Category: 3-SometimeTechTalk

Academic turned startup founder and investor, Dotun Olowoporoku, is the Managing Partner at Starta, a platform that "makes it easier to build, discover and track high growth businesses in Africa through startup education, data and growth consulting". Dotun is also a General Partner at the Nigerian VC outfit, Ventures Platform and the host of the Building the Future with Dotun podcast (http://thestarta.com/podcast) which features Africa-focused tech and innovation ecosystem actors who are doing their bit to shape Africa's future. Dotun previously founded Yhello Technologies (formerly known as meals.co.uk), an on-demand food delivery platform in the UK. He exited that business after striking a deal with Just-eat.co.uk, one of Europe's leading food ordering platforms. Following that, he joined a UK-based angel syndicate fund called Potential VC to spearhead the firm's early-stage startup investment efforts in Africa, before going on to found Starta. In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Dotun talks about his fascinating journey from postdoctoral research fellow to founder and investor, and unpacks his thesis for identifying and backing billion-dollar startup potential in Africa.

Topics covered in this episode:

• [play:0:52] glom: restructuring data, the Python way
• [play:5:31] Scientific GUI apps with TraitsUI
• [play:7:49] Pampy: The Pattern Matching for Python you always dreamed of
• [play:11:28] Google AI better than doctors at detecting breast cancer
• [play:15:37] 2018 Advent of Code
• [play:16:56] Red Hat Linux 8.0 Beta released, now (finally) updated to use Python 3.6 as default instead of 2.7
• Extras
• Joke

See the full show notes for this episode on the website at pythonbytes.fm/107

The week Eric and Thomas discuss

• Malware vector: become an admin on dormant, widely-used open source projects
• DiegoDev acquires Mission Control
• DJ Khaled, Floyd Mayweather Jr. charged for cryptocurrency fraud - CNN
• Microsoft wins $480M military contract to outfit soldiers with HoloLens AR tech
• New for AWS Lambda – Use Any Programming Language and Share Common Components | AWS News Blog
• Symfony leaves PHP-FIG, the framework interoperability group | Packt Hub
• php[architect] | The site for PHP professionals, Magazine, Training, Books, Conferences

In this relaxed three-way conversation, Alexander Betts, Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs and William Golding Senior Fellow in Politics at the University of Oxford's Brasenose College, and Yannick Du Pont, the Co-founder and Director of the Dutch NGO SPARK, join Andile Masuku to discuss the awkward state-of-play within the global foreign aid industry, reference instructive live case studies and attempt to define what “winning” at helping turbulent regions of the world navigate towards sustainable economic growth should look and feel like. Alexander is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader whose research at the University of Oxford centres on refugee assistance, with a focus on East Africa. He has authored ten books and co-authored Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System (Penguin Allen Lane and Oxford University Press, 2017) with Paul Collier— a book named by The Economist as one of the 'Best Books of 2017'. Alexander previously worked for the UNHCR and currently serves as a Councillor on the World Refugee Council while leading the IKEA Foundation-funded Refugee Economies Programme. Yannick has worked in the fields of higher education and economic development in post-conflict countries since 1994. He previously worked for the Netherlands Minister of Development Cooperation, the Dutch PAX, the Evert Vermeer Foundation and the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael. At SPARK, Yannick leads teams which run programmes that promote SME-growth and facilitate youth job creation in 15 fragile states, primarily in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. In addition to his work at SPARK, Yannick also serves on the boards of the Max van der Stoel Foundation and the LittleBitz Foundation, the advisory board of the Center of Theory of Change and the steering board of the Knowledge Platform on Security and Rule of Law. Editorial Disclaimer: SPARK (http://spark-online.org) is the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is part of an African Tech Roundup miniseries focused on inclusive economic progress being made in vulnerable states. 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, SPARK. This podcast series was taped at the fringes of SPARK’s 6th annual IGNITE Conference (http://bit.ly/IGNITEConference2018) – a premier gathering of refugees, entrepreneurs, educators, private sector actors, government leaders, academics and NGOs. Image credit: Bill Wegener

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 second part of Episode 125, Viola joins Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga to factor in on a “hype vs. reality” themed conversation about the development of Africa’s fintech landscape in 2018. To skip straight to that discussion, head to [40:09] and listen in to hear why Viola is sick and tired with the on-going continent-wide obsession of fintech startups looking to build "last-mile" solutions. Topics discussed in this episode: France's EDF signs deal for USD1.37 billion hydro project in Cameroon [1:26] Cameroonian health-tech entrepreneur Melissa Bime wins the Anzisha Prize [5:04] Benin repeals social media tax [10:57] Novastar Ventures closes USD72.5 million fund for West African Investments [13:17] Ethos announces USD69.8 million AI Fund [14:24} The African Digital Asset Framework (ADAF) is launched [19:35] Econet Group posts great results despite Kwese's poor performance [28:44] Econet and Safaricom not content to stay in their lanes [33:38] African Fintech 2018 Retrospective Discussion [40:09] Resources referenced in this episode: Breaking New Ground In Fintech: A Primer On Revenue Models That Create Value and Build Trust | Omidyar Network and Oliver Wyman (http://bit.ly/OmidyarNetworkFintechReport) Image credit: Tito Pixel

Topics covered in this episode:

• [play:0:49] Dependency Management through a DevOps Lens
• [play:5:25] Plugins made simple with pluginlib
• [play:8:00] How to Test Your Django App with Selenium and pytest
• [play:12:40]* Fluent collection APIs (flupy and asq)*
• [play:16:41] Guido blogging again
• [play:21:33]* Web apps in pure Python apps with Anvil*
• Extras
• Joke

See the full show notes for this episode on the website at pythonbytes.fm/106