Category: 3-SometimeTechTalk

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Python Bytes - #32 8 ways to contribute to open source when you have no time

Topics covered in this episode:
See the full show notes for this episode on the website at pythonbytes.fm/32
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African Tech Roundup - Naspers CEO Bob Van Dijk Accused Of Blowing Roughly $25.6 Billion Of Shareholder Value

It's no secret, Africa's largest tech company by market cap, Naspers, has been buckling under the pressure to perform for some years now. The fact is, the company hasn't scored any big wins in any of the legacy internet and pay-TV verticals it once used to dominate with ease. Naspers' most recent financial results seem to validate the notion that except for the firm's exceedingly lucrative 33 percent stake in the Chinese cash cow that is Tencent, there seems to be little else to write home about in terms of outstanding performance. In this episode of the African Tech Round-up, Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga discuss the merits of an open letter penned by a certain Albert Saporta - the managing director of the Geneva-based investment advisory firm and Naspers shareholder, AIM&R - accusing Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk of destroying approximately $25.6 billion of shareholder value since his appointment more than three years ago. Sniper! Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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African Tech Roundup - Rockwell Automation’s John Lewis doesn’t buy that factory automation is destroying livlihoods

John Lewis is the Director Business Partnering at Rockwell Automation. In this conversation with Andile Masuku, taped at the Internet of Things World Forum 2017 hosted at London's Tobacco Dock (creaking floorboards and all), John talks about how his company is adapting to changing times by drafting software developers and tech-savvy business specialists who can speak to the myriad of optimisation challenges faced by their clients all over the world. He also rebuffs the widely-held belief that the global trend towards aggressive factory automation is destroying livelihoods.
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African Tech Roundup - Malawi Secures $72.4 Million Credit Line From The World Bank To Advance National Digitisation

The Sub-Saharan Africa heads of the likes of Huawei, Oracle, Cisco, IBM and perhaps even Amazon, Facebook and Google, have no doubt already booked first class tickets to Lilongwe to advise the Malawian government on what to do with the $72.4 million line of credit the country has secured from the World Bank to "help Malawi build the digital foundations needed to help the country connect to the global digital economy". This development comes in the wake of the World Bank resuming "budget support financing" for Malawi in May 2017 after a four-year hiatus. In this African Tech Round-up, Musa Kalenga and Andile Masuku discuss some of the things that Malawian policy-makers ought to prioritise as they engage with potential technology partners. News like this helps contextualise some of the sentiments expressed by David Meads, Cisco's Africa business head, in a recent IoT-focussed chat he had with Andile, in which he highlighted his organisation's commitment to assisting African governments with their digital transformation efforts. Heads up... This episode was taped before Uber announced that Travis Kalanick would be stepping down as the company's CEO, so Andile and Musa didn't take that more recent piece of news into account when discussing Uber's travails. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0