Africa Frontiers of Innovation - Digital Transformation

[Music] Welcome and Good Afternoon, Good Morning or Good Evening depending on where you're joining us from now we've heard the phrase Africa is rising it was a huge buzz phrase a few years ago it was a testament to the potential that has always been there but was now getting the world's attention from new road networks to airports the race to grow Africa's Infrastructure to a world-class level was on however another vast expansion is also happening on the continent and that is of digital services we're getting wired up so to speak and that is attracting big names in tech as well as a rise in tech startups across Africa well today on this edition of Africa frontiers of innovation brought to you by Canon we talk about Africa's digital transformation the challenges the opportunities and the progress that we've made so far I'm Victoria Rubiri I'm a broadcast journalist based out of Nairobi Kenya and I'll be moderating today's discussion for those of you joining us today on Linkedin or on Facebook feel free to field your questions to any of the panelists throughout the discussion and that will be in the comments section on Linkedin and on Facebook and also let us know where you're joining us from we'd love to hear from you throughout the discussion so without further ado let me introduce my distinguished panel we have Raula Jinadu from Nigeria she is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wapston Business Services Limited which is a technology and business consulting services firm we also have Randolph Owosu from Ghana he's a software developer and technology entrepreneur he founded Visa which means ask in the Ghanaian language of tui Visa is a telemedicine platform that gives the public access to doctors and health information using mobile devices we also have Jessie Moriah from Kenya he's a technology enthusiast who wears several hats he is a managing director of Pong Agencies Limited which is a leading ICT System Solutions Company in East Africa he's also the CEO of Cosmos Trading Company Limited now that is a construction firm and last but not least Ben Roberts also based out of Kenya the liquid telecoms group chief technology and innovation officer he comes with over 20 years experience across a range of technologies in design in support integration and operational management roles he has led the group's networking and product strategy expanding its technology base and fiber network across the continent thank you all for joining me um let's begin by kind of setting the stage to see where we're at in terms of technology infrastructure which really kind of serves as the base for more of what we'll be discussing throughout this session and so Ben you know we know that when it comes to digital maturity Africa lags behind quite significantly to other players globally you know what are some of the biggest challenges that you've seen uh when it comes to Africa's digital transformation thanks Victoria um yes so I mean let's let's start with um start with infrastructure um for so starting um point Africa is obviously many countries um and each country is at different stages with uh infrastructure um and you look at countries like South Africa and Kenya which are doing pretty well already having 5g networks launching having large diverse you know multiple players with fiber optic networks uh more than you know more than four different subsea cables um comparing to uh on the extreme side uh south sudan for instance which only first got a subsidy or fiber optic cable reached it um only last year which we managed to complete just before the pandemic hit so um you know a massive disparity and even Ethiopia which is um now starting to open up and safaricom have been awarded a license there you know although it has networks it's been very tightly regulated and controlled with a single monopoly entity which is really held back um a lot of digital transformation because I think monopolies don't act very efficiently um you know so you know a varying spectrum of readiness of infrastructure for digital transformation um but in the in the places that are um that are ready and and have been ready for a while we're seeing um we've been seeing things kicking off slowly um and I live in Kenya um and I came here in about 2013. and you know back to the readiness of networks and and and cloud and uh and things like this you know a lot of uh applications for digital transformation hosted in cloud platforms um but when in 2013 things were not ready you know the reliability wasn't there the applications themselves didn't work well enough um with uh long latency links very very distant you know distant links from Africa to Europe what's happened since then is that big cloud providers have been coming to the African continent the applications themselves have been getting better um and I've been saying since 2015 you know Kenya at least has been ready for digital transformation and it's been happening uh but really with uh what happened in 2020 around uh march 2020 uh we've seen a an upturn in in a curve of acceleration of digital transformation um you know kicked off by um the humans having to change their way of doing things um so we had um you know the infrastructure we had technology available we had a lot of the skills and people who are implementing stuff and great ID people but the the users in the business were were very much liking doing things with passing paperwork around the office and stuff so being forced to go to going to home working as really pushed the journeys for many companies who are already starting on digital transformation to go faster uh it's pushed us in our home lives to change the way that we um work you know play and interact with our friends you know um and we wouldn't have been doing this uh you know like this on a video conference uh two years ago um you know that's just become part of the norm but other things have come in E-commerce has has changed its profile and people are buying more regular goods on E-commerce we're just seeing you know a lot of sectors and health care is moving really fast in transformation and education um so you know even even religion and worship uh you know moved to digital platforms so something that has been 2000 years old um uh you know had to transform in 2020 so um you know it is quite uh it's quite an interesting time to see things like that happening absolutely I mean the pandemic certainly has served as an accelerant uh when it comes to adoption of different digital services or just this general transformation we're seeing across the continent and let me bring you in on that because um you know ben kind of painted a picture of where we're at in terms of infrastructure in terms of kind of uh moving to this new platform and this new way of doing life and you know you during your time at vodacom did a lot of work around enhancing adoption of digital solutions particularly for governments parity status and private organizations you know and while you're doing that what were some of the challenges that you saw and I guess you know opportunities as well to onboard them onto you know different digital solutions okay thank you very much Victoria for that and thank you Ben for setting the same um yes I'd say that uh the private sector roles and experiences um in the digital transformation journey in Africa as a whole has you know been very varied um however one thing you know we can't deny is the widespread of digital technology you know combined with innovations you know has been one of the most striking uh African stories over the past 15 years today and um even though the public sector has played a key role you know in terms of um enabling policies and regulatory frameworks uh development of some E-government services exeteria uh the role of the private sector has also been clearly crucial to the evolving ecosystem I mean a lot of uh private sectors uh companies have taken the lead role in rolling out infrastructure digital uh platforms mobile technologies whilst um also harnessing the disruptive innovations to continue to bridge the digital divides in our everyday lives and um as a matter of fact there is this world bank prediction that by 2030 every person's businesses and governments on the African continent should be digitally enabled and this is also a prediction that is um you know largely to be led by the private sector um so far so just to touch on you know some of the uh notable achievements to find the journey and opportunities you know the growth I'll start with the growth of mobile data traffic uh across the continent you know this has grown by about 20 times in the last past five in the last five years um the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem have also grown so much in the past years um some of the disruptive vehicles that we see today in the finance the agriculture uh education healthcare etc you know for example we at waxton today are currently harnessing um our digital capabilities to build a solution that would improve uh the credits culture in Nigeria and we also cannot take away the fact that the ecosystem stakeholders you know playing a very key enabling role in the whole process so you have the accelerators that on the right uprising today the incubators the venture capitalists you know providing resources to us in Africa you know around um all around from all around the globe and um also the ability to leapfrog has been a clear accelerator of the digital journey in Africa today um an interesting story is what um safari comes in pesa is doing in Kenya today I mean there's so there's the news today now that they're trying to partner with uh Amazon and I can imagine you know what it is that they'll be cooking you know in terms of reaching um the digitally excluded people on the last mile last miles of of the population and then you know there's also a widespread adoption of the digital finance that we have today which is popularly known as fintech it's clearly evolving um as the financial and social inclusion driver you know with homegrown payments everywhere um look at what the likes of pay stack floater wave exeter are doing you know using local solutions to solve local problems and uh finally I'd say that our young population is also a big plus to us if you look at what um you know the the the evolving technology hubs that we have across Africa we have I think by now we have around 400 and um you know three of them have actually been I've actually gained international uh recognition which is you know Lagos Nigeria Nairobi Kenya and cape town and of course the story is not um entirely living in paradise we still have some big challenges which is uh something I believe ben also touched on you know around the poor infrastructure today less than uh 30 of Africans have access to internet so unless we're able to fix you know the underlying infrastructure then we'll still have a 70 uh digital divide and um yeah the un also estimates you know that we need around 109 billion dollars to achieve um you know the universal affordability affordable internet coverage across the continent uh we also need to see you know government stepping up in terms of um modernizing the policies and frameworks you know so that this is not actually impeding on the innovations that can drive the right impact and then um you know thirdly the venture financing as well across Africa you know it's still largely limited to just three countries today which is Nigeria South Africa and Kenya you know I believe that more collaboration on a regional level to create visibility and awareness for other countries would also help and then um you know the digital adoption um amongst businesses and government is still very slow because we have challenges of poor infrastructure that cannot be overemphasized low buying power uh digital illiteracy and awareness and um I just believe that we need to start stepping up in that area we really need to start looking at how we can drive uh digital literacy in that regard and you know lastly just like I I'm gonna just build on my point earlier around the fragmented African market you know at this point we really need to start looking at how we can make uh very strong collaborations you know um you know regional digital market barriers and develop like an african critical size digital championed you know I know that the African union and some other development agencies are doing a lot already they're being proactive in that regard but um you know from the private sector level as well you know we need to start looking at how we can collaborate better and just to summarize my thoughts so far I'd say that all of these suggestions and recommendations can really only be achieved by you know collective leadership and commitment of all relevant stakeholders you know starting with the development institutions the government and uh the private sector of the continent uh thank you very much thank you thank you Laura and a lot to unpack there you know you've raised some of the issues that exist um you know and I want to kind of zero in on the issue of the mobile ecosystem you know that's a huge part of Africa's uh digital story it's Linked to it it's dependent on it we've seen great success stories um coming out of when you mentioned this Kenya within pesa um and jesse let me bring you in on that in terms of how many how much more opportunities can we tap into in that space um and and what are local developers kind of working on now uh in Kenya and the region okay um yeah thank you Victoria and uh thanks Ben and uh as well for just setting the scene yeah so in terms of nobel I think um you know kenya plays a very interesting case study um I think um one of the previous speakers just mentioned about the fact that um in Africa we've had the opportunity of leapfrogging a lot of these technologies and I think for Africa and Volcanoes specifically we've been able to frog um you know all the way directly to mobile and that's because of you know some of the innovations that have been happening around and the various reasons you can give for that I guess number one is you know just um you know access to access to the internet for example um I think in Kenya uh for example um we do have one of the highest mobile internet penetration rates um you know something bigger third around almost 90 95 98 percent um that's that's very close to 100 so that really has enabled um you know a lot of innovation a lot of solutions around that and um I think um one of the biggest beneficiaries of that is the youth and um I'd like to concentrate a bit about the youth because um um what perhaps not mentioned about me is I do represent um I am a leader within the international chamber of commerce as a youth and business leader and I uh one of the core rules that I do is in terms of just being able to bring together young people and helping represent their various interests and that means that I end up working a lot with a lot of young innovators and a lot of them actually happen to be in technology um which is um I think part of the reason for this conversation so what I was saying is that yeah we've been able to leapfrog quite a bit um in terms of what's been worked on so look at I think fintech has been mentioned before there are a lot of developers creating solutions based directly um you know on a mobile phone uh sort of basis so you'll find that most people will not create for example it comes to specific technologies most people will not create um web applications they are fast good directly more than paid mobile applications so that people can be able to help leverage that and um you know very interesting solutions around things like agriculture for example agribusiness is very very big right now agritech you know you've got other solutions that are purely based on being able to get you know markets I mean goods to the market for example so that things do with um solutions so we have quite a lot happening uh around that space and that all is both can be a very um enabling uh sort of infrastructure that has happened I think the government has also helped support this actually by creating an enabling environment so for example um one of the first I guess African countries in China to get you know a fiber link coming from the sea um into Kenya and I think that played a very huge role in just being able to democratize the archer to um internet in Kenya and then that coupled with the government also you know maybe closing a blinder and allowing a person also to operate um without over regulation by the financial sector so bringing in the internet connectivity um you know the actor to mobile devices and access to um what you call it uh thinktech applications like Empeza has really really um helped us leak from that um I think the only thing is that now I think that also poses a bit of a challenge in that we need I think as a as an African continent we need to move a notch above that okay fine we can be able to access various applications we can do a lot of collaboration we can do a lot of productivity to the mobile phone but um you know that is not it I think uh there's a need for improving our skills so that you can be able to go and not above that so you can so that you can be able to just um you know take up um take up more interesting sort of use cases and applications and learn better um so for example um if you look at the E-learning that has been going on um especially since covid started okay we've had a lot of challenges for example like universities um institutions in terms of people being unable to actually um you know participate in the um in the learning initiatives of those universities and that's just basically basically because they've been trying to log in to those online classes on their mobile phones so imagine if they had access to you know more I mean larger devices the tablets and the PCS um they had access to you know more bandwidth so for example on the mobile phone you limited in terms of bandwidth but if you do have access to you know larger devices and higher bandwidth you can it will be much easier for a lot of students to be able to access and continue learning and that means that Africans to some extent in terms of education not just universities but even the law education we were left behind or you are left behind in terms of um improvement and up skill in our skills in terms of learning and we find that um you know we may take a bit of time to catch up in terms of if we compare ourselves to some western countries that had a better access to to learning opportunities through these technologies so I think um as much as we say we've gone very far with mobile there's still a long way to go and I think we still need to you know go a higher level and elevate in terms of the technologies that can utilize and the the access to various devices that you can have yeah I hope that sort of answers what um you're asking no absolutely and it raised a really important point especially when it comes to um the youth and engaging this young workforce it's exploding we're a very young continent and getting enough young people working is the headache for so many governments I was reading a statistic the other day that said we have to create at least 80000 jobs a day to be able to meet the demand uh in the future and so when you think about tech and the opportunities that exist there you know um ura talked about the tech startups that are coming up those are creating jobs you know that's innovation that's homegrown Randolph you fit in that category you started visa and you know you started creating for yourself how much of an opportunity is tech in filling that jobs gap that we have here on the continent yeah so thank you very much thank you so much fellow panelists for your input for setting the scene and giving us all that great input so um tech startups um you know the thing first you need to know about technology is that you need just a device and you need a very bright idea to be able to you know have a job or be self-employed so for instance I'll use visa as an example um bizarre came um around the time when we had the Ebola crisis and people uh were putting out a lot of misinformation and when you look for instance at the COVID-19 pandemic one of the first trends that came up was misinformation how you you can contract COVID-19 how you can be cured from it so there was a lot of misinformation but then you have an application like visa that we created that uh provides a solution a technology that gives you the right information and access to health expertise so for the youth in Africa you know there are a lot of opportunities um that technology gives the youth in different and various sectors um you look at E-commerce you know if you are already selling a cloth you can just build an application and make it easier for people to purchase those clothes from from from from your company so it's it's very easy the technologies are free to use online uh thankfully we have a lot of bigger technology companies in in in America and in Europe that have created all these platforms we have woocommerce we have a lot of uh different platforms that will allow you to easily create and start up you know many maybe 10 years ago you it will be very difficult to develop a website today you have wordpress down make it very easy for you to develop so technology plays a key role it's only the problem here is for people to know how to you know they're educating and start some of these companies by using technology but yeah so I think technology it makes it easier you know you consider the comfort of your home start a business and start you know making money so we started out visa first um as connecting the public to doctors when the COVID-19 pandemic came up then the government realized that they didn't have any health platform where they could send out relevant information COVID-19. so within a span of three months we're already in partnership with the Ghana health service in Ghana so they're using our platform to send out the right information to the public using their mobile devices so technology makes it easier uh to be able to start a business and get the stakeholders uh to use it fantastic you know Ben let me bring you in here because um we have to talk about the opportunities when it comes to unlocking this whole digital transformation and from the higher end level I mean governments and big corporates and tech companies collaborating uh to offer many of these services so public-private partnerships I know you play heavily in that space who are the key players that you see in driving this forward across the continent and what opportunities exist you know what I talked about 109 billion dollars that will be needed as estimated by the U.N

uh for complete internet coverage by 2013 not a small feat so what are we looking at yeah thanks um you know so um in the world of infrastructure um you know Kenya has got one of the um most successful uh public private partnerships actually and and jesse sort of touched on talking about um subsidy cable that came to Kenya but that was um it's a it's a consortium-based sub many subsea cables are consortium-based um uh type um you know frameworks uh and then that has government and a private sector as as the members I'm one of the members of that cable um you know so that was a very um uh quite progressive policy from Kenya and you know it was uh there was some African Pan-African initiatives going on that were taking a very long time and I think the uh the the the ps and the cs at the time um you know got a bit um a bit tired of waiting I think he got to the level of the president I think from the stories I hear and they decided to do something about it um but you know not every um you know government's uh interventions um in um you know building infrastructure um are not being entirely successful across Africa and a few reasons for this um you know when it comes to building infrastructure private sector are considerably better at um deploying capital uh we are better you know better place to uh get debt funding uh at at good rates um in many cases and we're certainly better at building infrastructure in terms of building it more efficiently um building a lot of skills you know in liquid telecom we've got um 500 employees um and let's say 1600 of those technical people and probably about you know 700 or 800 are people who you know actually just build and maintain um fiber optic infrastructure um and and governments are doing projects um where they you know they get a chinese vendor to come and build these for them and then they don't quite know what to do with it uh and then they get lost handing it out to uh companies to maintain sometimes um so and I think you know we need to be a bit careful um and so you know Kenyan government did good things with you know making this ppp and with private sector encouraging private sector to do that they need to give an enabling environment we have universal service funds everywhere where operators pay into universal service funds and you know governments need to disperse them they need to they need to spend those universal service funds and and use them to extend coverage um Kenny's doing quite well at that as well and have used some of this universal service fund to put towers in rural areas um and another chunk of it to connect schools uh so we've been part of a project to connect um about 300 schools for for the universal service fund in Kenya so um you know it's um it's pretty important you know other in areas that um are needing to come up it is around devices not just not just infrastructure and telecommunications networks and towers and things but it isn't around the devices we use and we've talked a lot about mobile technology and mobile first usage but for true digital transformation you know mobile might be the first device that you get but it's not the only device you're ever going to get you know the first um device I ever got I'll show my age here but um you already said I was working in the industry 20 years plus but you know the first device I had was a computer with 48 kilobytes of memory um and um it's called a zx spectrum but you know it's it's uh that was some time ago yeah but um you know we are no longer the average phone has got far more compute power than my first computer that I saved up all my cash flow um but you know now um if we're looking at sort of full-on you know digitally transform lives in laptop computers tablets um virtual reality headsets games consoles smart homes uh you know this is just part of consumer devices then when we get into the um you know the world of uh business transformation um you know it's the level of automation and mechanization using internet of things in in in machines for predictive maintenance for improving agriculture so um you know we have um lots of uh a lot to do on the on the platform side of the devices as well as my job which is around infrastructure but then we see governments as well governments have done some big interventions on on on started with devices we've seen kenyan government buy a lot of tablets to put into schools so you know these are the types of um you know transformative thing I think government needs to focus where they need their interventions um and um you know sometimes a ppp can work but that should be generally used as a catalyst to get private sector to to start something off sometimes they need to get out of the way and let the private sector do that do what they do best oh certainly and I was just looking up what a zx spectrum actually looked like I could see jesse just getting into a laughing fit there but yeah we've come a long way technology wise uh you know in terms of what is available now um and and I have to raise this um Ura because I know you're passionate about it how can we lower or just remove the barriers to digitization for smes and and I mentioned SMES particularly because they are a huge part of economies for developing countries here in Africa it's 80 to 90 percent of the economy SMES you know so we need to get them playing in this space how do we get them to adopt digital tools much faster of course earlier in the conversation we heard about how we've literally been forced to do that thanks to the pandemic but how do we get more and more smes to to adopt digitization okay yeah just uh just like you rightly said um they are very very important um block of of of the economy generally um especially if I if I've used nigeria as a case study and um yeah one of um the issues or some of the issues that we see are evolving in those in those spaces and the reason why they're not able to uh realize their full potential in terms of contribution to to account to the digital economies um yeah first of all it's it has to do with the um the environment that they play how enabling is that so for example um you know all of these innovations that are springing up today by entrepreneurs you know that eventually would um become uh the smes of of of the of the continent um some of the regulators that are put in place are somewhat um you know crippling the ability of actually yielding the right impact so for example you know you're asking um a startup that just has a fantastic idea of disruptive innovation you know to provide some sort of um regulatory frameworks or you know some sort of requirement and um I feel like you know government still needs to play a very key role in actually just um you know supporting these startups to actually uh nurture them in in a way that you know they're able to actually just you know yield the right uh results that they should be yielding in the environment and um yeah poor infrastructure is still a big part of it um yes in terms of uh the digital infrastructure the underlying infrastructure we're still not um where we should be in terms of you know enabling uh some of this SMS this businesses um um when you also look at um what's it called now the um some micro macro economic factors the instabilities as well the insecurity so these are issues that I don't want to go um so deep dive into but this is still issues that you know government can actually help to support the smes then in terms of uh digital uh literacy today you'll be surprised that even when you're talking to a company a small company about you know how you can use uh digital um technology to transform the business you know some of them might be very skeptical about it because they just feel like it might just be too complex or uh because they perceive it as something that is going to um expose um you know their their their inefficiency so some of them still you know um have a have their reservations about adopting technology to actually help them drive their business processes faster so that's still something and today in Nigeria we have a large informal sector so you have a huge economy that is not um um included in the in in the economy because you know they're just not ready to play in that space they're just not ready to um you know adopt technology in terms of even for their financial uh services and requirements so that's that's still something that we need to drive at scale you know in terms of digital literacy um and um yeah of course we can't tell we were emphasized on the fact that uh interventions you know here and there and um access to finances is also a very key part key part of it so yes you have uh government you know for example in my journey in Vodacom uh we've been we're working very in we used to work in three key sectors which is agriculture education and healthcare particularly in agriculture today some of the issues that we still see is that you know government is putting in subsidies and interventions to support smallholder farmers but it never really gets to them because most of them don't even have access to um um uh technology so with this feature phones that they use if you know we're able to digitize our whole process we can actually include them in the whole ecosystem they have a cultural ecosystem that we're building so yeah I mean we just need to spend more time in creating this awareness and then also incentivising you know some of the companies that are already taking the lead in you know spreading this technology across board thank you absolutely we're you know I want to kind of go back to something that Ben had said um you know having government step out of the way so private sector can come in to do its thing and you know that's pretty much how your firm was born um you know jesse when you think about how you kind of filled a gap it was a service that was being given by government and you came in to now offer that service you know I've seen in some quarters uh I'm talking about African countries leapfrogging to digital ids to help accelerate access to um digital government services so huge huge opportunity there when it comes to service delivery from the government side and allowing private players to come in and offer some of that but you know what more lies out there that people can tap into okay thank you Victoria um in fact before I get into that I'll also just wanted to add a point to what even were saying in terms of you know SMAS being able to take out some of these digital technologies um I mean so for example a digital transformation not a huge one um so can you imagine you going down to the grocery store right outside your house or the kiosk or the mama boga mama moga in in swahili ideally is uh that the grocery I mean the the kiosk that sells groceries I'll tell you though so I might be going out to them and telling them can you digitally transform okay um you're going to be complicating matters for them heavily okay but can you believe that um a lot of these small businesses and micro size businesses were able to digitally transform during coffee so I like to give the example of um there used to be a lady who used to sell to us at the market um by us I mean my family used to sell to us um groceries so that was yeah you know your your cabbages your tomatoes and your onions so when coffee drinks we could no longer go to the market and buy our stuff okay so what did she do um she started sending us a list of the stuff that she has on whatsapp okay she would send us a list at least on a weekly basis you pick out the items that you want and then um you know you pay by investor and then she delivers it either herself or she sends a motorbike to deliver it to you so if you ask me that is digital transformation um because um she basically jumps from using you know you coming all the way to come to us installed physically all the way to using whatsapp as a tool to be able to actually help sell our products out there and then can you imagine with that that means that I could be able to refer to somebody else that somebody could refer somebody else and they could order directly through whatsapp and receive the payment via mobile money um from wherever it is they are so I think digital transformation does not have to be very complicated you just have to think about um and this will go out especially to assemblies um and that's what we also talk to our customers a lot um ideally um you just need to think about what is your end game okay um what does your customer want at the end of the day okay and if you can use any sort of tool at your disposal okay digital tools that can ease the process make it cheaper and ensure that the customer is able to see you more visibly and be able to get the product at a cheaper cost and much faster and more convenient then that is digital transformation and that is those are ways that you can be able to access those tools so um yeah so I think they take home right now would be just um you know just trying to give courage and encourage um you know everyone to not really think about it as a you know the cloud the Blockchain AI and IOT not discrediting that but those are tools they're not a means to an end okay those are just ideally tools for you to be able to access the solutions that you want or to access your customers but think about the customer and how quick you can be able to get the product of service out there so um yeah I think that's that's what I wanted to mention on that fantastic and you know I'm glad that you you've given that perspective to it it's about simplifying life making it easier for people to transact to interact um you know if it's getting the mamboga or the woman who sells vegetables from her stall up online and reaching more customers that is the benefit it's including more people into that digital ecosystem and I love that you said that Jesse and just to recognize some of the people who are joining into the discussion we have Pavel from the Czech Republic uh Shane from Australia he even put the kangaroo emoji thank you we also have um Jakfar from the UK uh Boy Choco from South Africa please let us know where else you are joining us from and if you have any questions for the panel I hope you're enjoying the discussion so far and learning quite a bit but Randolph let me bring you in here yeah and let's talk about money which Wurra also said is extremely important to scale the business to take it to the next level and I I came across a really interesting statistic the other day by partic Africa that said African startups raised 2.02 billion dollars in equity funding in 2019 okay big number um but when you look at that funding 95 of it as water had said some time back was concentrated in three countries Nigeria South Africa and Kenya right and so you know you're wondering how do we kind of get that to the rest of the continent how do other players on the continent benefit from such financing yeah that that's a very good question um you know investment has always been a challenge but I believe um the the three people countries Kenya Nigeria South Africa they've been able to put out their stories out there they built very good business cases that brought investment to all these countries so having a piece of that that pie or that cake I believe is for startups currently to begin to look at business models that work you know for for instance if you have a Fintech company Fintech is is currently one of the big areas when it comes to investing in Africans tech startups but there are other areas like agritech you know where you know the people who really need some of these technologies are those who are not connected to the internet the world bank still says that you have only 28 of people on the continent connected to the internet so you know if you cannot get these investments how best can you use the resources around you uh uh to to generate income you know so I'd use my company for instance where um we don't get a lot of funding we focus solely on bootstrapping and uh building models that work so for instance we've built uh a system for the Ghana infectious disease center where they're asking to manage COVID patients so we are now getting the government as a client of our project you know it's not deep it's it's not easy of course to get such public private partnerships but building models like did that work and also the African story in terms of countries that are doing amazing stuff in tech and technology innovation that are not out there they should tap into the internet and tell their stories as well you know so that investors can begin to look at countries like in Togo I I was in Togo recently when I got to the country one of the applications I was I was forced to download because there was a requirement was Toggle safe so I was amazed because you wouldn't think you know a country like Togo would get people to build or to use an application like that so it tells you that there's a lot of innovation going on in places but the message is not out there people do not know about it so I believe that uh it's about time you know you know ecosystem and enablers begin to put out this information about tech startups so that they can also get their life because you know there are very amazing things going on even in Ghana and other parts of Africa so I I'll summarize and say there are two core areas is either you build business models that work and use the resources around you you know because um there are people who are ready to pay uh thanks to mobile payments you know mobile money as a as a game changer in Africa so it's very easy to build something and get people to play with mobile money you know thanks to the telecommunications they've opened up their apis uh where you know developers can tap into and you know accept such payments so you know look at the customers we have huge informal sectors let's not leave them out there it's easy to build a sustainable business that way and once you're able to raise a show traction it will be easy for investment to come in because investment are always looking for investors are always looking for return for on their investments so once they begin to see the attraction will be easy for them to invest into what we are doing but I believe that there should be platforms now available for uh startups that are not in these three big countries to begin to showcase what they are doing yeah certainly and you know we have a few minutes to go and just kind of a follow-up to that uh question on funding and this comes from Horatia she raises it on Linkedin and and whoever on the panel feels comfortable to answer she says that investment is primarily to mail and to white-backed or owned businesses in Kenya South Africa and Nigeria so what opportunities are available for women-owned organizations great question there so I just want to touch on it briefly um if you can hear me so I think uh currently there are there are a lot of opportunities now available for female backed uh startups and and and and and companies and smes you know when you you know you just have to find the right platforms to look for funding but uh Google is doing it a lot of technology companies are doing it uh pharmaceuticals are doing it uh where the the the funding is only available to female you know African startups so is you just have to look for the right platforms and uh you get such opportunities but I think that gap is gradually being filled by a lot of different companies I've seen a lot from Google I've seen a lot from Bay I've seen a lot from different companies for female but startups no absolutely and um I just want to hear from you because you play in this space as well as women-owned business women run business you know what more can female entrepreneurs in the tech space we know it's heavily skewed towards men um but how can they tap into this space yeah so um just like uh Render said there are quite a number of um facilities and um enabling uh programs that are going on right now for women um what I what I always say is to is for us to just focus more around you know developing um a business model that that is sustainable and you know can actually yield a real impact and in terms of um access to to facilities and programs that's that's readily available these days there's a lot of traction even down to um girls that are just uh going into the technology space you know I have to talk at different platforms just to encourage them you know because in in in a male dominated world in in the technology world today um you know those are the kind of programs that can actually help you find your voice and find you know your bearing so yes there's there's quite a lot happening for for women today you just you know have to make sure that you also get your aspect of things right in in terms of the business model another question here from Boychoko in South Africa and Jesse I think I'll feel this to you he asks our company is ready to work with other countries especially in Africa how does one collaborate with foreign ict companies okay um I think this this has two perspectives to it you've got foreign companies in terms of you know big tech global companies and Microsoft uh the Amazons the Facebooks okay um so for example those ones um have rolled out quite a number of programs in terms of just being able to you know learn their various technologies so for example I know for example a band with Liquid Telco they do work a lot with Microsoft and they have been training a lot of you know people in the continent just so that they can be able to take up microsoft technologies and also seeing that happen with Amazon with aws amounts of web services in terms of Cloud technologies and we've seen that being launched in terms of various training for young people especially to know how to be able to be cloud fast and build cloud applications so we're seeing that happen with the big tech now in terms of intra African uh collaboration I think we still have a long way to go um however I'm happy to see the steps that are being taken I mean we've seen the for example the AFCTA the Africa free continental trade agreement or park which has been generating a lot of conversation around Africa in terms of how people can be able to you know trade more goods and services around with as little barriers as possible so I think if we keep a lookout in some of those conversations happening around there I think we can be able to help promote um you know a trade within the different boundaries and that means um specifically the focus on ICT I think ICT will help bring down a lot of those barriers much much farther so you can imagine for example um you know um one of the biggest for example barriers is is finance I mean I am I am exchanging the Kenya shilling with um you know the the Ghanaian city for example or the South African brand you know exchanging that that in terms of finances becomes a bit of a challenge but we you know technology such as cryptocurrencies for example um you know that would be able to help bring down um you know such barriers in terms of movement of funds around just to enable trade um we've got things such as um you know pintec um with countries like I mean with the organizations like flattery for example um you have a lot of people building solutions around flattery all over the continent so that means that it will be much easier in the future to move uh funds in and out of various countries so that all that will just help enable um trade and bring down a lot of barriers so in terms of even ict um I think that's an opportunity for a lot of us in the tech sector to just look at various ways that you can be able to leverage on that as uftm and you know help bring down the barriers using um you know technology so that you know we can collaborate better and I mean look at the um that we're having today which is on a zoom uh session that means I'm able to interact with um you know um our panelists from Nigeria I'm able to interact with people from Zambia um that means that um you know as we continue and as we uh readily um acknowledge and accept this technology as our norm that means it becomes much much easier to be able to interact and uh you know collaborate better and grow and trade with um you know I mean with um companies all over all over Africa so I highly encourage um the partners asking that question to just reach out um you know using the various technology platforms on Linkedin on E-mail on Zoom and and definitely uh there'll be some people willing to listen to you and ensure that uh you know you can be able to develop solutions I think one thing that I like about that is the fact that I'm very encouraged by the fact that nowadays we're having a lot for Africa by Africa content for Africa by Africa developers um coming up with solutions that are built for this continent of us rather than just plug and play picking things that are from outside so all that collaboration I think will really help um you know build ecosystem within Africa and help us you know grow together as a whole yeah I think I just want to go ahead yeah I just want to add just a quick uh comment on their collaboration so I think one of the fastest way to collaborate with uh companies abroad is for you to begin to you know look at opportunities they put out there for instance uh they always come out with challenges for instance maybe Johnson and Johnson or Google or you look at Facebook once they put out some of those challenges and they are looking for startups they let the people know the sort of challenges they are looking to solving so if your company fits into that criteria is always a good place for the collaboration to start from from my experience so once there's maybe like an accelerator program or they are looking at partnerships so it's good to always monitor their newsletters and everything else and once you're able to apply you're getting it's actually one of the fastest way to collaborate with a foreign based ICT company and it does work for me many times great fantastic insights Randolph and you know just as we're wrapping up we have about five minutes to go I'll be looking at the chat section to see uh if we have any more questions but this is really just a parting shot you all play in the tech space you all play in this digital transformation story and journey to get Africa to the next level but what gets you excited about the continent's future what gets you up going uh and just continuing with what you're doing I'll start with you ben and and what liquid is doing and I guess also on a personal note what gets you excited about the continent uh yeah thanks um uh look I I think she'll touch you back on the last question and and also getting into what makes me excited um you know this um we've done a lot of very hard work scaling across a continent in terms of building infrastructure but but then when people are working in digital applications you know as a company in South Africa you know you don't necessarily have a lot of the hard work's been done for you because you know because um infrastructure that we've built is has been connecting country to country in the interior of Africa we're crossing north to south cape to cairo as we say we're across the east to west mombasa conchato as I like to say but um you know so uh and other routes across the east west as well but you know the ability to enable um an entrepreneur to um to become a global company is is what excites me and I'm I'm employee number three of liquid telecom and I started in a we started in a small office in a uh satellite antenna room in hertfordshire um and now we are you know one of the larger companies in the African continent and um our um our owner and chairman um mr Strive to see where he was yesterday in the news he's been in the UK for some time um and you know he finally got counted in the rich list of the UK uh at around one point billion pounds worth of value but I couldn't even believe he was you know the headline yesterday he was the first black billionaire in the UK I didn't know much as I'm proud of my boss I'm also ashamed that UK has no previous uh black billionaires but um you know so that's it's very exciting to seeing um the possibility for um you know other companies to come and go like that across the continent is very exciting but I'm really interested in agriculture very much and and stuff to do with um you know this upskilling the youth I think but agriculture is an area where if we can technologically enable agriculture in Africa the the difference the the shift in gdp growth that can happen from uh technology and agriculture is bigger than anything else um because you look at the economies that we in they are you know okay some of them are extractive like Nigeria but um less and less um dependent upon extractive but you know very agriculture dependent economies if we can make a two percent difference in someone's productivity in our nation by having technology in agriculture you see what a massive difference that will be so um you know and and then my pet uh and most exciting thing I'm working on is is around connecting schools I mentioned that we've done this but um I we connected as liquid telecom around about 4 000 schools to internet across the continent which is a tip in the ocean of of what the potential is and if we can uh just in the countries we're in right now we could connect 150000 200000 schools uh and give people you know access to um it they may not uh um you know it may be mobile first but you know we can give young people access to um you know a device far superior than is that expect from that I had at the same sort of age that I had such a device and and then you know that that's for me what excites me um so it's been it's been fun and I'm enjoying it and it's already very nice as well to chat with uh people all over the world and uh you know and as you said in Ghana Nigeria and home in Kenya so you know just this is enjoyable it's it's it's uh something we didn't do two years ago so it's uh it's very much um you know being able to do this without getting on the plane is perfect oh certainly um how things have changed in such a short amount of time Wura let me come to you and just your thoughts and parting shots okay yeah so for me um what I find um that keeps me going in this space is how much um you know technologies um is actually changing the way we do things it's changing our culture in Africa and the fact that we're beginning to use um local solutions or grow local solutions to actually solve our local problems like we're no longer dependent on you know getting the googles and the microsoft to come and fix uh some of the problems that you know we can actually use our technology to fix here locally and um I mean I remember a time when when I was doing my masters and you know it came to mind that okay yes I want to work for the big boys but at some point I mean the international conference at some point I want to be able to drive you know the the change myself on my own skill you know using this technology and I mean the rest is history now what we're seeing is um a boom in terms of entrepreneurship people coming up with innovative solutions um look at the hub that we have in Nigeria I don't know if you know of it and Andela you know you have a lot of young skillful people there that are doing things that we never imagined you know could happen locally here in Nigeria so um for me and I think Ben mentioned that already also the fact that we're able to collaborate globally as well you know so now I can just as an individual I can look at what the seed accelerators in for example uh Silicon Valley are trying to do or the kind of facilities and enablers that they have you know for us uh entrepreneurs I can do that just you know by doing a little desktop research and then I'm having meetings and before you know it I'm speaking to someone in Kenya that has done something similar on how we can you know um you know really bring that into Nigeria so the journey is is has been very interesting and um the fact that you know we're excluded from all the revolutions that happened and you know now Africa is at the forefront of of of the revolution of the first uh industrial revolution that is happening now and um yeah that's that's that's very very very very interesting and um yeah so basically it's it's quite an exciting journey it doesn't come with without the challenges but I like the fact that we're now seeing the challenges as opportunities and not problems and today for every problem that you have in Africa the first thing that you know they want to talk about is how we can use technology to fix it even down to uh the food insecurity now you know the main uh the main driver and the main uh focus area is how technology can actually help you know improve in those sectors you know same in healthcare when the pandemic happened you know the first thing we had to turn to was technology as well you know same with education you know to continue to continue the education process during the pandemic it was education that you know had to be in the forefront of it so for me um that alone you know just keeps me going and um yeah I just I just like to um end on with my very favorite quotes which is the fact that you know Africa's digital economy you know is is really an awakening giant and um yeah the world better look out for us thank you yes the once sleeping giant quote unquote is now awakening Jesse there's a question also as you give your parting shot uh from Linkedin this is from Moise Betty saying what about education I see a lot of developers coming from abroad what about students startups who want to learn and grow in this industry okay um um okay we have a good example I mean Andela has been a very great great case study in terms of showing um the kind of you know potential Africa has in terms of providing talent for software development and software engineers so that just you know that has given us impetus and shown us that um you know we as Africans we actually do have the capacity to compete effectively um with developers and with you know great minds from around the world so for example Andela for example a lot of what they do is basically they outsource their talents to the Googles and the facebooks of uh of this world so I believe that in terms of um you know capacity in terms of knowledge I think we do have such an amazing opportunity um here in Africa if you're able to just take it out but not as the technology you can easily learn a lot of these skills um online you really don't have to go to the IVY league universities you don't have to go to the harvard universities or the Oxford Universities to be able to you know learn what they're learning and compete effectively across the globe with them so I think um in terms of education um that's what I can add in terms of of the capacity that we have yeah in terms of my parting throat um ideally it would be we have over 1.2 billion um applicants in the continent okay and for me I see that as an opportunity there's a word that I learned some while back uh earlier in the year in a course that undertook online um called institutional gaps or institutional voids that ideally what you're talking about is you're looking at um you know a continent like ours in Africa yeah we have a lot of infrastructural issues a lot of institutional issues the roads are not very good okay our parliamentarians and our politicians always bring in challenges our infrastructure in terms of um you know education healthcare again not the best but those provide opportunities for people who are willing to willing to look for those jobs and take advantage of them and have an entrepreneurial mindset for athletes so what i'd like to encourage everyone is you know look at Africa look at the 1.2 billion people look at the institutional gaps that are there and look for ways to be able to solve them using technology and with that you'll be able to upon the silver bullets to be able to help um first of all your community help the continent and also be able to grow yourself in your entrepreneurial journey if you you are an entrepreneur so for me I think that's my parting shot fantastic your 1.2 billion reasons to get up in the morning thanks for that Jesse Randolph you're parting shot and there's a question that I'll field to you and to Ben as well uh from facebook and they're asking data security is such a big worry that tech people need to address in the simplest language possible are there any deliberate initiatives by tech to reach out to citizens who may not understand tech jargon great question there so Raindolf over to you and we'll come to Ben yes thank you so much so I think um data security is a big challenge and just like many other words that get lost in in the sector as jargons I I firstly believe currently on a more governmental sector governments have set up commissions now to look into data protection for companies to begin to tell citizens on what they are using their data for uh for us for example that we are working in the digital health space we put disclaimers on our platforms to let our public know what their data are being used for so I think it will be also very important for tech startups to begin to break it down to let them know what their phone numbers are being used for information about their E-mail addresses what are they being used for um so I think that that is critical my my party shot and what gives me keeps me excited about the technology sector is that I think this is like my 10th year in the in the health and and you know I believe we've come a long way at first it was very difficult getting things but now it is very what's up in the usage of facebook people understand how simple technologies work so it's very easy I believe um the future is very bright um I'm I'm even more excited because now the focus is on social good how we can use technology to do more good in Africa and um I'm I'm excited as to where that is going to go so and I'm happy to be playing a key role in the digital health sector in Ghana and also how that played a major role in the in this current COVID-19 pandemic in crisis thank you so much and thank you thank you Randolph and indeed using tech for more social good that's what it's about uh Ben I'll give the last word to you yeah thanks um yes just on that last question about data security I mean there's three things that come hand in hand here the cyber security data data protection and and child online protection and um you know we've seen really good moves um in Kenya for the the program from the communications authority regulator around child online protection it's called be the cop and it's it's really nice and put in such a way that um you know they're explaining uh these things to be accessible by children and the parents of children to explain what that what that means and I think that's you know it's clear that we need to use simple language uh we you know Jesse said in the chat we're having data protection laws cyber security laws coming in across Africa it is important that these are implemented properly uh and we have a data protection act in Kenya and it's very much something that needs to be implemented probably with the government acting more as a uh you know a guiding for self-regulation rather than rather than as a policeman um and and um you know government is not able to please everybody and I think uh you know that that is that is the absolute key but um you know a lot of um tech information out there may not be relatable to uh both the cultures and also the the the mobile first nature of the African uh data user so something we've been doing I've actually been last week we have a platform with sort of training data training videos about this type of thing but they came from an Irish company and I was out refilming all these you know and instead of having somebody in a computer in a fancy office block I was filming in a barber shop with someone with a mobile phone you know making things more relatable and making them more relatable to the technology people are using into the environments that they're working in so um it's we'll get there but it's one of the biggest threats right now and it's a very good question to end off thank you fantastic thank you so much to my panelists Jesse Randolph Ben and Wura for some amazing insights got us thinking about the future of the digital transformation here in Africa and to simplify it it doesn't have to be as complex as those in the tech fraternity make it out to be again this is to help make life simpler for the average citizen thank you so much for sticking with us on this edition of the Africa frontiers of innovation keep your eyeballs on the Canon Linkedin and Facebook pages for the next one next month and we'll be giving all the details on who the other great panelists will be and the topic as well but for now have a wonderful rest of the day evening afternoon wherever you're joining us from this planet of ours thank you for joining us I'm Victoria Rubadiri bye for now

2021-06-30 20:15

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