlight the major theme of defensibility. Those of you who make use of our (both the magazine and podcast) material will find these conversations in podcasts such as Acquired. The hosts Ben and David analyze companies and determine what makes these successful companies great. The idea of defensibility is often mentioned as is the word moat (a defense system created in medieval times where a deep lake was used to surround a castle to increase security against attack or infiltration) which has been spoken about a few times by Warren Buffet. The article’s examination of several important trends from social to mobility to accommodation between 2009 and pre-Covid help bring to the surface key thoughts in how to keep customers engaged.

We also shed some light on what makes Intersection Magazine Different with our Media Kit.

Finally we make some suggestions about the possibility of new learning paradigms that have emerged in the last few years.

I draw from some of my experiences in the distance learning phase of my life. I attempt to link the ‘invasion’ of technology companies into the University space as a major shift in culture as well as the increasing urge to bring down the cost of University Education and the democratization of the space MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).

For entertainment we recommend Electric State which I review drawing similarities from some other influential Hollywood pictures forecasting a future where there is a merger between technology and humanity.

For reading material we present a book that was shared as part of the school of African Leadership on Networking written by Farouk Khaillan.