In the heart of San Francisco, not too far from the Golden Gate Bridge, lives one of Africa’s most successful technology entrepreneurs, Vinny Lingham – an erstwhile university dropout from the University of Cape Town.
It seems that almost any chance encounter could spark the imagination of the entrepreneur, who became a Global Young Leader in 2009. A simple moment in a coffee shop gave birth to an idea that would make him millions.
“I walked into Starbucks in San Francisco and paid for my coffee using a mobile gift card on my iPhone. It was then that I decided to build an app that could let consumers do this for any merchant out there.”
His research showed a great demand for such gift cards. So in 2012, without hesitation, Lingham left his job as the CEO of Yola.com, one of his start-ups, to launch Gyft – a digital gift card app. The app sells gift cards and makes it easy for businesses to offer loyalty programs to consumers.
Gyft grew into a success and became one of the top gift card services in the world. It also appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres talk show.
Last year, Lingham sold Gyft to First Data – a global payment processing company – for $54 million. This was another great feat for the man who gained international success from his other start-ups, including the Silicon Cape Initiative and Clicks2Customers.
But Lingham’s new-found success in the United States (US) was miles away from his humble beginnings in South Africa. He grew up in the Eastern Cape and later moved to Cape Town where he studied Information Systems at the University of Cape Town. In his final year, Lingham dropped out to pursue his own ventures.
Lingham relocated from Cape Town to the US is 2008 with hopes to compete in the global technology market and take advantage of the opportunities that Silicon Valley offers. The US market promised platforms and billions of dollars for tech-entrepreneurs to develop and test business and technology ideas and has made household names of companies such as Snapchat and Uber.
“The South African market is constrained by both capital and the skills to execute and therefore the approach has had to be different. Investors in South Africa by and large do not understand how to finance, grow and support early stage start-up technology businesses – the balance sheets, financing and execution strategies are not well understood here – but in the US it’s become a well-oiled machine,” he said.
Lingham says there are few opportunities for investors in South Africa to exit their start-up companies as larger companies are not interested in mergers and acquisitions.
“Almost every business in Silicon Valley, doing more than $50 million a year in revenue, has a corporate development person who has a full-time job finding companies to buy. That culture has not permeated into South Africa and so the upside for angel investors is quite limited when it comes to making a return on investment in a short space of time.”
He says there is a need for entrepreneurs in Africa who are focused on shaking up the system and drive down margins of larger companies. This could draw the bigger companies into mergers and acquisitions.
In 2014, Lingham served as a judge on the South African version of Dragons’ Den. The television show, which originated in Japan, allows entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch business ideas to a panel of businesspeople in search of financing.
“Through this experience, I learned that I really have an affinity for consumer products – I really loved the entrepreneurs who were pitching ideas that consumers would want to buy, such as TodPod and CandyWasted – which recently aired.”
When it comes to advice for budding entrepreneurs Lingham keeps it simple.
“Focus. Do one thing really well, and try to be the best you can be at that one thing.”
He says far too many entrepreneurs try to do too much too soon.
“I meet too many entrepreneurs who are doing five different things in their business and making money from either none of them or some of them – both being bad strategies. You need to find a product market fit and focus on your core business. That’s the key,” says Lingham.
When he’s not launching businesses or advising budding entrepreneurs on new ventures you can find Lingham on the golf course, with family or even in the line of a coffee shop awaiting his next million-dollar idea.

A Million-Dollar Idea  In A Coffee Shop

Is there still easy money to be made in South Africa’s cellular industry? For more than 15 years, the sun shone on the country’s two big mobile operators, Vodacom and MTN. The companies enjoyed an effective duopoly – despite the launch in 2001 of Cell C. Their shareholders reaped the dividends.
But about five years ago, the market began changing. Consumers started using their phones more to access the internet and data services, and proportionally less for making calls. Smartphone sales began to boom, and a new breed of over the top (OTT) providers – companies like Skype, owned by Microsoft, and WhatsApp, owned by Facebook – began providing (often free) alternatives to the network operators’ historic profit centers of voice telephony and text messaging.
They did this by leveraging the operators’ data networks. WhatsApp has decimated person-to-person SMS messaging; Skype, Viber and similar voice dialing services that route calls over the mobile operators’ data networks promise to do the same as next-generation 4G/LTE networks expand and as supported handsets proliferate.
The operators have found themselves in a quandary. By building these next-generation, high-speed data networks, they are effectively erecting the infrastructure on top of which the dreaded OTT providers can compete with them head-on in their most profitable business areas.
Industry bosses, like MTN South Africa CEO Ahmad Farroukh – who has warned that operators and OTT providers have to reach some sort of agreement if the former are to continue investing billions each year in network infrastructure – are adamant they won’t become ‘dumb pipes’. This is industry jargon for operators that provide low-margin telecommunications infrastructure in a utility-type model without profiting from the value-added services that flow across this infrastructure.
Operators want to retain their historically high profit margins by tapping into this value-added services business as voice margins decline. They’re looking to provide services like streaming media and mobile banking and e-commerce – taking them into competition with media companies and financial services institutions.
Both MTN and Vodacom have launched mobile banking solutions – the former recently concluded a deal with Pick n Pay, while the latter has relaunched M-Pesa – and both are looking at video-on-demand (VOD) services similar to America’s Netflix. But neither company has experience in the media industry or financial services and profitable success is far from guaranteed.
While all this has been happening, competition from more traditional competitors — the smaller network operators — has hotted up dramatically.
Cell C has taken advantage of falling termination rates — the fees the operators charge each other to carry calls between their networks — to slash call prices. Vodacom has been quick to respond to the challenge; MTN followed later, but only after it lost significant market share to its smaller rival.
Voice tariffs have probably now fallen as far as they will. Cell C, the instigator of the price war in mobile voice, seems to be back-pedaling a little on previous aggressive price cuts, especially in data, where it’s recently hiked out-of-bundle charges. Vodacom, although reacting to Cell C’s aggressive moves, has been able to hang on to higher prices than its rivals in voice and data services, perhaps because it has a superior network.
Cell C, burdened by debt that some industry insiders say runs into well over $850 million, is in a difficult position. Although it’s won market share in recent years, it is still short of the 25% target its former CEO, Alan Knott-Craig, said it needed to ensure its future success.
Telkom, meanwhile, has effectively given up on the idea of being an infrastructure competitor in the mobile market, with its plans to outsource management of its radio access network to MTN. Unless something spectacular goes wrong, that deal should be wrapped in early 2015.
The future of Cell C is what will determine the shape of the industry for the rest of the decade. Are its shareholders prepared to continue fighting a war of attrition against Vodacom and MTN? Or will they look to sell the business? And who would buy it? France’s Orange, perhaps? Or India’s Bharti Airtel? A sale to a well-funded foreign investor keen to shake up the South African market could up the stakes dramatically.

Is There A Future In Cellphones?

One lazy Sunday in March 1886, on a farm in Langlaagte in what is now Johannesburg, Australian gold miner, George Harrison, stumbled upon a rock by a stream that contained gold. He declared his claim to the then government and soon after the area was declared open for mining – the ‘Witwatersrand Gold Rush’ began.
The gold rush built Johannesburg and made fortunes, these days poverty is the spur. Illegal gold mining is the running sore of the industry today. Poverty recruits illegal miners to live and work in dangerous abandoned shafts. What they find is worth much more then what their unknown employer pays them. Those that risk their lives in the dark and dusty underground call themselves Zama Zama (taking a shot at fortune).
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3310" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/chiakto-Shutterstock.com_-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" />
Illegal miners have no rights to mine, but feel that the act is a victimless crime. They believe there is nothing wrong with doing what they are because they are entering the abandoned mines on their own, risking their own lives.
Illegal mining in South Africa is on the rise.
“There is very limited access and control to what is actually happening underground and very limited control over the access points because we simply don’t know where they all are. And even if we do know, in some instances the mine would pour concrete into a redundant mine shaft, like a plug. But the guys (illegal miners) will mine right next to it, they would dig down around the concrete block and access the mines,” says Ben Coetzee from the Institute for Security Studies.
Illegal mining used to have little impact on legal mining but illegal miners have now moved into working mines. Sibanye Gold CEO, Neal Froneman, says illegal mining is turning into war. His mine was once sabotaged by illegal miners over Christmas and he even admits that some of his own miners have mined illegally on their days off.
“It’s a major problem, not only in abandoned mines but also in working mines. They have become very arrogant, they’re very organized, they are armed, they are aggressive, they threaten employees and blackmail them and they are replaced very quickly. You can arrest guys (illegal miners) and they are back tomorrow or somebody else is back tomorrow,” says Anton van Achterbergh, the Head of the Legal Department at the Chamber of Mines of South Africa.
Illegal gold mining is easier than you might think.
“Gold is visible and you can find it underground. Whenever there is an explosion, there will be gold dust that will accumulate on the ground or on the floor in the tunnels and there is always water in a mine, so it effectively rinses out the dust. In many mines the gold is actually laying where people are walking,” says Coetzee.
In South Africa it is illegal to be in the possession of raw gold. The syndicate chain of illegal mining has found a very simple and effective way of trading the stolen gold. Shop owners licensed to buy and sell a certain amount of gold, buy legal gold. They then buy illegal gold and refine it – which is very easy to do – and then mix it with the legal gold. This process makes it almost impossible to identify the illegal gold. Each nugget of pure gold has a unique fingerprint that identifies the origin of that gold. When you mix it with gold from all over the world, that fingerprint gets lost.
Illegal mining is driven by a large syndicate chain. This chain consists of five levels. The first level is the illegal miners, most of them immigrants. The second level is the buyers of the gold, who also recruit the illegal miners and provide them with tools. The third level sells the gold regionally. The fourth level sells nationally and the fifth level is the international buyers and distributors.
Border jumpers dominate illegal mining. According to the Chamber of Mines, 70% of all arrested illegal miners are illegal immigrants.
“If we can solve the illegal immigrant problem, illegal mining will go away, roughly,” says Van Achterbergh.
Another issue is the weakness of the law.
“In South Africa, to be charged with theft of something, you need to be caught with the possession thereof. When the guys (illegal miners) hear you coming they run away, so how do you prove they were stealing? Same as on the surface illegal mining, unless you find the gold in their possession it is very difficult,” says Van Achterbergh.
He says there have been many efforts to educate prosecutors about the theft of precious metal, allowing them to charge illegal miners for more than mere possession. Despite these efforts, there are holes in the justice system.
“I always tell the police the prosecution is as good as the investigation. If the investigation only shows so much, then what can I do if it only shows trespassing and not illegal mining?” says Anthea van der Byl from the National Prosecuting Authority.
“Police are afraid to go into these places. I would say it needs an international intervention, not just national.”
Police are also frustrated.
“It is a futile exercise, one might say, especially with the level ones and twos (in the syndicate chain),” says Lieutenant Colonel Herman Mahlangu from the South African Police Service.
Despite many initiatives to control the issue in the country, the road to a resolution is a long and winding one. Illegal mining may be a crime for South Africa’s economy, but for the illegal miners it feeds their families. With no qualifications and no experience, they turn to the inside of redundant mines looking for gold to give them a few rands to survive. In taking a shot at fortune, few strike the jackpot.

The Golden Chain With  A Rich Man At One End And A  Fool At  The Other

The gathering of the nerds. You would think you wouldn’t hear yourself over the explosions and crossfire on their screens. Instead there is barely a whisper; the silence of the nerds if ever there was. It’s an eerie experience watching 2,500 gamers in Africa’s largest LAN (local area network), held at the Really Awesome Gaming Expo (rAge) in Johannesburg, South Africa, in almost monastic silence.
Just a gentle tip tap on their keyboards and the odd click of a mouse with 2,500 pairs of eyes glued to their screens for three days and nights.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3263" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC_9126_2-1024x681-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Row upon row of geeks sit at their orange tables with their computer towers glowing in the dark and two-liter bottles of cool drink never far away. Some nap on inflated mattresses; others merely sleep on their keyboards.
It’s not a question of come as you are, rather come as you want to be. They call them cosplayers, or in English, the people who dress as the characters on the screens. One of them is 23-year-old au pair by day and cosplayer by night Lauren Mutch, who enjoys dressing up as Naruto, the Japanese based cartoon anime hero. Mutch is learning Japanese so she can go to the Mecca of anime to teach English and, one day, become a narrator in an anime series.
“I love anime. I thought to dress up as these characters would be something really cool, so why not try it? It’s a way to celebrate your fandom with other people. I wish I had my Naruto contact lenses now to show you, I left them at home,” says Mutch.
Someone who didn’t forget his anime eyes is Douw ‘Silver Angel’ Kotzé, dressed as Uchiha Itachi, another character from Naruto. His creepy Mangekyou Sharingan lenses are hard to miss. Elsewhere a thin Batman hangs out by the shawarma store, an award-winning married Legends of Zelda couple look for new games to play and a 20-year–old Syndra from League of Legends is at home posing for photos with zealous followers.
Just an ordinary weekend for the 33,000 nerds who flock to catch a glimpse of the latest in all things geeky; from computer games to comic books.
“Overall we’re seeing gaming and the geek tech genre growing all the time, if the show is anything to go on,” says Michael James, rAge owner.
Speed is everything for a LANer. It’s so popular; James had to install a 2-gigabyte-per-second line (Gbps) to provide enough bandwidth to keep the gamers happy. This is a thousand times faster than what most South Africans live with on their 2-megabyte–per-second lines.
“We even had a hiccup with the internet one year when we couldn’t supply enough bandwidth. But now we’re 100 percent sorted out and we’re 100 percent sorted out with the network,” says James.
But rAge is a small drop in the ocean for an industry that’s worth $217 million in South Africa, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC): South African entertainment and media outlook: 2014 – 2018. By 2018, it is expected to grow to
$335 million.
It’s not just Africa that is enjoying the boom. Nerds worldwide are making millions in eSports. Twenty million people tuned in through online streaming to watch The International 2014 finals of DotA 2, a strategy game where two five-man teams face off in a battle to destroy each other’s base.
Ironically DotA started as a custom map in 2005, made by fans of World Craft 3. It became so popular that it launched a whole new genre of computer gaming Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA). The winners of the finals, Chinese team ‘Newbee’, pocketed $5 million from a prize pool of roughly $10 million.
This is not the only game to rake in millions of viewers. In 2013, the League of Legends finals drew 32 million viewers. Still not as close as the Super Bowl XLVIII final which drew 111.5 million.
It’s not just computers – mobile games are on the rise. In 2013, PwC noted that King’s Candy Crush Saga, a mobile social game, was downloaded 500 million times. By 2018, it expects South Africa’s mobile gaming market will rival console games for the leading platform for video games.
“Digital is making a huge inroad, so guys like Steam [an online gaming and shopping store], people are buying games there instead of in a shop,” says James.
Gaming has become so big that it’s believed to be larger than the movie industry.
“If you add the consoles and all the hardware involved, it’s probably getting around to where the movies are at the moment. Every avenue I’ve kind of looked at or investigated has gone onto speculation. It’s not a very definitive thing because gaming is so wide and broad. But it must be very close,” says James.
Disney’s Iron Man 3 took 23 days to hit $1 billion in sales, and is now currently the 6th highest grossing film according to Box Office Mojo. Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V, the violent role playing game, grossed $1 billion in just three days after being released by its parent company Take-Two Interactive.
The nerd herd in their rising millions will be sure to argue this in front of their desktops long into the night.

The Nerd Herd

<h4>Entersekt</h4>
Entersekt is a global pioneer in transaction authentication for financial institutions. The system combines electronic certificate technology with encrypted cloud messaging and the convenience of mobile phones to give banks, and their customers, full protection from cyber criminals looking to steal users login details and passwords. Entersekts clients, who include Investec, Absa, Old Mutual, Nedbank and Capitec, have allegedly reported an elimination of online banking fraud since implementing the system. Over 12 million customers are protected by Entersekt’s security software which has authenticated more than 250 million transactions since being launched in 2010. The start-up has so far raised around $10 million and has been implemented in Swiss financial institutions with plans to expand to Nigeria, Britain, Netherlands and the United States.
<h4>iono.fm</h4>
Described as PVR for radio, iono.fm is an audio-on-demand platform that publishes content from radio stations, podcasts and audiobooks. Listeners create their unique playlists and download content for later use. The revenue model centers on short audio adverts and all the content is currently free but going forward they may charge for exclusive content and added functionality. Where traditional radio stations can only monetize their content once as it is streamed live, iono.fm can monetize the content multiple times with different advertisers as the audio is stored online for repeat use. The platform currently generates over a million page views and 800,000 downloads per month. In the second quarter this year, iono.fm saw a 400% increase in downloads. The company has been self-funded since 2008 but is now engaging with venture capital investment to expand operations to the rest of Africa, India, and South America.
&nbsp;
<h4>wiGroup</h4>
wiGroup is a specialized point-of-sale integration platform that enables retailers of any size to tap into the mobile money market. Retailers that plug-in to the wiPlatform are able to accept any kind of current or future mobile payment, loyalty, reward or couponing application that exists on the platform. MTN Mobile Money, FlickPay and M-Pesa are some of the apps that have been integrated into the system which services over 50,000 till lanes across South Africa and has processed close to $250 million in mobile transactions. wiGroup’s clients include Pick n Pay, Shoprite, Vodacom and KFC, and the revenue model is based on transaction fees and monthly licensing subscriptions for apps that run on the platform. The company has a presence in Namibia and Mauritius, with plans to expand into Nigeria, Zambia and Britain in the near future.
CapeRay
CapeRay develops and manufactures advanced breast cancer screening equipment combining X-ray and ultrasound technology to enhance a clinician’s ability to detect cancer in women &#8211; especially those with dense breast tissue where conventional methods often miss a cancerous lesion. The technology is the first of its kind globally. The start-up spun away from the University of Cape Town around four years ago and has so far raised $2.26 million in funding pre-revenue. Clinical trials have been completed and an offering memorandum is now in front of 15 major multinational companies with CapeRay looking to raise an additional $10 million to begin rolling out the product in the United States, Europe and South Africa.
&nbsp;
<h4>iKubu</h4>
iKubu specializes in developing computer vision and commercial radar systems. The small team of engineers have a deep understanding of embedded software solutions and electronic hardware with a strong focus on algorithm development. The start-up developed a 3D scanning system for automated baggage check-in that has been implemented in major airports, including Heathrow, Sydney and Singapore. The company has, up until now, been bootstrapped by the founders who are engaging with international investors to expand operations.
&nbsp;
<h4>Nomanini</h4>
Nomanini develops and manufactures rugged mobile point-of-sale terminals to sell products such as airtime and electricity in emerging markets. The technology enables vendors in the informal sector to efficiently distribute prepaid vouchers and facilitate micro cash payments with plans in the works to enable additional transactions such as mobile money and insurance premium collections. Nomanini has partnerships in Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Namibia, Guinea and Mozambique with active terminals processing over a million transactions in September with the company expecting to process a million payments per month by December. Nomanini has so far raised more than $2.3 million in funding and is engaging with venture capital players in foreign markets for further expansion.
&nbsp;
<h4>8bit</h4>
8bit is a content recommendation platform that connects online publishers to a larger network of content producers driving traffic to members’ websites by showcasing their most popular content on other sites in the network. 8bit’s system automatically detects a site’s top content based on time, click rate and social media engagement and shares impressions across the network of publishers. It is currently in a closed invite only beta stage with South Africa’s leading independent publishers and has begun trialling with the country’s largest media houses. 8bit will officially launch at the upcoming Web Summit conference in Dublin in November after being named as one of Africa’s top 10 start-ups. In the upcoming months the company will be launching its paid promotions platform where publishers and advertisers can promote sponsored content not only on 8bit’s network but on traditional advertising exchanges. Since being founded earlier this year 8bit has raised around $135,000 in seed funding with plans to expand into Kenya, Nigeria and Denmark. 8bit processes over 20 million recommendations per month and in many instances, directs more traffic to publishers on its network than Google, Facebook and Twitter.
<h4>OrderCloud</h4>
OrderCloud integrates all the sales channels of a business, whether telephone, web or mobile, into a single online dashboard for simple and effective order management. The system automatically locates the closest outlet to the customer and links it with the necessary delivery services to process the order. Whether customers pay with credit, cash or mobile money, all your funds are instantly aggregated into a single account which distributes the lump sum to all the relevant parties in the supply chain. OrderCloud is being integrated into large franchises in South Africa though the start-up cannot say who at this point as the information is classified. The company is busy putting together a prominent board of directors and has so far raised $226,000 with plans to raise an additional $900,000 from local and international investors.
&nbsp;
<h4>WhereIsMyTransport</h4>
This month, WhereIsMyTransport will be launching Africa’s first official multi-modal transport application for Cape Town. Commuters using the app are able to seamlessly plot their journey from point to point linking various modes of public transport such as Golden Arrow buses and Metrorail trains with minibus taxis to come online in the near future. The application generates valuable data regarding commuter traffic and congestion enabling cities to more efficiently develop their transport networks. The start-up, still in its infancy, is engaged in talks with investors in three foreign markets to develop similar applications for major metros. The long-term vision of the company will be to open up its application programming interface to allow other developers to build apps using their technology.
&nbsp;
<h4>Ekaya</h4>
Ekaya has created an online marketplace where you can list, find and rent property from your phone or on the web. Landlords can vet and rate tenants, collect rent and freely advertise their property on the platform. Tenants applying for property pay an administrative fee of less than $10 for all necessary criminal and credit record checks, whereas property agents usually charge around $100. Also, instead of paying a fat deposit upfront, Ekaya offers an insurance scheme where tenants pay a smaller monthly fee that can be used to cover damages. Ekaya makes money by taking a small commission of the rent and is looking to expand its insurance, micro-loan and deposit components with added loyalty and reward features. Ekaya recently raised $126,000 in angel funding and has over 1,000 estate listings in Cape Town since the beta version went live about two weeks ago with the platform aiming to launch in Durban and Johannesburg in the next few months.

Ten Technology  Start-Ups To Watch

Last year, in the shadows of the Zimbabwean elections were whispers of a man who took risks by challenging people to question Robert Mugabe’s 26 years of power. At the click of his mouse he passed out classified information that spread like wild fire. They call him Baba Jukwa.
Jukwa, who calls himself a disgruntled Zanu-PF insider, agreed to an interview with FORBES LIFE AFRICA via Facebook to protect his identity. He has one clear mission: To see Zimbabwe rise to its former glory.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31289 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/3611958575_07df785a50_o-300x202.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="202" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/3611958575_07df785a50_o-300x202.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/3611958575_07df785a50_o-600x404.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/3611958575_07df785a50_o-768x517.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/3611958575_07df785a50_o.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“Zimbabwe is falling, but its people are not, and these same people shall lift it up as they express themselves through the spirit of freedom… But I will tell you without mincing words, even Mugabe himself is possessed by this same spirit of freedom, only that he suppresses it daily,” he says.
Jukwa’s posts included a prediction of a former Zanu-PF member of parliament, Edward Chindori-Chininga’s death, who died in a car accident after revealing corruption in the diamond sector. Jukwa also posted the HIV statuses of Zanu-PF politicians.
In November, reports accused Jukwa of being Zimbabwe’s information minister Jonathan Moyo. Others believe Jukwa is more than one person because the blogs betray a number of writing styles. Whoever it is, they are certainly an insider.
“I have over the past 33 years worked in a place where everything is naked and bare, so it is not uncommon at all for me to know everything and anything.”
Jukwa says he has no fear because he is a dead man already. All he wants is for the country to be free.
“On that day, when the people have finally freed themselves from the chains of oppression and once again Zimbabwe is a shining nation as the ancestors would have had it, it shall be a great day of celebration, mark my words.”
Across the Atlantic lives a social media guru who could be considered Jukwa’s brother in arms. At least he is unafraid to use his own name. Dressed in torn jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers, he looks like an average Joe. His red beard and large earrings may be the reason you give him a second look, but there is more to him than meets the eye.
In 2011, Harper Reed took the job of technology chief for Barak Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. His job was to gather voters with the use of social media. The strategy was a gem and Obama made history again, this time for becoming the first president to be re-elected with the help of his social media campaign.
Although Reed was working for one of the most powerful people in the world, it was not enough to get him into a suit and tie.
“This one time [Obama] walked out of the office on the campaign and walked up to my buddy Dillan and I and the first thing he said to us was, ‘Ah, you guys must be the tech team.’ I think it was our beards that gave us away.”
Flushed with the success of Obama’s re-election campaign, could Reed consult in the tricky politics of Africa?
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31291 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“Probably not. For me, if I really supported the person, then yes. The thing is, you must do this because you want to do it and not because you want money. Because it’s politics, you have to treat it that way,” he says.
Reed says it is important to fight media censorship. He speaks of the importance of a transparent government to avoid having the same people in power over and over again.
“In my time in South Africa, I talked to a lot of people about politics and there was this fear of continuation of a single government for a long time without change… If people feel like it really matters to them, they need to step up and solve the problem.”
Unlike Jukwa, Reed lives in comparative freedom.
“People talk a lot of shit on the internet, as you can imagine. It’s just how it works on the internet. People are mean and they can do crazy things. But for the most part, there’s a lot of work done in the United States to make it so that people don’t feel intimidated. I’ve never felt like I had to hide.”
With elections around the corner for some African countries, perhaps it is time to adopt a word that was significant on Obama’s road to victory. A word both feared and revered: Change.   FL

Photo-Oct-27-2-26-38-PM

Guerilla Bloggers

It is like running in the Olympic Games with a limping leg, no matter the obstacles; you need to reach the finish line. This is an attitude portrayed by Kenya in the aftermath of the Westgate terror attack. An attack that got many wondering if Nairobi will stand tall to face this evil and, more importantly, resolutely look forward and never turn back, as echoed by the number one citizen, Uhuru Kenyatta.
Kenya is still licking its wounds after one of the deadliest terror attacks the world has ever witnessed in September, 2013. Just a few days before that, the country’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport became an inferno. It was not clear if this was an act of terror or arson until a month later when the investigation revealed an electrical fault started the fire.
That is when the Hakuna Matata aura kicked in; all that happened is history and life moves on. Millions of foreign visitors, on leisure and business trips, are landing at that very same airport and more shopping malls are springing up. The Kenyan government even promised to lend a hand in revamping the Westgate Mall.
Focus quickly shifted to mark Kenya’s 50th anniversary as an independent state. The year was coming to an end and there was a rush to wrap it up with a lot of festivities. On the night of December 2, FORBES AFRICA chose the country’s capital to celebrate its third Person of the Year, less than three kilometers away from the scene of terror that occurred at the mall. The recipient of the award, Nigeria’s minister of agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, reminded all that East Africa, and Kenya in particular, is at the forefront of the continent’s ICT revolution.
During his acceptance speech, Adesina reiterated his mission to make millionaires from agriculture. He is using electronic wallets to enable farmers to receive vouchers for subsidized seeds and fertilizers. It is a system that traces its origin from Kenya, a land with no worries.
Exclusive resorts and the world’s top luxury hotels are setting up shop in Kenya. Africa’s first Billionaires Resort was opened in the tiny coastal town of Malindi, a three-hour drive north of Mombasa. Some of the resort’s investors cannot even point out the location on a map. All their trust is bestowed on their beloved friend and Italian businessman, Flavio Briatore, who operates the resort, bringing glamour, quality and uniqueness to the coast of Kenya. Some of the high-profile owners of apartments at the resort include Ferrari’s Spanish Formula One driver Fernando Alonso and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
It is once again time for the Hakuna Matata mojo.

5E9V8829

THE PAST IS THE PAST AS KENYA STANDS STRONG

Two young Capetonian entrepreneurs, Mark Bosman and Jesse Hemson-Struthers, saw the good side of gambling on the streets of London. It inspired them to bring a fresh approach to South Africa through BetTech Gaming.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3157" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_8243-683x1024-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
In 2009, while the world was experiencing a credit crunch, Bosman was a business development manager and had been in that industry for about 10 years, while Hemson-Struthers was a university drop-out and entrepreneur. Both were looking for new opportunities to make money in an environment that wasn’t very promising. They met when they were in high school in Cape Town and their paths crossed again in London.
“I had been involved in the property industry at that stage and it was obviously not doing well. We wanted to come back to South Africa and do something which would be a sustainable business and would survive the recession,” says Hemson-Struthers.
At the time, he was running an online marketing business for the property industry in Spain, but the market was slowing down drastically. Hemson-Struthers was in Britain trying to keep the business going.
It was then that the duo put their heads together, throwing around ideas that ranged from starting an online nappy business to an alcohol distribution company. They identified a sustainable business in the online sports betting industry in South Africa thanks to Hemson-Struthers’ background in e-commerce.
He had previously founded SAcamera in 2004 and it became the country’s biggest online store for specialist photographic equipment and accessories. SAcamera had distribution networks throughout Southern Africa and a physical showroom in Cape Town.
“In the beginning we funded everything ourselves off the website, set up supplies ourselves, picked up camera’s from suppliers ourselves, delivered them to the post office and then built it over a couple of years to being a retail and an online store,” says the 31-year-old.
“It was a hobby and a way for me to make money when I was young. I dropped out of university after a year into SAcamera because it was actually taking off and I wanted to focus my energy there.”
In 2012, SAcamera was acquired by MIH Internet Africa, a subsidiary of Naspers, one of the world’s largest internet firms.
MIH integrated SAcamera into its e-commerce site, Kalahari.com. The acquisition allowed Hemson-Struthers to focus more on BetTech Gaming which he founded in the midst of the recession while he and Bosman were in Britain.
“Sports betting and casinos are a culture and a way of life there. We saw some exciting stuff we wanted to do in South Africa. We came back and raised some institution money through 4Di Capital,” says Bosman.
“It was a whole process which we ran through South Africa since 2009, essentially building a product, getting it nationally licensed through the national gambling board. We’ve been selling our products since 2011 and we’ve got nine platform clients now who use our software and services.”
When Bosman and Hemson-Struthers started BetTech Gaming they spent around two years trying to understand products, markets and their systems and trying to clarify what it is they were trying to build. The founders conceptualized a business for two years until they were able to make money from it before going public.
Today, BetTech Gaming develops gaming software that can either be white-labeled or used for trading sports betting positions through its platform. It started off as a sports and horseracing wagering module and has since evolved into a business that includes casino, virtual and lucky number based modules across the web, mobile and retail channels. The business allows media partners to have their own betting brand that BetTech operates.
“We are a solution provider. It’s not just about providing software. We have a full suite of products and services. For instance, if a company like SuperSport in South Africa wanted to launch a sports betting business, we’ve got the resources to run the entire business for them, software, trading, content, risk management, client support, the IP management and full works and the partner who owns the business literally just markets it,” says Bosman.
The 31-year-old Bosman is responsible for managing the marketing, business development and operational side of BetTech Gaming. He is an entrepreneurially-focused marketing strategist having worked in the fast-moving consumer goods industry and the business development position for several other companies.
Having started three other businesses, Hemson-Struthers is an entrepreneur at heart and relishes the challenge of establishing new ventures and spending hours to improve it. Bosman is similarly enthusiastic, adding that BetTech is their passion. It’s their baby and they want to see it through.
“When you start a business like we did, it requires about 15 hours a day. You never stop thinking. The job is never done,” says Bosman.
“Being an entrepreneur, you have to create something out of nothing. So it’s about building a product which you see the market needs and then going out and selling it to the right consumers and in some instances you need to convince them of the new product which they might not know they need yet.”
They hope to be South Africa’s premier online and mobile sports betting brand and are branching out into the rest of the continent. Hemson-Struthers says they already have clients in Uganda and Tanzania, will soon launch in Kenya and are eyeing Nigeria. They have also launched the world’s first licensed Bitcoin sports betting operator, BetVIP.
Following their experience with BetTech, Hemson-Struthers advises new start-ups to get their products into the market as quickly as possible and at a minimum cost. This allows for feedback from the market, more testing and time to refine the product.
“I would almost say that if you look at a 100 percent of your budget, you want to hold back as much as 70 percent for marketing. People don’t fully understand how much money it takes to get a business, whether it’s a B2B or a B2C business, out there.”
Sage advice from a young entrepreneur.

Bet On Them

Think back to the magic and memories of your favorite cartoons such as Tom &amp; Jerry and The Powerpuff Girls. How many of them had characters of different races or, at the very least, were in a language other than English?
Uganda-born entrepreneur Akaliza Gara, founder and managing director of ICT company Shaking Sun and Yambi Animation Studios, has been asking these questions for a long time. As an entrepreneur in Rwanda’s animation industry, she now hopes to use animation as a tool to tell African stories to the world and in turn, promote and preserve her continent’s rich culture.
From an early age, Gara has been exposed to a world that gave her the liberty to dream beyond conventional careers. Her mother was a teacher and her father, a lawyer, worked for the United Nations, various NGOs and government institutions.
“I had an unusual upbringing. My family moved to a new country, on average, every three years. By the time I was 21, I had lived in seven different countries,” she says.
Gara began her high school in Switzerland, spent two years in Kenya and completed her schooling in South Africa. After that, she moved to Canterbury, England, where she took a BSc in Multimedia Technology and Design. She was miles away from home but never felt out of place.
“Most of the Africans would hang out together. Sometimes I would be walking on the street and I would see another African, someone I had never met, and we would give each other a little nod of acknowledgement,” says Gara.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-29451" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/GirlsInICTDay_2013-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GirlsInICTDay_2013-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GirlsInICTDay_2013-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GirlsInICTDay_2013-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GirlsInICTDay_2013-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GirlsInICTDay_2013.jpg 1023w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
In her final year of university, she applied for her dream job as an animator at Pixar Animation Studios, in the United States, known for blockbusters such as Toy Story, Monster’s Inc. and Finding Nemo.
Three months went by and Gara, anxiously waiting, hadn’t heard from them. She decided to call them.
“I managed to hack a website and get a phone number for a top person at the company. I gave him a call and asked for a job. He was, understandably, quite confused and angry that I had got his number. He told me to call human resources, said ‘good luck’ and hung up. I was very disappointed, for some reason, I expected him to be impressed with my initiative and offer me a job.” After graduation, Gara moved to Uganda’s capital Kampala. The rejection from Pixar sparked something in her that made her even more determined to prove her mettle.
&nbsp;
While looking for a job in Kampala, Gara’s uncle informed her of the fantastic opportunities in the ICT sector, for youth and women, in Rwanda. Having researched the country, Gara saw the many opportunities and relocated. One of her main challenges was overcoming the language barrier and speaking Kinyarwanda, the local language.
For the first two years, Gara worked as a private consultant and also started to save for a master’s degree in animation. However, she found her clients were more interested in her skills than her qualifications.
She shifted her focus and put RWF5 million ($7,500) of savings towards her company Shaking Sun. The company, launched in 2009, is a multimedia enterprise specializing in graphic design, animation and web development.
“The field is largely male-dominated and there are many challenges for women in the field shared by those of us in Africa and outside Africa. One is the lack of female role models. The stereotypical image of an ICT expert is a young white man, so many young girls grow up without even considering their field because they see ICT and technology in general as a boy’s thing.”
In 2013, Gara received the opportunity of a lifetime to be a part of the team that created Rwanda’s first animated series, The African Tales. The series was part of The Know Zone, a project focused on educating the youth through animation. The episodes were five minutes long and aired on national TV station, RTV, for 15 weeks.
The African Tales reignited Gara’s lifelong dream of becoming an animator and instead of seeking out a world-renowned animation studio to work for, she started her own company Yambi Animation Studios.
“When I was a kid, most of my favorite cartoon characters were male and usually white and almost always American. I want to create characters that represent my culture and values for the generation of African children growing up today.”
Gara is determined to educate young women about opportunities in the ICT field. She is part of a number of initiatives such as Girls in ICT Rwanda, a group of female ICT entrepreneurs and professionals encouraging teenage girls in Rwanda to consider ICT as a career as well as be part of the Microsoft 4Afrika Advisory Council, which seeks to help change the perception of women in ICT in East Africa.
Gara never got her dream job at Pixar but it drove her to become a frontrunner in African animation. Everything in life happens for a reason, and Gara firmly believes that to be true.

IMG_3880

What Do You Do If You Can’t Be At Pixar?

In a bid to preserve Africa’s customs and beliefs, a fourth-generation clan chief of a village in rural Cameroon, Gaston Donnat Bappa, launched the African Traditions Online Encyclopaedia (Atoe) at eLearning Africa’s ninth conference in Uganda.
Bappa says that Africa has more than 2,000 languages, but a language dies every two weeks in the world and faster on the continent. With this in mind, the aim is to put every single tradition from each country online.
The chief’s project is one of many that were presented at eLearning Africa, which draws more than 1,500 participants and speakers from the information, communication and technology sector across the continent.
eLearning is the use of technology to communicate, develop and exchange knowledge. This has noticeable benefits for Africa.
A combination of education and technology is a powerful driver for growth on the continent. The prospects for African education will increasingly depend on good communication and connectivity.
Harold Elletson, editor of the eLearning Africa Report 2014 says eLearning is making a huge difference, and not only in education.
“It is a key factor in African economic growth and the potential for that growth as well,” he says.
The report includes analysis of the tourism, health and agriculture sectors and a guide to 55 eLearning African initiatives. It says 50% of the world’s population lives in rural areas. In Africa, it is 70%.
“These are the poorest, least educated and most disadvantaged. This population survives nearly exclusively on agricultural activity,” writes Bappa in the report.
“All studies have concluded that rural populations are also those with the least access to ICTs and the advantages they offer.”
Today, many farmers use their cellphones to get information on market prices and are able to adjust their prices accordingly to ensure maximum profits. Nakaseke Telecentre in Uganda introduced an SMS service which works on low-end cellphones and smartphones. The application updates farmers on prices and weather.
“The agriculture sector employs 65-70% of the African workforce. It accounts for about a third of the continent’s GDP. There is a fast-growing regional food market which is being fueled by population growth and rapid urbanization,” said African Union’s Agriculture Commissioner, Rhoda Peace Tumusiime.
Digital literacy campaigns and computer skills training are helping farmers become more efficient in increasing sales, getting bigger yields and managing their land better.
Aida Opoku-Mensah, director of ICT, Science and Technology Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, writes that technology has transformed the education sector globally.
According to the 2011-2016 Regional Forecast and Analysis by Ambient Insight, a market research firm, eLearning covers just over 15% of education in 16 African countries with revenues reaching $250.9 million in 2011 and will more than double to $512.7 million in 2016.
Africa must develop its own education content and distribute it to learners. In Kenya, a Kindle for Schools project was launched in 2013. With 3G coverage, solar charged e-readers have helped improve the resources available to teachers.
Governments and private institutions need to work together implementing projects. Senegal leads with an eLearning growth of 30% annually over the next few years. This is due to support from government, businesses and universities.
Ambient Insight states that by 2016, Angola will displace Tunisia as the fourth largest consumer of eLearning products on the continent. Nigeria will be the second largest after South Africa.
This is transforming Africa into one of the most dynamic eLearning markets in the world.

eLearning A Lesson

It’s hard to believe that two years have passed since the tragic killing of 34 miners in Marikana. The horrific visuals of the shooting on August 16, 2012, remain fresh in the mind. Thousands of mine workers had been protesting against their meagre wages and poor living conditions when police opened fire, killing 34 of them. Police say they were provoked. South African’s were in shock like the rest of the world. Many believe the disaster was waiting to happen while others say the tragic events started a revolution. What did become clear that day is that despite the courageous fight against apartheid being won, the battle against inequality in South Africa is far from over. But has anything changed in the last two years?
<div id="attachment_2969" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2969" class="size-medium wp-image-2969" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/051201050-Desai-683x1024-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Amsterdam, 30-11-2005 International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam IDFA 2005 Rehad DESAI Jury Amnesty Award Foto Felix Kalkman</div>
South Africa has some of the most valuable minerals in the world. For decades, men have slogged, under poor safety conditions, to recover these precious assets from deep beneath the ground, touching and feeling the gems, but never having ownership of them. The mining industry remains South Africa’s biggest revenue earner. Considering the importance, one would assume employees in this sector would be well taken care of, if not by their employers, at least by the government.
For years, mine workers and labor unions have raised their concerns, hoping for change. The recent Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) strike in the platinum sector made sure that this time the pleas of workers will be heard. Relentlessly, for five months, workers were gripped with poverty, hunger and cold until finally there was some respite. The unprecedented 22-week strike made history. The three major platinum producers finally agreed to higher wages, not what Amcu was demanding but enough to get them to return to the mines.
Reaction to the wage deal was mixed with many industry analysts calling it a loss for the workers.  Amcu called it a victory. But will this victory see real transformation in the mining industry?
Amcu leader Joseph Mathunjwa, now a household name, says the strike was not just for social justice but also to honor the workers that were killed at Marikana. Two years later, the Farlam Commission of Inquiry set up to probe the shooting is still trying to find out what led to the tragedy and who was responsible.
Political activist and filmmaker, Rehad Desai, has placed together his account of what happened on that day. In his new documentary Miners Shot Down, Desai pieces together witness accounts, interviews with political heavyweights and even victims that survived the shooting, to expose the social injustices that exist on the mining grounds of Rustenburg, 120 kilometers northwest of Johannesburg.
The film also tells a story of how the ANC, a party once obsessed with fighting for human rights and social and economic equality, lost its way and ended up in Marikana.
Miners Shot Down is a chilling account of the events that led to what has been dubbed the Marikana massacre, using video footage and interviews from the seven days in which miners were striking for better wages.
“I thought it was very important to attempt to set the record straight, to show people what happened and in the process of showing people what happened you begin to understand why it happened,” he says.
Desai was born into a politically active family. His father, Barney, was a leader of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and the family had to flee South Africa in 1963. Desai grew up in Britain but his parents constantly reminded him of his roots. While still a teenager, he joined his father in politics, passionate about fighting racism and capitalism. Both returned to South Africa in 1990. Rehad became a trade unionist with socialist ideals but after his father died, he ventured into television and film producing. To date, he has a string of documentaries to his name, many of which have garnered international acclaim for human rights.
His latest film is a story of working class South Africans that have been failed by their government, a government they believed was on their side.
“I think the revolution is coming back, the question is will there be a mature enough leadership to lead it or will the ANC, our ruling party, be mature enough to lead it, to be able to address the very real issues that this country faces or will they continue to follow the same path where the bulk of our people are excluded from the benefits?” asks Desai.
He is steadfast that the shooting on that fateful day was no accident, no measure of self-defense, but a conspired action to eliminate a problem. The film pieces together footage not seen by the public, scenes of the days before the shooting.
“It didn’t just happen, there were events that led to the shooting,” says Desai.
Horrific scenes of dead miners lying on the ground gives you an instant jolt back in time to the attacks carried out on innocent black people under apartheid, children scrambling for safety from gunshots. Desai admits that miners retaliated, but only after they were shot at first.
“Just as they were nearing their informal settlement, a number of vehicles moved in quick succession to sort of box them in, block them off and as that happened and as the miners drew nearer, teargas was fired at them, birdshot and rubber bullets, one of the mineworkers got his pistol out and fired back.”
This was the scene captured by television crews, played out on screens across the world, leading many to believe that the police fired in self-defense. But, Desai wants to know why police had live ammunition and why they had 8,000 rounds of ammunition that day. It is a question that is still being probed by the Farlam Commission of Enquiry. For Desai, it is clear cut; someone from the top gave the order.
Desai’s film takes a poignant look at the ANC as a movement and ruling party over the last 20 years, by following Cyril Ramaphosa.
“Cyril’s story from the 1980s, tells the story of the ANC, a movement which was heroic, courageous, vibrant, responsive, democratic which led a struggle against a white minority regime and succeeded,” says Desai.
Ramaphosa, once passionate about worker’s rights, formed the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in 1982. He later became a politician serving under Nelson Mandela. He left in 1999 to become a successful businessman, returning to politics in 2013.
At the time of the Marikana shooting, Ramaphosa was a non-executive member on the Lonmin board. The Marikana mine belongs to Lonmin.
“With the political kingdom the ANC gained, they lost sight of the bigger issues related to our economic democracy and we can see that story encapsulated inside the life trajectory of the man who’s become the deputy president of the ANC,” says Desai.
In March, Miners Shot Down was released at the One World film festival in Prague. The film took top honors, winning the Vaclav Havel Jury award for its exceptional contribution to human rights. It also won the Camera Justitia Award at the Movies that Matter Festival in the Netherlands.
The documentary is part of an ongoing campaign for justice by the miners and their families. They want the police to be prosecuted. Instead, miners are facing murder charges for the police that were killed. Explosive evidence recently emerged at the commission about killings committed by mine workers.  Witness accounts of atrocities committed by Amcu members, attacks on their fellow members for defying strike orders, the brutal mutilation and murders of police and of members of the rival union NUM. The commission expects to continue for some time as more new evidence comes to light.
The latest evidence again raises questions, what kind of struggle is this? No doubt there will be more stories to be told about Marikana.

Holding Up A Mirror To A Massacre

It’s a chilly winters Monday morning in Centurion, just 16 kilometers outside the South African capital Pretoria. In a little room nearby is the Marikana Commission on its 252 day in session.
Inside this small auditorium with harsh lighting is a screen projector on the right side of the room to Judge Ian Farlam. On the opposite end, seated in the last three rows, are the widows of the dead miners. To the right are members of the legal team, most of them dressed in black.
It’s nearly two years since President Jacob Zuma appointed the commission to investigate the tragic events of August 16, 2012. On that day, the police shot dead 34 striking miners near the Marikana operation of Lonmin in the North West province. They were on a wildcat strike for a R12,500 ($1,165) monthly wage.
Secretary of the Marikana Commission of Inquiry, Advocate Phuti Setati, says the commission has heard testimony from 36 witnesses and is expected to call up to 20 more.
“It must be emphasized that this number changes due to continuous engagement between the evidence leaders and parties represented at the commission,” says Setati.
From its inception in November 2012 until March, the commission has spent around R171 million ($16 million). Setati says there was no initial budget put aside for the commission in the beginning as it commenced in the middle of a financial cycle.
The commission is behind the clock. When it was appointed, it was to complete its work within four months but has since gone over nearly two years.
It is likely to cost around a further R34 million ($3.1 million) until the commission completes its hearings and submits its report six weeks later.
“The commission, like all other programs of the Department [of Justice and Constitutional Development], is implementing cost containment measures in line with the decision of National Treasury. The department therefore anticipates a reduction from the above budget estimate as we approach the last quarter of the commission,” says Setati.
On this Monday morning, journalists, lawyers and widows wait for the police’s technical equipment that will link up a witness. Mr X, who won’t be named to protect his identity, is testifying via a video link from an undisclosed location. On his fifth day on the stand, he is a witness brought in by the South African Police Service under cross examination.
Mr X was part of the group of protesting Marikana miners who underwent a ritual which included two sangomas (an isiZulu term for traditional healers), the burning of live sheep and swallowing of their ashes five days before the fatal shootings in 2012.
In his sworn statement, Mr X details how the miners attacked and killed Lonmin security guards and how one of the security guard’s body parts were removed and combined with a second security guard’s ashes for muti (traditional medicine) rituals.
An evidence leader has accused Mr X of lying. The witness is standing by everything he has said.
“I’m telling the truth, I’m prepared to go to the grave now,” he says.
Later on this Monday, the presidency released a statement extending the commission’s deadline of July 31 to September 30.
“After engagement between the President, the Chairperson of the Commission and the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, it became evident that the commission would not be able to complete its investigation by [the previous deadline], hence the extension of the term of the commission,” it said.
The commission received statements from the then Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa, and the current Deputy President, Cyril Ramaphosa, in regard to their roles in relation to the conduct of the police. Ramaphosa’s Shanduka Group owns stakes in mining entities and he was a non-executive member on the Lonmin board at the time. It is anticipated that they will be called to give oral evidence.
When the commission finally ends, it will come at a high cost, emotionally and financially.

The Misery Commission

Zambian-born Tariq Yusuf knew it was a gamble when his company approached Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe. Yusuf wanted to build a 260-hectare, 100-megawatt (MW) solar power plant. His last venture, the Tara KLamp, a controversial medical tool used for circumcisions in South Africa’s Kwa-Zulu Natal province, hadn’t paid off. Worse still he’d been under fire from the media for years.
Fortune favors the brave and Yusuf bounced back. His family-run business, Intratrek, supplied everything from helicopter parts to medical equipment. Zimbabwe and solar panels were the new frontier.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2955" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_0263-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
“When you are going for such a deal you have your ups and downs. Then one day you get that letter. I was here in Johannesburg and I got a phone call from Wicknell [Chivayo], our partner in Zimbabwe, he screamed ‘we got it, we’ve won the project’,” says Yusuf.
This small slice of business turned with Zimbabwe’s lack of energy. Zimbabwe is energy starved. Since 1999, it has been hampered with rolling black outs and load shedding. The country generates 1,500MW while the demand sits at 2,000MW. Zimbabwe also leans on expensive imports from the Southern Africa Power Pool, a cooperation of national electricity companies, says Chivayo, Managing Director of Intratrek Zimbabwe.
The country also opened up its power to private business in June last year. Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) wants private business to build power plants for the state to run. The government has Zim Asset set up as a private IPP company. Zesa intends to increase national power supply by 900MW and build 300MW of renewables by the end of 2018, says Munacho Mutezo, the deputy energy minister. Even more business is set for the long term when Zim Asset wants to upgrade power plants and build new ones.
The sticking point is the money. Zim Asset needs to borrow almost $10 billion to finance the program, and few countries are willing to loan. The delays could make the five-year fix a 30-year nightmare says Zimbabwe Vice President Joice Mujuru.
For Yusuf, its good business for now. Solar farms are quick to build; they have a turnaround period of 10 months, according to Chivayo. By May, Yusuf expects to see the $216-million solar plant ready to go live on the grid.  They have strong backing, China-based CHINT, a behemoth in solar energy worth $30 billion, are the main contractors; their funders are Afreximbank. Intratrek Zimbabwe threw $3 million into the investment.
“For me &#8211; a 27-year-old &#8211; this was a game changer; it’s something that can help a lot of people in Africa and it has put us on the map,” says Yusuf.
Yusuf’s plant will harness the rays of the sun for the next 50 years. Not a bad reward for taking a chance where few had risked before.

Finding Light in the dark

It was a hard road to business for Bheki Kunene who grew up poor in the streets of Gugulethu, on the fringes of South Africa’s wealthy tourist city of Cape Town. He was selling peanuts at just 15 years old and then graduated to fruit and vegetables.
When he finished high school, Kunene had to pay his own way to college. There was a new baby in his family which ate up the money needed for fees. Scholarships were his only way to get a higher education and he got one at the Ruth Prowse School of Art in 2006.
“I got a scholarship to study graphic design which paid for everything provided I get above 75% for all subjects,” says Kunene.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2942" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_8386-1024x683-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
As part of the course, he had to do a six-month internship at a graphic design company. Instead, he put up R600 ($57) and a computer with two other classmates to start their own business called Mind Trix Media, specializing in web development and design, printing, marketing and developing mobile applications.
His classmates soon left but Kunene quickly landed his first big client – AAA Shuttles. He had to create a website and develop other projects for the tourism company, all on his own. His deadlines for the projects were very tight and he worked tirelessly to prove himself. Ismail Louw, the owner of AAA Shuttles, paid a 50% deposit for a website.
All was going well. But a knock on the door two weeks into the business turned his life upside down.
It was a summer’s morning on a Saturday in December 2010 and Kunene was printing t-shirts. Two detectives walked in. Kunene assumed that they were friends of the local pastor and they were just coming in for a small chat.
“They started asking me questions of where I was the previous night. Then they told me to take off my rings, belt, shoelaces and I knew something was not right,” Kunene says.
To his horror, the detectives arrested Kunene for murder.
“When I got to the police station, they told me they’d torture me like no-one would believe. Each morning it was another torture,” he remembers.
“The more I cried, screaming that I knew nothing about a murder, the police would continue to torture me, claiming that all criminals cried and said that they knew nothing until they were tortured into confessing. But I was telling them the truth.”
The police would punch him in the ribs and stomach. Once they tired of that, they would cuff his hands behind his back and force him to his knees while standing on the cuffs which pulled and squeezed on Kunene’s wrists.
After spending about five days in a tiny cell, the police released him.
“They told me they found the real culprit who had dreadlocks and they thought I had cut my dreadlocks the night before. I cut my dreadlocks a few years ago,” he says.
Kunene immediately went home and was worried about his first big client. He called Louw explaining his ordeal.
Luckily for Kunene, Louw was sympathetic and he kept the contract. It took about three weeks for Kunene to recover from the torment.
Business soon picked up. Word of mouth helped him gain more clients, partnerships and even make his first million rand. Soon, the awards started rolling in. Kunene made it into the top 10 national finalists of the South African Breweries Kick Start Business Competition. This is where he learned how to run a business and met Virgin’s Richard Branson and other motivational entrepreneurs.
“I learned some of the most basic foundation things from these guys. They kind of taught me the frugal lifestyle. They said ‘keep it silent my friend, live below your means and just study,’” Kunene says.
“Each day, I read for an hour and each time I walk down the road I’ve got audio books in my head and I’m learning more each day I’m reading. And I do some of the things these guys taught me.”
One of the best bits of advice Kunene took from the speakers was for him to go see a psychologist immediately after he made his first million because he grew up poor.
“You’d be like the tender guys, up one moment and the next they’re down,” the businessmen told him.
“You have to do it differently if you want to be like us. First thing, go get yourself counseled, understand what you are in now. Next step, learn about investment. Read more and read more,” Kunene remembers.
One question he asked Branson and co was what wealthy people did with their money.
“They said, we take our money and make more money for us. Then we take the interest and buy the fancy stuff. It’s not our money.”
For now, Kunene is earning his future interest with Mind Trix, the company he started from his mother’s house. It then moved to Loop Street in Cape Town’s central business district, and then moved back to the township where it started. Today, it has clients in Zimbabwe, Angola, Vietnam, Italy and the United States.
When I meet Kunene at their offices on the ground floor of a double-storey house, he tells me he hardly does any of the corporate work anymore, but solely focuses on running the business. He hopes to open five more offices and avoid any more painful misunderstandings w

Accused And Abused

The say, never put all your eggs in one basket. Tim Tebeila never does. This mining magnate is well on his way as a multimillionaire thanks to the many baskets of Sekoko Holdings.
The new egg is Mint Electronics, which is set to launch South Africa’s first smartphone and tablet, called Mint.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2908" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/mint-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" />
It’s a new and bold venture for one of the determined veterans of the post-1994 South African economy. His dream is simply to build a new Anglo American and it hasn’t been easy.
Tebeila started off with Sekoko Resources, mining coal, iron ore and platinum. He then started Tebcon Developers, which is now managed by his wife, building hospitals, schools and houses in townships across the country.
Tebeila is born of struggle, the third of seven children to a laborer in the remote village of Sekhukhune, in the Limpopo province. He walked barefoot through the mountains to school, 15 kilometers each way. He sold apples on the streets for a living.
Post 1994, he was an insurance broker before becoming an entrepreneur. In 2013, he founded one of South Africa’s first fully licensed black-owned insurance companies, Reliance Life.
Then came electronics. Earlier this year, Tebeila announced the launch of Mint Electronics. It is a subsidiary of Sekoko Holdings which acquired a 75% stake of CZ Electronics, a factory in Boksburg, 52 kilometers east of Johannesburg.
CZ Electronics, established in 2002, used to make equipment in South Africa for France’s Alcatel Lucent on behalf of Telkom and other clients. The company builds circuit boards for television brands like Sinotec.
Tebeila says Android 5-inch smartphones and 10.1-inch tablets will be designed, developed and manufactured in South Africa for the mass market. He claims this will be the first tablet with a USB port.
“The smartphones and tablets will be sold through major retailers, operator stores and our branded shops. The branded shops will launch in all major malls,” says Segran Pillay, chief executive of CZ Electronics.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2907" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Tablet-Mint-7-SLIM-II-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" />
Tebeila adds that the tablets will be available in both the seven-inch and the 10-inch screen sizes.
“My target with this tablet is that every school learner in South Africa should have one,” he says.
Tebeila hopes the devices will be on shelves in about 11 Mint Electronics branded stores and in other existing mobile shops.
With manufacturing already underway in Boksburg, Tebeila plans to franchise Mint Electronics by the end of 2015. The businessman hopes to roll out manufacturing plants and sell across the continent.
But this man is known for wanting to turn Sekoko Resources into Anglo American. It was difficult.
Tebeila didn’t want to buy other companies, but he wanted to get the mining rights and develop this company on his own. He was turned down 10 times, but never gave up.
It was a dream almost stillborn. Mining rights proved a nightmare.
When he eventually got them, he needed R1.5 million ($145,000) for exploration and struck on the idea of gathering money from people who lived in the villages near where he grew up.
An old blind woman was one of the first to shuffle into Tebeila’s offices on a winter’s day, handing over R15,000 ($1,450) in cash – her life savings.
When all the money was put together, he paid R600,000 ($58,000) to a firm of geological consultants and R900,000 ($87,000) to drillers to explore for coal at Soutpansberg.
A few weeks later, he found out that the consulting firm, which had been riven by strife, had dissolved almost overnight and the geologist had fled to Australia with the exploration report.
He had lost money, paperwork and information which had consumed his meagre capital. But because he was hands-on during the exploration, he knew the laboratory that was used by the consultants and the people who worked there. The lab was able to salvage two pages of the exploration data for Tebeila. It contained all the drilling information. And other experts were able to finish the rest.
Coal mining was to be the foundation for his $28-million fortune.
In April 2005, the government granted Tebeila a license for Soutpansberg, which was estimated to hold 200 million tons of metallurgical coal under 11 farms, covering 8,000 hectares, near Musina on his home soil of Limpopo.
“Coal of Africa made me an offer to purchase 74% of the assets for R70 million ($6.7 million). They also pledged to spend R100 million ($9.6 million) to take the project to a bankable feasibility study,” says Tebeila.
This was the biggest deal he ever had closed on a cellphone while driving. Two years later, they offered him R20 million ($1.9 million) for the remaining 26% and gave him the capital to finance the Waterberg Colliery. It will mine up to 15 million tons of coal a year by 2019.
Sekoko Resources will supply Eskom with about 10 million tons of coal from Waterburg.
Eskom is building Kusile and Medupi power stations in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces, while producing around 35,000MW of electricity, twice that of Nigeria, to ease the power shortages in South Africa.
“By September, we will be done with signing the agreement that will allow us to start with operations early next year. Our feasibility study has also allowed us to create an environment for our export market. Part of the coal will be going to export and part of it will go to Eskom,” he says.
Tebeila says plans are still on track for Sekoko Resources to reach a turnover of R10 billion ($1 billion) a year by 2019.
This turned his life around to what Sekoko Resources is today.
But like many other multimillionaire entrepreneurs, philanthropy is close to his heart. Tebeila gives away portions of his fortune through a foundation in his name. His latest charity project, coinciding with the winter season in South Africa, is giving tracksuits to school children.
“If you don’t give, you won’t make more money. Africans must give more,” Tebeila says.
While driving in the back of a car to see the newly acquired CZ Electronics and Mint Electronics factory in Boksburg, Tebeila turns to me sharing another dream of building a bakery.
“I like bread,” he says.
And therein lies the whim of an entrepreneur. The man who is always on the move, who sees opportunities when others do not, or in Tebeila’s case, pick up another egg and put it in another basket.

Category: Technology

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

More from Technology

A Million-Dollar Idea In A Coffee Shop