Month: June 2016

Ever wonder what it might be like to run a startup that’s owned by a successful tech company, backed by one of Africa’s wealthiest entrepreneurs? Well, one thing is for sure— it’s no walk in the park. At least, that’s according to Charles Murray. Charles is a director of a messaging and internet calling app called ttrumpet that’s looking to capture a big share of Africa’s digital vouchering market. ttrumpet-- dubbed a "lifestyle app", is a subsidiary of Fastcomm, a tech group that boasts having billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe as one if its shareholders. In this conversation, Charles tells Andile Masuku why he reckons that ttrumpet isn’t just another mobile app, and shares how his company plans to thrive in an ever changing social media landscape.

On Friday, June 10th 2016 MTN’s stock price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange jumped by 20%. This happened in the wake of the news that the firm’s nine-month Nigerian nightmare might finally be coming to an end. MTN has reportedly struck a deal with the Nigerian government, and is set to pay the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) $1.7 billion over three years— significantly less than the $5.2 billion they were initially fined for flouting SIM card registration regulations months ago. While MTN’s shareholders are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief, the company is not out of the woods yet, as according to the NCC, one of the conditions linked to the monetary settlement is the requirement that MTN list its Nigerian subsidiary on the Nigerian Stock Exchange “as soon as is commercially and legally possible”. While the jury’s still out on whether this is the last we’ll hear of this story, one thing is certain, this case sets one heck of a precedent, and that can only bode well for corporate Africa. Also in this week's African Tech Round-up, we feature part of a conversation Andile Masuku had with Charles Murray-- who is a director of the messaging and internet calling app, ttrumpet. Listen in to hear Charles talking about why he reckons ttrumpet isn’t just another mobile app, and sharing some of the pressures and perks of growing a startup that is a subsidiary of relatively successful tech group (Fastcomm) backed by one of the continent’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, Patrice Motsepe. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Show notes: https://github.com/PHPUgly/podcast/blob/master/shows/ep14.md * Our latest Downtown SDPHP Meetup and what's coming for North County * Recent contributes the PHPUgly crew has made to Open Source Projects * PHP Versioning statistics and how the move to PHP 7 is looking * Some features queued up for PHP 7.1 * and we discuss grumphp, a new tool to make sure you code is clean and compliant,