Amrote Abdella is the Director for Venture Capital & Start-ups and Africa Initiatives (Microsoft 4Afrika) at Microsoft.
In this chat with Andile Masuku, Amrote shares what it’s like to be embedded in one of the world’s largest tech companies, and being deployed in arguably the world’s fastest growing tech market(s).
Listen in to hear Amrote’s take on how Microsoft is responding to next generation tech biggies like Google and Uber’s disruptive ambitions and what Microsoft might consider their next big play.
Stephen Ozoigbo is the CEO of the African Technology Foundation and the Managing Partner of the US State Department-backed Lions @frica initiative.
In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Stephen talks about his journey from investment banking to being one of Africa's foremost tech and innovation evangelists.
Stephen's high-profile community-building efforts within the continent's burgeoning tech ecosystem allows him to eloquently address the challenge of keeping up with global innovation faced by African startups, VC's, angel investors, legacy enterprise players, as well as government agencies.
Shownotes: https://github.com/PHPUgly/podcast/blob/master/shows/ep25.md PHPUgly - Episode 25 recorded August 26th, 2016 Topics Getting yelled at by your idol Phil Sturgeon's Talking About Diversity: Conspiracy OPcache Settings/Configuration We got to hang out with the Larachat Live Team Ep13 Laravel 5.3 Released MariaDB Corp announces non-free license Microsoft continues to surprise with open source NPM Breaks the internet..again 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
The gravy train may well be over at Africa’s largest tech company (by market value)— Naspers.
Naspers CEO, Koos Bekker, told investors late last week that the coming year is going to be a trying one for the company. At this point, Naspers has only one card up its sleeve, and it’s called Tencent Holdings. After all, Naspers’ 33 percent stake in the Chinese technology company currently accounts for almost half its revenue, and its internet and pay-tv businesses are stalling at a time when they desperately need growth to keep competitors like Google, Facebook and Amazon at bay.
Bekker’s cautionary statements led to a 0.3 percent decline in the firm’s share price-- which seems like a tame reaction by the market considering that S&P Global Ratings had already changed its outlook on Naspers' credit rating to BBB-, which is only one step up from junk status. In short, it’s rough in these streets.
Last week saw DEMO Africa hosted in Southern Africa for the first time in its five year history. DEMO Africa 2016 went down in Sandton, Johannesburg, and we're pleased to say that it exceeded our expectations in almost every way.
The conference brought together 27 startups from across Africa, angel investors, venture capitalists, enterprise representatives and public officials all under one roof to engage in dialogue and witness adjudicated pitching sessions.
What was most impressive, though, was the Pan-African crowd and the quality of the engagement that took place. In this episode of the African Tech Round-up, Andile Masuku shares snippets of great conversations he had with power players who are intricately involved with the continent’s tech ecosystem.
Tune in for insights from Investor and Founding President of the African Business Angels Network, Tomi Davies, Microsoft’s Director for Venture Capital & Start-ups, Africa Initiatives (Microsoft 4Afrika), Amrote Abdella, the City of Joburg’s Director of Economic Development Facilitation, Tsholo Mogotsi, Angel Investor, Farouk Jivani, and Managing Partner of the Lions @frica initiative, Stephen Ozoigbo.
Music Credits:
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
In this week's edition of the Stack Exchange podcast, our hosts talk about salary transparency for developers, Joel's One-Minute Tech Review, and why we're banning a particular insult from Stack Overflow.
Econet Wireless has recently announced that all ±40 million of their subscribers in Africa will benefit from Shine’s ad blocking service— starting with those in Zimbabwe.
This deal represents Shine’s first deployment on the continent, following partnerships they’ve struck with the likes of the Caribbean mobile operator, Digicel, and Three Group in the UK and Italy.
There’s no doubt about it, life is about to get a little tougher for online media platforms that rely on ad revenue to survive, as well as for web marketers that peddle online real estate. However, Econet’s subscribers are likely to relish the prospect of enjoying quicker loading times, and cleaner web pages free from unsolicited advertisements.
In this week’s African Tech Round-up, Andile Masuku chatted with Scott Lyons of the Ford Motor Company. Scott leads Ford’s SYNC AppLink European Business and the Partner Development Initiative within the Ford Connected Vehicle and Services Organisation. Their conversation touched on Ford’s plans to produce a fully autonomous vehicle by 2021, as per the company's announcement to that effect made last week.
Scott shared what he makes of the disruptive influence of tech firms like Google and Uber on the traditional car manufacturing business, and Andile got him to explain the strategic thinking that went into choosing Morocco as the place to sponsor Ford’s latest Mobility Challenge aimed at promoting innovation in the country’s ride sharing scene.
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/ep24.md PHPUgly - Episode 24 recorded August 18th, 2016 Topics Mr. Robot SDPHP and SDLUG Meetups Flaw in Samsung Pay lets hackers wirelessly skim credit cards FIG Follies Being asked to work for free Delta looses power The hosts Eric Van Johnson Twitter / Github / Blog / About.me Tom Rideout Twitter / Github / About.me Follow us on Twitter @PHPUgly Email us at Podacast@phpugly.com
