<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



After posting its best day on Wall Street in four months Wednesday, shares of Paramount Global fell Thursday after a report indicated the media conglomerate’s controlling shareholder might not be interested in a reported $11 billion deal for the company’s major film studio.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Shares of Paramount Global dropped as much as 5.9% in intraday trading Thursday to as low as $11.77, nearly erasing its Wednesday gains, when the company’s shares surged to a one-month high of nearly $13.



Thursday’s losses marked Paramount’s worst day on Wall Street in over two weeks, just one day after the conglomerate’s shares posted an 11.8% daily gain on the heels of a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/apollo-offers-11-billion-for-paramounts-hollywood-studio-24206eab?mod=hp_lead_pos2" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a>&nbsp;report indicating Apollo Global Management made an $11 billion offer for Paramount Pictures, valuing the studio even higher than Paramount Global’s $8.2 billion market cap.



By Thursday morning, Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone suggested she might not be interested in that offer, opting instead for a rival bid, anonymous sources told the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/95cf8b56-e822-4fc0-a12e-1e7ae15733fd" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Financial Times</a>.



Sources told the Financial Times Redstone has been in negotiations with David Ellison on a separate bid from Ellison’s Skydance Media for a majority stake in Redstone’s holding company National Amusements, through which she controls a majority stake in Paramount.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Paramount has had a series of setbacks in recent months, striking out on a deal with NBCUniversal owner Comcast and failing to land a deal with rival Warner Bros. Discovery that could have turned the burgeoning streaming wars on its head. Paramount had been engaged in merger talks with Warner Bros. Discovery, though the HBO parent company reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2024/02/27/warner-bros-discovery-pauses-merger-talks-with-paramount-report-says/?sh=2eb01dbb1cf4">paused those negotiations</a>&nbsp;last month. Last August, Paramount&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/08/07/paramount-selling-simon--schuster-to-kkr-for-162-billion/?sh=3c4027576662">divested</a>&nbsp;its publishing arm Simon &amp; Schuster to private equity firm KKR in a $1.62 billion deal, culminating a two-year saga in which a previous deal to sell the publishing house fell after a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



Paramount Pictures, on the other hand, has had a series of recent box office success stories, with major movies, including director Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” and the Tom Cruise action thriller “Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One,” hitting it big. The former, an Academy Awards nominee for Best Picture, has grossed more than $157 million worldwide since its premiere last October, while the “Mission: Impossible” sequel has grossed more than $575.5 million since July, according to Box Office Mojo.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuation">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



Ellison, the son of Google co-founder Larry Ellison, could bring major funding to Paramount should the deal go through. We estimate Larry Ellison’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/larry-ellison/?sh=127d3b0624c2">net worth</a> at roughly $159.4 billion, making him the world’s fifth-richest person.

Los Angeles Economy

Paramount Stock Tumbles As $11 Billion Studio Deal Falls Into Doubt, Report Says

Food is the future and these proactive startups are focused on shifting agricultural practices to prepare for what is to come.



Agriculture has always been a core component of Africa’s economic viability. And where it’s estimated that 140 million people in Africa face acute food insecurity, the continent’s ability to produce food efficiently is vital. As many individual countries wrestle with inadequate governments, there has been a spate of proactive startups focused on revolutionizing the food system across Africa.



From a continent- spanning online marketplace changing the way African farmers do business to a technology platform focused on producing cultivated meat alternatives and a company using technology to convert arid desertland into agricultural areas, these are the firms showing the way in foodtech in Africa.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-just-like-the-nile-river-was-pivotal">‘Just like the Nile River was pivotal…’ </h2>



Farming and selling produce can be inefficient and costly for farmers in Africa, despite being one of society’s oldest practices. Nile, a B2B marketplace, wants to change this. By connecting farmers directly with commercial produce buyers, Nile is reshaping produce trading while empowering farmers across southern Africa.



Founded in 2020 in South Africa by Louis de Kock, Eugene Roodt, and Rick Kleinhans, whose collective experience spans Amazon, JP Morgan and Luno, Nile came from the idea that tech can modernize agricultural trade.



&#8220;In 2020, farmers were still distributing their products in the same way my grandfather did in the 1950s, which was surprising given how much has changed since then, both tech and logistics,” De Kock reflects. Seeing these outdated distribution methods encouraged them to explore tech solutions, resulting in an online marketplace.



In a nutshell, Nile facilitates connections between farmers and buyers, minimizing costs and preserving perishable produce. Through Nile&#8217;s online marketplace, farmers list their produce for global buyers, securing instant orders and secure payouts, allowing farmers greater control over pricing. &#8220;By digitizing transactions, we can improve transparency, while reducing transaction fees,&#8221; he adds. The logistics network then ensures efficient routes to buyers, either via direct delivery or consolidated loads through Nile’s cross-dock hubs.



Further to this, their recently- launched inputs marketplace, coupled with financial support for farmers has revolutionized logistics, but perhaps most importantly, it’s helping farmers find the best market for their produce.



&#8220;We want to become central to a farmer&#8217;s everyday existence by providing a comprehensive suite of digital services to enhance transacting and trading, with the data and predictive analytics as the golden thread,” says De Kock.



Nile operates in 12 African countries, and now calls itself “the largest fruit and vegetable online marketplace on the continent”.



Operating in a region with high food insecurity means sustainability is vital here, and Nile’s tech facilitates it. &#8220;Food waste is dramatically reduced compared to traditional markets since all produce is pre-sold to buyers in 40+ towns and cities and thus does not degrade over time on a market floor,” says De Kock.



In addition to this, Nile’s logistics maintains multiple temperature zones for cold chain management while minimizing food miles.



&#8220;Just like the Nile River was pivotal to the development of agricultural production and trade across African countries, we believe our name is symbolic of our mission,&#8221; says De Kock.



As buyer demand continues to grow, so does the market for quality, affordable produce and Nile seems to be changing the game for African farmers.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-model-that-not-only-combats-desertification">&#8216;A model that not only combats desertification…’</h2>



Further afield, Sand to Green focuses on agroforestry for arid regions. It converts barren land into fertile agricultural areas using pioneering agroforestry practices and advanced technology.



Founded by Wissal Ben Moussa, Gautier de Carcouët, and Benjamin Rombaut, the company wants to make desert areas agriculturally productive while contributing to CO2 capture and biodiversity enhancement, effectively overhauling these agricultural landscapes.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61482" style="width:606px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Sand to Green was formed in response to the challenges of food security and environmental sustainability in dry regions; image supplied</figcaption></figure></div>


Formed in response to the challenges of food security and environmental sustainability in dry regions, particularly in Morocco and broader Africa, the founders saw the need for eco-friendly agricultural practices in these challenging environments.



Traditional farming methods exacerbate issues like soil degradation and water scarcity, affecting vast areas of agricultural land and, in turn, populations in Africa. Sand to Green&#8217;s model integrates agroforestry with solar-powered desalination, drawing inspiration from ancient oasis ecosystems, a 7,000-year-old agroforestry system.



&#8220;Our vision was to develop a model that not only combats desertification&#8230; but also enhances local food production,&#8221; says co- founder Rombaut. Morocco presented the ideal climate, showcasing the need to balance food security with environmental restoration. &#8220;Our approach addresses water scarcity by using sustainable desalination, tapping into the region&#8217;s abundant solar energy,” he adds. “This model not only meets the immediate need for more food production but also promotes environmental sustainability, offering a blueprint for similar arid regions globally,” adds Moussa.



Sustainability is at the core of this operation. The supply chain focuses on local resources and labor, supporting regional economies and reducing transport-related carbon emissions. In arid regions, their solar-powered desalination technology lowers water usage, while recycled brine from the desalination process is used to cultivate halophyte plants.



Their practices also reduce dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, aligning community well- being with an environmental one. Driven by the belief in locally- adaptable solutions, Sand to Green hopes to influence global agricultural practices.



&#8220;We strive for a future where sustainable agriculture is central to solving global food and environmental challenges,&#8221; Rombaut says. They show how sustainable agriculture can thrive in challenging environments without compromising ecosystem integrity, an idea that will hopefully shift agricultural practices globally. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-replicate-the-conditions-of-an-animal-just-outside-of-the-animal">‘…replicate the conditions of an animal, just outside of the animal’ </h2>



In Cape Town, Newform Foods wants to revolutionize the food industry through cultivated meat production. Promising a more ethical protein alternative using leading bioprocessing technology and proprietary methods, Newform allows food producers to manufacture animal- friendly products. &#8220;We are producing the ability to scale cultivated meat intended for other companies within the food and meat industry,” says Brett Thompson, who co-founded Newform along with Tasneem Karodia.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61483" style="width:600px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Newform CEO Brett Thompson</figcaption></figure></div>


While alternative meat isn’t an entirely new concept, Newform is one of the first of its kind in Africa. &#8220;We want to create a technology platform that can be applied to any company around the world,&#8221; says Thompson. Essentially, Newform facilitates sustainable food production through tailored platforms and solutions. “We’re trying to perfectly replicate the conditions of an animal, just outside of the animal,” he explains. This is done using animal cells, and an intricate combination of media development and bioreactors to help the cells grow. Thompson adds that the entire process, from cell to harvest, takes only three to four weeks, a fraction compared to the standard 18 months in conventional farming.



Having successfully experimented with lamb, beef and pork, Newform will soon be exploring poultry and seafood, as part of creating an agnostic platform. “We want to specialize in the platform, not the species,” says Thompson. Ethics aside, Newform’s solution is undeniably more sustainable for various reasons. Reduced land, water and energy use, as well as minimizing food waste, means a much lower impact than in conventional farming practices. 


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="683" height="1024" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-683x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61485" style="width:485px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Newform&#8217;s Greek pita with cultivated lamb meatballs</figcaption></figure></div>


“We can produce something that we can use every single part of,” he explains.



This technology could also affect farms and food transportation. “Imagine a future where you have large facilities close to cities that can produce a delicious protein and get it to retailers and consumers in a more localized fashion.”



What does this Newform future look like? &#8220;I&#8217;d like to see a world in which no animal is used within the supply chain of our food,” says Thompson. “We&#8217;ll be part of the way to replace all animals in the food system and make a healthier protein that&#8217;s cost-effective and delicious.”



While originating in South Africa, Newform plans to expand internationally, starting with the United Kingdom.



Encouragingly, Thompson has seen a shift in the industry, with more food companies willing to adopt technology towards sustainability. “The industry is looking to future-proof itself,” he says, and Newform is primed to lead the charge.

Nile co-founders Eugene Roodt and Louis de Kock

CREAM OF THE CROP: The African Firms Showing Why Foodtech Is The Future

A new era in satellite technology offers space-down insight. Here are some fascinating world views.



Who would have thought that over 50 years later, the space race would be back on? And this time, every country with a space program seems to have their eye on the moon’s south pole.



Between the anticipation around NASA’s upcoming Artemis mission, to the Middle East entering the space race with plans to launch an Emirati-built rover this year, it’s easy to forget that SpaceX’s Starlink is expanding in Africa (most recently, offering high-performance connectivity in the West African country of Benin), with Amazon’s Project Kuiper following suit. While the idea of colonizing the moon, Mars and beyond is exciting, there’s another side to space that is changing how we see the planet we currently live on – data.



For Clint Crosier, Director of Aerospace and Satellite Solutions for Amazon Web Services (AWS), it’s as simple as making the world a better place, from space.



“There’s space up… understanding the universe… but a mission that’s growing even faster is space down – using space-related data to look at earth and improve the quality of life here,” explains Crosier.



As someone who spent his entire career flying satellites and launching rockets, Crosier has witnessed the rapid growth of the space industry first-hand. (Before moving to AWS, Crosier helped to create the United States’ (US) Space Force, the fifth branch of the US military.)



The data coming out of space is vast but in order to use it effectively, the sector needs next-gen cloud technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced data analytics, quantum computing and more.



“The space industry doesn’t really understand the cloud but there are many cloud-based technologies to move the mission forward,” says Crosier.



One of the businesses Crosier works closely with is Axiom Space, a private American aerospace company planning to launch the world’s first commercial space station in 2026. There are only two, fully operational space stations: the International Space Station (ISS), operated by NASA and its partner agencies, and China’s Tiangong Space Station. Since 2003, Axiom Space has played an increasingly important role in the ISS program, particularly when it comes to private astronaut missions. 



“One of the things that came up is that on the ISS, astronauts are doing medical experiments because, as it turns out, certain medical experiments are more effective when run in microgravity. Stem cell research and biopharmaceutical research get better effects, which is great… but there’s a problem – bandwidth.”



Crosier explains that when an astronaut runs an experiment, it can take up to 18 hours to download the data from space to earth. The data is processed on servers here in about 20 minutes but then needs to be pushed back up to the ISS. 



“It’s complex and because it takes so long, we’re essentially only getting to one experiment a day,” he says. To tackle this problem, Crosier and his team created Snowcone, an edge computing device certified by NASA that Axiom Space took on their first mission, Ax-



1. “The astronauts are using Snowcone to catalogue and run experimental data which saves anywhere between seven to 10 times the amount of science time by processing the data in space rather than pushing it all down to earth,” he says.



There may only be two space stations but there are thousands of satellites orbiting earth collecting important in- space data. AWS partnered with D-Orbit, a satellite company in Italy that takes hyperspectral imagery, to launch a device similar to a Snowcone to process earth observation data in space.



“When you see a picture from space, it’s electro-optical. A satellite can only hold a certain number of images so once the register is full, to take more pictures you have to process and download each. This takes time and costs money and bandwidth and every time that happens, around 20% of the images are unusable because of cloud cover,” says Crosier.



“It’s a waste of bandwidth to download and process an image only to determine it isn’t useful! So now, we can process that data on orbit on the satellite. This means we’re now throwing images out, increasing the capacity of the satellite and only sending 100% usable images down to earth.”



Processing data in space has decreased bandwidth by 42% with the satellites still meeting 100% of their mission requirements.



“If you can save 42% of your bandwidth budget, you can do so much more with your satellite,” exclaims Crosier. 



There are many applications for in-space data (also called space-based earth observation data) that extend far beyond navigation. IBM, for example, are collaborating with NASA to use geospatial information (such as satellite images) alongside AI models to address climate change.



“Geospatial is about the three Ws – what, when and where. Climate change is a what, when and where use case application. We want to know where the risks are, what risks and when,” explains Hendrik Hamann, IBM Research’s chief scientist for climate and sustainability.



“A lot of the solutions we need come from top down, from observation data. NASA, as a space agency, collects petabytes of satellite data which gives us a unique opportunity to build solutions,” says Hamann. “We can monitor from space where, when and what emissions occur. We can actually track carbon. We can use satellite observations to figure out where carbon is being removed [or] for understanding nature-based carbon sequestration…” Hamann adds that geospatial data is not only powerful, it’s impartial, as it provides the same observation principles. “I think about it as an independent approach. It is really getting us much closer to the truth and it is more scaleable,” says Hamann.



IBM is currently working with the Kenyan government to support the National Tree Growing and Restoration Campaign through a new ‘adopt-a- water-tower’ initiative. The program uses a digital platform that leverages IBM’s geospatial foundation model (developed by NASA) to enable users to track and visualize tree-planting and tree-growing activities in specific water tower areas. With the model, IBM can quantify reforestation, nature-based carbon sequestration and even understand how much biomass is in the trees. “These water towers exist because of vegetation and trees. At the same time, these trees are extremely important for removing carbon. We need to ensure the longevity of these threes so the carbon stays in the vegetation. It also affects water security… and will have a positive impact on sustainable agriculture in Kenya,” adds Hamann.



Where AI models were previously inhibited by a lack of scalability, Hamann explains these new models built with top-down, satellite information are easily replicable. “Although Africa is a gigantic continent, you will be able to rapidly replicate these types of solutions in other parts of Africa. The whole reason we’re building foundation models is because we want to take this to whoever wants it,” he says. Another company using hyperspectral imagery to translate observations into insights is Digital Earth Africa.



“[They’re] using multi-imagery bands from space to look at the African continent. And then we’re running AI machine learning analytics against that imagery to determine soil content from space,” says Crosier. The data is readily available for government as well as international food and agriculture organizations to address crop production and preposition famine relief forces. 



“And we’re doing all of this from space. That’s one of the things that makes space cool – you can see things from space that you just can’t see anywhere else. You could fly a drone or an aircraft up the coast of Africa and get some local coverage but if I really want to zoom out and get an entire picture, I can really only do that from space,” Crosier says. “We are reimagining and re- envisioning space using the cloud.

outer space, infinite one widths, astronomer photographing milky way

Down To Earth: Insights On Africa From Outer Space

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Whitaker criticized Boeing’s safety culture in an interview with <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/faa-chief-issues-around-safety-culture-at-boeing-207038533652" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NBC</a>, arguing the company has prioritized production rather than safety, the latest criticism levied at the aircraft manufacturer following a January incident in which a Boeing 737 MAX 9 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH9wQOU7dbM" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">door plug blew out</a> in the middle of an Alaska Airlines flight.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Whitaker told NBC anchor Lester Holt in an interview preview (the interview is set to air on &#8220;NBC Nightly News&#8221; at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday) that Boeing’s priorities have “been on production and not on safety and quality,” citing a culture survey of Boeing and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/updates-boeing-737-9-max-aircraft" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">FAA’s audit</a>&nbsp;into the company.



Whitaker said the FAA’s focus is to shift Boeing’s attention to safety and quality.



When asked if certain protocols weren’t being met in terms of Boeing’s airplane production, Whitaker said the company’s process was “not what you would’ve expected if safety is the first priority,” adding if aircraft company procedures and production don’t make for a safe experience, “then the whole system is not working the way it should.”



Boeing didn’t immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Boeing has been under regulatory scrutiny since January over the Alaska Airlines door plug incident, which triggered an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/EIR2024NM420001_737MAX9.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">investigation into Boeing</a>&nbsp;and a production halt of Boeing 737 MAX airplanes. An NTSB report found four bolts designed to secure the door plug were missing after a repair job was completed that required the plug to be opened. An FAA audit of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems found&nbsp;<a href="https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/updates-boeing-737-9-max-aircraft#:~:text=To%20hold%20Boeing%20accountable%20for,in%20Renton%2C%20Washington%2C%20and%20Spirit" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">non-compliance issues</a>&nbsp;in Boeing’s manufacturing process control, parts handling and storage, and product control. The company has faced safety controversies in the past: In 2019, all 737 MAX planes were ordered out of the sky for over a year after two jets crashed, separate incidents linked to a questionable flight control system.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/03/06/ntsb-says-its-absurd-boeing-still-hasnt-provided-737-max-information-for-investigation/?sh=65b50a634e35">NTSB Says It’s ‘Absurd’ Boeing Still Hasn’t Provided 737 Max Information For Investigation&nbsp;</a>(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2024/03/10/doj-opens-new-criminal-investigation-of-boeing-737-max-incident/?sh=3913819a4a2b">DOJ Opens New Criminal Investigation Of Boeing 737 Max Incident</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/03/07/tire-falls-off-united-airlines-boeing-flight-while-departing-san-francisco/?sh=2325077f7b72">Tire Falls Off United Airlines Boeing Flight While Departing San Francisco</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2024/03/07/ntsb-investigating-another-boeing-737-max-aircraft/?sh=3ef425caad75">NTSB Investigating Another Boeing 737 MAX Aircraft</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)

US-AIRPLANE-TRAVEL-TRANSPORT

Boeing Has Put Production Over Safety, FAA Head Says Amid 737 Controversies

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Bitcoin slumped to its lowest price in weeks Tuesday, as the world’s largest cryptocurrency’s all-time high achieved last week looks to be fleeting.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Bitcoin fell 7% to below $63,000 by 2 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (10 a.m. EDT), the time zone typically used for cryptocurrencies as the digital assets are traded constantly.



Tuesday was bitcoin’s lowest price since March 5.



Bitcoin is now down about 15% from its all-time high of nearly $73,800 set last Thursday.



Other cryptocurrencies have similarly slumped, and prices of the next three largest digital assets – ether, Solana and Binance coin – are down more than 7% apiece over the last 24 hours.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-s-behind-bitcoin-s-price-drop">WHAT’S BEHIND BITCOIN’S PRICE DROP?</h2>



There’s no singular catalyst for the recent bitcoin selloff, but several factors are likely at play. Bitcoin’s price is historically much more volatile than stock prices, which combined with traders’ tendency to take profits following a massive runup in asset prices can cause notable downward swings. There’s also significantly elevated trading activity for bitcoin as spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) flooded institutional money into crypto, with daily dollar-value bitcoin volumes registering their 10 largest values over the last three weeks alone, according to Yahoo Finance&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/history?p=BTC-USD" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">data</a>. Finally, there’s been a noticeable uptick in liquidations for bitcoin futures contracts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theblock.co/data/crypto-markets/futures/btc-liquidations" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to Coinglass, which can send bitcoin prices lower as exchanges force users to close their leveraged bitcoin positions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



$320 billion. That’s about how much the combined market capitalization of the global crypto market is down over the last week,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/all-cryptocurrencies" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to CoinGecko. Bitcoin’s $180 billion slide accounts for much of the decline.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Bitcoin’s returns remain eye popping, as its roughly 40% gain over the last six months and 130% year-to-date far outpace those of leading stock indexes. The rally, which erased the steep decline suffered by bitcoin in 2022 as the crypto industry turned sideways amid higher borrowing costs and revelations of high-profile bad actors like FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, came as equity prices rose and investors grew excited about the prospects of the ETFs, which went live in January, attracting billions of dollars of fresh capital.<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/"></a>

Hand holding bitcoin

Bitcoin Falls Another 7%—Down 15% From Last Week’s Record

Nigerian media mogul Mo Abudu is collaborating with pan-African financial institution African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) through its Creative Africa Nexus to produce a short film directed by Hollywood actor Idris Elba and starring music icon Seal.



In a move to empower and foster Africa’s creative economy, the founder and CEO of EbonyLife Films will set the movie, Dust to Dreams, in Lagos, Nigeria. The film follows the relationship between a mother and her teenage daughter, as she meets her father for the first time, and Abudu will serve as both Executive Producer and Producer, with Heidi Uys as Supervising Producer. Alongside Abudu and Uys are producers Temidayo Makanjuola, Inem King, and Vanessa Demme. The cast for Dust to Dreams includes international music icon Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel, better known by his stage name Seal, along with Nse Ikpe-Etim, Eku Edewor, Atlanta Bridget Johnson and Constance Olatunde (also known as ‘Konstance’).



“I am delighted to be working with Afreximbank and this incredibly talented team. Dust to Dreams is a story close to my heart, and I&#8217;m thrilled to bring it to life with such passionate collaborators,” Abudu shares in a press statement.



Professor Benedict Oramah, President and Chairman of Afreximbank (who was also 2023 FORBES AFRICA African of the Year) adds in the statement that “the Bank is committed to supporting Africa&#8217;s creative industries through financing, facilitation, providing market access solutions, capacity building and other services”.



In a 2022 trade report by Afreximbank, Africa’s creative economy generates over a billion dollars in revenue yearly. In addition to that, the creative economy also creates thousands of jobs. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added in their 2021 report that Africa (along with the Middle East), represents about 3% of this output, generating about $58 billion. The creative economy is recognized as a highly diversified, resilient, and gender-neutral sector that provides high-skilled jobs and encourages young entrepreneurship, while supporting innovative forms of sustainable economic growth.



In the August-September 2023 issue of FORBES AFRICA, the award-winning Elba, who was the edition’s cover star, had said that his film, TV and digital production company, Green Door Pictures in the United Kingdom, would be collaborating with Abudu to empower and uplift talent from Africa.



At the 2024 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Leading Women Summit in Johannesburg on March 8, Abudu had spoken about her work: “You’ve got to find what you are passionate about. And when you truly find what I call your God-given purpose, I do not see it as a cost… [you need to] go out and do certain things and make a change.



“I spent a better part of my life [in England] and the manner in which I was treated as a black young girl growing up, I knew instinctively that I had to do something to change that and I wasn’t able to until I was 40…,” said Abudu, who also walked away with the FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Businesswoman Award at the 2024 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Awards.



“Often, when I am asked what I would say to my younger self, it would have been to have the courage to say ‘Mo, you need to go out there and start telling stories about who you are, about who your continent is, the history, the culture and the traditions.”

Most Attractive Youtube Thumbnail (5)

Mo Abudu, Idris Elba And Seal Come Together For Film Collaboration With Afreximbank

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Apple is discussing a potential deal to integrate Google’s artificial intelligence platform Gemini into the iPhone, Bloomberg&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-18/apple-in-talks-to-license-google-gemini-for-iphone-ios-18-generative-ai-tools?srnd=homepage-asia" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;Monday, in what could be a major deal between the rival tech giants and impact the wider AI industry.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-18/apple-in-talks-to-license-google-gemini-for-iphone-ios-18-generative-ai-tools?srnd=homepage-asia" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">According to</a>&nbsp;Bloomberg, Apple is holding “active negotiations” to license Gemini’s AI models to integrate its generative AI features into an upcoming software update to the iPhone later this year.



Apple’s discussions with Google follow similar talks it held with Microsoft-backed OpenAI—the maker of ChatGPT and DALL-E, the report adds.



Apple will release iOS 18—the latest version of its mobile operating system—later this year and it is&nbsp;<a href="https://9to5mac.com/2024/02/19/ios-18-ai-features-rumors/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">expected to integrate</a>&nbsp;several AI features, including a more powerful version of the digital assistant Siri.



While the iPhone maker is reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/52839eb2-6641-42a6-acd7-5d41e809c97a" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">working</a>&nbsp;on its own AI tools, which will run locally on its devices, the Gemini integration will allow it to tap into Google’s cloud-based and more complex generative AI services like a chatbot or image generator.



According to the report, the deal is yet to be finalized, and if it falls through, Apple may end up choosing an alternative AI provider like OpenAI or Anthropic.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



During Apple’s earnings call last month, CEO Tim Cook&nbsp;<a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4666956-apple-inc-aapl-q1-2024-earnings-call-transcript" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>: “In terms of generative AI… we&#8217;ve got some things that we are incredibly excited about that we&#8217;ll be talking about later this year.” He later added: “Let me just say that I think there’s a huge opportunity for Apple with generative AI and with AI, without getting into many more details or getting out ahead of myself.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



While the two companies are competitors in the smartphone market, they have for years had a multibillion-dollar deal to keep Google as the default search engine on Apple devices. That deal has come under&nbsp;<a href="http://theverge.com/2023/10/11/23913287/us-v-google-apple-search-deal" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">significant scrutiny</a>&nbsp;in the past year as Google battles a landmark antitrust case in the U.S. The search deal has allowed Google to maintain its almost uncontested dominance in search and a similar AI deal is likely to give it an edge over the likes of Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta. Because of this any potential deal between the two companies is likely to draw more scrutiny from regulators around the world.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



$18 billion. That is the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/technology/google-apple-search-spotlight.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;amount of money Google pays Apple each year to remain as the default search engine on iPhones.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



Earlier this year, Samsung&nbsp;<a href="https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-and-google-cloud-join-forces-to-bring-generative-ai-to-samsung-galaxy-s24-series" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">announced</a>&nbsp;its new flagship Galaxy G24 series of smartphones will use Gemini to power several AI features. Gemini is being used to power certain components of the phone’s text messaging, notes, voice recorder and keyboard apps. This integration included both the cloud-based Gemini Pro model and the smaller Gemini Nano model that runs locally on the phone.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-18/apple-in-talks-to-license-google-gemini-for-iphone-ios-18-generative-ai-tools?srnd=homepage-asia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apple Is in Talks to Let Google’s Gemini Power iPhone Generative AI Features</a> (Bloomberg)

Apple Holds Product Unveiling Event

Apple Reportedly In Talks With Google To Integrate Gemini’s AI Service Into The iPhone

Quantum security in Africa may not be as advanced as in other regions, but it is recognized as an important facet of computation in the future.



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“Right now, quantum computing is where classical computing was in the 1960s.”
</blockquote>



Quantum is about to change how computers are used to attack. No, it’s not here right now. It’s probably not going to be here tomorrow. But it’s coming and it’s time to pay attention.



The <a href="https://www.weforum.org/publications/quantum-readiness-toolkit-building-a-quantum-secure-economy/">World Economic Forum</a> is listening. It released a Quantum Readiness Toolkit in 2023 discussing the speed of quantum development, the increase in quantum computers and the cybersecurity threats these introduce. The <a href="https://www.epc.eu/en/publications/A-quantum-cybersecurity-agenda-for-Europe~526b9c">European Policy Centre</a> published its quantum security agenda the same year, putting the quantum conversation firmly in the security spotlight. Quantum has the potential to change everything, including cybersecurity.



“It will change how computers will be used to attack and defend, potentially cracking cryptographic algorithms at speed,” says Martin Potgieter, Co-Founder and Technical Director at Nclose in Cape Town, South Africa. “While quantum computers are largely experimental and impractical, the idea is that when they become mainstream, they will introduce exponentially greater computing power.”



Professor Bruce Watson, Director of the Computational Thinking for AI Group, in the Centre for AI Research (CAIR), in <a href="https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&amp;&amp;p=5a340fced2ef2890JmltdHM9MTcxMDQ2MDgwMCZpZ3VpZD0wZGZiMjgzOC1hMjgxLTZlZTQtMWY2ZC0zYmVhYTM0ZDZmZGMmaW5zaWQ9NTc5OQ&amp;ptn=3&amp;ver=2&amp;hsh=3&amp;fclid=0dfb2838-a281-6ee4-1f6d-3beaa34d6fdc&amp;u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20vYWxpbmsvbGluaz91cmw9aHR0cHMlM2ElMmYlMmZ3d3cuc3VuLmFjLnphJTJmJnNvdXJjZT1zZXJwLWxvY2FsJmg9M2pNJTJmdG5sWGR3SlUxZ3JuVG5FektKTXolMmIzdW8yQzhXJTJiTnIySkE5TEFaTSUzZCZwPWx3X3RwdCZpZz1GMjExNzZDMjBBREQ0QTg0ODI0NzBERTgyQTE4RTMwNyZ5cGlkPVlOODIwMngxODM0MjI0MDk2MDgzOTcwMjgwOQ&amp;ntb=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stellenbosch University</a>, South Africa, adds: “They are complex and expensive to build requiring facilities that have liquid nitrogen or liquid helium cooling with vibration-proof infrastructure that can cost upwards of $100 million just for the lab. Right now, quantum computing is where classical computing was in the 1960s.”



This is globally, not just in Africa. While some of the big names in technology are putting their money in the quantum basket, the technology and its capabilities are on par with the grainy photographs of giant computers and stacks of floppy discs over 70 years ago. The only difference is that countries like the United States (US) and China have the budgets to drive the quantum agenda.



“In Africa, there are several labs working on quantum experimentation but none are building full-blown quantum computers,” continues Watson. “It comes back to the cost point. Even though we have the scientists and the mathematicians and are building up this expertise on the continent we’ll be making use of overseas facilities for the foreseeable future.”



However, this doesn’t change the need to prioritize quantum security on the continent. Just as the first virus – the Creeper – released in 1971 was an unexpected side-effect of innovation back then, so it will be for the quantum computer in the future.



“I don’t see this as a region-specific phenomenon,” says Potgieter. “Should Sothern African Development Community and the African Union put quantum security on their agenda, if they don’t already? While we have a lot of problems in Africa that need attention and there are a lot of variables, it should be discussed at a high level.”



Looking ahead, it is very likely that sectors such as finance and healthcare – both very much in line to benefit from the potential of quantum – will look to implementing protocols and guidelines that will ensure they are protected. According to Jean-Francois Bobier, Partner and Vice President, Deep Tech at Boston Consulting Group, there are no regulations specifically for the banking sector in Africa at the moment. In Morocco, initiatives are driven by leading banking groups such as Attijariwafa Bank at a preliminary stage but central banks are still struggling to impose Transport Layer Security (TLS) with classical cypher algorithms.



“It’s likely Africa will follow the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines which are based in the US and we expect them to mandate the move to post-quantum cryptography in 2025,” he adds. “We anticipate it will be similar to Y2K, even worse because crypto is everywhere, has never been properly documented, and is sometimes hard-coded in applications and certificates.”



Quantum security in Africa may not be as advanced as in other regions, but it is recognized as an important facet of computation in the future. Steven Cohen, Managing Director of Triple S Solutions, adds: “The continent’s diverse economic and technological landscape means different countries will engage with this issue at different paces and levels of intensity. However, given the global nature of digital security and communication, quantum security is a conversation worth having.”



Over the next five years, quantum is unlikely to leap into mainstream but the groundwork laid in these years will be critical for shaping the quantum future in Africa.



As Watson concludes: “As far as I can tell, we don’t have a single significant post-quantum cryptography effort or quantum security effort for designing new algorithms. There are people across Africa advocating for the need for post-quantum cryptography but the vast majority don’t yet understand that they should be taking action now.”

Children Screen Time Rockets

Africa’s Quantum: Welcome To The 1960s

Globe-trotting billionaire Mo Dewji made a fortune in East Africa selling palm oil, rope, and soda. Now he claims to have the recipe for transforming Tanzania into an agribusiness powerhouse.



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Puffing on a nicotine vape and seated on a white leather chair in his $50 million home in Dubai, Mohammed “Mo” Dewji is waxing poetic about his plans to mechanize farming 2,500 miles away. “I want to make Africa, long term, a food basket for the world,” says the 48-year-old billionaire, who was born, raised and until recently lived in Tanzania. A framed photograph of a street in Zanzibar, the Tanzanian archipelago famous for lush white beaches, hangs on a wall behind him. “Why the hell are we not investing in agri?”



Dewji is well known in Tanzania, Africa’s fifth largest country with a population of 70 million. The football team owner and former politician controls a range of businesses through his consumer goods conglomerate MeTL Group, including textile manufacturing, edible oil refineries and his Mo Cola carbonated beverages line (named after himself). MeTL already grows crops like tea, avocados, and sisal (a natural fiber used in rope), which are vertically integrated into his other businesses.



Now Dewji wants to grow his agribusiness empire – by orders of magnitude. He is seeking to invest $250 million, including $100 million of his own capital, to buy and mechanize 100,000 hectares of farmland in Tanzania. MeTL would use the crops to feed its own businesses, then sell the surpluses to other Tanzanian firms, African countries and even European customers. Dewji says this “vision” came to him in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as soaring food and fertilizer prices worsened conditions of poverty and malnutrition in Africa.



Agriculture accounts for one-third of Tanzania’s annual GDP (of $75 billion), but roughly 90% of that farming is done by subsistence farmers tilling less than 5 hectares of land each. As a result, food insecurity in Tanzania is widespread: Over 30% of children are stunted, and 13 million Tanzanians live in extreme poverty, while “many others live just above the poverty line,” <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2022-05/Copy_of_tagged_Tanzania-Nutrition-Profile.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to </a>the U.S. Agency for International Development. That’s despite Tanzania being the second biggest receiver of foreign aid in Sub-Saharan Africa (behind only Ethiopia) between 1990 to 2010, <a href="https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2012-037.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">receiving </a>$26.85 billion. One of those aid suppliers, the World Bank, <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2024/01/05/ida-and-afe-tanzania-a-focus-on-people-cities-and-public-institutions-for-a-better-future#:~:text=As%20of%20August%202023%2C%20the,projects%20(%241.04%20billion%20commitments)." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">acknowledges</a> that Tanzania “still faces stubbornly high levels of poverty, in part as a result of dependence on low productivity agriculture.”



Bigger, more efficient farms could help solve Tanzania’s hunger problem. In developing countries, “Larger farms tend to be more efficient than their smaller counterparts,” a recent European Commission <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7546703/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">paper</a> found. Within Africa, increasing agricultural productivity was “a substantial driver of growth and poverty reduction” in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda—in contrast to Tanzania and those countries where farming growth lagged, according to a UN <a href="https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/done-sensibly-agricultural-development-can-reduce-poverty-in-africa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>. But agribusiness also comes with costs: human displacement, environmental degradation, disruption of local trading networks upending entire communities. Dewji says the benefits outweigh the cons. “Life goes on for the villagers but [in] a much better scenario,” he says.



Given Dewji’s prominence, any success—or failure—will have a big impact within Tanzania and potentially beyond. “This is larger than Tanzania: a success here could have implications for the continent as a whole,” says Margaret McMillan, an economics professor at Tufts University who studies economic development in East Africa, has lived in Tanzania and heard Dewji make his agribusiness pitch at a recent conference. “If he could use it as a flagship to show how [large-scale farming] can be done successfully, that would be amazing.”



That is Dewji’s long-term plan. He wants to prove his agribusiness model works in Tanzania, then raise money from global investors to replicate it in other African countries. His dream is to invest over $1 billion across 400,000 hectares—about the size of Rhode Island, or 0.3% of Tanzania’s total landmass—across at least three countries, including Zambia and Mozambique. “I spoke to the Zambian president, I spoke to the Mozambique president,” Dewji assured&nbsp;Forbes. “But I said, ‘Guys, let me first work it out in my home country first because I understand the intricacies. Let me show a project for Africa.’”



It’s not clear these dreams will come to fruition. Dewji has been trying to get this operation going for years. Eighteen months ago, he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/tanzanian-entrepreneur-dewji-plans-2-4-bln-grains-production-investment-via-spac-2022-07-08/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">sought&nbsp;</a>four times as much money, $4 billion, to fund an even larger version. He floated the idea of raising money by merging with a special purpose acquisition company and touted potential 10x returns. No partners came calling. “I never raised money because I failed to get the land,” he says.



Dewji has praised Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania’s president since 2021, for promoting more investment and private sector activity. Yet he has spent two years trying to buy 100,000 hectares of Tanzanian land from Hassan’s administration, and the deal isn’t done yet. The land is occupied by villagers and small-scale farmers but is technically owned by Tanzania’s government.



Documents seen by&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;describe a key pillar of his proposal: cultivating sugar cane and building a sugar refinery on 39,000 hectares in Tanzania’s Rufiji District, a rural region named after Tanzania’s largest river. Some 95,000 people live in the area,&nbsp;<a href="https://rufijidc.go.tz/statistics" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">scattered across</a>&nbsp;200 villages and hamlets. MeTL’s acquisition would involve land transfers in 17 villages and the factory would sit on a 860-hectare plot, according to the documents.



Dewji told Forbes that, eventually, he wants to grow grains (wheat, rice, corn), edible oil crops (sunflowers, soybeans, palm), and plant proteins (pigeon peas, yellow gram) on the other 61,000 hectares of land he’d like to acquire.



There have been accusations of land-grabbing, and no wonder. Dewji wants to become Tanzania&#8217;s biggest farmer in a single stroke. “Not many people live on the targeted land,” he says, but when asked how many people live there, he declines to say. The village councils and district authorities are on-board with MeTL’s plans, Dewji adds. That hasn’t alleviated concerns about corruption.



“There&#8217;s a pretty widespread perception that the government is underhanded in these large-scale transactions, that agreements are not above board,” says Ayala Wineman, a professor of agricultural and food economics at Michigan State University who has researched Tanzania and East Africa. “And oftentimes, it&#8217;s with the collaboration of local leaders who benefit from agreeing to hand over land.”



Dewji says that any villagers and subsistence farmers displaced by MeTL will get new land to continue their farming and animal husbandry, that there will be buffer zones between his operations and their new tracts, and that MeTL will fund new roads, hospitals, schools and running water systems. The documents seen by&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;promise all that and more, including annual dividends paid to local coffers and giveaways like new tractors.&nbsp;“MeTL has been extremely sensitive,” says Dewji, who calls it a “win-win” proposition.



He’ll need to defy recent history, then.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207398120#sec-1" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">A research paper</a>&nbsp;published last year analyzed four separate large-scale land purchases in Tanzania for the purposes of agribusiness. It found that the takeovers “exacerbate farmland inequality in nearby villages” and caused “resulting inequalities [that] are not offset by improvements in other dimensions of well-being.” These local populations are “not really benefiting from these projects in any meaningful way, be it employment, the adoption of new farming practices, improvement in food security, [or] incomes,” says Jonathan Sullivan, the study’s lead author and a professor of sustainability at the University of Arizona. “Maybe Mohammed Dewji is going to do something different, but I imagine it&#8217;s going to be pretty similar.”



And yet—Tanzania needs more food. Mechanized farming of staple goods like grains and proteins – as Dewji has proposed – could help feed hungry mouths through sheer economies of scale, improved efficiencies and surpluses. “In rural Tanzania, there is a lot of food acquired through purchase,” explains Wineman. “Subsistence farmers also engage with the market to access the food they need.”



If MeTL exports crops to other countries, as Dewji envisions, Tanzania’s budget will see some of that money. “Presumably, it could generate tax revenue for the government and foreign exchange earnings,” says McMillan, hitting on two key structural issues with Tanzania’s economy: its annual trade deficits and shrinking foreign exchange reserves. Above all, perhaps, private capital should get the chance to succeed where foreign aid has failed. One consultant for the World Bank, who spoke with&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;on the condition of anonymity, described the bank’s loans and investments in Tanzania (which total&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2024/01/05/ida-and-afe-tanzania-a-focus-on-people-cities-and-public-institutions-for-a-better-future#:~:text=As%20of%20August%202023%2C%20the,projects%20(%241.04%20billion%20commitments)." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">$8.3 billion</a>) as “moderately helpful at best.”



If anyone could pull off such an audacious venture, it’s probably Dewji, a man steeped in global ambition and daring, at times dangerous entrepreneurship. His great grandfather, born in Gujarat, India, was one of thousands of Indian Muslims who migrated to East Africa in the 1800s. His father started MeTL in the 1970s as a commodities trading firm. Dewji studied political science at Georgetown and after a brief stint on Wall Street, returned to Tanzania in 1999 to help run the family business. He grew MeTL through a series of deals in the 2000s as Tanzania privatized loss-making state-owned enterprises. He served in his country’s parliament for a decade, between 2005 to 2015—while simultaneously running MeTL. He owns a 49% stake in Simba S.C., a professional football club in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city. He frequently posts photos of himself at matches to his 4.4 million followers.



But what Dewji is most famous for is being kidnapped in October 2018 by a group of armed men in Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam. The assailants kept Dewji for 10 days and demanded ransom, but in a strange twist, they released him in an abandoned field without ever receiving any payment, and no assailants were ever found guilty in a Tanzanian court of any criminal charges.



Who was behind this odd sequence of events? Two well-placed individuals told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;it was widely rumored that Tanzania’s then-President John Magufuli had orchestrated the kidnapping in connection to a dispute with Dewji about MeTL’s massive sisal holdings (sisal is a fibrous plant used to make rope, carpet, shoes and paper). Dewji told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;that the kidnapping was “&#8217;politically motivated,” but did not provide further detail, other than that he never paid a ransom. “There’s parts of the puzzle I cannot speak about,” he said in a recent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjPSQEsUudg" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">podcast interview</a>&nbsp;about the kidnapping, calling the whole event “a paradox.”



Dewji attributes his good fortune to the prayers of ordinary Tanzanians, like those who buy Mo Cola in Dar es Salaam, or those who till the land that he hopes to buy one day. “The poor of the poorest people were praying for me,” Dewji says. “I&#8217;ll tell you something: I am indebted to Tanzanians, to Africans.”

Key Speakers on Day Two of The Qatar Economic Forum

Tanzania’s Richest Man Wants To Be Africa’s Biggest Farmer — If Everyone Gets Out Of His Way

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“Rassie sets the tone around the culture of the group. I am close with Felix Jones, and he just said to me the pleasure when you are with the Springboks is working with the players.”
</blockquote>



South Africa have bolstered their attack and defence coaching as they go in search of a ‘three-peat’ and a hattrick of Rugby World Cup titles in Australia in 2027.



Former head coach Jacques Nienaber, who was primarily tasked with working on the defence, has left for Irish side Leinster, while Felix Jones, who had a big part to play in their attacking patterns, has linked up with the English national team.



With Rassie Erasmus back in the fold as head coach to replace Nienaber, he scoured the rugby world for replacements he feels can take the Springboks to the next level.



Former New Zealand flyhalf Tony Brown will become the first ex-All Black to be part of a Springbok technical team, something that might have seemed impossible in the past.



But he did previously play the Durban-based Sharks and Stormers from Cape Town, so has links to the game in the country.



“The Springboks have a proud history and for me to come in and be a part of that is a huge honor. The way the Springboks play the game is admired around the world,” Brown says. 



“I believe I can make a massive difference in helping the team on attack. If we add a few things to the attacking side, to go with the impressive defence, we can be really dominant.



“We will never change the Springboks identity; I will just find ways to add to how they play the game.”



Brown says he had no hesitation in accepting the job when it was offered to him, despite his All Black allegiances. 



“As soon as Rassie rang, I said ‘yes’. I did not have to consult anyone. The challenge is massive and I can’t wait to get into it.”



Former Ireland international hooker Jerry Flannery is the new defence coach, having previously worked with Erasmus at Irish side Munster.



He too has earned praise for his work ethic and understanding of how to get the best out of players and form roles for them that suit their attributes.



“It is pretty evident when you talk to the players and South African people, the team is so important for the country,” Flannery says. “The players feel a bigger sense of purpose when playing for this team. The pride is there, and it is a really special thing. I will bring my very best and look to add to that.



“There is a massive willingness to learn. You watch the players, their eyes are laser-focused on what the coach is delivering to them. The players want to get better. That makes the coach’s job really easy.



“Rassie sets the tone around the culture of the group. I am close with Felix Jones, and he just said to me the pleasure when you are with the Springboks is working with the players.”



South Africa begin their 2024 season with a game against Wales in London on June 22, before they welcome Ireland for a two-Test tour the following month which pits the number one and two teams in the world against one another.



“The Irish test will be pretty personal for me,” Flannery says. “Ireland are playing some fantastic rugby. It will be a fantastic test for us.”

Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus at a media conference to introduce the new technical team and preview the forthcoming season

‘Laser-Focused’: What South Africa’s New-Look Springboks Technical Team Will Bring In Their Various Roles

As language models like ChatGPT and Gemini have ushered in a new age of AI in Silicon Valley, the world’s most powerful tech companies are looking ahead to drug discovery and digital biology.



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As Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang scanned the audience at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference this January in San Francisco, the biggest health tech event of the year, he acknowledged that he was on unusual ground.



“You’re not my normal crowd,” he said to the room of health and biology technologists, during a fireside chat with Recursion, a drug discovery firm that Nvidia pumped $50 million into last year.



The audience may not have been part of his core demographic, but he&#8217;s hoping that will change. Over and over again, Huang has touted digital biology as the “next amazing revolution” in technology. As the AI boom has swept Silicon Valley, Nvidia has built a more than $60 billion a year business and last summer became one of the few companies with a market cap in the trillions. In health and biotech, it sees more opportunities to fuel its growth.



“It&#8217;s been declared we are the next many-billion dollar business for Nvidia,” Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, told&nbsp;Forbes. She said the company aims to provide chips, cloud infrastructure and other tools to more biotech firms.



Now that large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google DeepMind’s Gemini have mainstreamed generative AI, several of the world’s most powerful tech companies are looking to biotech as the next frontier in artificial intelligence — a frontier where AI isn’t generating funny poems from a prompt, but rather the next life-saving drug.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“It&#8217;s been declared we are the next many-billion dollar business for Nvidia.”Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare
</blockquote>



At Nvidia, arguably a backbone of the AI revolution because of its powerful GPU chips, the bulk of investments at the company’s venture capital arm over the past two years have been in drug discovery. At DeepMind, the Google AI lab’s AlphaFold model — a groundbreaking tool for predicting protein structures — has been used by academic researchers over the past year to develop a &#8220;molecular&#8221; syringe to inject medicine directly into cells, and to research crops that are less dependent on pesticides. The interest in biotech is industry-wide: Microsoft, Amazon and even Salesforce have protein design projects as well.



While using AI in drug discovery is not exactly a new trend — DeepMind first unveiled AlphaFold in 2018 — executives at both DeepMind and Nvidia told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;that this is a breakthrough moment, thanks to a confluence of three things: the mass of training data now available, the explosion of computing resources and advancements in AI algorithms. “The three ingredients are here for the very first time,” Powell said. “This was not possible five years ago.”



AI has great potential in the biotech space because of its sheer complexity — just take the problem that AlphaFold targets. Proteins are the basic machinery of your body, managing a wide variety of functions. All of these functions are reliant on the three dimensional shape of a protein. Every protein is made up of a sequence of amino acids, and interactions between those amino acids and the external environment determine how the protein “folds” — which dictates its ultimate shape. Being able to predict the shape of a protein based on its amino acid sequences is of intense interest to biotech companies, which can use those insights to design everything from new drugs to improved crops to biodegradable plastics.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“It was always this kind of lunatic, fringe thing. Very much out of the mainstream.”David Baker, director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington
</blockquote>



This is where deep learning comes in: training AI models on hundreds of millions of different protein sequences and their underlying structures help those models uncover patterns in biology without necessarily needing to do the expensive computations required by a true molecular dynamics simulation. Fully simulating proteins requires such intense computational resources that institutions have designed and built supercomputers specifically to handle this type of problem, such as the Anton 2 at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.



The boom in drug discovery tech isn’t only coming from the AI tech giants. Since 2021, there have been 281 venture capital deals worldwide in AI drug discovery startups, accounting for $7.7 billion in investment, according to Pitchbook. The biggest spike occurred in 2021 as the pandemic took hold, when 105 deals were made, up from 65 the year before, tapering to 67 deals in 2023. In a&nbsp;<a href="https://pitchbook.com/news/reports/q4-2023-biopharma-report" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">report</a>&nbsp;published earlier this month, the analyst firm noted that there’s still a strong level of enthusiasm “for early-stage firms integrating AI into drug discovery and development.” The rise of generative AI has also sparked increased interest, said David Baker, director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington.



“It was always this kind of lunatic, fringe thing. Very much out of the mainstream,” said Baker. Now, he said, “everyone is talking about it.” Since the Institute of Protein Design’s founding in 2012, more than 20 startups have been spun out of the program, said Baker. Ten of them — including Archon Biosciences, which develops nanomaterials for regenerative medicine and cancer, and Lila, creating treatments for fibrotic diseases — have come in recent years, since 2021.



At DeepMind, it wasn&#8217;t until the Covid-19 pandemic hit that researchers truly understood the stakes of their research. They&#8217;d worked for almost 5 years to develop AlphaFold, and as they were retraining the model for its second generation, the entire world began sheltering in place because of a mysterious virus. “That really brought home the importance of the problem,” Pushmeet Kohli, vice president of science for DeepMind, told&nbsp;Forbes.



The result of DeepMind’s retraining was AlphaFold 2, a groundbreaking model that could so accurately predict protein structures that organizers at CASP, a worldwide research contest for protein folding, emailed DeepMind to ask if the company somehow cheated, Kohli recalled, laughing.



The effort has been so promising that cofounder Demis Hassabis spun out a separate company at Alphabet based on AlphaFold’s breakthroughs in 2021. Called Isomorphic Labs, the startup focuses on drug discovery and is helmed by Hassabis himself. Just this year, for example, Isomorphic Labs inked research deals with&nbsp;<a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/isomorphiclabs-website-public-artifacts/ISOMORPHIC_LABS_LILLY_07_01_24.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Lilly</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/isomorphiclabs-website-public-artifacts/ISOMORPHIC_LABS_NOVARTIS_07_01_24.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Novartis</a>&nbsp;collectively worth up to nearly $3 billion if all the milestones are met — and that doesn’t count lucrative royalties from potential drug sales that result from these partnerships.



In 2022, Nvidia unveiled BioNeMo, a generative AI platform that helps developers accelerate the training, deployment and scaling of large language models for drug discovery. At&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2024/02/15/nvidia-nventures-ai-investments/?sh=561e51446025">Nventures, the chip maker’s venture capital arm</a>, seven of the unit’s 19 overall deals have been in AI drug discovery startups, including Genesis Therapeutics, Terray and Generate Biomedicines — the largest of any investment category.



“The computer-aided design industry created the first $2 trillion chip company,” Powell said, referring to Nvidia and its stratospheric rise over the past year. “Why wouldn&#8217;t the same computer-aided&nbsp;drug discovery&nbsp;industry build the next trillion dollar drug company?” She added, “Which is why we are investing in the way that we are.”



Several other tech giants have their own protein folding efforts. Last year, Salesforce debuted ProGen, a protein-generating AI model, and Microsoft released EvoDiff, a similar, but open source model. Amazon also released protein folding tools for SageMaker, its AWS machine learning platform. Even ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, appears to be recruiting for science and drug design teams,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2024/01/02/tiktok-bytedance-pharmaceuticals-drug-discovery-science-biology-chemistry-ai-china/?sh=3b8b0b250874">reported</a>&nbsp;in January.



Still, as promising and hyped as AI drug discovery is, there are setbacks. It still takes years to get drugs through clinical trials, and while the FDA so far has okayed clinical trials for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fda.gov/science-research/science-and-research-special-topics/artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-aiml-drug-development" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">over 100 new drug candidates</a>&nbsp;that use AI or machine learning for development, it it will likely be years before any hit the market.



In some cases, the difficulties associated with drug discovery has caused big tech companies to abandon that research. Last August, Facebook parent Meta shuttered its protein folding team. The researchers at the unit later struck out on their own, founding a company called EvolutionaryScale,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/08/25/evolutionaryscale-ai-biotech-startup-meta-researchers-funding/?sh=191e6c7e140c">reported last year</a>. Meta declined to comment on the reason for shutting down the project.



One important bottleneck that tech companies will need to focus on is having enough training data. Newer foundational models like GPT are reliant on reinforcement learning, a method where algorithms can process unlabeled information through trial and error. That makes them even more reliant on high-quality data, Anna Marie Wagner, head of AI for synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks told&nbsp;Forbes. Last summer, her company&nbsp;<a href="https://investors.ginkgobioworks.com/news/news-details/2023/Ginkgo-Bioworks-and-Google-Cloud-Partner-to-Build-Next-Generation-AI-Platform-for-Biological-Engineering-and-Biosecurity/default.aspx" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">entered into</a>&nbsp;a five-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud to pair its AI expertise with Ginkgo’s ability to quickly generate biological data in its automated labs, which can then be immediately put back into the AI model as new training data. This combination, she said, helps to better optimize the discovery process.



Additionally, she said, Ginkgo has the ability to validate model predictions quickly. Counterintuitively, that makes the quirk of AI models sometimes hallucinating — producing wrong or misleading results to a prompt — “a feature, not a bug” because it can lead to interesting discoveries that might have been unimaginable to scientists. “We want the model to come up with the crazy stuff, because that’s where we start seeing order of magnitude improvements.”



Kohli puts the data problem more bluntly: “Garbage in, garbage out.” Still, as the industry works to fix those issues, he has already seen the impact that AI has had on biological research. &#8220;When I go to conferences and see the change in how biologists were doing their work earlier, and how they&#8217;re doing their work today, that&#8217;s an amazing transformation,” he said.

gettyimages-1173599543-594×594

Why Nvidia, Google And Microsoft Are Betting Billions On Biotech’s AI Future

Niger designer Alia Baré, also the daughter of a former president, is working to weave together a positive narrative of her country through fashion.



From gracing the runways of Joburg Fashion Week for African Fashion International (AFI) in South Africa to unveiling her latest collection in Lagos, Nigeria, Alia Baré, the fashion designer from Niger, is on a mission to democratize ‘Made of Africa’ fashion, ensuring its accessibility to the everyday African.



The daughter of former Nigerien President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, Baré, always attuned to feedback, shares insights with FORBES AFRICA during her second visit to Lagos, having been there 14 months prior. Fascinated by the allure of fashion at 17, she attended the International Festival of Fashion in Africa (FIMA) with her parents in 1998 — a transformative experience kindling her love for the industry. “I have always been interested in fashion but looked at it from afar as it was intimidating for a young African girl, given the perception of fashion as something superficial.



FIMA, in the middle of Niger’s desert with famous designers like Kenzo showcasing under the stars, left me with deep memories,” Baré shares.



However, it took a career shift 15 years later, enrolling at the Raffles Design Institute in Singapore, for Baré to heed the call of her creative instincts. “It took me many years, a banking career that was unfulfilling, to realize that I needed to follow this inner voice for creation. At 32 years old, with two toddlers at home, I registered for a full-time diploma in fashion, and to date, have never regretted it.”



Baré’s design style bears the imprints of her diverse experiences in Senegal and India. “I fell in love with the diversity of fabrics and colors in India during my three years there.” The majesty and feminine characteristics of the Asian aesthetic resonate in her creations, drawing a parallel between Asian and African cultures in craftsmanship and values.



After graduating, Baré returned to West Africa, choosing Senegal as the base for her eponymous brand. “Senegal was a natural option for me, as my family was living there, and it gave me the opportunity to open my own workshop, as I have always been driven by action.”



Launched in 2015, she navigated the competitive landscape with a focus on ‘Made in Africa’ garments, gradually building her brand through consistency in quality and aesthetics. The emergence of concept stores became pivotal in connecting with the right clientele.



Speaking at TedxADU in Niger in 2019, Baré imparts wisdom, urging her audience to heed their inner voice, conquer challenges, and strive for their best selves.



Growing up as the daughter of a former president, Baré reflects on her parents’ determination to provide her with a grounded and normal childhood. “Our parents always tried their best to raise us as normal as possible and, more importantly, to stay grounded to earth,” she reveals. Despite the tumultuous political backdrop, she emphasizes that they were deliberately shielded from privileges like diplomatic passports and business class flights. 



This upbringing, she believes, created a balanced life for her and her siblings. The tragic assassination of her father in 1999 marked a turning point in their lives. Baré recalls the importance of family bonds during that challenging period. “We hung on to each other as a family and on the simple things that sounded normal beside our universe collapsing.” This resilience, instilled by her parents, became a lifeline during the tumultuous times that followed. Baré acknowledges that her life can be divided into “before and after 1999”, but she stresses that her father’s values and love for the country continue to shape her identity. 



“My father’s love for his country and Africa is a strong part of my DNA and defines who I am as an artist and as a woman,” she asserts. This deep-rooted connection to her heritage and a commitment to showcasing a positive image of her culture propel her artistic endeavors. Reflecting on her journey, she resists the notion that the experiences of that time defined her. “What I am today is, of course, the result of my fights, my struggles, my pain, and most importantly, my will to overcome all those obstacles to express a positive image of my culture and my love for my country.” Her determination and resilience emerge as driving forces behind her artistic expression.



The DNA collection is a fusion of Nigerien symbols and South African graphic design. Baré sought to redefine Niger’s traditional culture, infusing her narrative and vision into the designs.



Collaborating with a South African graphic designer, they crafted patterns reflecting both their visions, resulting in a visually stunning collection.



“The culture of Niger is well-known worldwide with the Tuareg jewelry, the blue men [of the desert], and many other things, but it is usually very traditional and hasn’t evolved for quite some time. I realized that I really wanted to talk about the culture of my beloved country but with my own narrative and vision reflecting the evolution of society, the world, and myself. So I decided to reach out to a South African graphic designer as I fell in love with the bold aesthetic found while I visited Johannesburg for the first time.”



Living in different countries has endowed Baré with adaptability and keen observation. “The most important thing I gained from living and traveling around the world is also a sense of adaptation. Therefore, I always keep in mind while creating my designs that they have to be versatile, easy to wear, easy to maintain, but most importantly, they can be worn everywhere in the world without looking like ‘a costume’.”



Participating in AFI’s Joburg Fashion Week is a constant highlight for Baré. Beyond the creative process, the event’s ‘shop the runway’ feature offers insights into the business side, fostering direct feedback from customers and enhancing her understanding of ocal and international markets.



At the launch in Temple Muse, Lagos, Baré plays the perfect host to fashion enthusiasts and supportive colleagues. Among them is Nigerian model Okorie Kenneth, who praises her collection: “I have known Alia and her brand for a year or two. I love the collection.



The collection is beautiful because this is not usually her niche or what she normally does.



But she found a way, and I love the fact that she has been experimenting with different fabrics and styles, which is beautiful. And it’s not just for older women; it’s for Gen Z girls. So yes, it works a lot, and I love it.”



Addressing environmental concerns, Baré emphasizes the inherently sustainable nature of African designers. Embracing slow fashion and prioritizing local production, she aims to create a virtuous circle of consumption. By selling mainly in the African region, reducing transportation, and encouraging mindful consumption, she believes in making a positive impact on African consumers’ habits. Baré stays true to her cultural roots while embracing modernity. 



“I once met a Reiki master in Cambodia, and I was sharing with him my struggles to find my real identity with all these influences and evolutions in the modern world. He just told me that a tree doesn’t need to be rooted in soil as my spirit is evolving through time and space, so are my values and identity. I am a floating tree with free roots enriching itself from life and experiences but doesn’t change its true nature.”

REZE2441

Culture Couture: A First Daughter And Designer’s Journey From Niger To Senegal

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Here’s how the controversial new TikTok ban—which passed the House—would work, its chances of passing the Senate and which American companies could potentially purchase the app and avoid a full TikTok shutdown in the U.S.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



The bill will now move to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain future, likely facing more scrutiny from Democrats, with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., confirming in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/tiktok-ban-bill-house-vote-03-13-24/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">statement</a>&nbsp;the Senate will “review the legislation” but did not promise to hold a vote.



However, both chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1767924695838445612" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">statement</a>&nbsp;they were “encouraged” by the bipartisan vote on Wednesday and “look forward to working together to get this bill passed through the Senate and signed into law.”



TikTok bans have traditionally been supported by Republicans in the last few years—with Sen. Josh Hawley pushing one&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/11/07/hawley-calls-for-tiktok-ban-over-alleged-anti-israel-content/">several times</a>&nbsp;in 2023—but some Republicans have expressed concerns about the House’s bill, including Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who told&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1767276119621795934?s=20" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">CNN</a>, “I&#8217;m not sure that this is the answer.”



If the bill is passed in the Senate, President Biden said he would likely sign it into law, telling reporters last week “if they pass it, I&#8217;ll sign it.”



Meanwhile, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is lobbying senators on Capitol Hill today,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-house-vote-force-bytedance-divest-tiktok-or-face-ban-2024-03-13/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Reuters</a>&nbsp;reported.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-it-really-a-ban">IS IT REALLY A BAN?</h2>



Yes. The bill, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, will ban TikTok or any app owned or distributed by a company controlled by a “foreign adversary nation.” It also bans web hosting companies from storing files or data from TikTok. This provision would force TikTok to search for an American buyer or face a shutdown in the U.S., possibly similar to what happened after&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/03/23/heres-what-happened-when-this-massive-country-banned-tiktok/?sh=3cc3721f2c03">India banned the app</a>&nbsp;in 2020.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-will-tiktok-shut-down-immediately-if-this-becomes-law">WILL TIKTOK SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY IF THIS BECOMES LAW?</h2>



No. TikTok will not stop working in the U.S. immediately if the bill is signed into law by President Biden. The bill would give ByteDance a 180-day grace period to sell TikTok, allowing it to continue operating in the U.S. temporarily until it finds a buyer. If not, it will become illegal for app stores, like those operated for Apple and Android devices, to host the app or distribute updates. It is also unclear if the TikTok ban would survive legal challenges. President Trump’s attempts to ban the app were continuously put on hold by federal judges, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aforbes.com+montana+tiktok&amp;sca_esv=febbb2d9e55257df&amp;source=hp&amp;ei=S7DxZcHSIKanptQPgPGqqAw&amp;iflsig=ANes7DEAAAAAZfG-W0fYTSGDuJ_uQiKyTqqd9iSCEjte&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiBpLKCsvGEAxWmk4kEHYC4CsUQ4dUDCBc&amp;uact=5&amp;oq=site%3Aforbes.com+montana+tiktok&amp;gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6Ih5zaXRlOmZvcmJlcy5jb20gbW9udGFuYSB0aWt0b2tIyB1QAFiMHHAAeACQAQCYAZcBoAGpDqoBBDI4LjK4AQPIAQD4AQGYAgWgAqwDwgIREC4YgAQYsQMYgwEYxwEY0QPCAg4QLhiABBiKBRixAxiDAcICCxAAGIAEGLEDGIMBwgIOEC4YgAQYsQMYxwEY0QPCAgsQLhiABBjHARjRA8ICBRAuGIAEwgIFEAAYgATCAgsQLhiABBixAxiDAcICCBAuGIAEGLEDwgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAg0QABiABBixAxhGGPkBwgIREC4YgwEYxwEYsQMY0QMYgATCAg4QLhiABBjHARivARiOBcICCxAuGIAEGMcBGK8BwgIOEC4YrwEYxwEYgAQYjgXCAhMQLhiDARjHARixAxjRAxiABBgKmAMAkgcDMy4yoAfBVg&amp;sclient=gws-wiz#:~:text=Montana%20Governor%20Signs,com%20%E2%80%BA%20Business" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Montana’s statewide ban</a>&nbsp;on the app was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/11/30/montanas-tiktok-ban-blocked-by-federal-judge/">blocked in November</a>. The state has since&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/montana-appealing-ruling-that-blocked-state-barring-tiktok-use-2024-01-03/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">appealed the ban</a>&nbsp;to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-soon-could-tiktok-be-shut-down">HOW SOON COULD TIKTOK BE SHUT DOWN?</h2>



The 180-day sale period begins after the bill is enacted—after it passes the Senate and is signed into law by the president. So a ban could happen within six months of Biden’s signature.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-who-could-purchase-tiktok">WHO COULD PURCHASE TIKTOK?</h2>



It remains to be seen if any companies would be able to quickly purchase the massively popular app, which ByteDance last valued at $223.5 billion. Microsoft previously tried to purchase TikTok in 2020, but the deal quickly collapsed after former President Trump’s executive orders banning the app were blocked by federal judges. Oracle, the cloud computing firm, and Walmart were part of a group that also tried to purchase TikTok in 2021, but the deal was also shelved after Biden took office, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-sale-to-oracle-walmart-is-shelved-as-biden-reviews-security-11612958401" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a>&nbsp;reported.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critics">CHIEF CRITICS</h2>



A total of 66 representatives voted against the bill on Wednesday, including members of the House Progressive Caucus. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., voted no on the bill that she called “incredibly rushed” in a social media post on Wednesday. “There are serious antitrust and privacy questions here, and any national security concerns should be laid out to the public prior to a vote,” she said. Others joined a press conference with TikTok creators organized by Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., on Tuesday afternoon. Garcia criticized the argument that TikTok posed a national security threat, and said a classified briefing on TikTok failed to convince him that the threat was serious. “There was nothing in that briefing that changed my mind that this is an immediate national security threat, and that we’re going to remove this platform for 170 million Americans.” The most surprising critic of the bill, however, is former President Trump, who came out against the ban after it passed through committee last Friday. During his last year in office, Trump tried multiple times to ban TikTok by executive action—all of which were blocked by federal judges before being rescinded by the Biden administration. In an interview with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/11/cnbc-transcript-former-president-of-the-united-states-donald-trump-speaks-with-cnbcs-squawk-box-today-.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">CNBC</a>&nbsp;on Monday, Trump said “the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.”

In this photo illustration the TikTok logo seen displayed on

TikTok Ban: When It Could Happen And Who Could Stop It

In 1849, Jean-Baptiste wrote “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” 



Apparently, turbulence doesn’t change reality but embeds it. I don’t agree when I see what’s happening in Africa today. 



A continent long battered and bruised by exogenous factors, now battling climate, the new enemy.



Emissions are shamelessly borderless yet all pervading.



Rivers are running dry, crop patterns are changing and erosion is destroying livelihoods in Africa, despite our near-zero contribution to global warming. For an already beleaguered continent, the specter of ensuing hunger and famine could be a death knell.



Adapting Africa’s food systems to climate change is imperative as a rise by 2 degrees celsius will profoundly affect African food security. And remember that almost $100 billion is spent on food imports currently.



The import bill gets worse with wars and geopolitics that make prices soar making it unaffordable to many. Remarkably, more than 50% of food imports is by the Big 5: Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, and Nigeria.



Large, well-endowed countries are the worst offenders. Worryingly, imports are basic necessities like grain, sugar, and other staples thus underlining the frightening fragility of food security.



Already one in five Africans go to bed hungry.



But this is a continent that is home to 60% of the world’s arable land. Data now shows that barring the Big 5 countries, the smaller ones are actually becoming net exporters of food.



Challenges exist of course: 30% to 40% is added to the cost of goods traded between African countries because of poor infrastructure. In Madagascar, the erstwhile road to the Alaotra-Mangoro region stunted agricultural productivity.



But now a new road has reduced travel time from eight hours to three.



Farmers are thrilled to see an increase in their margins as they reduce their losses.



Sadly, however, the agricultural value per farmworker in sub- Saharan Africa is still only $1,526 while in the United States, it exceeds $100,000. Heartwarming stories of resilience, adaptation and innovation exist, and it means this will improve.



Panuka Farms in Zambia modernized its cold storage and switched to greenhouse cultivation. This reduced food losses and climate-proofed production.



They now supply high-value vegetables such as English cucumber and replaced imported fresh produce to local retailers. New jobs were created as recent graduates now manage the farm.



In Lesotho, Happy C&amp;J Village Farm added a borehole and drip irrigation to directly water individual plants rather than casting spray over a large area. The process conserves soil nutrients and minimizes water waste.



Plastic tunneling protects lettuce, cabbage, tomato, and potato from hail. Thus, crops are grown throughout the year despite the increases in climate change leading to hailstorms and chilly weather.



Scaling up climate-smart practices, strengthening research and seed systems, support from agro-meteorological studies is in vogue for better crop management.



A moot point, however, is how agricultural subsidies in developed countries and intra-Africa tax on food products still unfortunately affect African production.



A population of a billion-plus, forecasted to be two billion, will, therefore, not sit idle. Mouths to feed and poverty will be fertile land for social unrest and untold human suffering otherwise.



Technology is crucial and transference of global knowhow an imperative. Market integration through improved intra-Africa infrastructure, regional cooperation and policy level-support are gradually forthcoming.



Institutions like the Africa Finance Corporation are at the forefront of initiating, developing, and investing in local value-addbased industries, and provide financing and logistics support to enhance export earnings and employment.



Necessity is the mother of all invention.



The African continent is not a basket case. Countless crises, conflicts and catastrophes have been encountered and managed on the continent. We are tough when the going gets tough.



When the world writes us off, we typically rise and survive.



Food self-sufficiency is a paramount condition to growth. It will be our biggest export as well. Let’s make our own granary and then for the world.



We owe it to all humanity

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