Category: 3-SometimeTechTalk

We're still buzzing from the great time we had at the Annual Round-up 2015, that Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku hosted at The Wanderers Club in Johannesburg last week. Many thanks to those of you who made it out on Thursday morning, and a big thank you to our incredibly generous and insightful guest panelists and speakers. Also, big up to our event partners, Opera Africa, Stuff magazine, and iAfrikan.com. It was an chilled morning of intelligent, retrospective conversations-- which took stock of the state of Africa’s tech scene. The programme featured three keynote talks and three lively interactive panel discussions covering enterprise, startups and gadgets and apps. The good news is that we’ll be sharing the conversations we had at the Annual Round-up in place of the African Tech Round-up podcast starting on Monday, December 14th— to hold you down till the show returns in mid-January 2016. There’ll also be plenty of cool extras we’ll be sharing exclusively on our Soundcloud account and via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, so do follow us, do. In the meantime, enjoy Episode 33 of the African Tech Round-up. And listen in to find out why two Kenyan mobile money service providers are suing Safaricom. This is definitely on trend. The last quarter of 2015 is proving to be quite trying time for Africa’s mobile operators. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Kenya’s tech scene aka Silicon Savannah is on fire! At least, that’s according to commentators like Brenda Wambui, who’s recent blog posted on Medium threw serious shade the way of some looming figures in Kenya’s tech ecosystem following the diabolical fallout at cloud services firm, Angani. It turns out that some of the details surrounding this story that we reported on some weeks ago— details whose validity we later questioned, might in fact be accurate. In this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-up, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku analyse the state of investor-founder relations at Angani in the light of Brenda’s candid piece, which clearly defends the honour of the company’s founders. We’ll also try to determine whether the allegations of corruption and abuse of power she levelled at the company’s investors are justified. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Stack Exchange Podcast #69 - It's Too Rainy For A Parade by The Stack Overflow Podcast

This week's instalment of the African Tech Round-up was recorded at the African Media Leaders Forum, which wrapped in Johannesburg on the weekend. And what a treat it is! The show is an all-Africa affair— what with Mark Kaigwa stopping by. Mark is easily one of Kenya’s leading proponents of social media, as well as a respected innovator within digital tech in general. He is also the Founder and CEO of the Nairobi-based digital agency, Nendo Ventures— well-known for the Nendo Social Media Trend Report. You can look forward to hearing his insider’s take on several of the week’s biggest stories. *tv informercial voice* But that’s not all… Cameroonian tech entrepreneur, Rebecca Enonchong, and South African business, branding and marketing legend, Thebe Ikalafeng, both make unexpected guest features on this week’s episode-- Rebecca sharing some strong views on whether she thinks the MTN will actually pay the $5.2 billion fine levied by the Nigerian Communications Commission, and Thebe dropping some wisdom around what Africa’s “new breed” of techies need to do to attain global relevance. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

With so few high-flying start-up successes in Africa’s tech eco-system, one has to wonder just how alarmed we should get when word of job cuts and other such cost-cutting measures starts to dominate headlines. After all, this sort of thing happens in business all the time! That said, why does it seem like Nigerian startups are having a particularly hard time at the moment? Following signs of distress showing up at the countries startup poster children, Jumia and iROKOtv in recent weeks, Nigerian daily deals site, Dealdey, has reportedly sacked 60% of its workforce. Curiously, the news of this broke on a popular Kenyan blog, courtesy of “sources familiar with the matter”. In our discussion on the African The Round-up this week, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku will briefly discuss what could be fuelling this apparent season of hardship on Nigeria’s tech startup scene. Also, listen in for all the most important digital, tech and innovation news from the past week. Additional Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0