African Tech Roundup - African IP diaries with UCT’s Prof Caroline Ncube and Thomson Reuters’ Saidah Nash Carter

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.

PHPUgly - 127:Extortion Development

The week, Eric, John, and Thomas discuss

African Tech Roundup - Is Venture Capital a Ponzi Scheme? feat. Grant Phillips of PhilTech Consulting

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

African Tech Roundup - Sureswipe’s Paul Kent on competing in South Africa’s crowded payments startup scene

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.

PHPUgly - 125: The Patreon Garage Sale

This month the team discusses GPG Suite

Other topics include: