E-waste is hazardous, but often not properly tracked or recycled. What’s needed? A more formalized re-use economy and future-thinking brands.&nbsp;



It seems like everything and anything these days is connected to the internet. From robotic vacuum cleaners to toothbrushes, smart refrigerators, electronic toys and even running shoes, computerized devices embedded with sensors and controllers have become everyday purchases. But as we pursue smarter and sleeker gadgets, we also have to ask how these devices will be discarded.&nbsp;



Thirty-eight tonnes of e-waste is generated every single minute and by 2021, it’s expected that 57 million tonnes of electronic waste will be produced globally (says the Global E-waste Monitor 2020 report). Compared to the overall amount of rubbish generated – 2,000 million tonnes – this number seems relatively small but when you take into account that e-waste has health and environmental implications, and that it’s often not properly tracked or recycled, it becomes a bigger issue.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Even a USB is technically e-waste.” – Giulio Airaga, a digital marketing specialist at Desco Electronic Recyclers</blockquote>



“Anything that runs on electricity or anything that generates electricity is electronic waste,” explains Giulio Airaga, a digital marketing specialist at Desco Electronic Recyclers. “Even a USB is technically e-waste. Why? Because inside there’s a circuit board and on it, a concentration of metals… sometimes a little bit of gold, a little bit of silver – it’s traces, so finite, but it&#8217;s something.”&nbsp;



Many African countries do not have formal e-waste solutions in place but because of the Basel Convention (which dictates that hazardous waste cannot be moved between nations), e-waste recycling companies are also not allowed to import discarded electronics. They can, however, accept pre-processed, stripped down e-waste, something Desco Electronic Recyclers does with Namibia, Swaziland, Gabon, Botswana and Mozambique.&nbsp;



“The reason for the Basel Convention is that overseas countries are using Africa as a dumping ground. There are some products, like printers, that we get that there is no solution for and we have to send it to a hazardous landfill at our own cost. Most European countries have recycling centers, and they have e-waste companies, but they want to receive ‘good’ e-waste – the recyclables you can get an income from that don’t fill up the landfills,” says Airaga. “Dumping e-waste is illegal but many people don’t realize that. The highest recovery item is a circuit board and a lot of informal recyclers (and sometimes formalized recyclers) without standards in place, cherry-pick the valuables and dump the rest. A smartphone registered in your name with a serial number on can be traced back to you. This could lead to a fine or even jail time. Recyclers need to take the responsibility on themselves to recycle e-waste properly.”



The unregulated disposal of e-waste is a massive problem globally. At least 9.3-million tonnes of e-waste moves between countries and businesses looking for a cheap and easy way to dispose unusable electronics often turn to countries like Ghana, the Republic of Congo and Ivory Coast. Dell was one of the first technology companies to ban exporting e-waste to developing countries, setting up a recycling hub and collection network in Kenya as well as an industry-wide takeback program in Ghana: “When your name is on the company, you have to take responsibility for the way you impact society. The founder of Dell’s pet hate was that he could potentially walk past a landfill and see his name on the items inside…” explains Chris Buchanan, Dell’s director of end user computing for Africa. “One of the challenges when you build product is the full cycle of the components and making sure that they all can potentially be recycled again.”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“One of the challenges when you build product is the full cycle of the components and making sure that they all can potentially be recycled again.” – Chris Buchanan, Dell’s director of end user computing for Africa</blockquote>



Samsung’s e-waste strategy shifted dramatically in 2017 when the South Korean technology giant decided to make e-waste a part of a R25 million ($) enterprise development program: “As part of the president’s Good Green Deeds campaign, we found two entities – alongside the DTI – with the goal of building up their businesses until they own a beneficiation plant… the full value chain of e-waste,” explains Hlubi Shivanda, Samsung South Africa’s director: business innovation group and corporate affairs.&nbsp;



Located in Benoni, Johannesburg, iLanga E-Waste Management is one of the small businesses Samsung is working with: “The company was registered in 2016 and we started operating in 2018 through the help of the funds we received,” explains Maria Rakgalakane, iLanga E-Waste Management’s director. “We managed to pay a warehouse rental deposit, we acquired two trucks, office equipment and then we also acquired the operating licence – it was so expensive. I’ve found that people don’t value recycling. We have to teach them that e-waste can be hazardous. If they want to plant a crop, it won’t grow. It damages the soil.”



Over and above ramping up these small businesses, Samsung’s role is to ensure enough e-waste gets to these companies to recycle. Working closely with the government means access to old devices sitting in state warehouses across the country. “Municipalities and government departments also need to dispose of their waste responsibly. This is an opportunity for these entities to act as a conduit to dispose of this waste. From a government perspective, we’ll be able to unlock the volume,” adds Shivanda.



What’s interesting is that older electronics can be more lucrative as the concentration of precious metals found is often dependent on the age of the device which is why tapping into discarded government electronics could be a goldmine for these upcoming e-waste entrepreneurs. As the life cycle of electronic devices shortens and our requirements for newer, smarter and better gadgets grows, so does the need for e-waste recycling. A more formalized re-use economy is emerging and future-thinking technology brands like Dell are now designing with sustainability in mind.&nbsp;



“We move a lot of devices around the planet on a daily basis. The real challenge in this whole circular economy is actually on our supply chain. Our traditional suppliers are having to change a lot of their manufacturing capabilities… to make sure that we can honor our commitment to the circular economy,” says Buchanan.&nbsp;



<h2 class="has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">‘There is more gold in a tonne of PC motherboards’</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48668" width="424" height="318" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 424px) 100vw, 424px" /></figure></div>



Gold is the most valuable component of e-waste. According to the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journal, a circuit board can contain around 60 different chemical elements from nickel to palladium and copper: “There is more gold in a tonne of PC motherboards than there is in the digital gold or that they&#8217;re taking out of the ground,” explains Buchanan.&nbsp;



But where do recycled metals and minerals go? For Ashley Heather, a jeweler in Cape Town, sustainable, single-sourced gold and silver recovered from e-waste made perfect sense. “We started off creating jewelry in silver reclaimed from used photographic chemicals but as dark room photography is a bit of a dying art, sourcing these became increasingly difficult,” explains Heather. “We buy end of life electronics from e-waste aggregators but also take donations of people&#8217;s broken personal electronics. This is all manually dismantled, the non-electrical components are sent their separate ways for recycling and the electrical components are shredded. This shredded material heads to the refinery where the precious metals are extracted and purified before heading to the studio to be crafted into jewelry.”



Heather considers herself an advocate for sustainability first and a goldsmith second. She believes ethical sourcing – fairtrade, recycling or repurposing – is the future of jewelry.&nbsp;



“I think global crises also serve as catalysts for re-imagining the way we do many things. Covid-19 has shone the light on the fragility of the fast fashion model.”



&#8211;By Tiana Cline

Lydia Harper Photography

Where Digital Products Do Not End Up In A Wasteland But Find New Life

By Uzoma Dozie, Chief Sparkler



Nigerians are some of the world’s most creative, energetic, and entrepreneurial people. We are rich with talent, enthusiasm, and passion.



Nigerians are a global force bursting with potential and an enviable track-record of success. But in a more complex and fast-paced world than ever before, many of us struggle to find the time or have the ability to fulfil their potential.



Ultimately, this comes down to the lack of effective solutions in the market to support the lifestyle and finances of Nigerians and our businesses. For too long, we have been underserved by the traditional physical retail environment, which is limited by bricks and mortar infrastructure and legacy technology – the weaknesses of which have been laid bare by the Covid-19 global pandemic.



Unlocking Nigeria’s digital economy



While Nigerians are being underserved by current circumstances, there is also an exciting opportunity to start filling a gap in the market.



Nigeria’s digital economy is thriving, but it remains informal. Nigeria has a population of 198 million people – 172 million have a mobile phone and 112 million have internet access.



Many of us access social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram through our phones and use them as valuable sales tools, especially female entrepreneurs. Data and digital applications have the potential to revolutionize the daily lives of millions of Nigerians.



Therefore, new digital-only solutions are required. These should not just focus on finances though – they have to be intrinsically linked with everyday lifestyles, rather than thinking about linear processes and transactional outcomes.



Let us take one example. Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence have long been used to provide financial advice. But these chatbots could do so much more and evolve to provide support for more sophisticated usage, such as a personal adviser or lifestyle concierge.



Furthermore, these solutions should not just support Nigerians at home, but the ever-growing diaspora across the world.



Introducing Sparkle



The opportunity to play an integral role in transforming Nigeria’s digital economy and lead the charge in growing the digital economy across Africa inspired the creation of Sparkle.



Sparkle was founded with five core values – freedom, trust, simplicity, inclusivity, and personalization. We are adopting these values and embedding them in everything we do.



We will be leveraging technology and data to create and apply new digital-only solutions which bring more Nigerians into the formal economy thereby benefitting Government, businesses, and individuals.



Starting with the launch of a current account, we will co-create with our customers and collaborate with our partners to improve our services and increase our user base. We embrace collaboration and we are



working with some of the world’s biggest companies, including Google, Microsoft, Visa, and PwC Nigeria, to achieve our vision.



In addition, we want to create a more inclusive economy and break down barriers by accelerating the role and influence of female entrepreneurs, many of whom already operate in the informal economy with the help of Instagram and other social media apps.



At present, we are facing a global crisis in the shape of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has shown us that we need a strong digital infrastructure to ensure the economy continues to function. It will likely completely change the way we operate and conduct business in the future.



COVID-19 has only reinforced our belief that new digital solutions like Sparkle are required now more than ever before to serve Nigerians, boost the formal economy, and unlock potential in the digital age.

High resolution digital render of Nigeria flag.

Op-Ed: How Nigerians Can Unlock Their Potential In The Digital Age

“Wealth, if you use it, comes to an end; learning, if you use it, increases.” Swahili Proverb



An enduring lesson learnt throughout our 175-year existence is that, while things rapidly change around us, the things that truly matter don’t! The desire to keep learning and growing is one such thing that remains a driving force behind everything we do at Old Mutual. Education is central to this.



Responding to the Challenges



Aligned to both Sustainable Development Goal’s 4 (Quality Education) and 17 (Partnerships) as well as our Responsible Business philosophy, we’re working to share, connect, learn and grow together with the communities we serve through Education.



We believe in the power of Education to solve key social issues such as poverty, inequality and unemployment. By continuing to invest in Education today, we know that we can build a more prosperous future for the generations of tomorrow.



Old Mutual has partnered with authorities, experts, and practitioners in the field on a number of ongoing initiatives including: &nbsp;



<ul><li>Dynamic and interactive Financial Education and Inclusion programmes that have reached millions across the African continent. Utilising an array of channels and leveraging off technology, the programmes impart valuable and often life changing principles that empower customers and communities to build and sustain their lifetime financial goals.</li><li>Investing in Schools, Teachers and Leadership to drive immediate and long-term impact in the Education sector. Old Mutual’ s Education Flagship Project – a longer-term programme with a seven-year investment cycle – is in place to connect the dots between learners, teachers and school leadership through innovative training that has paid off in improved results in affiliated schools.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Skills Development interventions such as Bursaries, Internships, Learnerships and Graduate Development programmes that seek to create sustainable job opportunities and placements for learners.</li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-45337" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1-600x338.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1-768x432.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



Introducing Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom to Bring It All Together!



In perhaps our most ambitious move yet, Old Mutual has committed to building Africa’s Biggest Digital classroom so that we can extend the Education-based work already being done across the Group to so many more.



This Digital Classroom is being designed to respond to the challenges of widespread education exclusion, low Financial Literacy rates on the continent, vastly uneven teacher-to-learner ratios, as well as accessibility to physical and financial resources that continue to hamper the success of the delivery of Education on the continent today, and into the future.&nbsp;



Enabling Learning Through Digital Engagement



But why a digital classroom?



Our aim as a business, is to be able to effectively respond to an increasingly connected Africa with user-friendly, value-adding solutions and experiences that bring as many people along on this educational journey as possible. Designed with a generation of digital first, tech-savvy users in mind, but mindful of the wealth of knowledge coming through from past generations, Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom will enhance the capabilities of past and present, to shape a brighter future for all well into the future.



While we’re investing in digital capabilities to enhance education across the continent, we know that the future of Africa is still its people! And Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom has people at its core. We believe that in creating opportunities for people to share and connect using digital technologies, we can contribute to greater inclusivity and a more prosperous continent for all.



How You Can Participate



Work is already underway to establish Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom. We will be creating opportunities for our employees, customers, teachers, learners and many other stakeholders to add their voices to the design process. You can follow our progress and add your voice to the conversation on social media using #175Africa



We look forward to working with you to bring Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom online!



Content provided by Old Mutual

175 Digital Classroom Advertorial image 2 with 175 years logo

Building Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom

Tech entrepreneur Mandla Ngcobo dabbled in everything from poultry farming to selling airtime and electricity, until he found his niche in telecom – and his connections are growing.



Mandla Ngcobo represents everything the digital age stands for.



He’s young, happening and ubiquitous, with hopes and ambitions in every sector: from the poultry business to IT and everything in between.



&nbsp;Born in Newcastle, in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, Ngcobo is the founder of Accelerit Technologies that’s heading forth in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.



“Entrepreneurship is something that has always been around me,” he says resolutely, taking a sip of his drink, when we meet him at an upscale restaurant in Sandton, Johannesburg.



“My father was a taxi owner. My mother was unemployed but used to sell clothes and plait people’s hair from home. She was a firm believer that one must have multiple streams of revenue. My mother used to do whatever it took to put food on the table.”&nbsp;



This attribute made him resourceful too, as he saw it work. He was employed but was inspired to start his own business.



His job for six years at a global technology and consulting firm in Johannesburg exposed him to the inner workings of the ICT business.



The computer had been a loyal companion since high school.&nbsp;



In the mid-1990s, his brother bought him his first TV game console, then gave him his old Pentium One computer with 133 megabytes of data.



“I was fascinated by the fact that you could program a computer to do certain things,” says Ngcobo.



Graduating from the University of Cape Town in South Africa with a BSc in 2005, he wasn’t particularly passionate about theory, but was driven by formulae.



“I also did business as an elective because I was thinking about the trade. So, varsity was mostly about computers and business and that’s where it all began.”



Two years later, he ventured into the chicken feed business as his mother had started a chicken farm.



He ran the business for five years with a fair turnover and employing three.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“That money was able to pay for my car; I saw it had legs. I tried so many businesses; I even sold prepaid airtime and electricity around where I grew up.”



The chicken business didn’t take off but at least he was now lured into the art of making money.



In 2011, the 36-year-old serial entrepreneur registered Accelerit Technologies, a small and medium enterprise providing turnkey ICT solutions. He needed to have licences to run a telecom business to do business with other companies and consumers.



He was still an employee with the company he worked for, but time had come to go on his own.



“I had to be billable as a consultant, so I had to work. There was a project I worked on that absolutely almost broke me; I didn’t enjoy it at all, so I was in a space knowing I didn’t have to do what I was doing. If I could dedicate a little bit of my time to pursue my own venture, I could make it work and that was it, I was done, and I resigned in 2013,” he says.&nbsp;



Having tasted entrepreneurship, he knew he could do it, but this time, he had to be fully present and committed.



“I sold my fancy white Audi TT car, and moved out of my lavish apartment in Sandton. I had to downgrade my life, I needed to bring it back to a level where I could manage my month’s expenditure and align with the fact that I was no longer an employee,” he says.



He shared office space but had a business address; it was time to get his first customer.



He set up a Wi-Fi base station at his sister’s house and sold vouchers; expanded to Greyhound Lines, an intercity bus carrier; then a student commune around the Johannesburg CBD, and within months, Ngcobo was turning over R10,000 ($617) a month.



“That made me feel chuffed,” he says. His sister was his first employee and two other friends soon were on his payroll.



“I was coming from a job that paid me R60,000 ($3,700) a month, and the R10,000 ($617) had me super excited. I knew I never had to work [for someone else] a day in my life. If I put in 10 times the effort, then I would be making R100,000 ($6,168) a month and that is how the journey started.”



Business was growing and within 24 months, Ngcobo set up Wi-Fi base stations in estates around Midrand still using the voucher system; at the time, it was massive.



In early 2017, Accelerit Technologies moved to fiber optic technology delivering high-speed data.



“That made us very competitive; we went from north Johannesburg to providing services nationwide, turning over R900,000 ($55,512) at the end of the 2018 financial year.”



Currently, Ngcobo is projecting R30 million ($1.85 million) for the financial year 2020 and employs 20 full-time staff.



It’s big numbers and wired ambitions, but as always, he is sure he can make it work.

IMG_5448

The $600 That Sparked A Telecom Trade: This Entrepreneur Represents Everything The Digital Age Stands For

Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard’s New York-based Chief Marketing Officer, was in Kenya recently. Having been a marketing guru for 35 years, he discusses key strategies for brands to stay relevant in the digital age.



Future technologies shaping marketing In the last seven to eight years, the technology change has dramatically altered the field of marketing and is probably more than what happened in the preceding 25 to 30 years. The changes happening now are going to be even more dramatic. There’s a plethora of technologies coming in such as artificial intelligence that is going to touch every single part of the marketing ecosystem and that’s going to affect how we understand consumers, how we do data analytics, how we come up with insights. Blockchain has also been in the financial space but is going to the marketing space. For example, the advertising space has a ton of intermediaries; between the brand owner and the publisher. That leads to a lack of transparency, efficiency, and a lot of middle men are getting their cut of the entire advertising dollar. Some statistics indicate that 30 percent of the advertising dollar that marketers are spending on the media goes to the intermediaries. So there are possibilities here for Blockchain to take root and make the dollar work harder. The third one is augmented reality. It is going to add a layer or series of layers of information on top of their physical environment or even the digital environment which makes consumer interaction with their environment very different. That gives marketers a tremendous opportunity to engage consumers in unprecedented ways by providing information layers that are most relevant and appropriate for the consumers and compel them to take decisions that are right for them. Virtual reality is evolving and has yet to take real root but the moment it does, it will take off. 5G has got tremendous speed; it has got close to zero latency and that brings a whole different dimension to how we can engage consumers. 3D-printing is another area that’s coming pretty hard and fast and that’s something marketers have not exploited a lot. So tomorrow, the number of technologies coming at us are so many more and this is going to alter the landscape for marketers completely. If you know how to tackle it, you’ll be at the top of your game, but if you don’t understand, you risk being obsolete quickly.



Revisiting the engagement model with consumers It is estimated that on average, 3,500 to 5,000 commercial messages are bombarded at each consumer every single day. That is an incredible level of information overload. On the other hand, consumer attention span is reducing. They are responding to that by tuning themselves out, putting ad blocks on their devices and those are big risks for marketers. What you do as a marketer is not just improve the ads but to rethink your entire communication and engagement model with your consumers. Mastercard took a very interesting step six years back when we decided not to be purely about advertising, which is story-telling, and said our future will be in story-making, which means we create and curate experiences that money cannot buy but which you can get only through Mastercard. So we went from pure traditional marketing to experiential marketing in a big way and that has really paid off and it’s evident as [in 2019] Interbrand has rated Mastercard the fastest-growing brand across all categories and industries.



Africa’s marketing space Africa is a collection of a diverse set of markets and each market is at a different stage of evolution, with unique cultural nuances, and has its own unique opportunities and ecosystems. Like, for example, in Kenya, the telecom ecosystem is one of the most sophisticated you have. And if you look at South Africa, there is a tremendous amount of sophistication in terms of advertising and marketing and you have got a whole bunch of other countries in different stages of evolution and specialization. So Africa is a continent of huge opportunities that every single company and brand is very seriously focused on and we at Mastercard are no exception either. The population is huge, it is very resourced and there’s an upward mobility of the population and that’s where the biggest of opportunities come for any brand.



Need for innovation As marketers, we have to understand digital technology and we have to leverage data while fully respecting and honoring the privacy of consumers. At Mastercard, for example, we created the Priceless digital marketing engine which tries to understand and predict the micro trends that are going to be happening in the overall society. After identifying the trend, we then try to figure out its relevance and commercial and communication opportunity for us. That’s one example of how we’re trying to break through all the noise.



Competition If you look at the penetration of digitization of the entire economy, cash is still dominant. The digital economy is less than 15% globally and less than 5% in some countries and that’s a huge opportunity. So, the competition is not with some brands out here, it is cash and cash is our competition. So we compare ourselves with what consumers are exposed to and we want to be at the top of their mind. People have been using cash for a long time and it’s not easy to change habits; it takes time.



Avoiding consumer mistrust When you are trying to constantly keep selling something to consumers and if the consumers’ experience is different than what the brand has promised them, there’s a big break of trust and today, the trust amongst consumers about brands and brand communication is, generally speaking, very low; there is a trust deficit. So brands have a lot of work ahead of them. They have to strive to rebuild, regain the trust, and to do that, there are a few key principles that are critical. Brands have to be authentic by not trying to fool consumers, be consistent in terms of commitment and follow through with action as well as respect consumers, practically, when it comes to privacy. Lastly, it’s extremely important for brands to be relevant to consumers as well as have a purpose.



Challenges for marketing Reaching people at the right time, fashion and right context is not very easy. It requires a lot of technology and a lot of talent locally to deploy technology effectively. So the first big challenge for marketers is how do you find the right talent? And it’s important to develop, attract and retain the talent. What we have to as marketers, therefore, is to connect with the professors, go through them and help them come up with the most contemporary and useful curriculum. How do you enable these marketers to do the best marketing that they can by creating common standards across the industry, having the right kind of tools and methodologies? Getting these going off the ground in any given country or region is not an easy thing but something we have to do.



– Interviewed by Steven Muvunyi

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‘Cash Is Our Competition’

The machines are coming for our jobs. This is a dystopian vision of the future of work popularized by the media and perpetuated in boardrooms across the globe.



South Africa is not immune from this misperception and here it has created a climate of fear and paralysis. &nbsp;Leaders, both civic and corporate, hesitate to encourage and incentivise the very digitalization needed to sustain and grow our economies out of a misguided fear of job losses and the ensuing civil backlash.



Ironically, the exact efforts to protect jobs from
technology may end up being the biggest cause of job losses in the future.
Because, without a shift to a Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) mindset,
businesses will progressively become less competitive against their global
peers, eroding their economic relevance and the jobs they sustain. 



Decision makers, therefore, need the courage to embrace
the paradox that while jobs might be subsumed by technology, only technology
will be able to create new ones.



Yes, automation and cognitive technologies will
eliminate jobs; mostly in search of improved efficiencies and productivity, and
to some extent to reduce reliance on expensive, rare and specialised skills. It
is futile and economically reckless to think otherwise.



The good news is that these same technologies will create demand for new skills and new jobs. The World Economic Forum (WEF) conducted an extensive study, leveraging insights from business leaders cumulatively responsible for 15 million people across a variety of sectors, skills and seniority levels globally. The study concluded that for every job that is lost to 4IR popularized technologies, 1.7 jobs will be created.



The consequent economic knock-on effects of these new
jobs, although not quantified, would undoubtedly be significant and further
contribute to net employment.



Unfortunately, the net new jobs will mostly remain in
the domain of the educated and available to those with the means to access and
afford the cost of sourcing new 4IR-related skills.



Green shoots



There are, however, green shoots of positive developments,
led by a new breed of digitally literate entrepreneurs. They have not
“invented” the technology, but instead leverage technology platforms to create
self-employment and economic sustainability. These digitally literate
entrepreneurs, many of them running micro-businesses, are creating employment
and economic activity in lower income level segments in the following key
areas:



1. Distributed value chains



Distributed value chains involve a category of people
who are generally unemployed or under-employed and are able to fulfil a
last-mile service gap by trading in their skills or available time. These
platforms link people with capacity and/or skills constraints to people with
the time and skills needed. This is done in a way that is dignified, safe,
peer-reviewed for quality of service, and enables higher wages compared to
traditional constructs. These platforms have been effective at creating jobs in
developed, low-unemployment economies. Their contribution to employment is
proven, significant and immediately tangible.



2. Collaborative consumption



It is often impossible for small organisations or
individuals to justify the ownership of an asset because of affordability, or
the ability to use the full capacity of the asset. The converse applies in
which access to the asset through a sharing mechanism enables the same benefit
as asset ownership. For example, digital platforms, such as Nigerian start-up
Hello Tractor, that provide access to key equipment on a pay-per-use basis
allow companies and individuals to reap economic benefits from utilising
technology without the associated costs of owning the equipment.



This in turn enhances efficiencies and competitiveness
of small organizations and levels the playing field for them in relation to
large ones. Collaborative consumption has many forms and different levels of
sophistication. At the extremes of technology, companies like 3D Hubs enable
the collaborative consumption of 3D printers, allowing the 3D printer to become
a shareable asset within its community.



3. Digital economic catalysts



Digital platforms increase levels of transparency,
which combined with the network effect of connecting communities and
frictionless transaction flow, is reviving sectors that have lost their appeal
due to a lack of transparency, reduced levels of trust and relevance to
specific demographic groups, and tedious or complex manual processes. These
sectors are being revived by digital platforms that economically empower
micro-entrepreneurs – or allow them to further empower other
micro-entrepreneurs. StokFella and Livestock Invest are good examples of
platforms that have shaken up entrenched concepts.



Digital technologies present both risks and potential.
The way forward is not fixed nor will it be easy, but with the right leaders,
and a mindset of urgency, curiosity and a preparedness to challenge existing
paradigms, we have a good chance of achieving an abundant future.



We also need citizens and entrepreneurs that see opportunity in this new era open to doing things that have never been done before – in ways not previously considered, leveraging technology never before available.



&#8211; Valter Adão is the Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, Deloitte Africa

Valter adao pic

Leaders Need To Embrace, Not Fear, The Digitalized Future Of Work

More entrepreneurs are committing to closing the skills gap
in Africa’s future job market.



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In 2015, an image of a young man, Tankiso Motaung, at a street corner in the middle of Sandton, Johannesburg, holding up a placard, went viral. On the sign were the words, “I have a BTech in electrical engineering. Please help. I need a job,” along with his contact number. 



The following year, an image circulated on social media of Anthea Malwandle, a young chemical engineering graduate, standing by the traffic lights, similarly, begging for a job. 



What is the future of work in a digitally-led world? Is it
this dismal?



The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2018 Future Of Jobs Report, reveals nearly 50% of companies expect digitization will lead to a reduction in their full-time workforce. It further estimates that by 2022, 75 million jobs globally would taper off as a consequence of digital business transformation.  



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="South Africa’s Informal Sector: Why People Get Stuck In Precarious Jobs (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/economy/2019/04/08/south-africas-informal-sector-why-people-get-stuck-in-precarious-jobs/" target="_blank">South Africa’s Informal Sector: Why People Get Stuck In Precarious Jobs</a>



South Africa’s unemployment rate is already high. Motaung
and Malwandle represent more than 50% of our youth that are unemployed. And
according to Statistics South Africa, one out of three graduates will,
likewise, enter the job market without any economic prospects.



But Nedbank economist, Isaac Matshego, is full of optimism.
He is of the opinion that the initial job losses will be temporary. 



“As humans get better acquainted and familiar with the new
way of doing things and incorporating the new economic methods of production,
we often see a net benefit to humanity overall,” he says.



More so, Matshego advocates that at the beginning,
digitization actually requires human skills and so does the maintenance of the
technology. 



“That means we have to train our information technology staff,” he elaborates. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="4 Ways To Develop Employment-Ready Graduates (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2019/03/06/4-ways-to-develop-employment-ready-graduates/" target="_blank">4 Ways To Develop Employment-Ready Graduates</a>



The good news is that digital and other tech innovations will directly and indirectly produce new sources of work. The WEF report further suggests that 133 million new jobs may be created by 2022, thanks to industry 4.0. 



But, for these opportunities to scale to the extent needed to address South Africa’s current employment crisis, there needs to be a strong supply of quality skills – spanning foundational skills like basic numeracy and literacy, through to advanced tech skills, according to Mark Schoeman, a manager of youth and technology at economic consulting firm Genesis Analytics.



“The first hurdle South Africa has to overcome is closing the skills gap in the short-term. There are an insufficient number of graduates with key skills in STEM being produced by educational pathways, and a qualification-job mismatch which sees graduates taking up work that does not reflect their qualification,” he says. Schoeman asserts this gap is an impediment to the country’s ability to realize new economic opportunities brought forth by technology. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="OPINION | Technology Is Useful, But Drones Alone Won’t Save Africa’s Elephants (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2019/02/26/technology-is-useful-but-drones-alone-wont-save-africas-elephants/" target="_blank">OPINION | Technology Is Useful, But Drones Alone Won’t Save Africa’s Elephants</a>



Government and private interventions have been made to
ensure young people are training and learning critical skills to thrive in the
changing world of work.



Heeding this call is WeThinkCode, one of the organizations
fixated on future-proofing the youth. A non-profit, new-age technology school,
WeThinkCode, led by Managing Director, Nyaradzai Samushanga, seeks to eradicate
unemployment in the ‘tech’ economy by providing youth with skills sought after
in the new world of work. 



Headquartered in Johannesburg, the tuition-free school was
founded in 2016 by three South Africans: Arlene Mulder, Yossi Hasson, Justinus
Adriaanse and French citizen, Camille Agon. The institution enrols 430 students
aged 17 – 35 years who are taught technical skills in software development
including programming, graphics and algorithms. 



“We do not measure success when students graduate. We
measure success as placement at employment,” says Samushanga. 



“All our graduates have been placed into permanent employment with a minimum entry-level salary of R20,000 ($1,408) per month… It is taking someone who could’ve fallen in between the cracks, and now they are a highly-skilled worker,” says Samushanga. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="5 Ways Tech Can Revolutionize Education (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2019/03/07/how-tech-can-revolutionize-education/" target="_blank">5 Ways Tech Can Revolutionize Education</a>



More entrepreneurs are committing to the cause of closing the skills gap in Africa’s job market. Audrey Patricia Cheng, 25, the co-founder and CEO of Moringa School in Nairobi, Kenya, says: “We realized there was a massive gap in terms of access and also quality education. And we are seeing a massive rise in the number of jobs around technical skills because many companies are moving to the digital space.” 



Since its inception in 2015, Moringa School has since trained close to 2,000 students with the necessary digital skills. Cheng is confident the continent is moving to a future where Africans would be creators of technology rather than just consumers.

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Creators Rather Than Consumers

Jaydeep Gupta, the Regional Head of Retail Banking, Africa and Middle East, Standard Chartered, on why banks need to adapt and respond to an ever-changing operating environment in Africa.

Africa’s growth prospects
There is no doubt there is significant opportunity in Africa not just in banking but across many industries. While the banking industry has faced a slight slowdown in other global markets, in Africa, this hasn’t been the case. According to a recent report by McKinsey, Africa’s banking sector is projected to grow significantly over the next five years. In fact, it’s nearly twice as profitable as the global average. Looking at retail banking, in 2017, retail bank revenue in Africa was at $35 billion and, according to McKinsey, it’s expected to increase by 8.5 % per year, reaching $53 billion by 2022.
By bringing both digitization and technological innovations into the economies, we are seeing more companies rival new segments with the progressive application of risk analytics. There is also an increased use of non-bank data for customer behavior analytics and proactiveness in looking at credit extensions over a period of time.
Digital transformation  
We have been exploring opportunities in the market to drive digital banking and, in March, we launched our first digital retail bank in Côte d&#8217;Ivoire. This marked the bank’s first digital bank in Africa and the first-of-its-kind launched.
It was the perfect opportunity to launch a fully end-to-end digital bank, with only one physical branch to test our model for future roll-out. The platform allows customers to execute all banking activities from a mobile device, including 70 banking services through the app. In addition, for the first time, the client onboarding journey has been digitised and in under 15 minutes, a client can open a new account through the app. What has also been introduced is the ability for clients to track and trace a request submitted, which is a first for Standard Chartered… We are now preparing to launch digital banks in our other markets across Africa.
Challenges in developing markets
We have faced a number of different challenges in Africa, some of the most common being the heavy reliance on cash and low-banking penetration. The most important challenge in my opinion is to stay ahead of the curve and evolve along with market demands. In today’s digital world, it’s critical that we collaborate with different partners and form alliances in order to provide clients with a convenient and superior customer experience, in line with a rapidly-evolving market.
Investing in technology
We always protect and grow our market share by utilizing our client services and capabilities which keeps us ahead of the competition. We are also putting a heavy focus on digitization, which is one of the key items on the bank’s transformation agenda. We are making strategic investments in technology to stay ahead of the curve and are constantly enhancing our products and services to make banking simpler, more convenient and secure.
A great example of this is the introduction of enhanced digital banking services, including our mobile app, SC Mobile, and Retail Workbench ‘Bank on an iPad’ platform.
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/entrepreneurs/2018/04/26/banking-on-technology-new-mobile-bank-set-to-launch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Banking On Technology: New Mobile Bank Set To Launch</a>
Promoting inclusiveness
Look at multiple ways of including and empowering women in the banking industry, one of which is providing innovative and tailored products and services designed to suit the needs of women in Africa. This is especially evident in, and made possible by, the digital journey. With enhanced digital and analytic capabilities, we are able to develop solutions which are specifically designed for women, as well as students and entrepreneurs. We are also exploring ways of empowering women and providing them with the necessary tools to succeed in banking and hold leadership roles in the industry. A great example of this is our Women in Technology Incubator originally established in the United States and rolled out in Africa in 2017 with Kenya taking the lead.
<div id="attachment_37739" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37739" class="size-medium wp-image-37739" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JGchosen1-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JGchosen1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JGchosen1-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JGchosen1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JGchosen1-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JGchosen1.jpg 1241w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Jaydeep Gupta. Photo provided.</div>
Mobile wallets
The digital banking movement in Africa started with the mobile wallet. There are over 100 million active mobile money users in Africa. The mobile wallet has improved the lives of Africans by facilitating participation and accessibility.
We are starting to witness the next generation of products being made available to customers in Africa. A great example of this is the recent widespread use of e-wallets which are beginning to pave the way to less reliance on cash in Africa. Along with less reliance, other benefits like affordability, increased security and greater convenience act as key drivers for customers.
Digital banking in Africa is especially unique because it has the potential to remedy some of the continent’s greatest economic challenges while simultaneously presenting some of the largest opportunities for digital and online banking.
More regulation 
Banking in Africa, and the world, has evolved significantly over the last 10 years. Customers are now demanding more convenient, quick, and easy services from banks. Providing online and mobile platforms is no longer a benefit, but a requirement. We have also seen regulators in Africa more heavily, and frequently, enforce regulation across the continent. This, in turn, has forced banks to adapt and respond to an ever-changing operating environment. Looking at online and mobile banking solutions specifically, banks have not necessarily replaced them, but they are definitely exploring options for updating them in line with these changes and ensuring the security of their customers. For many, this has forced them to think outside of the box.
Robotics and AI over people?
There is no doubt that robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will change the people interface, but it definitely does not mean that it will replace it. If anything, leveraging advancements in technology will only complement customer services and help us be more efficient and targeted. For example, banks today are utilizing AI to analyze financial data in order to provide customers with tailor-made and fully-customizable banking solutions, designed specifically to suit customers’ individual needs.
Advanced analytics 
It’s critical that these capabilities are invested in and continue to be built on. Without proper analytics, companies will struggle to understand consumer behavior. To provide customers with the best possible service, you must understand where they are coming from. Therefore, it is very important that solid collection strategies and procedures are put in place.
<h2>Africa: hotbed of innovation</h2>
<ul>
<li>According to a recent report by McKinsey, over 40% of African banking users prefer to use digital channels for their financial needs. This is no surprise and is indicative of the digital shift we are witnessing across sub-Saharan Africa.</li>
<li>The African banking sector has been described as a ‘hotbed’ of innovation. As Africa begins to enter an exciting era of digitization, innovation will play a key role in unlocking the future potential of banking.</li>
</ul>

Mobile/Contactless Payment

Why Digital Banking Is Unique In Africa

The business and consumption of television as we know it is going to change forever. From digital living rooms to newsrooms, stay tuned for a personalized, multi-screen experience. 

We live in a world of constant disruption. Technological advancements have turned everything on its head. Companies like Uber, Airbnb, YouTube and Facebook have shaken the incumbents in their respective industry, paving the way for new business models that value efficiency and instant gratification. Fintechs are the next group of relatively new startups to disrupt one of the world’s largest sectors – banking and finance. And while every industry in the world is impacted by these technological enhancements and changes in consumption, media has probably changed the most.
Before we get into the changes impacting the evolution of television news, it’s important to take stock of the market. In sub-Saharan Africa, the pay-TV landscape is dominated by DStv. Hybrid services that bundle over-the-top (OTT; content delivered over the internet) services with digital terrestrial and IP TV like Kwese and Wananchi Groups’ Zuku are smaller in terms of subscribers, but are making inroads across the continent.
The deadline for the switch-over to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) has passed in most markets in Africa, but remains an opportunity for growth and channel development. Netflix and Amazon Prime have been globally available since 2016 and are growing subscriber numbers in emerging markets, competing directly with pay-TV providers, while Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are investing in scripted short-form programming. With the abundance of choice, for both free and paid content, the share of screen-time is getting increasingly more fragmented.
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2018/09/18/multichoice-africas-biggest-tv-operator-to-be-listed-by-naspers-africas-largest-public-company/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: MultiChoice, Africa’s Biggest TV Operator, To Be Listed By Naspers, Africa’s Largest Public Company</a>
PwC, a professional services firm, publishes a report, Entertainment and Media Outlook: An African Perspective, each year. The report does a good job of measuring the pulse of media across the continent. PwC predicts that the total TV market in South Africa, which is the largest TV market on the continent, is going to exhibit reasonably strong growth. They predict that the pay-TV sector will add 1.5 million households by 2022, contrary to the decline in pay-TV viewing predicted by media pundits as a result of the availability of OTT alternatives like Netflix in South Africa. TV advertising remains an important part of the overall TV market, but accounts for just under a quarter of the sector’s total revenue.
In West Africa, Nigeria’s TV market grew year over year by 17.1%, despite a challenging economic climate. Again, pay-TV dominates revenues in the sector, commanding 75% of total revenues while advertising accounts for just 19%. Poor broadband penetration and availability has delayed the onset of the internet video segment, extending the life of linear TV in Nigeria.
How is content creation changing? 
Industry leaders like Netflix have brought in data analytics for better content creation and acquisition. The Economist published a cover story on Netflixonomics in June where it reported Netflix has identified some 2,000 “taste clusters” by watching its watchers. An analysis of how well a program will reach, draw and retain customers in specific clusters lets Netflix calculate what sort of acquisition costs can be justified for it. Historically, the calculus of whether a show or film is worth making was based on relatively subjective criteria, and, on the intuition of people experienced in content creation. Data will become increasingly important in determining what to produce. 
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are going to play an important role in augmenting the abilities of content producers, particularly journalists. AI-driven computer vision tools, speech recognition and natural language processing, when combined with a real-time content feed can help a content producer with creating enhanced visualization and representations of data, fact-checking, and guest identification cataloguing.
AI is enhancing the newsroom in many other ways. From streamlining media workflows to automating mundane tasks, enabling journalists to focus on what they do best – reporting. AI is also being used to improve turnaround times by allowing content creators to crunching more data. Research can be performed much faster, information can be correlated quickly and efficiently. Facebook is using AI to detect word patterns that may indicate a fake news story.
One of the largest cost components within a television news station was the cost of connectivity. Historically, connectivity for a TV channel was largely based on expensive satellites. Reliability was also an issue; bad weather could impact the quality of the signal. Portable cellular backpack solutions like LiveU, which uses the internet through mobile cellular networks, bound with other networks, like wireless internet have rendered legacy satellite uplink systems redundant and obsolete. Robotic cameras used within news studios take up less space and don’t require dedicated personnel to operate them. Integrated hardware solutions that incorporate all the elements of live TV in a single box have reduced the cost to operate a TV channel.
What are the transmission protocols of the future going to look like? 
How people receive content is becoming just as important. IP-delivered content opens new doors in how advertisers can target consumers. As TV becomes more digitalized and smarter, the line between TV and OTT is blurring. Advertisers and ad agencies will eventually merge their TV ad digital planning and measurement. 
It’s no secret that video on demand and other internet video services lag pay-TV across Africa. This is largely due to the availability and affordability of broadband internet. While this remains a challenge in the short-to-medium term, providers of telecommunication services are entering the content distribution space.
How will consumption patterns change in the future? 
We’ve covered how data informs decisions around content production. Data is also used in the consumption side of the equation, particularly when it comes to delivering personalized content recommendations. Netflix does this particularly well with its content recommendation algorithms. This becomes important when dealing with massive amounts of content, like for example, user-generated content from social media sites. On any given day, over a billion hours of video are watched on YouTube. 70% of this content is recommended by YouTube’s algorithms. Going down the rabbit hole of YouTube is something most of us are familiar with; your well-intentioned first click to a video someone sent you leads to a three-hour binge from videos about political conspiracy theories to a clip on the antics of various house cats.
The recommendations are personalized, and they’re the first thing you see when you sign onto the site or YouTube app. They help you find the needle in the haystack of the millions of videos on YouTube that you actually want to watch.
The shift to second screen viewing has already taken place, with viewers often multi-tasking, watching Netflix and engaging with their friends on social media. There has been a lot of buzz around augmented reality and virtual reality. If you look past the gimmickry and hype, there hasn’t been a tectonic shift with either technology. 
Wherever the future of television takes us, you cannot understate the importance of quality content, whether user-generated or scripted, free, paid or ad-supported. Almost all content will move towards a multi-screen environment with a highly personalized stream of content, rendering channels obsolete. The television will be just one of the many screens available to audiences. News production will become more efficient to produce, insightful when consumed and ubiquitous in its availability.
– The writer is the Managing Director of CMA Investment Holdings.

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The Not-Too-Distant Future Of Television

Eleven years of CNBC Africa…on a personal level, what has the journey been like for you? 
They have been 11 very good years. Looking back to when we first moved to South Africa to establish it, we had challenges from a regulatory point of view and a distribution point of view. But all that is now behind us. We are looking at business confidence picking up in South Africa and the rest of Africa. We are looking forward to the future.
What is the future of the media industry in Africa? 
There are challenges in emerging markets. I sincerely believe universities and educators look at the curriculums across Africa. The whole environment is changing. We have digital coming in a big way globally. Print media is dying and how you give birth again to what was print on digital is quite a challenge even for television stations. There are challenges for media moving forward. The owners, from the management perspective, also have to consider what they would do with digital.
With that in mind, what are your plans for CNBC Africa? 
Luckily, we are a niche channel. Niche channels, up to now, have been alright. Whether you have a food channel or a fashion channel, music channel or news channel, you will have to look at how you mix both the digital part and TV part moving forward. Having a business channel depends on how the economies are moving. I believe Africa is on the verge of explosion as far as investment is concerned. There are not many places in the world that have the resources Africa has. People are looking at these things.
How are you looking to growing the company in the near future? 
When I started off [in the Middle East], we did the whole of Arabia, which was 37 countries, I did Africa and I did Pakistan – these are the three CNBC franchises, and we learned from each of these franchises, and we have an excellent relationship with CNBC. Moving forward, we are looking at various ways to grow. You need to target your demographic. On the digital side, it has to be millennials. Forget about the over 50s, and mobile is the way to go if you want to target the millennials.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/30-under-30/2018/06/04/under-30-technology/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read More: 30 Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30 </a>
What advice would you give young people trying to break into the media space? 
Go digital. Take advantage of the technology and keep your costs down when you start. You don’t have expensive cameras because you can use mobile. Also use citizen journalism, stick to quality and concentrate on demographics.
Should we be following global trends in the media space as a continent? 
People want things to drop from the sky. You have to market yourself well, make sure there are transparent rules and regulations for foreign investors who want to come in and make sure you have a level playing ground in the countries that make up the African Union…
How significant is the power of networking for young entrepreneurs? 
Networking works but remember to be yourself and be original. That’s how you succeed. Originality comes through. We know when a young person is trying to ‘network you’.
What lies ahead for CNBC Africa? 
We are looking forward to the next five years. We are positive both in Nigeria and South Africa. We might be going more digital and taking advantage of other niche channels we are thinking of partnering with outside of Africa.

Zafar-Siddiqi-559

How CNBC Africa Plans To Go Digital

It’s only six blocks from James Proud’s office, a brick-walled converted bakery in San Francisco’s Mission District, to Central Kitchen, a hip restaurant owned by fellow FORBES 30 Under 30 alum Thomas McNaughton, but that’s plenty of time for the 25-year-old to take on more or less all of Silicon Valley. People who complain about finding good talent just don’t know how to recruit. Traditional venture capital firms? Unnecessary. By the time we reach the host stand, he’s deriding the entire tech community for their “airy-fairy bullsh-t about changing the world.”
This absolutism feels all the more jarring given that his short, bulldog frame and pudgy baby face make him look like the high school computer-lab nerd he once was, a persona buttressed by his wardrobe (a sweatshirt and sweatpants almost all the time, a black T-shirt if he’s feeling dressy) and diet (no vegetables, no fish). The latest in the 21st-century cavalcade of cocky prodigies in the mold of Sean Parker, Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Spiegel, Proud was born thumbing his nose at other people. “No one can make me do what I don’t want to do,” he says. He’s been professionally bred this way, too.
James Proud was in the first class of Thiel Fellows, the upstarts – 122 and counting – who for the past seven years have taken $100,000 each from billionaire contrarian Peter Thiel on the condition they skip college. And he’s also the most successful. Over the past four years he’s raised roughly $40 million for his startup, Hello, mostly at a $250 million valuation. He’s recently been raising bridge financing, at an even higher valuation, including a direct $2 million ante from the godfather himself, Thiel. It’s his first personal investment in one of his fellows. “James stood out from the start as extremely tenacious and determined,” Thiel says.
And now he’s rich, too. Proud still owns about half of Hello, pushing him well into centimillionaire territory.
Proud’s chosen market is right up there with death and taxes in terms of universality: sleep, which has suddenly become a bit more sexy and a bit less sleepy than it has been for the past few millennia. “You’re starting to see a shift in conversation around sleep that happened in the ’80s around exercise and in the ’90s and 2000s with organic and healthy eating,” Proud says. Arianna Huffington has raised $7 million for Thrive Global, which offers a suite of products and services driven by the idea that more sleep translates to a better life, and Casper, the mattress-will-change-your-life startup, has raised $70 million.
Proud’s focus is on hardware, specifically an orb the size of a tennis ball that sits on your bedside table and uses a variety of hidden sensors to track your movements and the surrounding nighttime atmosphere. The $149 gadget, called Sense, grades your sleep on a scale from 0 to 100 – and tries to help you improve that score over time. Proud claims that the Sense holiday rollout at Target is the biggest the retailer has ever done for a new electronics product (Target says that’s incorrect).
Big orders won’t guarantee big success, at least not immediately. A source close to the company says the internal sales projection for 2017 is 250,000 Sense units, implying net revenues in the ballpark of $20 million. Tiny compared even to a flagging competitor like Fitbit, which likely finished 2016 with sales of more than $2.3 billion – and even at that size, it’s barely profitable. Meanwhile, a triad of monoliths – Amazon, Apple and Google – stand determined to put connected devices on every conceivable surface of your body and in every space in your home.
What does Proud think of his trillion-dollar competitors? Looking up from his lamb ribs and roast pork, he lifts both hands in a double-middle-finger salute.
It’s the kind of brashness that a Peter Thiel could love. That tack surely worked for Zuckerberg and Spiegel. But youthful hubris goes back to Icarus, and that tale didn’t end with an IPO. Given his complicated market, dotted with pitfalls and entrenched enemies, Proud will ultimately demonstrate whether unswerving self-confidence is a necessary entrepreneurial attribute or a potentially fatal flaw. At the FORBES Under 30 Summit in Boston last October, Proud was asked backstage whether he’d ever met Richard Branson, whom he would soon join on a panel. “The real question,” Proud responded, “is whether Branson has ever met me.”
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Proud grew up less than an hour away from Branson’s childhood home south of London. His father worked for the British civil service, and his mother was a secretary who later stocked grocery-store shelves at night. Proud preferred haunting the computer lab to making friends on the playground. His first Internet payday came at the age of 12, when he built a website for a scammer he had met through an online forum (he spent the money on a Sony Ericsson mobile phone and Creative Labs MP3 player). As a hired hand for Web projects, he began making hundreds of dollars per job. At one point his PayPal account was frozen because he was underage, so cash arrived in the mail, prompting questions from his parents.
At 17 Proud started GigLocator, a website that aggregated concert ticket information, and persuaded his parents to let him take a gap year to work on it. He fed himself by faking hole punches on loyalty cards from a British chicken chain, Nando’s, or else schmoozing venture capitalists and other European techies over lunch, always letting them pick up the check. “Already back then, James had this laser-sharp focus about what he was going to do for the next ten years,” says Spotify founder Daniel Ek, who met Proud playing Ping-Pong during that period. “It was incredibly rare to see that from someone who should have been more focused on girls and school.”
Proud would have been the first in his family to attend college, but when the day came to enroll, he refused to go, despite his parents’ pleas. Then, on a September day in 2010, Proud found his savior at 1AM while watching a live stream of the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. There Thiel announced his eponymous fellowship: a $100,000 grant to each of 20 teenagers who wanted to skip college to pursue another dream. Proud decided to apply on the spot.
When Thiel flew the finalists out to hobnob in San Francisco, Proud was surrounded by preppy American kids with acceptances to Harvard they wanted to turn down. He returned to London, sure he wouldn’t make the cut. “I wished I didn’t even come,” Proud says. “I was going to have to go back and hate my life because I’d seen that this would be so much better.” But in April 2011 Thiel’s organization called to give him the good news. They also told him to sit tight until July. Proud, of course, was in a hurry – and not listening to anyone who would stop him. He quickly emptied his savings to buy a plane ticket and then demanded the first Thiel check be sent early, lest he end up sleeping on the street. They caved.
The fellowship changed Proud’s life, turning him from an unknown programmer living with his parents to a member of an inaugural class of wunderkinds. While crashing on air mattresses and couches for most of the next year, he took advantage of every door the Thiel brand opened across Silicon Valley. For a time Proud worked out of PayPal cofounder Max Levchin’s incubator, and in June 2012 he offloaded GigLocator to the concert promoter Peter Shapiro, earning himself a cool six-figure payday. (“That’s one young, smart mother–ker,” says Shapiro.)
Soon after, Proud began raising money for a new stealth startup that would become Hello. “I said, ‘I’m in for whatever amount you’ll let me in for,’” says Shakil Khan, an early Spotify investor that Proud befriended in London. “He said, ‘I still haven’t finalized what it’s going to be.’ And I said, ‘That’s irrelevant.’”
The original idea for Hello was to build a better version of the activity-tracker wristband pioneered by Fitbit and Jawbone. Proud recruited a handful of young hardware engineers and spent 18 months developing a prototype, which included a magnetic strap similar to one that would later appear on the Apple Watch. But over time Proud quietly soured on its potential. He noticed that no one on his team wore any existing product on his or her wrist for more than a few weeks. Consumer surveys show similar results, with estimates that about a third of wearables owners give up on their devices within the first six months. Plus, competition was fierce. Google would announce Android Wear in March 2014, and the Apple Watch debuted in September. Proud was already late to a category in which he no longer believed. “So what do you do? Do you give the money back to investors and send everyone home?” he asked.
The epiphany came when Proud flew out to New York City to attend a birthday party in March 2014.
Distracted by his dilemma, he brainstormed about products that wouldn’t need to be worn at all times and suddenly arrived at sleep tracking. People enjoyed the feature on wristbands but hated wearing them overnight. He brought the team together when he returned and told them they would be scrapping a year and a half of work to start over. “I wore the wristband prototypes for a good two weeks after, holding on to the work we had done,” says Hello’s first industrial designer, Rob Shook.
Proud also had to sell his decision to an angry group of investors who had supported a $7 million Series A only months earlier. To placate them, he granted additional shares to everyone who participated in the round, including Khan, then-PayPal president David Marcus and Xiaomi vice president Hugo Barra. “Had the decision to pivot come three months later, I don’t think the company would have survived,” says Dan Rose, Facebook’s vice president of partnerships and Hello’s only board member other than Proud.
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Proud’s move away from wearable devices took Hello out of a crowded but expanding market – an estimated 67 million smart watches will be sold this year – and made it the pioneer of a completely new one. “If it can work, it can end up being a consumer device on par with the iPod,” Thiel says. A huge if. Searching for scientific backing Proud hired Matthew Walker, director of the Sleep &amp; Neuroimaging Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, as Hello’s chief scientist. Walker believes that lack of sleep is an “epidemic” in First World countries and that Sense can help fix that. After one year of use, 71% of Sense users slept longer on average than they had before, and 57% had more regular wake-up times, the company claims. Hello hopes to do even better as it tests more personalized sleep techniques.
Proud proved there was a market for sleep-centered products, at least among early adopters, with a successful Kickstarter campaign in July 2014. After racing to build a basic hardware prototype and marketable software façade, Hello launched its campaign with a slick video and a goal of $100,000. It blew past the finish line, scoring $1 million in the first four days and $2.4 million after one month, just a hair shy of VR phenomenon Oculus Rift’s crowdfunding haul. That summer proved an intoxicating high, but there was so much to do to make the marketing pitch a reality that four bottles of celebratory champagne sat in the office refrigerator unopened until this past Thanksgiving.
Hello promised delivery by November 2014 but delayed the first shipments until February as production challenges mounted. Sense is a two-part system that includes a bedside device – an amalgam of LEDs, circuits and sensors to detect light, sound, temperature and air quality, all stuffed into a small sphere – and an accompanying battery-powered, Bluetooth-enabled “Sleep Pill,” which clips to your pillow to track movement. The team had to design many of the manufacturing tools themselves. That following June Hello brought in a $30 million cash infusion at the $250 million valuation from the likes of Temasek Holdings, a government-owned investment fund in Singapore, but the rest of the year was lost to fixing bugs and rewriting core features. In 2016, as Amazon rolled out the Echo and Google revealed Google Home, both voice-enabled wireless speakers, Proud pushed the team to add voice controls to the latest Sense, which went on sale this past November.
“The big challenge is always: Can you lock in the market enough before people develop copycats that are cheaper and roughly equivalent?” Thiel says. “This is always something a little harder for hardware than software.”
Unfortunately, even the new version feels like an unfinished product searching for a market. After trying it for a week, I enjoyed Sense’s novelty as a smarter alarm clock with limited voice commands and the ability to turn off the alarm with a wave of your hand. But for my $149, the core functionality is too inconsistent. It’s supposed to detect when you fall asleep and wake up, and analyze your tossing and turning to see how many hours you’re in deep sleep. Yet the Sense interprets data gathered from the clip on my pillow rather than a band on my wrist, so it frequently fails to register when I get up from bed and often confuses my fiancée’s movement for my own. Even if it were accurate, neither the sleep results nor other measurements are groundbreaking. Everyone already knows that blackout curtains are good for beauty rest and a barking dog is bad.
Other warning signs abound. Proud boasts about the new Hello displays in nearly 700 Target stores across the country, but the only inventory in Oakland was one Sense tucked in a side cabinet next to some Apple TVs and Linksys wireless routers. A survey of Best Buys around New York found only one with the product in stock; other stores indicated you needed to order it. And when I brought a Sense home, I nearly abandoned the set-up process after an hour of trying and failing to plug in the charging cable. Hello says a new manufacturer had constructed the USB port a millimeter off target in a few units.
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While plenty of questions remain about Sense, Proud now treats his risky pivot as a thesis statement. He trashes devices that need to be worn (like the Apple Watch) or require direct interaction (like the home assistants from Amazon and Google). His goal is to cover the entire 24 hours of your day with a few “nonengagement” health-tracking devices like Sense. “It’s a tragedy that we  can’t build and release them all right now,” Proud asserts.
He’ll need to diversify his product line soon to avoid the fate of other hardware startups like fellow Kickstarter darling Pebble, which shut down in December, and drone maker 3D Robotics, which crashed after burning through $100 million in funding. Even public companies like Fitbit (trading down 86% from its peak) and GoPro (down 90%) have struggled. “On one hand, it’s easier than ever to build a hardware product,” says Jan Dawson, analyst at Jackdaw Research. “But in some ways it’s harder than ever to be competitive and build a sustainable business.”
In the meantime, Proud must mature as the leader of a 50-employee startup trying to go toe-to-toe with companies that outnumber and out-finance him. While friends extol Proud as wise beyond his years, former Hello staffers describe him as a smart but inveterate risk-taker who often unravels in tense situations. “You could see the pressure got to him, and sometimes I would think it’s because he’s young,” a former Hello engineer says. “He would suddenly rush in saying, ‘We need to do X because people are complaining about it.’” Instead of patiently adhering to a long-term plan, Proud is prone to rash decisions. “The ability to take risks and be aggressive is the foundation of James’ decision making, and it may eventually come back to bite him,” says one ex-Hello employee who worked closely with Proud for more than two years. “If that day never comes, he’s a genius. If it does, the warning signs were there.” Proud doesn’t deny he can be a capricious boss. In December 2014, on the morning an engineer was set to fly to China to install the final firmware for the Sense’s first manufacturing run, Proud decided to add one more feature. His CTO, Tim Bart, told him it was insane to change anything in the code at such a late hour, but Proud was suddenly convinced that Sense should light up and play a sound when it was plugged in for the first time – like a computer booting up.
After a bruising argument, Proud got his way. The engineer finished coding the change on the cross-Pacific flight, and through skill and luck avoided introducing new bugs into the final product.
Was that last minute intervention a Steve Jobs-like moment of product genius or the power trip of an enabled, immature founder? Proud’s analysis of his behavior in hindsight is simple and unapologetic: “Well, I was right.”

The Black Sheep

Sprinting across the globe in her Chuck Taylor sneakers with her headphones on, 28-year-old Zim Ugochukwu is not what you would call travel-weary – she’s travel-wealthy.
As founder and CEO of Travel Noire, a digital publishing platform for travelers of color, her passport is a diary of her life, of her many immersions into cultures other than her own.
But before we dwell on what Ugochukwu actually does, it’s important to know what she has done before: she cloned a gene at the age of 19 as a biology major in college, helped open a civil rights museum, led an anti-tobacco drive in the United States (US), worked on the Barack Obama presidential campaign in 2008, and lived in a train in India for two weeks with 400 other young people traveling the length and breadth of the subcontinent.
Ugochukwu appeared on FORBES’ 30 Under 30 list in 2016 for “being at the forefront of what is being called the Black Travel Movement”; was named one of Glamour magazine’s Young Women Changing the World; and more recently, Travel Noire was named one of the Most Innovative Companies in the World by Fast Company.
Born in Mankato, Minnesota, to Nigerian immigrants, Ugochukwu is going the extra mile “using technology to empower people of color to lead more global lives”.
“Whenever I travel I kind of spend time getting lost and not necessarily having any plans, but letting serendipity kind of guide me,” says Ugochukwu.
She was in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2016, when she found she had made Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul 100 list and had 48 hours to get to Los Angeles to meet Winfrey and her team.
When FORBES WOMAN AFRICA e-meets her on FaceTime, for once, Ugochukwu is sitting still, at Filter Café, a coffee house near downtown Chicago; it’s just after 4PM on a Sunday in the Windy City where she is based.
<div id="attachment_32107" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32107" class="wp-image-32107 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2016/12/zim-oprah-in-L.A.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="439" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/zim-oprah-in-L.A.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/zim-oprah-in-L.A-300x220.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Zim and Oprah Winfrey</div>
This mode of communication is quite fitting for Ugochukwu. Judging by the constant banter in the background, punctuated by the sounds of coffee dispensers and clinking cups, the café is packed.
Ugochukwu says she is still jet-lagged after a vacation in Thailand.
“I just wanted to kind of get away, I went with some friends, it was really fun,” says Ugochukwu, who was to return to Thailand to speak at a conference but couldn’t on account of a bout of food poisoning.
“The amount of stress that you can put on your body when you have to travel so much can be a lot, but this is the life that I asked for, if I wasn’t doing this, I don’t know what I would be doing.”
Her first international trip was at the age of 16, when her mother took her and her brother to visit Nigeria, their home country.
Her travels today have taken her to five continents, and she has paid rent in places like Greensboro, New Delhi, Dharamsala, Bengaluru and San Francisco. Chicago has been her home since mid-2016.
While in college, she was Vice President of national anti-tobacco organization, Forget Tobacco, which gave her the opportunity to travel across America. She also founded Ignite Greensboro, a campaign to raise awareness about the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. She in turn galvanized thousands of students to help bring awareness of the museum. She deems this to be the cornerstone of her career.
Her love for science saw her majoring in biology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She cloned a gene “discovering a link between cells found in the digestive system of a tiny fruit fly and a rare genetic disorder whilst examining a region called the superior Cupric autonomic system or sCans”.
She further elaborates in a language few understand: “Within this region lies a cluster of neuron-like cells called lettuce head cells, they function as pacemaker cells controlling muscle contractions, in the gut. These cells express a number of genes found in nervous system tissue.” One of these genes, Cg16972, Ugochukwu claims, was founded by her.
Whilst she majored in biology, her minor subjects were political science and sociology and as part of her course requirements, she worked as an organizer for Obama’s campaign. While still in college, she says she was also the youngest appointed precinct judge for North Carolina’s Board of Elections.
“I was responsible for the conduct of the election in the precinct polling station, the backbone of the electoral process.”
Ugochukwu speaks Hindi, a language she picked up during her time living in India, an experience that changed her life. Right before finishing college in the US, she won the Henry Luce scholarship, and moved to India for a year.
During this time, she lived in the Jagriti Yatra train, an initiative promoting entrepreneurship, as she traveled across India with other youth and 50 international participants, stopping in a new Indian city every day to follow social entrepreneurs.
For the rest of that year, she worked helping connect young business owners with resources, doing work for various organizations, as well as helping farmers get grants. This experience allowed her to see at least 75% of India, and later led to her abiding love for Asia.
It was during her time in India she realized there weren’t many black tourists.
“If you picked up any magazine, you typically didn’t see people of color,” says Ugochukwu.
She wanted to change that, and create a space for black people to talk about their travel experiences and connect with others.
After returning to the US after her year in India, with limited funds and no career plans, yet, she moved to Southern California to live with her mother.
“Often parents have a different idea of what a fulfilling life should be. You are either a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or a failure.”
Her mother, a nurse, wanted Ugochukwu to become a doctor, and when she decided not to, didn’t understand it.
Soon, she packed up and headed to San Francisco with $300 to live with her “fairy godmother”, who opened the doors of her home, free of charge.
Ugochukwu worked as producer for the Digital Health Summit, discovering ways technology can create change in developing countries. She launched Travel Noire while still working there in 2013 with only $50, enough to buy a domain. In June 2014, three days before her 26th birthday, Ugochukwu was fired from her job as her heart was not in it anymore; up until this time, she had run Travel Noire on a part-time basis.
With no job, Travel Noire became her main focus and she took her $17,000 in savings and began to put her business blueprint into action. She spent 18 months building up the community before selling any product. Many people volunteered their time to build the brand that Travel Noire is today.
The company offers group travel experiences to young people of color who hail from different walks of life, to explore various international destinations together. It has over 50 on-the-ground partners and offers travel experiences in different time zones.
“It could’ve been so easy for us to get a brown stone office in New York City, but I wanted people to have the flexibility, to work wherever they felt the most happy; we can live and work just about  anywhere in the world where there is a Wi-Fi connection,” says Ugochukwu.
Today, Travel Noire has a strong social media presence; with an audience of over 300,000 on Instagram alone. Her mother has since become a proud supporter of Travel Noire.
Her advice for budding entrepreneurs? She warns it’s not all as rosy as it may appear and that behind the glamor, are long 14-hour days, and times when there is not enough money, especially in the beginning.
“You need to be willing to put everything on the line and be comfortable with the possibility of not having enough money for rent at times,” says Ugochukwu.
“I didn’t ever think that [my business] would be this big, but people told me that I had to think bigger.”
Clearly, the world is not enough for this millennial.

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Obama,  Oprah And The World On Her CV

At’s a regular weekday in Kigali’s lively central business district where single-storied shop tenements, with tables heaving with African artefacts, jostle with gleaming commercial towers. On the arterial street by the high-rise Bank of Kigali, vendors hawk cheap clothing, and shops smelling of dust and sweat sell colorful jewelry and bric-a-brac. Most have a cash-only policy, a far cry from the bank next door, which, in its sprawling air-conditioned halls, doles out digital payment solutions for Rwanda’s consumers.
<div id="attachment_28650" style="width: 616px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28650" class="wp-image-28650 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa.jpg" alt="" width="606" height="902" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa.jpg 606w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa-300x447.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa-600x893.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa-202x300.jpg 202w" sizes="(max-width: 606px) 100vw, 606px" />Daniel Monehin Division President MasterCard Sub-Saharan Africa</div>
But the services-savvy Rwanda is proving it’s ahead of most African countries on innovations, not just in the financial space, but in general. As laid out in its Vision 2020 strategy, it aims to include 90% of its citizens in the financial mainstream. ‘Cashless Rwanda’ are the new buzzwords in the corridors of power.
At the World Economic Forum held here in May, Rwanda’s government signed a deal with Mastercard, the technology company in the global payments industry, to promote the move to a cashless economy. High on Rwanda’s agenda is digitization of school fees and national healthcare claim payments.
At the announcement, Francis Gatare, CEO of Rwanda Development Board (RDB), had said: “We are confident Rwanda’s partnership with Mastercard will be beneficial to the country and its citizens as we are implementing our vision of becoming a knowledge-based service-oriented economy. I believe this can only be achieved as we embrace the fourth industrial revolution.”
The MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth has committed up to $1 million over the next three years to advance economic growth and financial inclusion in the land of a thousand hills.
The country, which famously triumphed over tragedy since the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, is now up for the challenge of embracing technology to overcome concerns like financial literacy and inclusion of the rural poor, who are mostly still reliant on cash.
How big is the cash economy in Africa?
“According to a recent McKinsey report, two billion people remain outside of the formal economy. Various studies confirm over 90% of retail transactions in sub-Saharan Africa are in cash,” says Daniel Monehin, who leads Mastercard’s business across sub-Saharan Africa as Division President.
“In Rwanda, only 42% of adults own a financial account, whether formal or informal… We know that government cannot achieve financial inclusion alone, and neither can the private sector – we need to work together.”
In September, Bank of Kigali, RwandaOnline and Mastercard launched Irembo – an online payment solution to make online payments safer, simpler and smarter.
RwandaOnline developed Irembo, including six government engines, allowing Rwandans to make online payments to any of these government entities through the use of debit, credit or prepaid payment cards. Residents can pay for driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and identity cards. The portal also allows travelers to Rwanda to apply and pay for travel visas.
<div id="attachment_28649" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28649" class="wp-image-28649 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="499" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM.jpg 750w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />Raghu Malhotra</div>
“At Mastercard, we don’t limit our thinking to ‘traditional’ versus  ‘new’ – we explore what is going to meet the needs of a market and its citizens as there is not one solution that can meet all needs. Rather our focus is on creating a ‘world beyond cash’, developed through partnerships and driven by advances in technology,” says Monehin.
Indeed, Rwanda’s aim for a cashless culture is good news for the city’s new innovators and entrepreneurs.
Afshon Wallace, the 26-year-old founder of 250 Taxi, a web-based transport solutions provider connecting riders and taxi drivers using a mobile app and website, launched earlier this year, says it’s encouraging. Wallace says he caters mostly to expatriates and is witnessing growth of up to 100%.
“The cashless payments ecosystem in Rwanda is still in its infancy. The government’s push for paperless payments through the smart Rwanda master plan has been a great boost and great sensitization programs are being carried out by many players,” says Wallace.
But there are myriad challenges.
“The population lacks the adequate financial awareness on cashless payments. We have had less than three percent of our users asking whether they can use cards.”
Wallace says compared to the M-Pesa service in neighboring Kenya that has seen great success, locally, mobile money is still to catch up.
Yet, products such as Tap&amp;Go (smart cards enabling cashless payments) on Kigali’s public buses are becoming popular.
“We have huge government support when it comes to e-payments,” says Patrick Buchana, the 26-year-old CEO of AC Group, who started Tap&amp;Go in 2015.
David Karuletwa, the Rwandan-Canadian COO of RSwitch, a financial interoperable solutions company, whose passion is financial inclusion using fintech, says Rwanda is primed to be a hub for financial services.
In 2010, RSwitch launched Rwanda’s first debit card issued by banks in Rwanda and later rebranded it to SmartCash card.
“Rwanda and the entire pan-African market are paving the way for financial inclusion using mobile banking and payment solutions,” says Karuletwa.
From paper to e-payments, cash to cashless, Rwanda’s bank notes are moving out of the wallet into the world of www.

From Wallet To www

After a degree at the University of Cape Town, she lived in London for five years, starting her career in digital advertising, but didn’t find it too glamorous, so returned to South Africa, and with a little help from “a family member” (who she has to repay in five years), bought the Bloss &amp; Co business in 2014, turning entrepreneur at 30 and building it up.
Her “affordable luxury handbags” are available in tony boutiques in Parkhurst and Dainfern. They are also at her Parktown North showroom, and their USP, she says, is personalized service, the cappuccino and warm environment.
A company of three employees, including two other partners, they source the leather and metalware from markets in China. Going forward, there are plans afoot to manufacture in South Africa and collaborate with local talent, as they did most recently with South African botanical artist Kelly Higgs, who designed beach bags for them, showcasing South African fauna and flora.
Blackie’s structured posh totes in bright colors are the most sought-after.
“Our vision is bright colors and versatility – a backpack that can be used as a clutch and sling bag; a clutch that also turns into a cross-body bag. What we have found is that the SA market does not follow what happens in the catwalks of London and Paris. It comes down to practicality… They are bags that look luxurious but don’t cost R50,000 ($3,120).” A genuine leather Bloss &amp; Co bag would only set you back R2,499 ($156), so it’s worth a look.
Blackie married a commodities trader in December last year, but she has a busy year planned: to roll out a luxury range in Lagos, and a “sophisticated” Afro-chic line in London.

Milenials_Jay-Caboz-6

The Millennials

Zain Verjee started her career on the radio before going on to become one of CNN’s most respected television journalists. Today, Verjee is an entrepreneur in the digital space in Africa.
What is remarkable is that Verjee sustained a high-profile career in television despite suffering psoriasis, a skin ailment that manifests in the form of red spots and patches covered with silvery scales. For years, she endured this privately, drawing strength from family. The odds were stacked against her.
Born and raised in Nairobi to a Kenyan family of Indian ancestry, her early education was in Kenya before moving to Montreal, Canada, to study English Literature and Development Studies at McGill University. Verjee returned to Kenya and enrolled for a graduate degree in environmental studies. Meanwhile, she heard of a job opportunity in radio.
“A new radio station opened up called Capital Radio at the time. I started reading the traffic news. Then I filled in for a love line show at night where I started learning how to become a radio DJ. I gave romantic advice on the radio at age 21/22 and read poems and was soppy and played sad songs on air, which was great. When the embassy was bombed in 1998 [Al Qaeda bombings of United States’ embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam], it was close to the Capital FM radio station, so I got involved in reporting the story and so that really forced me to become more engaged in hard news. So I did some work for the BBC. Then I started working for Kenya Television network and then I applied to CNN,” says Verjee.
Given her limited experience, Verjee’s application was a long shot. However, she was not willing to back down.
“The manager at the time told me I didn’t have enough experience, I had never done breaking news and that I shouldn’t bother applying. But I continued to apply and I begged for a screen test and eventually managed to convince her after at least 10 or 15 email exchanges where I was bordering on becoming ‘stalkerish’. So she said ‘OK, fine! Come to Atlanta, I’m not going to pay you, I’m not going to hire you, you are going to have to pay your own way, but we will do a screen test and then go away’. So I did the screen test and then she said to me ‘I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, I’ll offer you a job on the spot, but as a writer, not as an anchor, and we’ll train you and if you are good, we’ll promote you. If not, then you can go back to Kenya after three years’. And it was amazing. I learned how to anchor, I learned how to write. Everyone at CNN helped me succeed and gave me many opportunities. And the journey evolved from there.”
Verjee’s persistence earned her a posting to the Unites States’ State Department as a foreign policy correspondent. This was during the difficult days of the Bush administration with Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State and the war in Iraq. She explains: “When I went to the State Department, I was very scared. I was very intimidated and nervous because I had no idea what to do. And I didn’t understand nor did I have sources and I didn’t have relationships that would give me information at the time. And I remember after making one phone call on a major story to the State Department spokesman at the time, I didn’t know who else to call so I was just pacing the corridors waiting for him to call me back because I didn’t know what else to do. I was really in a panic because the phones were ringing, there was pressure, there was information wanted, ‘match the story, break the story’; I was sweating bullets. But eventually I learned. The State Department press corps were fantastic. Condoleezza Rice was a great personality and powerhouse to cover. U.S. foreign policy was in an interesting moment at the time and CNN was really pushing me to be better than I thought I could be.”
All this while, Verjee had to manage her ailment whilst maintaining her poise in front of the cameras.
“Right before I applied to CNN in 1999, my skin condition was so bad I could barely walk properly. What happens is because it’s such a visually ugly disease, especially for a young woman, it psychologically has a terrible impact, and you get very afraid of exposing skin, you get afraid of close relationships, you are nervous; because now I was developing a profession in television, yet my face was the only thing I was projecting that was clear. So by the time I was at CNN, until I moved to London, I was in remission, so I was really more confident of myself. I was appreciating my own body, my own skin, my own freedom a lot more. And I didn’t have any struggles until I got to London when it inflamed again because I was stressed. It was a difficult adjustment for me at the beginning and it affected my immune system and my stability. So it became again very hard because on the one hand I was fighting my own body and trying to control it, and on the other hand, being glamorous and trying to present comfortably. And when my skin is bad, I become psychologically a bit disturbed and can’t focus. So I’m always having to cope with my skin as a way of personally dealing with the health issue, making sure that in my profession it doesn’t create the obstacle it once did.”
Of all the stories she anchored, Verjee singles out the brutal attack by Somali terrorist group, Al Shabaab, on the Westgate Shopping mall in Nairobi as the most challenging. The siege occurred in her backyard and most of the people and families affected were known to her. Verjee walked a fine line as she balanced her emotions covering such a personal story while upholding her professional responsibility.
Nairobi was also the scene of one of the scariest moments Verjee faced as a journalist. She was covering the protests that erupted after Kenya’s national elections in 2008 when an attempt to pre-empt a march by protesters resulted in Verjee being hit by a tear gas canister shot by the police.
“It was opposite Uhuru Park where the GSU paramilitary were. And they just started targeting journalists and they targeted me first because I was walking and talking. All of a sudden I heard a loud boom and a very sharp pain in my back, and my eyes started watering because it was teargas. It was in such close proximity that had that canister hit my face or my spine, we would have been having a very different conversation.”
In April 2014, Verjee made the decision to leave CNN. Her passion for Africa and desire to actively contribute to its growth led her to establish Akoma, a digital storytelling platform. With the new project, Verjee seeks to enable Africa’s digital generation to tell their stories.
“I believe it’s time young Africans who have access to smartphone technology and are increasingly connected to the digital world, get to say what they want. If they have an idea or an opinion, it should come authentically from us. It should come from something that is created by Africans that is just as good as the rest of the world’s innovations.”
A proud African, Verjee believes African women will shape the future of the continent. “I believe African women can set the benchmark for the world. The kind of passion, innovation, enthusiasm and opportunities that I have seen directly in the last six months engaging with many of these women leads me to believe that African women are shattering the glass ceiling and that some of the real innovation that will come will be from them.”
Verjee is surely leading the way.

Tag: Digital

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