The Tefo Mohapi Show

When Maged first told me that he would be cycling and hitch-hiking across Africa I thought to myself this is a weird way to punish oneself considering he could at minimum do the trip using a car. However, having spoken to him during this podcast there are clearly some important lessons one learns on such an excursion.

Maged Ahmed Korga is an Egyptian ex-Google software engineer who decided, in between switching jobs from Google in San Francisco to a startup that develops technology for self-driving vehicles, to take a 90-day trip across Africa on a bicycle. In this podcast, he shares some of his observations on this trip including experiencing racism in South Africa, the kindness of strangers, how the technology won't necessarily lift most Africans out of poverty and more.

Interestingly, Maged also makes a case for how it is better to travel away from the typical tourist areas in any country if you really want to learn about a country and its people.

If you look back just under 40 years ago, the global Information Technology sector was completely different, from the perspective of the dominant countries and companies, from what it is today. However, it is exactly at that time that China started building a city that plays an extremely important role in the global supply chain of electronic goods and especially mobile phones.

In this podcast, David Li, who works in Shenzhen, explains how the Chinese government selected Shenzhen, a rural fishing village of a few thousand people, 39 years ago as one of its Special Economic Zones. This decision, along with other factors that David elaborates on, led to Shenzhen today being responsible for over 60% of the global mobile phone market.

One of the other highlights of this episode of The Tefo Mohapi Show is that David explains how Shenzhen's open innovation model differs from how things are done in Silicon. Part of this model is how Shenzhen technology ecosystem endeavors to turn high-tech into a commodity and as such has become a supplier to some companies that are creating technology products for underserviced communities like we have in parts of Africa.

The digital music business has undergone three phases in Africa, namely: the mobile phone ringtone/ringback phase, the digital downloads phase, and now the online streaming phase. Yoel Kenan, Founder, and CEO of Africori (an Africa-focussed digital music aggregation and distribution business) explains these phases and how, in most parts of Africa, the first phase is still prevalent.

This podcast spans the history of the digital music business, the role of distributors, discussion on music rights, and many more topics relating to Africa's booming music industry. Yoel also provides balanced and nuanced insights and further elaborates why in his view it is still early days as far as the digital music industry in Africa is concerned.

With experience of over 30 years working in the music industry for various major record labels, European radio stations, and many other music organizations, Yoel also takes some time to explain why the digital music industry is different in South Africa as compared to the rest of Africa.

It's not often one gets to sit down with a person who has built as well as invested in some tech unicorns (a company with a $1 billion-plus valuation). It is also not often that such a person would be humble enough to admit their failures in business and celebrate them as lessons despite the temptation to paint themselves as a flawless hero. Kamran Elahian is both these things and much more.

Kamran is also an innovator. One of his innovations, the Momenta tablet computer which was way ahead of its time in the 1980s, is also one of the great business lessons he shares in this podcast regarding what can go wrong in business and what risks tech startup founders need to look out for in their own businesses. Momenta, although it started off superbly, eventually failed as the market at the time was not ready for such an innovation, not to mention Kamran and his team having to build a lot of the technology components themselves at the time given how none of it existed at the time.

Kamran also shares his thoughts in this podcast in what he believes can be a solution to kickstarting innovation and the digital economy across Africa. He further explores the role that Africa's technology hubs can play working hand-in-hand with startups, investors, and governments.

He is currently an investor (one of his unicorn holdings is an early investment into SoundHound) as well as an advisor to many organizations, startups and governments around the world.

If you had to think back a decade or even 6 or 7 years back, the digital technology media landscape across most parts of Africa was considerably different to what it is today. Most online publications, if any, that covered technology innovation were doing so from a developmental and social impact point of view. If not that, they were covering mostly enterprise technology.

The era of personal digital technology blogs gained popularity somewhere around a decade ago and around 6 or 7 years ago, online media publications focussed purely on digital technology innovation and startups started emerging in different countries across Africa. One such publication that emerged in 2013 is TechCabal.

Founded by Bankole Oluwafemi (Banks), TechCabal took an angle of covering the growing Nigerian tech ecosystem from what was happening in the startups ecosystem and it would eventually grow into an authoritative voice on most things technology in Nigeria. Not only that, the company itself has gone on to become a great storyteller of Nigerian youth culture, and West African culture at large, through its other publication - Zikoko.

In this podcast, I look back with Bankole at how the innovation and startup ecosystem in Nigeria, and the rest of Africa, has transformed over the years as well as how the publications (those that are still alive) that cover it have also grown.

We also touch on the important issue of how policymakers should be interacting with innovators and startups.

With the recent passing of Zimbabwe's former President, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the southern African country once again came under the spotlight. Questions about how good (or how bad) Mugabe's legacy was have been asked, and depending who you ask, Zimbabwe is or was a great country or a horrible country. The same mixed sentiment applies especially if you ask South Africans about Robert Mugabe.

As such, I thought it best to catch up and talk to someone who I think has a better experience and understanding of Zimbabwe than myself. I've known Emmanuel Banda for several years as a waiter at one of my favorite restaurants that I frequent. But more than being a waiter, Emmanuel is also the director responsible for elections and recruiting for MDC (Movement For Democratic Change) in South Africa.

Emmanuel was born in Bulawayo in 1981 and he grew up in the dusty streets of Mabutweni in Mpopoma, were he also went to school.

His story of growing up in Bulawayo and noticing the changes as life got harder in Zimbabwe and eventually fleeing to South Africa provides a rather nuanced perspective of life during the late 1990s up until 2007. In his words, he has witnessed a country go from prosperity to no food on store shelves, more importantly, he has sadly observed as his friends and colleagues “disappeared” and were killed.

Emmanuel also touches on how it is to live in South Africa as a Zimbabwean especially considering reports of xenophobia against foreign nationals during September 2019.

If you have been following South African politics for the past few years, especially on Twitter, you would probably have come across the name Gwen Ngwenya. She is a former Member of Parliament representing the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition in South Africa.

More interesting, is how, despite the insults that have been hurled at her on social media and some times in Main Stream Media (MSM), Gwen has kept her cool and argued her points with little emotion. As such, I thought since she has now declined to be an MP, it would be great to discuss a few things with her around South African politics and some issues such as affirmative action.

Gwen now runs her technology advisory and policy firm in South Africa called TechPol. In this podcast we also talk about some of the emerging technology trends such as the on-demand (gig) economy and how governments should approach them from a policy point of view.

Mteto Nyati is one of those leaders in South Africa's society whose career path is nothing short of excellence. From starting as an engineer during South Africa's much darker Apartheid days, to changing industries into the Information Technology field and then later Telecommunications.

He has proven that he has a knack for taking on challenges and finding solutions. In this episode of "The Tefo Mohapi Show" I got to speak with Mteto about his younger days as detailed in his book "Betting on a Darkie."

We also discuss the state that South Africa finds itself in and what he proposes should be done to move the country forward.

In this episode of The Tefo Mohapi Show, I speak to Marek Zmyslowski, a Polish entrepreneur who packed up his bags in 2013 to go to Nigeria to start an online travel startup. Having met with the Samwer brothers, founders of Rocket Internet, Marek was recruited to be the co-founder and Managing Director of Jovago in Nigeria.

Jovago initially focussed on servicing customers in Nigeria with a vision to expand across Africa. However, things didn't go as Marek planned. Africa Internet Holdings (which would later rename and rebrand to Jumia), the group company under which Jovago and other Rocket Internet startups in Africa operated under, decided that it was best to consolidate all of its startups in Africa under the Jumia brand.

Marek disagreed with this and it led to a fall-out with the executives at Rocket Internet and Africa Internet Holdings. However, that was the least of his troubles in doing business in Nigeria as he would later experience after having an Interpol Red Notice on his passport.

I, Tefo Mohapi, will be your host for this podcast show. Having previously founded iAfrikan.com and other technology and media businesses and having now worked in the Information Technology sector across Africa for now just under 20 years.

I hope to bring you unique and interesting insights into some of the people that make our world tick. We will together explore the views of my guests regarding the state of the world currently, the impact of digital technology on culture and how the world works, and what they think needs to be done to make our world better, or at minimum, how we can all get along better and do better.

I trust you will find the conversations insightful! Kgotso!