Kenya’s tech scene aka Silicon Savannah is on fire! At least, that’s according to commentators like Brenda Wambui, who’s recent blog posted on Medium threw serious shade the way of some looming figures in Kenya’s tech ecosystem following the diabolical fallout at cloud services firm, Angani. It turns out that some of the details surrounding this story that we reported on some weeks ago— details whose validity we later questioned, might in fact be accurate. In this week’s episode of the African T...
Nov 23, 2015•27 min
This week's instalment of the African Tech Round-up was recorded at the African Media Leaders Forum, which wrapped in Johannesburg on the weekend. And what a treat it is! The show is an all-Africa affair— what with Mark Kaigwa stopping by. Mark is easily one of Kenya’s leading proponents of social media, as well as a respected innovator within digital tech in general. He is also the Founder and CEO of the Nairobi-based digital agency, Nendo Ventures— well-known for the Nendo Social Media Trend R...
Nov 16, 2015•1 hr
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...
Nov 09, 2015•26 min
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 t...
Nov 02, 2015•31 min
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 hi...
Oct 26, 2015•37 min
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...
Oct 19, 2015•10 min
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...
Oct 12, 2015•27 min
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 Sou...
Oct 04, 2015•20 min
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 tra...
Sep 27, 2015•33 min
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 spectacu...
Sep 21, 2015•24 min
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 k...
Sep 13, 2015•30 min
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/...
Sep 07, 2015•17 min
Back in Episode 3 of the African Tech Round-up we asked the question: “What is a startup?” A lively discussion ensued— inspired by an eloquent piece written by David Adamo Jr, a Nigerian Computer Science PhD student at the University of North Texas. Since then, the highly-opinionated founder of Hotels.ng, Mark Essien, and Project Isizwe CEO, Alan Knott-Craig Jr, have both since penned articles (When Startups In Nigeria Suddenly Got Serious and Venture Capital In Africa Is Hard) which contribute ...
Aug 31, 2015•16 min
For many recently married couples, the diamond engagement ring is one of their biggest assets— albeit an emotional asset, symbolising love and lifelong commitment. In financial terms it isn’t an asset at all, considering the fact that it loses at least 50% of it’s retail value the moment you leave the jewellery store. Rough, isn’t it? And yet still we feel compelled to buy diamonds for our loved ones, and continue to fuel a global billion-dollar industry. One has to admire the ingenious marketin...
Aug 23, 2015•22 min
Microsoft certainly got millions of people excited a while ago when they announced that their latest version of Windows would be free. However, Windows users in most of Africa have begun to balk at the "not-so-free" implications of this recent innovation-- which by the way, is essentially a compulsory upgrade. Internet access is still relatively limited in most parts of the continent, and there's plenty of data showing that most people primarily connect to the web via mobile networks which deliv...
Aug 17, 2015•21 min
There is no doubt that "wherever there is chaos, there is opportunity". A popular conspiracy theory suggests that the lack of quality data on the African continent suits devious corporate and government interests who are looking to maintain the status quo which enables them to continue making hay in the proverbial darkness. In this week's African Tech Round-up, we share the exciting news of the launch of a platform called Accur8Africa-- which aims to improve the accuracy of data on the continent...
Aug 10, 2015•22 min
You know it’s a slow news week when the week’s biggest news involves the CEO and the CFO of South African telecoms firm, Neotel, going on leave. Granted, it is “special leave”. Be that as it may, broadly speaking we are totally digging the prevailing positive sentiment we are sensing in Africa’s tech scene. Following the “let’s launch an incubator” trend that we have observed on the continent in recent months, the “let’s host a hackathon” craze is increasing momentum— fueled by a number of compa...
Aug 03, 2015•12 min
Think back to high school. Remember how the new dude always got all the girls whispering, or how the new girl got all the boys trying to walk her home? Now, if the newbie rolled into town with discernible signs of affluence (i.e. dope clothes, or an expensive scent), the singles market would get particularly frenzied. And when the newbie possessed a hint of exoticism (i.e. a foreign accent, or an unusual taste in music), even the kids involved in some of the most stable couplings might start fee...
Jul 26, 2015•24 min
Many people are conflicted about the need for “cyber mercenaries” like Hacking Team to exist. Blind idealism might contend that it is simply not right for corporatised hacking syndicates with dodgy ethical standards to secretly assist government intelligence agencies (and well-heeled private clients) to snoop on targets. However, living in a world where the modern wonders of the internet and mobile devices are harnessed to conduct criminal activities in increasingly devious ways may demand that ...
Jul 19, 2015•29 min
Everyone loves a good love story. Especially when things go according to plan: start-up founder meets venture capitalist with deep pockets, tons of real-world experience, great contacts and, of course, a tried and tested system for navigating to success. For most African tech startups who have been financed by one of Africa's leading venture capital funds, this idyllic scenario couldn't be further from reality. Exclusive to the African Tech Round-up, Hong Kong’s only private, full service startu...
Jul 12, 2015•26 min
As concerns continue to be raised over the potetial threat to internet neutrality posed by Facebook's aggressive roll-out of its Internet.org platform, South African telecoms operator, Telkom is proving that the public's growing distrust of big tech firms is not unfounded. Large tech firms seem only too happy to test limits of what is ethically acceptable in terms of violating personal privacy, while capitalising on the lack of consensus around what constitutes internet neutrality. Little fuss h...
Jul 05, 2015•17 min
The race is still on to discover the formula for successfully distributing digital content in Africa. In a recent blogpost, Jason Njoku, the outspoken founder of iRokoTV, announced that his company would soon retire the desktop version of their platform (for African users) to concentrate on building a mobile application that he says will better service the African consumer. The article is basically an eloquent admission that iRokoTV's efforts to "win Lagos" and then conquer the rest of Africa ha...
Jun 28, 2015•19 min
Nigeria's "company that builds companies", Spark, announced last week its plans to drop some startups it invested in. This announcement comes just a week after 88mph's notice that it will be "taking a break" from investing in African startups. While it is not uncommon for investment funds to pause on-boarding when funds available for employment are temporarily exhausted, it seems odd that 88mph would go out of its way to alert the public to something that would occur in the normal course of busi...
Jun 21, 2015•24 min
Uber's Roman-style campaign to achieve utter and complete worldwide domination has encountered a teeny tiny setback in Kenya. Much to the surprise of many, the company is yet to enjoy the runaway success it has become accustomed to. In last week's episode of the African Tech Round-up we reported on Uber's plans to run a limited experiment to allow its Kenyan customers to pay for trips using cash and M-Pesa. This followed claims made by the company that the slow adoption of their service in Kenya...
Jun 14, 2015•34 min
The internet is undoubtedly the untamed "wild west" of the modern technological age. To counteract the malicious threats that lie in wait for innocent users of the web (on and offline), South Africa's Film and Publication Board (FPB) has recently taken it upon itself to "regulate content" through a set of draft regulations-- while claiming that children are at the top of their protection priority list In this week’s discussion we debate the potential unconstitutionality of this new regulatory fr...
Jun 07, 2015•27 min
Nigeria's tech scene was abuzz last week following Mark Essien's hotel booking platform Hotel.ng securing international investment co-led by Omidyar Network and the EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund. However, for undisclosed reasons the parties involved have chosen not to make public the fine points of the deal. This week we debate whether it does Africa's tech ecosystem any good for important transactions like these to happen behind closed doors, and for details to remain secret. While we're at it, we pok...
May 31, 2015•22 min
There are three prevailing views on bitcoin and the blockchain: 1) that it's a scam, 2) it's one of the most fascinating technological developments of the decade, and 3) it's just another tech fad that's not worth trying to grasp, nevermind fussing over. View number three is probably held by the vast majority of people on the continent. This week, Tefo Mohapi and I (Andile Masuku) will try and establish whether the hype around bitcoin and the various useful applications of the blockchain (which ...
May 24, 2015•21 min
As long as "Microsoft" remains synonymous with "Proprietary Software" the jury will be out on whether proprietary software is superior to open source software (OSS). For many ardent proponents of OSS, this debate is mostly about rooting for the 'little guy', but in this week's discussion, your hosts Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku, will start a conversation about the pros and cons of both regimes, and highlight some issues that they think should headline this debate. Then they will leave it up to ...
May 17, 2015•28 min
Tech and innovation hubs are all the rage in Africa at the moment. With reportedly as many as 150 in existence from Cape to Cairo, these organisations are undoubtedly "da flava" in donor funding terms. However, it seems that the question of whether or not these hubs are actually effective at achieving what they set out to do is rarely asked. In his article "Startup Incubators in Africa and why they don’t work" Hotels.ng founder, Mark Essien, asserts that tech and innovation hubs have precious li...
May 10, 2015•20 min
The word "startup" is often used loosely in the world of tech, and frequently worn as a badge of honour by individuals and organisations who aspire to the glamour commonly associated with modern-day entrepreneurship. In this week’s African Tech Round-up Podcast, Tefo Mohapi and I attempt to pin down a definition for the term and determine what business ventures qualify to be classified as startups. Our discussion is inspired by an article by David Adamo Jr-- a Nigerian Computer Science PhD stude...
May 03, 2015•19 min
