African Tech Roundup Podcast

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Dealdey Reportedly Sacks 60% Of Its Work Force Nov 09, 2015

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With so few high-flying start-up successes in Africa’s tech eco-system, one has to wonder just how alarmed we should get when word of job cuts and other such cost-cutting measures starts to dominate headlines. After all, this sort of thing happens in business all the time! That said, why does it seem like Nigerian startups are having a particularly hard time at the moment? Following signs of distress showing up at the countries startup poster children, Jumia and iROKOtv in recent weeks, Nigerian daily deals site, Dealdey, has reportedly sacked 60% of its workforce. Curiously, the news of this broke on a popular Kenyan blog, courtesy of “sources familiar with the matter”. In our discussion on the African The Round-up this week, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku will briefly discuss what could be fuelling this apparent season of hardship on Nigeria’s tech startup scene. Also, listen in for all the most important digital, tech and innovation news from the past week. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

MTN Nigeria Stunned By Unprecedented $5.2 Billion Fine Nov 02, 2015

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It’s been a truly awful week for the MTN Group— what with a $5.2 billion fine imposed on MTN Nigeria (the group’s largest and most profitable subsidiary) by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for failing to disconnect unregistered SIM cards timeously, the news of which led to considerable market panic and a subsequent 16% drop in MTN’s share price. This week, MTN also started fielding allegations of engaging in highly sophisticated tax evasion practices such as using transfer pricing to ship profits off to distant tax havens via their off-shore ‘businesses’, namely MTN Dubai and MTN International in Mauritius. Meanwhile, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange has confirmed that they will be investigating MTN for possible insider trading that may have occurred around the whole handling of information regarding the NCC debacle. And so far, the MTN Group’s CEO’s efforts to engage with the Nigerian authorities concerning the unprecedented fine have yet to yield any form of relief. Given all this, it’s unsurprising that MTN would feature in this week’s discussion on the African Tech Round-up. However, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku couldn’t agree on an angle to frame their chat this week. Tefo wanted us to unpack the regulatory challenges large telcos in Africa are facing in trying to innovate and grow their businesses across continent, while Andile was keen to debate the question of whether or not mobile operators like MTN might be obsolete in a few decades if they don’t refresh their legacy business models. So, they decided to let you in on their dignified little skirmish and let you decide whose topic suggestion wins the day. Also in this week’s show, all the biggest digital, tech and innovation news from across the continent— including a progress update on Nigeria’s efforts to meet its 2017 analogue to digital migration deadline, and details on how much Kenya has lost to cybercrime in the last year. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Massive Downsizing At iROKOtv And South Africa Considering Police Body Cameras Oct 26, 2015

Show notes

This week’s African Tech Round-up is chock-full of important digital, tech and innovation news from across the African continent— not least, the unfortunate rumoured in-fighting and financial distress at Jason Njoku’s media startup, iROKO Partners. Also, we’re happy to have our content producer, Peter “The Enigma” Peele back from a a hectic trip to Dubai where he attended GITEX Technology Week 2015. We managed to convince him to jump on the mic with us this week and share some highlights from his trip. Meanwhile, Tefo Mohapi not only delivered a talk and facilitated a discussion at the the Thabo Mbeki Leadership Institute’s Leadership Conference this past week (the dude got to even have dinner with former South African President Thabo Mbeki himself), but also attended the Brand Africa 100 Awards. Be sure to catch him giving us the low-low on all that in this week’s episode. And finally, Andile Masuku's back from a week-long leave of absence due to eye surgery he had done on his left eye. All said, it's been a super-busy week for the team at the African Tech Round-up. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Mobile Service Providers In Africa Call For Regulation Of OTT Services Such As WhatsApp Oct 19, 2015

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Last week it was Strive Masiyiwa's Econet Zimbabwe alluding that OTT (over the top) services such as WhatsApp and BBM are the reason they are seeing a drop in voice calls revenue and overall revenue. Now this week, MTN South Africa CEO, Mteto Nyati, has called for South Africa's communications regulator, ICASA, to look into regulating these OTT players because they haven't invested anything in telecoms infrastructure and they are "reaping large profits". Is this a fair call? Isn't it up to us as customers what we use the data we purchase from mobile service providers for? Or do we need to protect African mobile service providers from OTT services reaping profits from their infrastructure investments? Also, this week, Tefo Mohapi (Andile Masuku is on medical leave) covers interesting technology, digital and innovation news from Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Everything Is Difficult & Other Nuggets Of Wisdom From Nic Harry's Tech4Africa Talk Oct 12, 2015

Show notes

Tefo Mohapi was invited to speak at Tech4Africa 2015 last week. He shared on the important work that he and his team at iAfrikan are continuing to do in spearheading the ground-breaking Report Xenophobia campaign. While at the event, Tefo was lucky enough to sit in on a talk by Nic Haralambous, who opened his talk with this outlandish statement, "I believe everyone who starts a business is a bit broken." Nic is the founder of Nic Harry— a successful Cape Town-based “luxury men’s sock company” he built from scratch. Nic’s thought-provoking views on the realities of startup life and what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur sparked a great conversation that Tefo and Andile Masuku had on this week’s show. Along with all the week's most important digital, tech and innovation news, do listen in for the low-low on all the cool stuff members of the team at the African Tech Round-up will be getting up to in the final quarter of 2015. Here's what trending this week: -- South African tech firm Altron spills how much they made and mostly lost on the doomed Altech Node video-on-demand device, -- Facebook and Eutelsat set to share the entire broadband payload on Spacecom’s future AMOS-6 satellite, -- Zimbabwean mobile network operator Econet continues a legal bid to overturn the directive by the Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) for mobile companies to lower voice tariffs, and -- South African telecoms giant Telkom Telkom is being criticised for exposing customer personal data. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Volkswagen Up In Smoke As The South African Government Investigates Oct 04, 2015

Show notes

In what is arguably the largest cybercrime scandal affecting cars to date, Volkswagen has admitted to installing software in some of their diesel-powered cars to give out false emission data results during tests. This scandal affects their other brands like Audi, Skoda and SEAT and has seen the South African government, through the departments of Environmental Affairs and Transport as well as the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications, state that it is investigating into Volkswagen South Africa after the parent company admitted to deceiving USA regulators with the software. Apart from this raising concerns around the environment and carbon emissions from cars, we also wonder what this large scale software fraud by Volkswagen means for the future of cars given the move to electric vehicles. As you might be aware, electric vehicles are more reliant on software than cars that have an engine and more so driverless cars. Do we have to worry about cars getting hacked? Can we trust electric vehicle manufacturers too with their specifications since they'll mostly be software based? We also have a special guest on this week's African Tech Round-up, Vije Vijendranath. An engineer, startup founder and a co-founder of two children. Vije gives us his thoughts on the Volkswagen cybercrime scandal as well as on the week's big stories. Be sure to catch all the week's biggest digital, tech and innovation news from across Africa in this week's episode too. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

What's The Big Fuss About Apple Ad Blockers? Sep 27, 2015

Show notes

As avid consumers of new media, it’s hard not to love the ad blocking features Apple has worked into iOS9, and the clever ad blocking apps that are selling like hotcakes on mobile app stores everywhere. But content publishers are claiming that ad blocking is tantamount to taking the bread out of their mouths, and warn that ultimately you and I will suffer as great content— traditionally funded through ad revenue, will no longer be viable to produce. Meanwhile, it doesn’t help that fake media traffic schemes— powered by bots, are eroding the confidence we all have in the internet’s ability to deliver an efficient and integrous way for advertisers to display ads to targeted audiences. In this week’s discussion, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku weigh the pros and cons of ad blocking, and discuss how this might shape the future of advertising on the web. Publishers will no doubt need to tweak their business models if they are keep the lights on. It will be interesting to see whether these developments lead brands and publishers to look to native advertising to save the day. Also in this week's African Tech Round-up, all the week's biggest news from across Africa: -- South African JSE-listed tech firm, Altron is poised to sell its Autopage subscriber base for an estimated $108 million, -- Ethiopia rings in the New Year with the launch of Chinese-built light-rail system, -- Groupon is to withdraw from Morocco as part of its global rightsizing efforts, -- MultiChoice throws disgruntled Kenyan DSTV subscribers a bone by adding more channels to its "Compact" offering, -- Kenyan ISP Zuku is keen to woo customers to subscribe for its video-streaming service, -- A major survey reveals that there is a growing cyberbullying epidemic among South African teens, and -- Infamous South African Twitter personality, @PigSpotter's identity has been revealed. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

How To Build Products For Africa And Avoid Failing Like The Altech Node Sep 21, 2015

Show notes

Citing “increased competition” and “unfavourable market conditions” Altron is puling the plug on the Altech Node console and will discontinue its video-on-demand offering come the end of October 2015. The news comes in the wake of Naspers’ recent launch of the Netflix-clone, ShowMax, which the tech giant is clearly not sparing any expense in promoting. (By the way, you may as well take advantage of ShowMax’s free seven-day trial offer to check out what all the fuss is about.) The Node’s spectacular failure to appeal to consumers has led Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku to ponder the question, “What is the best way to build new tech products for Africa?” Perhaps there are lessons that big tech and startups on the continent would do well to learn from Altron’s costly misfire regarding how to effectively build and roll-out relevant and commercially successful products and services. Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up, all the week’s most important digital, tech and innovation news: -- Visa has choses to test ground-breaking biometrics technology, for use at ATM’s, in South Africa, -- Apple is preparing to shut down the transit app, Hopstop— which it bought from its Nigerian founder, Chinedu Echeruo for $1 billion in 2013, -- WeChat and Nigerian online tech publication, Tech Cabal are set to host conferences in Nigeria, aimed at empowering developers to make use of WeChat’s API, and -- Mobile phone manufacturer, Mi-Fone, accuses its Chinese rival, Xiaomi, of intentionally using similar sounding names for mobile devices they have recently launched in Africa. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Cashflow Rules Everything Around Me Alludes iROKOtv's Jason Njoku Sep 13, 2015

Show notes

Launching a start-up in Africa is not for the faint-hearted. Very few promising ventures-- even those that achieve solid traction, can expect to land Silicon Valley-type investment offers that might allow a founder the liberty to concentrate solely on growth, versus say, survival. This week's discussion is inspired in part by a recent blog post by iROKOtv Founder and MD, Jason Njoku, written in response to a question posted on a popular Nigerian tech message board by someone who was curious to know how many Nigerian startups are in fact profitable. Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku weren't quite sure of what to make of both the question and and Jason's subsequent response to it, so they decided to bounce some ideas around to try and determine which of these three: 1) Growth, 2) Profitability, or 3) Being cashflow positive, African startup founders should focus on in order to succeed. Consider this just the start of a very long conversation that will definitely continue. We are joined by Jovago.com Founder and MD, Marek "Chinedu" Zmyslowski on this week's African Tech Round-up while he was in Johannesburg on business. It was very kind of him to let us hijack him for a couple of hours, and include his two cents on this week's news and discussion topic. Be sure to catch all the week's biggest digital, tech and innovation news: -- Kenya and South Sudan are set to start work on a multi-million dollar high-speed fibre optic cable within the next two years, -- The Consumer Federation of Kenya is leading a boycott of DSTV over high cable subscription rates, -- Nigerian e-commerce platform Yudala is keen to pull an 'Amazon' as it plans to roll out a traffic-beating drone-delivery service, -- South Africa’s largest online news platform, News24, has finally opted to disable public comments to articles posted on their website, -- Facebook 2nd Quarter African User numbers reveal some fascinating trends, -- Singtel, Orange, Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica are joining forces to launch a VC initiative spanning Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, and -- A quick reminder to anyone living in South Africa that public comments on the proposed new Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity Bill are to be submitted to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development on or before November 30th.

Evolution Of Mobile Phones, What's Next? Sep 07, 2015

Show notes

You probably remember how popular Nokia's 3310 device was when it launched back in 2000. Affectionately known as “Die Hard” by ardent fans, it was for many the possession that would make them truly feel a part of 21st Century civilisation. It’s pretty incredible how far mobile telephony has come in the 15 years since Nokia launched the record-breaking 3310 handset. Who could have guessed that in 2015, Nokia would be a faltering giant, Africa would be at the forefront of the world’s mobile-first/mobile-only revolution, and that much of the continent’s “connected” population would be almost exclusively reliant on mobile devices to access the world-wide-web? In this week’s discussion, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku chat about some of what’s changed (or hasn’t) in the mobile phone technology space over the last decade and a half, and ponder what innovations we should expect to see emerge as we sail into a future which promises ever more technological advancement. Also in this week's African Tech Round-up, all the week's biggest digital tech and innovation news: -- Suspects nabbed in illegal South African government order scam, -- A University of Pretoria post-graduate student wins a prize for a clever asthma attack predictor, and -- Nigeria plans to deploy aerial drones in effort to combat oil theft at its ports. This episode was brought to you by e-magination.co.za, an information management and business intellegence solutions company. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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