Category: 3-SometimeTechTalk

Ever wonder what it might be like to run a startup that’s owned by a successful tech company, backed by one of Africa’s wealthiest entrepreneurs? Well, one thing is for sure— it’s no walk in the park. At least, that’s according to Charles Murray. Charles is a director of a messaging and internet calling app called ttrumpet that’s looking to capture a big share of Africa’s digital vouchering market. ttrumpet-- dubbed a "lifestyle app", is a subsidiary of Fastcomm, a tech group that boasts having billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe as one if its shareholders. In this conversation, Charles tells Andile Masuku why he reckons that ttrumpet isn’t just another mobile app, and shares how his company plans to thrive in an ever changing social media landscape.

On Friday, June 10th 2016 MTN’s stock price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange jumped by 20%. This happened in the wake of the news that the firm’s nine-month Nigerian nightmare might finally be coming to an end. MTN has reportedly struck a deal with the Nigerian government, and is set to pay the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) $1.7 billion over three years— significantly less than the $5.2 billion they were initially fined for flouting SIM card registration regulations months ago. While MTN’s shareholders are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief, the company is not out of the woods yet, as according to the NCC, one of the conditions linked to the monetary settlement is the requirement that MTN list its Nigerian subsidiary on the Nigerian Stock Exchange “as soon as is commercially and legally possible”. While the jury’s still out on whether this is the last we’ll hear of this story, one thing is certain, this case sets one heck of a precedent, and that can only bode well for corporate Africa. Also in this week's African Tech Round-up, we feature part of a conversation Andile Masuku had with Charles Murray-- who is a director of the messaging and internet calling app, ttrumpet. Listen in to hear Charles talking about why he reckons ttrumpet isn’t just another mobile app, and sharing some of the pressures and perks of growing a startup that is a subsidiary of relatively successful tech group (Fastcomm) backed by one of the continent’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, Patrice Motsepe. 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/ep14.md * Our latest Downtown SDPHP Meetup and what's coming for North County * Recent contributes the PHPUgly crew has made to Open Source Projects * PHP Versioning statistics and how the move to PHP 7 is looking * Some features queued up for PHP 7.1 * and we discuss grumphp, a new tool to make sure you code is clean and compliant,

If there were a race to being Africa’s largest media and internet company, out of fairness to other firms in the running, Naspers would probably be asked not to enter. After seeing its share price rise to an all-time high on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange last week— reaching R2,320.73 per share, pushing its market value to R1,02 trillion (±$6,7 billion), it’s now a matter of “catch me if you can” as far as any of the firm’s competitors closing in on them. In this week’s African Tech Round-up, Andile Masuku shares some of the reasons why Naspers stock is such a hot ticket at the moment, and dishes on the firm’s latest high-profile investment in a popular American e-learning platform. Andile also catches up with the Founder of Venture Capital For Africa (VC4A), Ben White. Ben’s organisation has recently published a report called the 2016 Venture Finance in Africa which highlights growing investor appetite in African early stage startups. Listen in to hear him unpack some of their findings, and give Andile a sense of the current state of play on Africa’s VC scene.

Show notes: https://github.com/PHPUgly/podcast/blob/master/shows/ep13.md PHPUgly - Episode 13 recorded June 2nd, 2016 Topics 100 Awesome Women In The Open-Source Community You Should Know Google beats Oracle—Android makes “fair use” of Java APIs A look at what’s coming to Laravel 5.3 Day Camp4Developers - DevOps Upcoming SDPHP 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

Turns out Ghana’s top cop— Inspector General of Police John Kudalor thinks that blocking social media access across the country might be necessary to ensure Ghana’s national security on election day in November 2016. Mr Kudalor reckons that Ghana might do well to learn from the example set by other countries on the continent and around the world that have take similar steps in the recent past— Uganda no doubt being top of mind. It's likely that the Inspector General’s comments might have been made to test public sentiment on the issue ahead of the polls. However, if the chill we're picking up on Twitter is anything to go by, Ghanaians don’t seem to be terribly concerned at the prospect of having to survive 24 hours or so without access to Facebook and Twitter come November 7th. Ah, well… Meanwhile, in place of our discussion segment on the African Tech Round-up this week, we feature part of a recent in-depth conversation Andile Masuku had with Stephen van Coller, who is the Chief Executive for Corporate and Investment Banking at Barclays Africa. Listen in to hear Stephen tell Andile how Barclays Plc’s imminent plans to shed its investments in Africa will impact the business he runs, and why he is confident that fintech startups on the continent will never completely disrupt incumbents within the financial services industry. Bonus: Look out for a comment made by Nigeria’s leading podcaster, Andre Blaze Henshaw, on why he reckons that podcasting as a medium is going to be huge in the media scene of the future. 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/ep12.md Ep12 You are listening to the PHPUgly podcast: episode12, recorded Thursday, May 26th, 2016. Today we talk about * Our latest Laravel Meetups * Do you prefer being a jack of all trades, or specialized? (Full stack or PHP dev) * Are certifications worth it? * Dealing with sys/devops