Category: 3-SometimeTechTalk

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PHPUgly - 121: You know nothing John Congdon

This month the team discusses Safe PHP: throwing exceptions instead of returning false

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African Tech Roundup - Hacking Remittances and Other Stories feat. Herbert Banhire of AMA.ZING (Zing Holdings)

According to a recent World Bank report, it's more costly to send money to Africa than to anywhere else in the world. On average, a 12% remittance fee is charged for every USD200 sent to the continent. Just last year (2017), African Diasporans reportedly sent home USD38 billion, and doubtless, a solid chunk of that sum served to line the pockets of financial incumbents who are only too happy to promote the status quo. In this episode of the African Tech Roundup, Herbert Banhire, AMA.ZING's Head of Zimbabwean Diaspora SA, joins Andile Masuku and guest co-host, Tapsnapp Founder, Vije Vijendranath, to chat about some leading tech and innovation ecosystem trends and to talk about the Zing Holdings' (http://ama.zing.world) ambitions to disrupt Africa's remittance industry via their first B2C virtual coin-based remittance offering, AMA.ZING. The Mauritius-registered Zing Holdings was founded by South Africans Jason Perthel (CEO) and Warren Venter. AMA.ZING is poised to help Zimbabweans living in South Africa - banked or not - conduct free mobile transactions and access basic insurance services. Listen in to hear Andile, Vije and Herbert unpack Zing's Sure Remit-esque platform aspirations against the backdrop of the unprecedented early-stage investment goldrush currently happening within Africa's fintech scene. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Image Credit: https://rawpixel.com
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PHPUgly - 120: Hype Driven Development

This month the team discusses the loss of a good friend and talented developer William Cahill-Manley. Please consider helping out William's family with their GoFundMe goal give Willam a final send-off.

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African Tech Roundup - Tonjé Bakang of African Leadership Academy on Afrostream’s demise and failing forward

You might recall that in September 2017 the Cameroonian former Founder & CEO of Afrostream and current Chief Brand Officer of African Leadership Academy's Anzisha Prize, Tonjé Bakang, published a heavily-publicised Medium post in French announcing that his VOD streaming service was shutting down. Here is Tonjé's letter in English— translated by Audrey Lang: http://bit.ly/tonjéokayafrica. Our very own Andile Masuku even wrote a syndicated op-ed for Business Report South Africa (http://bit.ly/tonjeoped) celebrating Tonjé's decision to chronicle how and why his company failed. By founding Afrostream, Tonjé set out to capture the loyalty of an underserved customer segment that lay within the confines of a super-competitive streaming market. We’re talking a well-defended industry dominated by international rivals like Netflix, and by increasingly confident African startups like IROKO— the former reportedly spending something like €33 million on marketing alone in the first year they launched in France (Afrostream’s most important foreign geographic market). That tidbit should put into proper perspective, how very little the $4 million Afrostream managed to raise to fund its mission over four years actually is. In this conversation with Andile Masuku and Tayo Akinyemi - taped at Afrobytes Tech Conference 2018 - Tonjé details the ordeal of watching his entrepreneurial dream die and shares profound lessons about staying true to oneself, failing forward and engineering personal reinvention. Apply for the Anzisha Prize: http://www.anzishaprize.org/apply/
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Python Bytes - #94 Why don’t you like notebooks?

Topics covered in this episode:
See the full show notes for this episode on the website at pythonbytes.fm/94