Category: 3-SometimeTechTalk

23: Government Funded by PHPUgly

Safaricom and Craft Silicon both took an “L” this past week. As it turns out, they neglected to trademark the Little Cabs brand name before launching their ride-sharing service some weeks ago. And now, they’ve had to drop the word “Cab” from their brand after the “Little Cab” trademark-holder went to court to defend his right to use that name. From now on, they are to be known as Little. The whole situation is more than a little embarrassing to say the least, and reminds me of the wisdom MiPhone Founder and CEO, Alpesh Patel shared on the show some months ago, about how important it is to “dot the i’s and cross the t’s” when it comes to securing one’s commercial intellectual property. Nevertheless, I’m sure the folks at Safaricom and Craft Silicon have learned their lesson. This week’s African Tech Round-up also features a chat Andile Masuku had with Brendan Horan. Brendan is an executive vice president of MiX Telematics— a fleet and mobile asset management solutions business that’s listed on both the Johannesburg and the New York Stock Exchanges, as well as the Managing Director of MiX Telematics’ African business. Listen in to hear how Brendan’s company goes about applying a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model to deliver solutions to customers in more than 120 countries around the world, how the global AI and machine learning trend is impacting their corporate’s strategy, and how Brendan deals with the challenge of growing the firm’s African business in hugely varied markets across the continent. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Babusi Nyoni is a Cape town-based Zimbabwean digital all-rounder. Babusi is the Digital Creative Group Head at South Africa’s #1 ranked through-the-line agency, M&C SAATCHI Abel. Andile Masuku catches up with Babusi to discuss an AI-enabled campaign he recently masterminded and executed for a global FMCG brand, and to chat about the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence in general. Tune in to hear him factor in on what the world might look and feel like when those technologies become common-place.

MTN Group’s warning that their interim financial results for the period ending June 30th 2016 would be unpleasant did a lot to absorb the shock when reality struck last Friday— the day the report eventually dropped. Despite revenue for the interim period improving by ±US$5.7 billion, MTN reported an after tax loss attributable to equity holders of just over US$401 thousand. That translates to a headline loss per share of nearly US$0.20. Compare that with 2015’s headline earnings of just under US$0.48 per share, and it’s sobering to see how humbling this must be Africa’s largest mobile service provider. As expected, the mobile telco has put forward a long list of explanations for what went wrong. One of the more interesting items on that list is what they are calling “short-term losses” they’ve sustained thanks to their significant investments in Middle East Internet Holdings and of course, the recently rebranded Africa Internet Group— which now goes by Jumia. We would love to know what’s going through the mind of MTN Group’s President and CEO-in-waiting, Rob Shuter, who will no doubt have his work cut out for him when he takes up the reins from Phuthuma Nhleko come July 2017. Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up features a chat Andile Masuku shares had with the Cape Town-based Zimbabwean digital all-rounder, Babusi Nyoni. Babusi is the Digital Creative Group Head at South Africa’s #1 ranked through-the-line agency, M&C SAATCHI Abel. Andile caught up with Babusi to discuss an AI-enabled campaign he recently masterminded and executed for a global FMCG brand, and to chat about the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence in general. Tune in to hear him factor in on what the world might look and feel like when those technologies become common-place 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/ep22.md Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD2Al-bCn6o PHPUgly - Episode 22 recorded August 4th, 2016 Topics SDPHP Meetup Phalcon 3.0.0 Released Alexa Skills for PHP Tom bought a security camera Developers we look up to The hosts Eric Van Johnson Twitter / Github / Blog / About.me Tom Rideout Twitter / Github / About.me John Congdon Twitter / Github Follow us on Twitter @PHPUgly Email us at Podacast@phpugly.com

Show Notes: https://github.com/PHPUgly/podcast/blob/master/shows/ep21.md Uncut Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfFPT7fUcPk Topics SDLUG Meetup Laracon Announcements More drama at the PHP FIG Rasmus Lerdorf: All frameworks suck How we broke PHP, hacked Pornhub and earned $20,000 The hosts Eric Van Johnson Twitter / Github / Blog / About.me Tom Rideout Twitter / Github / About.me John Congdon Twitter / Github Follow us on Twitter @PHPUgly Email us at Podacast@phpugly.com

Who knew that a little quarterly update by a publicly-traded Swedish investment firm could get Nigeria’s e-commerce fraternity all worked up? Not we. So, as Kinnevik was going about its business last week, the firm released its Second Quarter Report which detailed the performance of its subsidiaries around the world. That simple act of due diligence on Kinnevik’s part (which admittedly is something that happens every quarter without fail, but only garnered media attention in Nigeria this time round) allowed us all to get a sense of just how well Nigeria’s biggest e-commerce platform, Konga, is doing— which in turn fuelled speculation around the health of Nigeria’s e-commerce sector in general. Perhaps the most shocking revelation contained in the report was that Konga only has 184,000 active customers— which translates to approximately 1.1% of the Nigerian population. In a word, that number is disappointing. It has lead to vigorous debate both on social media and in the blogosphere about why Nigeria’s e-commerce industry appears to be stalling, and what interventions may be required to turn the situation around. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0