African Tech Roundup Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The African Fintech 2018 Retrospective with Viola Llewellyn of Ovamba Part 1 Nov 27, 2018

Show notes

2018's last in-studio taping of the African Tech Roundup podcast is a two-part affair which guest features the force of nature that is Viola Llewellyn. Viola is the UK-born, Cameroonian Co-founder and President of an award-winning fintech platform called Ovamba. Ovamba relies on proprietary technologies to connect African SMEs to sources of short‐term capital to fund their growth. Viola has spent over 15 years working in the management consulting, technology and alternative finance sectors at firms like of IBM, Unisys, KPMG and Preston Gates Ellis. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors of ActivSpaces, AH Partners, the European Women in Payment Network and the International Women’s Think Tank. In this, the first part of Episode 125, Viola joins Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga as they start to factor in on a “hype vs. reality” themed conversation about the development of Africa’s fintech landscape in 2018. Listen in to hear Viola's candid take on the unfortunate current state-of-play in Cameroon’s Anglophone region. Topics discussed in this episode: Nigeria plans to build an additional 18,000km of fibre infrastructure [41:33] Ashish Thakkar of Mara Group announces plans to launch a smartphone brand called Maraphone [46:50] Tanzania vs. journalists [51:29] Anglophone Cameroon crisis update [53:29] Resources referenced in this episode: Nigeria's National Broadband Plan 2013-2018 | Nigerian Presidential Committee on Broadband (http://bit.ly/NigeriaBroadbandPlan2013) A new model of microfinance for Africa, and beyond | TED Institute (http://bit.ly/ViolaLlewellynTEDTalk) The Democratisation of Financial Services | SLUSH (http://bit.ly/ViolaLlewellynSLUSH) 26 Women of Colour Diversifying Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, Media and Beyond | Vanity Fair (http://bit.ly/BlackWomenVanityFair)

TransUnion Africa's Lee Naik on embracing collaboration and harnessing democratised technologies Nov 23, 2018

Show notes

Lee Naik is the CEO of TransUnion Africa, a subsidiary of the giant American consumer credit reporting agency, TransUnion, that’s listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Prior to joining TransUnion Africa, Lee spent 18 years at Accenture, where he served as Managing Director of Accenture Digital in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since signing up to lead TransUnion Africa in January 2017, he’s been tasked with shaping the company’s continental growth strategy— a process that’s so far necessitated the recruitment of key senior talent, the orchestration of major tech platform updates, and the expansion of the firm’s range of information solutions. In this conversation with Andile Masuku - which forms part African Tech Roundup’s podcast miniseries on digital assets (http://bit.ly/atrudigitalassets) - Lee offers insight into how data-led legacy corporates like TransUnion Africa are grappling with the prospect of a future led by democratised technologies and open source collaboration. Editorial Disclaimer: Raise (https://getraise.io) is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is part of an African Tech Roundup miniseries focused on digital assets. Raise is a founding member of the African Digital Asset Framework - ADAF (http://adaf.io). 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, Raise.

Ovamba's Viola Llewellyn on encoding African IP and the need for Pan-African digital standards Nov 20, 2018

Show notes

The third and last episode of African Tech Roundup's (https://africantechroundup.com) miniseries (http://bit.ly/atrudigitalassets) on digital assets features Viola Llewellyn, the UK-born, Cameroonian Co-founder and President of an award-winning fintech platform called Ovamba. Ovamba leverages proprietary technologies to connect African SMEs to sources of short‐term capital to fund their growth. Viola has spent over 15 years working in the management consulting, technology and alternative finance sectors at firms like of IBM, Unisys, KPMG and Preston Gates Ellis. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors of ActivSpaces, AH Partners, the European Women in Payment Network and the International Women’s Think Tank. In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Viola speaks on the importance of finding smart ways to ensure that Africa secures its unique and invaluable IP, touches on the overlooked advantages of adopting Pan-African digital standards for the establishment and trade of assets in various sectors, and sketches the role that Africa’s financial services industry needs to play in helping us all thrive in an increasingly digital world. Editorial Disclaimer: Raise (https://getraise.io) is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is part of an African Tech Roundup miniseries focused on digital assets. Raise is a founding member of the African Digital Asset Framework (http://adaf.io). 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, Raise.

MzansiSat's Bernard Greyling can't wait to launch African geostationary broadband satellites Nov 16, 2018

Show notes

In this conversation with the Chief Technical Officer at MzansiSat, Bernard Greyling, Andile Masuku learns about the South African geostationary broadband satellite startup's mission to partner with African states in deploying and operating space hardware that would significantly improve public access to low-cost internet access. Listen in to hear Bernard explain the innovative public-private ownership model that MzansiSat trying to sell African nations— one that promises to empower countries to deliver affordable broadband access to their citizens and enable them to break their costly reliance on outsourced broadband satellite services in one fell swoop.

EOS Nairobi's Felix Macharia and Raise's Marvin Coleby unpack the African Digital Asset Framework Nov 13, 2018

Show notes

In this podcast - the second episode in African Tech Roundup's (https://africantechroundup.com) three-part miniseries on digital assets (http://bit.ly/atrudigitalassets) - Andile Masuku chats with two gifted distributed ledger proponents who are co-architects of the African Digital Assets Framework - ADAF (http://adaf.io). ADAF is the first open-source software platform to create transnational standards for digital assets and distributed ledger technologies— in line with pan-African development objectives. ADAF intends to complement the African Union’s Single Africa Digital Market initiative, which seeks to leverage technology to stimulate digitised pan-African economic integration. Andile's first podcast guest is Felix Macharia, a Kenyan senior medical student who is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of EOS Nairobi— where he leads product development and decentralised protocol research. Felix is also an affiliate scholar with the Institute for Blockchain Studies in New York. Also on the show is the Bahamian technology and securities lawyer-turned-founder and CEO of Raise, Marvin Coleby. Marvin is a published researcher specialising in regional trade financing and international investment arbitration, and also serves as an advisor to the Africa Blockchain Alliance and the Agentic Group, alongside advising partners such as Coindesk, MIT and IBM. Listen in to broaden your understanding of what constitutes a digital asset and learn why adopting a pragmatic Pan-African framework for dealing with digital assets might well be in the world's best interests. Editorial Disclaimer: Raise (https://getraise.io) is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is part of an African Tech Roundup miniseries focused on digital assets. Raise is a founding member of the African Digital Asset Framework (http://adaf.io). 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, Raise.

Talking Transsion, Android vs iPhone and Xiaomi's Pocophone F1 with Nendo's Mark Kaigwa Nov 09, 2018

Show notes

Following a sunny Johannesburg lunch al fresco, Nendo (https://nendo.co.ke) Founder and CEO Mark Kaigwa and Andile Masuku chat about a few consumer tech issues that are currently trending in their lives. Listen in to learn why the music streaming service Boomplay is thriving in Africa, how Transsion's African digital domination strategy seems to be coming together nicely, why Xiaomi's Pocophone F1 smartphone is shaking things up in the global high-end mobile device market, and why Mark and Andile feel obliged to weigh the pros and cons of switching back to Android after several years of being iPhone users. Resource referenced in this episode: From Cyber Café to Smartphone: Kenya’s Social Media Lens Zooms In on the Country and Out to the World http://bit.ly/KenyaSocialMedia

African IP diaries with UCT's Prof Caroline Ncube and Thomson Reuters' Saidah Nash Carter Nov 05, 2018

Show notes

This podcast is the first instalment of a three-part miniseries (http://bit.ly/atrudigitalassets) produced by African Tech Roundup (https://africantechroundup.com) to spark a broader debate about the nature and value of African digital assets within the context of the world’s emerging digital economy. Joining Andile Masuku for this conversation are two distinguished Cape Town-based innovators. First, the Zimbabwean-born Professor of Intellectual Property at the University of Cape Town’s Faculty of Law and co-editor of the South African Intellectual Property Law Journal, Caroline Ncube. Caroline has authored a book called Intellectual Property Policy, Law and Administration in Africa: Exploring continental and sub-regional co-operation and co-edited another called Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property. She is also a fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society, a Shell Centenary Scholarship Fund scholar, an associate member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society at the University of Ottawa and a co-leader of the Open African Innovation Research Partnership. Also featured in this episode is Saidah Nash Carter, the African-American intrapraneur who serves as Head of Innovation at Thomson Reuters Africa. While at Reuters NewMedia, early on in her career, Saidah helped to build and launch some of the first online news services for early internet sensations like Yahoo! and AOL. Today, however, she heads up one of the seven innovation labs Thomson now runs globally (now branded Refinitiv Labs)— the only one so far based in an emerging market. Some notable successes in her current role include overseeing Thomson Reuters’ Africa Startup Challenge and getting her team’s agrotech financial inclusion initiative, dubbed Bankable Farmer, off the ground. Listen in to gain a better appreciation of the historical approaches to dealing with intellectual property, in particular, as Africa undertakes to construct legal frameworks and set standards for the use of digital assets— that is, to figure out how to go about administering their creation, registering their ownership, determining their value, and regulating their exchange. Editorial Disclaimer: Raise (https://getraise.io) is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is part of an African Tech Roundup miniseries focused on digital assets. Raise is a founding member of the African Digital Asset Framework aka ADAF (https://adaf.io). 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, Raise.

Is Venture Capital a Ponzi Scheme? feat. Grant Phillips of PhilTech Consulting Nov 02, 2018

Show notes

Joining Andile Masuku and guest co-host Rushil Vallabh of Secha Capital on this African Tech Roundup podcast is Grant Phillips. Grant is the Founder and CEO of PhilTech Consulting and has partnered with both Convergence Partners and Stockdale Street (the Oppenheimer Family’s South African private equity outfit) to "build out technology ecosystems across Africa". He was previously the CEO and Chairman of the Nairobi-based credit reference bureau and debt management outsource organisation CRB Africa as well as CEO of TransUnion’s Pan-African business. Listen in to hear Andile, Rushil and Grant unpack the provocative assertion that venture capital is a Ponzi scheme, recently made by the American-Sri Lankan Founder and CEO of Social Capital Chamath Palihapitiya. Head to [1:18:12] if you'd like to skip straight to that conversation. Chamath - a bona fide billionaire - was an early senior executive at Facebook. Following that, Chamath founded Social Capital which he claims, its first 8 years, made double what Berkshire Hathaway made in its first 8 years of business. But now, apparently, he's done with the limited partnership VC model and with running a successful hedge fund. Hence, he's decided to reorganise Social Capital into a holding company that will pick investments on the basis of both solid business fundamentals and "value to humanity"— and offer investees all the finance and growth support they need to thrive. Given media reports regarding Rocket Internet's puzzling plans to exit their investment in the struggling online shopping platform Jumia via a stock exchange listing in the US, Africa's early-stage investment ecosystem might do well to soberly reflect on Chamath's controversial aversion to the VC model largely popularised by Silicon Valley. Topics discussed in this episode: Somalia’s Premier Bank announces a USD1 million fund to invest in Somali startups [14:45] Kenya earmarks just under USD10 million for local phone manufacturing [15:55] Airtel Africa raises USD1.25 billion [18:14] Update on MTN Nigeria's regulatory woes [21:36] Rocket Internet set to list Jumia in the US [24.09] The International Finance Corporation (IFC) could invest USD3 million in Kobo360 [30:26] South Africa is getting Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres [43:42] Naspers is agressively reorganising its portfolio [48:03] Angola Cables' South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) is live [52:06] Zambia's Central Bank warns against trading cryptocurrencies [54:05] Liquid Telecom completes acquisition of CEC Liquid Telecom (Zambia) [59:04] Nexxus Ventures backs South African equity crowdfunding startup Uprise.Africa [1:00:57] Education fintech Prodigy lands a billion dollar line of credit [1:03:32] Standard Bank South Africa set to launch a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) [1:07:28] Malawi plans to force businesses to accept digital payments [1:09:02] Andela pays coders at least 50% less than Silicon Valley coders earn [1:09:40] Facebook continues to lose top executives + Facebook data breach [1:10:55] Apple & Amazon accused of having servers compromised by spyware-laden chips [1:12:32] Apple and Samsung fined by Italy for planned obsolescence [1:13:17] Uber keen to buy Careem [1:14:36] Airbnb wants to share equity with home sharing listees [1:15:00] Discussion: Is VC a Ponzi Scheme? [1:18:12] Resources referenced in this episode: The Africa Innovation Paradigm Whitepaper: http://bit.ly/AfricanInnovationParadigmReport Chamath Palihapitiya This Week In Startups Interview: http://bit.ly/ChamathInterview Social Capital 2018 Annual Letter: http://bit.ly/SocialCapital2018AnnualLetter

Sureswipe's Paul Kent on competing in South Africa's crowded payments startup scene Oct 25, 2018

Show notes

Paul Kent is Co-founder and Managing Director of Sureswipe, a South African payments solutions startup dedicated to making card payment acceptance easy and accessible for small and medium-sized retailers and service providers. Sureswipe started out as a business division of the cloud-based clinical and billing practice management software firm, Healthbridge, before it evolved into the Point-Of-Sale (POS) product driven startup it is today. Since 2008, Paul has helped to grow Sureswipe into one of the more recognisable brands in South Africa's crowded payments market. The business currently services over 9,000 merchants and employs more than 100 people. In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Paul sheds light on Sureswipe's growth strategy and provides pragmatic insight about the market intelligence and business partnerships required to succeed in South Africa's competitive payments industry.

Lyndsey Duff of What3Words on inducting a new global addressing standard Oct 17, 2018

Show notes

South African Lyndsey Duff is the South Africa Country Manager at What3Words— a British startup which provides a precise physical location solution that has broken up the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3-word address. Prior to joining What3Words, Lyndsey oversaw inward investment at the South African High Commission UK, following stints at the Palace of Westminster and the South African Chamber of Commerce. In this brief chat with Andile Masuku - taped at Africa Tech Summit Kigali 2018 - Lyndsey outlines What3Words' African business goals and unpacks the company's ambition to better tech heavies like Google by ushering in the "next global addressing standard".

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

African Tech Roundup Podcast

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected