The namesake star of Nickelodeon’s preschool hit&nbsp;Ryan’s Mystery Playdate&nbsp;appears on set in a bright orange space suit ready to embark on an imaginary interplanetary adventure with his parents.&nbsp;



With a snap of the clapboard his mother, Loann, offers up the skit’s opening line — “Spaceship to aliens&#8230;” — before her then-7-year-oldcuts her off: “It’s ‘Mothership&nbsp;to aliens…,” her son corrects, stopping production and the 58-member TV crew behind it.



“Ryan, never correct the mother ship,” gently chides executive producer Jeff Sutphen from the director’s chair.



Ryan shrugs off the admonition. He routinely memorizes everyone’s lines, and will sometimes be caught on camera mouthing dialog along with his parents — forcing the occasional re-shoot. His father, Shion Kaji, jokes that if he hesitates even slightly with his delivery, he worries Ryan might steal his lines.



“I have a lot of words,” Ryan says in his own defense.



Not that he needs to defend himself. One of the leading child influencers on the planet, his Ryan’s World YouTube channel boasts 24 million subscribers, and Forbes estimates he earned $26 million in 2019, enough to make him the country’s<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2019/12/18/the-highest-paid-youtube-stars-of-2019-the-kids-are-killing-it/#64bd924a38cd">&nbsp;highest paid YouTuber.</a>



Kaji’s mindshare among preschoolers is so big that ViacomCBS network came running to him in its bid to stem the outflow of child viewers. T<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnchmielewski/2020/02/24/viacomcbs-has-lost-its-children-nickelodeon-is-looking-for-them-on-youtube/#572ad1597a70">wo years ago Nickelodeon turned to Pocket.watch</a>, a digital studio devoted to turning YouTube stars into global franchises, to bring Ryan to the kids’ TV network that’s been home to such iconic children’s characters as SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer.



Welcome to the new world of children’s television. Once the domain of educators, pediatricians and psychologists concerned with fostering child development and school readiness, the D.I.Y. culture of the internet has thrown open the doors to anyone with an attention-grabbing idea. Sure, you can still find Big Bird on TV (though the feathery&nbsp;Sesame Street&nbsp;icon has moved his nest to HBO) and reruns of&nbsp;Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood&nbsp;online. But those classics are getting crowded out by shows like JibJab’s Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, whose StoryBots monochromatic robot characters were born on YouTube and now live on Netflix, or the husband-and-wife duo, Derek and Cannis Holder, who created the popular YouTube channel&nbsp;Little Baby Bum, a collection of nursery rhymes.&nbsp;



These home-grown shows have attracted global audiences in the millions. “If you were a creator in the ‘80s, you&#8217;d walk into Nickelodeon and Disney and hope that the executive in charge of making decisions thought that you had something worthwhile,” says Gregg Spiridellis. “That person is no longer relevant if you&#8217;re a creator with the ability to actually make something. You can put it out into the world and get validation. These open platforms — YouTube, Instagram — give you the opportunity to go prove the worth of your content in a way that was never possible before.”&nbsp;



A digital native, Ryan grew up on YouTube, singing along to nursery rhyme videos and watching “unboxing videos,” one of the peculiar genres of the platform, in which objects — toys, electronics, you name it — get unpacked to great fanfare. The breakout began one spring day when Ryan, age 3, asked his mother: “How come I’m not on YouTube?”



On a lark, Loann drove him toTarget and bought a Lego Duplo train set, which Ryan unpacked in his first “unboxing” video. Shot onan iPhone without edits, attention to lighting or animation, the video looks painfully amateurish today. Her son loved them, though, and so did family members in Vietnam and Japan, who enjoyed watching him grow up from a distance. “YouTube was this great platform for us to broadcast Ryan’s growth,” Shion recalls.



A single video changed the trajectory of the home-movie project and thrust the Kajis into the vanguard of YouTube’s burgeoning tribe of family vloggers. A student of the new medium, Ryan had noticed a novel twist to the unboxing genre, which featured kids cracking open giant eggs with multiple toys, instead of ripping open one box at a time.



The Kaji version became “GIANT Lightning McQueen Egg Surprise,” a seven-minute video, in which Ryan is roused from his Lightning McQueen race-car bed to extract toy cars, trucks and airplanes of various sizes from a giant red egg. The resulting video has been watched more than 1 billion times. Suddenly they found themselves accidental successors to TV legends like Fred Rogers,&nbsp;Sesame Street&nbsp;creators the Children’s Television Workshop (now the Sesame Workshop) and Muppet-maker Jim Henson.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“After four months, we were one of the top kids’ creators,” says Shion, in an interview conducted from the family’s 9,000-square-foot production facility in Texas. Still, as  improbable as it seems, no one in the family thought about cashing in on all that traffic until Loann stumbled upon a post about monetization while seeking tips on improving the quality of the videos. 



“I was like, ‘Hon, you can make money on YouTube.’ Shion’s response, recalls Loann, was&nbsp; ‘Are you sure?’”&nbsp;



She was, and she set a goal of $20 a week, enough to cover the cost of buying a new toy for Ryan to unbox each week, like a never-ending birthday celebration. When the first check arrived, for $100, “I was so proud,” she says. It was nothing, in retrospect: By the fall of 2016, the charismatic 4-year-old with an infectious smile and affinity for&nbsp;Thomas &amp; Friends&nbsp;trains and cars had amassed an online following of 4 million subscribers.&nbsp;



Shion and Loann quit their day jobs that year and devoted themselves full-time to the family’s budding media empire. They hired a video editor so they could focus on that aspect of production they enjoyed most: spending time with Ryan, playing around and filming. To shelter their son from burnout, they drew inspiration from Japan’s Virtual YouTubers, which feature anime-style cartoon characters who attract sizable online followings. The Kajis created animated alter-egos like superhero Red Titan (Ryan drew the stick-figure prototype himself), and an adventurous alligator, Gus the Gummy Gator. Today they have a roster of six virtual “friends” for Ryan, each depicting a facet of his personality.



As the output expands, so does the team. Twenty-eight animators, video editors and other creatives working for the family’s production company, Sunlight Entertainment, now generate the steady flow of educational videos, kid-friendly science experiments and cartoons that populate the eight channels that comprise Ryan’s World.&nbsp;



It’s not been a completely smooth ride, all things considered. The consumer watchdog Truth in Advertising filed a complaint last August with the Federal Trade Commission, accusing the Kajis’ YouTube channel, previously known as Ryan ToysReview, of deceptive advertising, saying it’s difficult for preschoolers to discern Ryan&#8217;s “innocent antics” from paid endorsements. The complaint cited as an example one June 2019 video, in which Ryan operates a make-believe Hardee’s drive-through window and delivers a “Star Pals” meal to his father. It’s the same month that the fast food chain announced a toy promotion featuring Ryan.



The regulatory agency hasn’t announced any public action against the YouTube channel, though this month the FTC said it would begin reviewing its guidelines concerning influencer marketing on social media, potentially ensnaring the Kajis and other online influencers in a cultural and political scrum over the commercialization of childhood.



Shion says he welcomes direction from regulators and works with a legal team to help identify online content that’s advertising. “The one thing that was very difficult for all the influencers (is) there was no clear guidance from FTC until recently,” he says.



Sorting it all out will be critical to keeping the millions flowing, even as Shion and Loann strive to balance the demands of Ryan’s budding entertainment career with their desire to give their son the life of a typical elementary-school kid. He attends public school and maintains a crowded calendar of after-school activities that includes playing&nbsp;Fortnite&nbsp;and&nbsp;Roblox&nbsp;with friends online, swimming (he’s perfecting his backstroke), computer coding, Taekwondo (he’s working toward earning a green belt) and gymnastics, where Ryan’s kinetic energy is expressed through headstands and flips.



In a room surrounded by scores of toys that bear his image, the child phenomenon reflects about the quirks of internet celebrity, and how complete strangers will approach him, and call him their best friend.



“They&#8217;re like ‘Ryan I saw you on my iPad and your mom and dad on my iPad too,’” Ryan says, nervously tugging on the long sleeves of his green shirt and swiveling back and forth on an office chair. He says he’s found it easy to make friends at school. “Some knew me just from who I am. Some people know me from YouTube.”



Put him in front of a camera, though, and he comes alive. Posing for photos, he offers up a fresh expression with every shutter click, sporting a big grin and thumbs up, an eye roll with a tongue out, another confidently grinning with arms folded, poking a finger at the lens, shrugging. It may be a hint of things to come. At the end of his first season on Nickelodeon, he penned a thank-you note to the director.



“Next season,” he wrote. “I want to direct, too.”

Funimation Films Presents The North American Premiere Of “My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising”

How Ryan’s YouTube Playdate Created An Accidental (Eight-Year-Old) Millionaire

CEO of Rwanda Development Board (RDB), Clare Akamanzi



Advertorial by Rwanda Development Board 



1. Looking at RDB’s ten-year journey, what did it take to get it here?



It took a bold vision by H.E. Pres Paul Kagame, and the
entire Government, to prioritize private sector development, as the driver of
Rwanda’s socio-economic transformation.&nbsp;
This formed the basis for the creation of the Rwanda Development Board,
as a one stop institution to provide key services, and expedite decisions
affecting investors as well as reforms for a very conducive business
environment. 



We wanted to bring all the agencies responsible for business
registration, investment/export promotion, privatization and specialist
agencies which support the priority sectors of ICT and tourism as well as SMEs
and human capacity development in the private sector all under one roof. This
meant less legwork for investors as they had one major institution to work
with, as well as time and financial savings for Government. 



This vision has paid off. Today, Rwanda, at 38th rank, is
the only Low-Income Country in the top 50 of the 2020 World Bank Ease of Doing
Business Report and is the 2nd easiest place to do business in Africa after
Mauritius. Consequently, Rwanda has been recognized as the top global reformer
by the World Bank with the highest number of implemented reforms over the last
ten years. 



Similarly, in terms of investments into Rwanda, last year we
surpassed the US$ 2 billion target for the first time in the country’s history,
with investments registered over US$ 2.006 billion in 2018 up from about US$
400 million registered in 2010. This is a sign of the continuous investor
confidence in Rwanda by both local and foreign investors. Tourism has also
doubled within the same period reaching over $400m today, while exports of our
key products in agriculture, minerals and manufactured products quadrupled over
the last decade.



As an institution, I am also proud to say that we are a
competitive employer, with many talented Rwandans are aspiring to join our
workforce, and be part of a unique opportunity to contribute to Rwanda’s
transformation. 



2. Rwanda’s seems to have claimed her place in the world, what did it take to achieve that?



Apart from the ambitious reforms that we have put in place
over the last decade, we have done our best to showcase Rwanda to the world as
the best place to invest and do business, the best place to set up a factory
and sell Made in Rwanda products as well as the best place to enjoy exciting
tourism offerings. 



Last year, we signed a strategic partnership with two major
global players, Arsenal Football Club in London and Alibaba from China. 



The deal with Arsenal aims to market the country under the
‘Visit Rwanda’ brand. Through the partnership, we have been able to increase
people’s knowledge and interest in Rwanda.



Let me illustrate. Since the announcement of the partnership
in May last year, we have seen a lot of interest especially through our online
presence:



• Within two weeks of the launch, 58 news stories reached a
global audience of 1.2 billion people;



• Google searches of Rwanda in the US increased by over
1000% for keywords like: ‘Visit Rwanda, Rwanda travel, Rwanda tourism, and
Kigali Rwanda hotels’.



• Visit Rwanda is now seen 35 million times each time
Arsenal plays.



• Visit Rwanda social media posts by Arsenal reach a direct
global audience of over 15 million people. 



In the same way, Rwanda partnered with Alibaba Group in October
2018 to bring Rwanda tourism packages closer to the Asian market through
Alibaba’s online travel platform, Fliggy, as well as Rwandan products through
Tmall. We are selling coffee and tourism on these platforms and will soon add
chillis.



We also participate in global platforms such as the World
Economic Forum, trade fairs, and investments forums to Showcase Rwanda to the
World. 



3. The country is still struggling to curb the balance of trade deficit, now what is being done deliberately to improve this position?



We are exploring different ways of solving the country’s
trade deficit by looking at ways to benefit from Rwanda’s strategic regional
positioning in order to increase exports as well as domestic manufacturing.



Rwanda has strategic access to four countries and a
catchment area of a consumer market of nearly 60 million people reachable by
road, barely four hours away from Kigali in all directions. This market has a
purchasing power of US$1-2 billion in basic fast-moving consumer goods and
another US$1.5 billion in consumer durables. To maximize the benefits from this
market, the Rwandan Government established Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to
enhance the country’s competitiveness as a commercial/logistics hub, taking
advantage of her natural strategic location through the promotion of export
oriented industrial activities as well as re-exports, manufacturing and
services.



Today, over 29 companies are already set up in the Kigali
SEZ and others have set up in the other SEZs located country-wide, manufacturing
made in Rwanda products using raw materials sourced from Rwanda, most of which
is exported after.



If you look at Rwanda’s 2018 exports, a big part of that
were processed products made by companies in the SEZs. For example, we have
Africa Improved Foods who make nutritious foods using soya, milk, maize among
other products. They buy from farmers, process then export it. Last year, they
exported goods worth almost US$ 30 million.



Soon we hope Rwandan companies will also start exporting
cars assembled by VW, phones made by Maraphones, pharmaceutical products made
by Cooperpharma.



Lastly, we are also growing exports in Services,
particularly tourism, innovation through our innovation ecosystem among others.




&nbsp;4.&nbsp; 70% of working population in agriculture with the coming of the fourth industrial revolution and a focus on manufacturing, is there a plan to reskill this population?



In terms of creating jobs, Rwanda has been creating new jobs
every year and targets to create over 1.5 million jobs over the next seven
years. To achieve this, industrialization is key to absorb our youth who can
move from agriculture to basic manufacturing. A very good example is in
garment-making. Pink Mango located in the Kigali SEZ will employ over 1,500
people. If we have 100 more businesses like Pink Mango in the SEZs, it would
have industrial parks as the primary source of jobs in Rwanda. We are also
preparing to move further in the industrial chain in order to take advantage of
the industrial revolution.&nbsp; This is
through investing in vocational training as well as world-class STEM education.
Carnegie Mellon University in Rwanda, for example has produced over 100
graduates over the last 10 years. Others training in STEM are Africa Leadership
University, African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), as well as the
University of Global Health University, in public health. 



5. What are the aims/goals for the next 10 years?



RDB’s vision is to work with our partners to transform Rwanda into a dynamic global hub for business, investment, and innovation.&nbsp; The next 10 years will deepen this goal. We will continue to foster and fast track private sector led economic growth across all sectors, and make Rwanda every investor’s first choice. Our best years are yet to come.

Clare bio pic

Rwanda Aspires To Become A Business And Innovation Hub In The Next Decade

Picture this: remote rural Africa, where communities assiduously farm vast stretches of arable land not knowing anything about digital technology or drones that can transform their lives.
Now picture this: forward-thinking innovators and entrepreneurs who swap the city for the village and lend these communities the tech and savvy to change farming – and their fortunes – forever.
Agriculture, the mainstay of Africa’s informal economies, needs a facelift, and some new faces to talk tech to power. Agri-tech is the buzzword, and we profile three innovators spearheading change in their communities. They grew up on these farms, and knowing their earth best, have created the technology they need, in turn revolutionizing agriculture, from the little corners of Africa.
<h4>‘Clarity From Above’ 
James Paterson, South Africa</h4>
<div id="attachment_36233" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36233" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-36233" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO.jpg 1181w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />James Paterson. Photo supplied.</div>
An unidentified flying object hovers over a 150-hectare orange farm in a small town called Clanwilliam in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.
It’s the first time James Paterson is testing his homemade drone. The object flies over the mountainous terrain offering a bird’s eye view, then singles out a tree with stunted growth. The object detects that the tree is not receiving enough water.
The object looks like a prop out of the Transformers movie series. It has eyes too – a camera lens – to monitor what’s happening on the ground. Paterson, 29, controls this propeller-enhanced technology using a controller. He is the co-founder and CEO of Aerobotics, a company that interprets satellite and aerial drone analytics to enable farmers.
He calls it “clarity from above”.
The drone space in Africa has significantly developed over the years, and the view from below has certainly changed too. In Rwanda, drones are a common sight, famously used to deliver blood and medical supplies to remote areas, and here in this small South African farm, it’s being used to improve the way we grow food.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2018/05/02/drones-by-africa-for-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Drones By Africa, For Africa</a>
Aerobotics’ core mandate is to provide data on tree crops, enabling farmers with information on disease, pests and water usage. They are able to tell the farmers if a tree lacks nutrition and what it needs.
“Find one small thing that is going to improve the farmers’ life and then focus on that,” says Paterson.
“Instead of just giving the farmer a picture or a map, we give him exactly what’s going on with the tree and we can track that over time.”
He believes this would be useful in areas such as Cape Town with the ongoing water crisis.
He co-founded the company with Benji Meltzer in 2014 after they built drones in Paterson’s garage. Paterson, who grew up on a fruit farm, had always loved aeronautics. Meltzer is also the Chief Technology Officer of Aerobotics.
Now, he is able to merge farming and tech into something he enjoys doing on a daily basis; running an aeronautical company providing farm analytical services.
<blockquote>“Some farmers… like the older way of doing things.”</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_36240" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36240" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-36240" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Aerobotics interprets satelitte and aerial drone analytics to help farmers.</div>
But running the company hasn’t always been easy. Apart from competing with drone companies providing similar services, their biggest challenge has been trying to convince farmers to use their product.
“Some farmers… like the older way of doing things,” says Paterson.
“But even then, after we have met with them and we show them what that can do, they can really understand this is something that can help them on the farm.”
Currently, they have over 200 clients in countries such as the United States, Russia and South Africa.
Paterson has been one of the few to benefit from drone innovation in agriculture. He says he and the team were the only South African startups amongst 24 companies around the world to be part of Google’s Launchpad Accelerator in San Francisco early this year.
They have also secured an R8 million ($663,000) fund from two venture capital firms who Paterson says saw the benefit of their software for farmers. They are currently undergoing a new round of funding.
Aerobotics’ Chief Financial Officer, Timothy Willis, believes that technology in farming can assist in better risk mitigation and enhancing efficiencies around yields.
“I think those two things together will add to making a more efficient agricultural sector in Africa,” he says.
Five years from now, Paterson predicts drones will become more autonomous.
“In the future, you won’t be concerned about the drone, it will just do all the work for you.”
<h4>Smart Farming 
Ndubuisi Ekekwe, Abia State, Nigeria</h4>
<div id="attachment_36235" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36235" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-36235" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-682x1024.jpg 682w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841.jpg 1181w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Ndubuisi Ekekwe. Photo supplied.</div>
From a farm in the Abia State of Nigeria, Dr Ndubuisi Ekekwe talks to us about a table.
Not just any table, but a small square-shaped table resting on one leg, which actually is “an electronic farm diary” that records and collects crucial information for farmers.
Ekekwe calls it Zenvus, which he created in 2011. It collects data on the soil’s pH, moisture and temperature, and records the sun’s intensity and humidity in the air. An inbuilt solar panel charges it.
The device is his contribution to smart farming. It wirelessly transmits the recorded data to a cloud server from which farmers access it on a mobile app and get real-time data.
“2020 to 2030 will be the decade of agri-tech,” Ekekwe tells FORBES AFRICA.
Zenvus services corporates, and have supplied to 500,000 farming entities. He says it’s currently in a partnership with the government of Cross River State in Nigeria, as well as Abia State.
Ekekwe says he has been approached by a number of international companies wanting to cash in on Zenvus. However, he has been reluctant to sell it.
“Someone wanted to buy Zenvus for $5 million five years ago. I wouldn’t even sell it for $15 million, just to tell you the kind of value it has,” he says.
For Ekekwe, it’s more important to service farmers. To date, he prides himself in having the largest farmers’ cooperative in Africa.
<blockquote>“I wouldn’t even sell it for $15 million.”</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_36239" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36239" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-36239" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Zenvus collects crucial data for farmers in Nigeria.</div>
Ekekwe grew up as a farm boy in a village called Ovim in Abia State. Growing up, he received distinctions throughout his high school year and went on to acquire an engineering degree, four master’s degrees, two doctorates in management and microelectronics, as also a medical robotics degree from the United States.
He chose to move back and stay on in his village.
Ovim is known for the Ajonkwu festival when the Igbo community gather to celebrate the harvesting season.
According to Ekekwe, farmers rely on the moon to obtain a greater yield. As a result, tech for farming isn’t something a lot of people in his community are open to.
“Farmers are not literate and that is why we are not selling tech to them, we are selling the service,” he says.
According to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), 65% of Africa’s labor force is engaged in agriculture. Despite this, agricultural productivity on the African continent still lags behind significantly compared to other continents. AGRA suggests that farming only accounts for 32% of the continent’s GDP. Africa therefore does not reap the benefits of agriculture.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/06/05/agriculture-behind-africas-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Agriculture Behind Africa’s Health</a>
Ekekwe says the future of Africa is farming. He believes the convergence of tech and agriculture will result in more people wanting a piece of the pie of agri-tech startups and open up more opportunities for Africans across the continent.
<h4>‘Uber For Farmers’ 
Brian Bosire, Kisii, Kenya</h4>
<div id="attachment_36237" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36237" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-36237 size-medium" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-300x181.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="181" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-300x181.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-600x361.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-768x462.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-1024x617.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Brian Bosire. Photo supplied.</div>
On a farm in southwestern Kenya, in the small town of Kisii, a field agent reads data off a yellow square-shaped monitor, which has wires running into a smaller device connecting to the soil. It takes him about five minutes to read data regarding the soil’s PH, water levels, and disease and pests found on it. In almost two minutes, the data is sent to the farmer.
The field worker’s job is done and he looks at his phone to find his next requested farm match.
The device that has helped him is named UjuziKilimo, which is Swahili for ‘knowledge farming’. Its founder, 24-year-old Brian Bosire, calls it “an Uber service for farmers”, and this on a farm that even Uber might find difficult to access.
The field worker travels to the nearest farmer who has requested his services. This kind of smart farming service costs the Kenyan farmer about $20.
Bosire had always wanted to become a key contributor to Kenya’s agricultural industry. He grew up in Kisii, a town known for its highlands and wet weather – favorable climate for farming. Frustrated by the lethargic technological growth in the agricultural space in his town, he sought to create something innovative that would improve the yields for the farmers of Kisii.
“We aren’t selling tech, we are selling the solutions,” he tells FORBES AFRICA.
Bosire says what he tries to do is become as close to the farmer as possible. As a result, he and his team target small-scale farmers and read data on vegetable crops, maize being one of them. The UjuziKilimo can read data from about five to 10 acres of land. Farmers can request data on their farms by simply sending an SMS so even farmers with the most basic cellular devices can benefit.
<blockquote>“We aren’t selling tech, we are selling the solutions.”</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_36238" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36238" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-36238" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />UjuziKilimo helps improve yields.</div>
When Bosire moved to the big city of Nairobi to study, he took advantage of every opportunity to pursue his dreams as an entrepreneur. To date, he has founded three companies, all operating in the tech innovation space, UjuziKilimo one of them. 
It’s old hat that Kenya, the country which pioneered M-Pesa as one of Africa’s leading startups, is home to a lot more players in the tech space. But Bosire says his business is different.
Earlier this year, his other innovation company, HydroIQ, won the Startup of the Year Africa 2018 award. Slightly linked to agri-tech, it’s a virtual water network operator which connects water utility companies and water consumers through an online platform. It allows for mobile money payments, data analytics, leakage detections and water use and consumption through sensors that relay information.
All this leads one to believe that the future face of farming in Africa is young.
Bosire hopes UjuziKilimo can grow to reach from 10,000 farmers to over 50,000.
“We want to become the largest data center of agriculture analytics in Africa,” he says. Future plans include launching UjuziKilimo in the United Kingdom under the name ‘Soil Pal’.
&nbsp;

Green Combine harvesting small path of wheat

‘2020 to 2030 Will Be The Decade Of Agri-Tech’

The smartphone industry has been stagnant and lacking innovation for a good few years. With each new iteration, we witness handsets becoming thinner, faster, and lighter yet somehow bigger than before. The latter is due to screen bezels shrinking in size with very minimal to no borders around the edges.
Stand-out moments in recent years have been Samsung’s curved “infinity display” introduced on the S8, and Apple’s face-mapping feature on the iPhone X that projects 30,000 invisible dots on to your face.
For the most part, there has not been anything revolutionary, but we’re still holding out for a breakthrough in battery technology.
<div id="attachment_35822" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35822" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-35822 size-medium" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Noka-8110-4G-copy-1-300x300.png" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Noka-8110-4G-copy-1-300x300.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Noka-8110-4G-copy-1-100x100.png 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Noka-8110-4G-copy-1-600x600.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Noka-8110-4G-copy-1-150x150.png 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Noka-8110-4G-copy-1-768x768.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Noka-8110-4G-copy-1-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Noka-8110-4G-copy-1.png 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Nokia&#8217;s revived 8110 slider phone. Photo supplied.</div>
At Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018, the largest mobile event of the year held in Barcelona in February, we saw announcements from several big mobile players, while some opted not to unveil anything, others simply refreshed existing devices.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/06/29/understanding-real-innovation-behind-iphone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ: Understanding the real innovation behind the iPhone</a>
Additionally, Formula 1 made its first-ever appearance at MWC to launch a live stream ad-free grand prix subscription service, and Spanish football league La Liga showed off new broadcast technologies like its cutting-edge 4K HDR broadcasts, a skycam for drone-like footage, professional analysis of the game during the game, and physical and tactical reports.
Meanwhile, Ford made Google’s popular live traffic, community-based app Waze available on its SYNC 3 infotainment platform globally from April. Another motor manufacturer, Land Rover, unveiled its first-ever smartphone, the Explore. The Android device is developed by the Bullitt Group and has durable features like handling extreme temperatures, surviving 1.8m drops and being underwater – including salt water, with a massive battery.
Google introduced a light version of its mobile operating system Android Oreo Go Edition at the end of last year, and at MWC 2018, we got to see these entry-level devices running it for the first time. It is created for phones with 1GB of RAM or less with minimal storage, processing power so performance won’t take a hit, and for limited connectivity, as in the African market. The six devices powered by Android Oreo Go Edition initially will be the Nokia 1, Alcatel 1X, ZTE Tempo Go, Lava Z50, Micromax Bharat Go, and GM 8 Go.
On the premium smartphone side, Samsung’s new S9 and S9+ flagships put focus on both the consumer and business user. The new camera has variable aperture, a mobile smartphone first. Regular smartphones have fixed aperture, but the S9 and S9+ have dual aperture that switches mechanically between F1.5 for low-light photography and F2.4 for bright, outdoor shots. It also shoots 960 frames-per-second slow motion video; and introduces AR Emoji, augmented reality based emoji similar to Snapchat’s Bitmojis. Business users get the Enterprise Edition software straight out of the box, a paid for service tailored to businesses. Powerful features include disabling of the camera, SD card or screenshots while at workplace, preventing sensitive information from leaking.
Sony’s XZ2 and XZ2 Compact devices come six months after its previous-generation flagships with a major physical change – new round edges (gone are the signature blocks). Both handsets do 4K HDR recording, a smartphone first, and following suit from Apple, the headphone jack has been removed. The front-camera takes 3D selfies, and rear does 960fps slow-motion videos, introduced last year. Wireless charging is available on the larger device, and the Compact is anything but, at 5-inches.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2015/02/01/is-there-a-future-in-cellphones/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Is There A Future In Cellphones?</a>
Nokia once again played the nostalgia card and revived the 8110 slider phone in an eye-catching bright yellow color, dubbed the ‘banana phone’. It has 4G support, runs on a new platform called KaiOS so apps will be made especially for it, with WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook announced. Nokia brought out four other handsets in addition to the 8110 4G: a flagship Nokia 8 Sirocco; a mid-range Nokia 7+, an updated Nokia 6, and entry-level Nokia 1.
Once again, MWC felt like an incremental update with some great new features thrown in here and there. In the age of instant gratification, it’s getting increasingly difficult for long-term excitement.
&#8211; By Nafisa Akabor

Noka-8110-4G-copy

The Banana Phone?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been at the forefront of innovators minds for decades and as the technology makes breakthroughs, the public is becoming more aware of its implications.
The scientist, innovators, and entrepreneurs who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of high-level artificial intelligence are pushing the boundaries of what can be accomplished every day.
We are seeing the direct result of their breakthroughs in the forms of automation and autopilot. Through this pursuit one thing becomes clear: AI will change our lives dramatically in the coming years. That is why it is not only fascinating, but also imperative that we stay abreast of the current climate in the world of AI. These innovations are doing amazing things in the world of AI that could affect the planet for decades to come.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/01/25/four-skills-make-robot-recession-proof/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Four Skills To Make Yourself Robot And Recession Proof</a>
<ol>
<li> Self-Driving Cars</li>
</ol>
The most popular innovation, as well as the most exciting, is the advent of autonomous vehicles. For the last 50 years people have imagined a world where driving would no longer be necessary to enjoy personal and private transportation.
Driving in the United States has been a leading cause of death among youth for a number of years. One of the primary goals of autonomous vehicles is to reduce the number of casualties, while simultaneously increasing the efficacy of transportation services across the globe. With safety and value in mind, autonomous vehicles ranks as one of the most ambitious and exciting innovations to come.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/07/21/push-self-driving-car-rules-overlooks-lack-federal-expertise-ai-tech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Push For Self-Driving Car Rules Overlooks Lack Of Federal Expertise In AI Tech</a>
<ol start="2">
<li> Natural Language Processing</li>
</ol>
A main goal of AI in the future is to create machines that can reason and write with the lexical skill of a human being. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the software that will hopefully achieve one such future that’s being developed primarily in <a href="https://www.python.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Python</a>.
Companies, like Attivio and Alphabet, are working constantly to replicate human thought and speech patterns. The goal of this is to ultimately create machines that can communicate with us, and us to them. This would fabricate a new type of machine with unlimited possibilities of growth. This could lead to machines replacing lawyers, doctors, or even therapists. The projected future of this technology is endless. This makes NLP one of the most intriguing innovations to watch.
<ol start="3">
<li> Virtual Agents</li>
</ol>
Virtual Agents (VA) have a simple but profound goal: to create AI that can guide us through customer service effectively and quickly. As of now the AI is mostly used for automated chat resources but with enough progress and innovation, businesses hope to replicate the experience of human customer service. Fused with the efficiency of a machine, this would also eliminate the wait time problem that we all have been through.
Companies like Apple and Amazon have put themselves on the cutting edge of this technology with the view that great customer service would help their brands exponentially. This technology, however, is closer than we imagined due to programs like deep learning in which a program can watch and learn from humans interacting. This innovation will most likely be affecting us, and easing tension, very soon.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/09/13/apple-not-google-facebook-will-define-future-augmented-reality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Apple, Not Google Or Facebook, Will Define The Future Of Augmented Reality</a>
<ol start="4">
<li> Robotic Process Automation</li>
</ol>
One technology that businesses are particularly keen on is the Robotic Processing Automation (RPA) AI software. RPA is simple in its conception and seeks to automate more complex human tasks, like filing reports or reading mail. This, however, has some obvious concerns for workers in the middle classes as they may get replaced, but the impact of such a comprehensive technology could change the nature of work forever.
The company Automation Anywhere is one such business that is seeking to change work for the better. This could alleviate issues that arise from companies with too few employees or too tight a budget to hire who they need. Still in larval stages, this AI platform won’t hit full stride just yet, but it is on its way.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/09/11/battling-giants/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Battling Giants</a>
<ol start="5">
<li> Machine Learning</li>
</ol>
Machine learning is the process whereby a program can analyze a system and replicate its functions automatically. This could consolidate machine usage and create more efficient algorithms. It helps with predictions and forecasting by synthesizing data and outputting a report which streamlines the data gathering process.
Amazon and Fractal Analytics are in full swing on developing this software as it could help businesses operate at lower cost with higher efficiency. For all intents and purposes, machine learning is here and is advancing at an astronomical rate. Keep your eyes peeled because your company may be involved in machine learning before you know it.
Whether we like it or not AI is here. With it comes fears and hopes, but most importantly change. Some of these technologies are right around the corner, some are far off. Keep your eyes on the future.

5 AI Innovations You Need To Be Aware Of

The past year has seen only marginal growth in innovation by South African companies. According to Accenture’s <a href="https://cdn.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/02101508/AccentureInnovationIndex_Analysis.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Innovation Index 2017</a> released at the Accenture Innovation Conference recently, the country has seen a moderate increase in innovation, scoring additional two points from 2016 to reach 52 points in 2017. Over a three-year period, the score has only increased by six points. This growth is, however, not advancing at the pace required to translate into stable economic growth.
The index suggests that South African companies are not spending their allocated budgets on innovation due to economic uncertainties. On average, companies are putting aside 45 percent of their annual revenue for innovation developments, yet actual spending is cautious and conservative at 36 percent.
“In a rapidly digitising business environment where new players are disrupting traditional revenue streams across all industry sectors, it is now more important than ever for companies to be stepping up their innovation game,” said William Mzimba, Chief Executive of Accenture South Africa and Chairman of Accenture Africa. “Digital innovation is reshaping industries by disrupting traditional business and operating models. But it is also having a profound impact on society, presenting both challenges and opportunities for businesses and policy-makers on the African continent. Innovation champions know this and their approach is seeing them achieve almost double the innovation ROI of the rest of the market,” said Mzimba.
According to Yusof Seedat, Director at Accenture Research, key is to establish the most effective way to drive the innovation agenda in these challenging times. “The good news, however, is that pockets of excellence do exist. There is a clear distinction between Innovation Leaders – companies that are successfully managing to execute across the various stages of the innovation value chain scoring 65 points and above on the Index (27 percent of the total sample), and the rest of the market – those that are struggling to move beyond their innovation strategy and not achieving their true potential in terms of innovation,” said Seedat.
<div id="attachment_34446" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34446" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34446" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Accenture-Innovation-Index-supplement-e1510925211182-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />The Accenture Innovation Index supplement (Photo supplied)</div>
The innovation value chain
Accenture measured innovation maturity across five stages: Innovation Strategy, Ideation, Absorption, Execution as well as Benefits and Impact. Throughout the stages, Accenture found that as companies mature their innovation capability, their focus shifts from just developing ideas towards a more comprehensive innovation value chain. Early innovation initiatives focused almost exclusively on brainstorming and ideation. This has recently been augmented with a concerted effort to ensure that relevant ideas are well executed.
“Interestingly, ‘absorption’ emerged as a key stage between ‘ideas’ and ‘execution’. Idea absorption
indicates a company’s ability to successfully filter, prioritise and channel the best ideas to the execution stage. This stage is a crucial linking stage between two very different innovation skills: the creative ideation space and the clinical execution space.” said Seedat.
The index shows that companies are aware of the need to innovate: they score high at the strategy stage (83 points) which entails creating the plans and vision set to innovate. However, they score lower on all other aspects, from ideation (44 points) to absorption, at 53 points, execution at 59 points and, finally, achieving the desired benefits at 37 points.
“Companies are struggling to seamlessly translate their innovation strategy to well-executed innovations that realise maximum benefits. Our findings point to several areas creating this anomaly – from weak innovative cultures and poor organisational processes that do not fully support the innovation vision of organisations, to inadequate information dissemination and collaboration, and narrowly focused innovation policies,” noted Seedat.
Where it all begins: Innovation Strategy
Institutionalising structured innovation capability is necessary to fuel growth, the report notes. This is a responsibility that extends far beyond the office of the CEO, however – organisations’ entire top teams have to be on board. Key is that these individuals do not all have to be creative masterminds; more important is their ability to draw out the skills of others to build an innovation culture.
At the Strategy stage, innovation is indeed on the radars of SA’s most forward-thinking businesses – 90 percent of Innovation Leaders have instilled an innovation culture, according to the report. In these companies, innovation is seen as an important part of employees’ daily jobs. This stands in contrast to 65 percent of the rest of the market.
Moreover, Leaders recognise that cultivating innovation means hiring intelligently. When it comes to skills, only 56 percent of companies in the rest of the market recruit those with specific skill sets to support innovation-related activities, as opposed to 100 percent of Innovation Leaders.
Powering strategic decision making with data is also a key innovation enabler for leaders with 80 percent saying they see the full potential of business intelligence and analytics to drive innovation and inform strategy compared to 35 percent of the rest of the market.
Homing in on innovation: The Ideation stage
Innovation Leaders scored 67 for Ideation – the stage during which strategy is turned into actual concepts – leading the rest of the market (at 36 points) by a large margin.
A factor setting Innovation Leaders apart is collaboration within and outside the organisation, the report shows. Eighty percent of Innovation Leaders have digital platforms in place for employees to interact and share ideas, versus 37 percent of the rest. Further, a mere 44 percent of rest-of-market organisations encourage or make use of cross-teaming and collaboration between different stakeholders, as opposed to 85 percent of Innovation Leaders.
Absorption: Separating the best from the rest
The third stage of the value chain, Absorption, measures companies’ ability to sort through, prioritise and align around the good ideas generated during ideation. Low absorption limits companies’ ability to execute and stymies innovation efforts over the long term. Innovation Leaders score 77 for this metric, with the rest of the market coming in at 44. The country’s most innovative companies are fast movers: 80 percent of Innovation Leaders are more adept at taking a year or less from initial prototype development to full commercialisation, the report found.
Putting innovation into practice: Execution and Impact
At the Execution stage, 85 percent of Innovation Leaders are focusing on disruptive innovations, leading the rest of the market by 32 points overall, at 82 to 50. Yet it is in terms of Benefits &amp; Impact that the gulf between Innovation Leaders and the rest of the market is most pronounced. Leaders scored 65 points at this stage, while the rest of the market trailed at 25. Measurement is one key element: the Index shows that 73 percent of Innovation Leaders implement performance indicators encompassing workflows and business processes critical to the success of innovative development. A mere 38 percent of the rest of the market follow suit.
Leaders also continuously monitor, evaluate and look for improvements. They do this by assessing changes in the ratios of innovation outputs to inputs, the mix of different types of innovation investments and their related risks. They also know the value of customer feedback. Ninety percent of Innovation Leaders get feedback from customers through online and offline channels, versus 43 percent of the rest of South African businesses. “Despite challenges associated in measuring innovation, leaders find ways of measuring and monitoring innovation performance across the value chain stages.” concluded Seedat.
Innovation in 2018 and beyond
Innovation has to become a more central part of South Africa’s economic growth model and the need to foster a business climate and culture conducive to breed innovation is vital. For South African companies, innovation follow-through – by implementing innovation strategy – will prove critical in the coming years, the Index notes. To gear up for 2018 and beyond, the Index encourages all SA companies to take note of how Innovation Leaders enable, measure and drive success.
&nbsp;
About Accenture 
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialised skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With more than 425,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at <a href="http://www.accenture.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.accenture.com</a>.
Contact:
Jonathan Mahapa
Accenture
+ 27 11 208 3947
<a href="mailto:jonathan.mahapa@accenture.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jonathan.mahapa@accenture.com</a>

South Africa Needs To Innovate Faster To Ensure Stable Economic Growth – Accenture’s Innovation Index 2017 Shows

When the iPhone emerged in 2007, it came with all the promise and pomp of a major Steve Jobs announcement, highlighting its user interface and slick design as key selling points. We know now that the iPhone transformed the mobile phone business, the internet economy and, in many ways, society as a whole. But technically speaking, the iPhone was not very innovative.
Its software and the interface idea were based on the iPod, which was already <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/itunes-10th-anniversary-how-steve-jobs-turned-the-industry-upside-down-20130426">reinventing the digital music industry</a>. Touchscreens had appeared on earlier phone and tablet models, including <a href="http://oldcomputers.net/apple-newton.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple’s own Newton</a>. And <a href="http://nokiamuseum.info/category/launching-year/2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">top-line Nokia phones</a> had more memory, better cameras and faster mobile connectivity. What made the iPhone transformative was the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secret-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shift in concept underpinning the entire iPhone project</a>: Its designers did not create a telephone with some extra features, but rather a full-fledged hand-held computer that could also make calls and browse the internet.
As a <a href="http://www.internationalinnovation.com/how-digitasation-is-changing-the-working-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">scholar of management, design and innovation</a>, I find it hard to predict what the next truly revolutionary technological development will be. In the 10 years since the launch of the iPhone, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/when-iphone-met-world-7-years-ago-today/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">so much about modern life, commerce and culture has changed</a>. In part that’s because the iPhone, and the smartphone boom it spurred, created a portable personal technology infrastructure that’s almost infinitely expandable. The iPhone changed the game not because of its initial technology and cool user interface but rather as a result of its creators’ imagination and courage.
<h2>Inventing mobile apps</h2>
As the iPhone took shape, its designers found themselves <a href="http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/the-one-device/9781478915836/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">torn between making a phone or a computer</a>. Engineers and marketing executives alike worried the new device would kill the iPod market that had <a href="http://business.time.com/2012/09/14/without-music-apple-would-be-nothing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">driven Apple’s corporate resurgence for five years</a>. Nokia, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/263438/market-share-held-by-nokia-smartphones-since-2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the biggest player in the cellphone market at the time</a>, had similar technologies and prototypes, and also <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304388004577531002591315494" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feared outcompeting</a> its own successful mobile phone product lines that used a simpler and more old-fashioned software platform than that on which iPhone was built.
Apple took the leap, however, by installing a fully capable computer operating system on the iPhone, along with a few small application programs. Some were phone-related, including a program that handled making and receiving calls, as well as <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/01/09Apple-Reinvents-the-Phone-with-iPhone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a new way to display voicemail messages</a>, and a system that kept different contacts’ text messages separate. Others were more computer-like, including an email app and a web browser. Of course, the music-playing features from the iPod were included too, linking the phone with the emerging Apple music ecosystem.
Initially, that was about it for apps. But <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/164137/meet-geohot-guy-who-unlocked-the-first-iphone-and-hacked-the-sony-ps3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">skilled computer engineers and hackers</a> knew they were holding a palm-sized computer, and set to work writing their own software and <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/213904/how-far-weve-come-the-original-iphone-jailbreak-took-74-steps-jailbreak/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">getting it running on their iPhones</a>. That was the dawn of the now-ubiquitous app. Within a year, these apps were so popular, and their potential so significant, that <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/1134503/iphone2update.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple’s second version of the iPhone operating system</a> made it easy (and legal) for users to install <a href="http://www.phonecruncher.com/features/00942/the-first-ever-apps-on-the-app-store-gone-but-not-forgotten/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">apps on their phones</a>.
<h2>Shifting priorities</h2>
The prospect of making a fully functional hand-held computer changed how users and manufacturers alike thought about mobile phones. For Apple and every other phone company, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-android-smartphones-2011-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">software became much more important than hardware</a>. What apps a phone could run, and how quickly, mattered much more than whether it had a slightly better camera or could hold a few more photos; whether it flipped open, slid open or was a bar-style; or whether it had a large keyboard or a small one. The iPhone’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-reaction-first-iphone-2015-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">keyboard was on-screen</a> and software-generated, making a function that had required dedicated hardware into one running on generic hardware and dedicated software.
At the time of the iPhone launch, Nokia offered about 200 <a href="http://nokiamuseum.info/category/launching-year/2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">different phone styles to meet all the different needs</a> of its hundreds of millions of customers. There was just one iPhone model at the start, and in the ensuing decade there have been only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">14 major styles</a> – though today they come in different colors, not just white and black as the original did. This is the power of software functionality and related simplicity.
The heightened importance of software on a mobile phone shifted the industry’s economy as well. The money came now not just from selling devices and phone services, but also from marketing and selling apps and in-app advertisements. <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/6/8/11889298/google-apple-subscription-app-revenue-share" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">App developers must share revenue</a> with the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">companies that control smartphones’ operating systems</a>, providing serious earning power: Apple holds <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">about 15% of the mobile phone market</a>, but reaps <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170308000345" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">80% of global smartphone profits</a>.
Whatever the next tech industry game-changer is, and whenever it arrives, it will likely have some connection to the smartphone and related infrastructure. Even today, <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/13/virtual_reality_is_made_o_smartphones/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">exploring virtual reality</a> requires only installing an app and connecting just a bit of additional hardware to an existing phone. Similarly, smartphone interfaces and cameras already <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410889,00.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monitor and control intelligent and automated homes</a>. Even as devices are developed to operate all around us, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/alphabets-new-plan-to-track-10-000-people-could-take-wearables-to-the-next-level-76620" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">even in our clothes</a>, many of them will be able to point to the iPhone as a conceptual ancestor and inspiration.  &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kalle-lyytinen-336943" target="_blank" rel="author noopener noreferrer">Kalle Lyytinen</a>, Iris S. Wolstein Professor of Management Design, Case Western Reserve University
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>
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Understanding the real innovation behind the iPhone

For the past decade, AB de Villiers has been achieving records on the cricket pitch. Now South Africa’s ODI captain and world number one ODI batsman, is set to achieve yet another milestone off the field. Renowned for his innovative batting and sharp fielding, De Villiers is now setting a trend off the field. The innovative batsman has partnered with US-based tech company, FanHero, to become one of the first sportsmen in South Africa to develop a personalized fan engagement app. This will allow fans from around the world to interact with him on a more personal level.
<blockquote>I have been looking for a way to engage on a more authentic level with my fans across the world and FanHero has offered me the perfect platform to do that.</blockquote>
It will be my life in a bundle, something that I haven&#8217;t been able to get across on traditional social media, says De Villiers before the launch of the app. FanHero, a tech start-up that has been running for just over a year, has already produced several apps in North and South America. They specialize in sports teams and celebrities, allowing them the opportunity to engage exclusively with fans without the constraints of other social media platforms. FanHero allows the fan to get closer to De Villiers. Supporters will get access to De Villiers&#8217;s personal and professional life. With live streaming, pictures, videos and updates from the global cricket star, fans will be able to see De Villiers behind closed doors, learning what it takes to be a professional cricketer and what makes him tick. In addition, fans will be able to ask questions, which AB can respond to.
<blockquote>I want to give away as much as possible, and allow people to understand exactly what it takes to be a professional cricketer.</blockquote>
While South Africa is still a developing country in terms of technology, AB de Villiers is a superstar both on the field and online. He is one of Africa&amp;#39;s biggest sporting brands and represents everything we were looking for in terms of a partnership,” says Johan van Wyk, Director of FanHero South Africa. The app launched at the end of March, just before De Villiers set off for England to play in the upcoming Champions Trophy. De Villiers has temporarily stopped playing Test cricket so he can focus on ODIs. Nearing the end of his career, the South African is looking to win an elusive ICC international trophy with South Africa. Fans can look forward a direct line to one of South Africa&#8217;s favourite sportsmen, bringing the fan and hero closer together.

CRICKET-SRI-RSA

AB de Villiers Uses App To Connect With Fans

Most of Africa is currently engulfed in an energy emergency.
For a continent blessed with some of the largest power generating potential in the world, it’s an ironic tragedy, at par with any epidemic Africans have ever experienced. As things stand, the prospects for prosperity are bleak.
This has been Africa’s sour story for too long. Without power, social and intellectual fecundity and creativity is hobbled; innovation, doomed. From Cape Town through Calabar to Casablanca and Cairo, failed power projects litter the land. Africa now reportedly generates less power than many European nations.
In view of the contending economic, ecological and social priorities, Africa’s humungous power deficit must now be viewed as a crisis, and an opportunity. A crisis in desperate need of modern energy solutions, fresh investments and political will. This variegated mindset is essential if Africa is to find its way out of the dark maze.
The use of off-grid, renewable technologies, for instance, will attenuate some of the darkness, create opportunities to increase agricultural productivity, improve Africa’s resilience to climate change, and contribute to long-term reductions in dangerous carbon emissions across the African landscape.
At stake is the global relevance, social progress and economic productivity of Africa’s nearly 1 billion people. Universal access to power is the goal. But how do you measure the compounded return on development initiatives brought about by lighting up an entire city or village? Experts say an estimated $850 billion will be required to achieve universal power access for Africa by 2030.
Depending on which book you’re reading, between 1 billion and 1.5 billion people lack access to modern forms of electricity worldwide, and three billion cook on smoky, soot-stained stoves and outdoor fires. Chances are (no marks for guessing) many of these folks are in Africa.
Analysts at McKinsey &amp; Co. say Africa has 13% of the world’s population, but 48% of the share of the global population without electricity. The only other region with a similar imbalance is South Asia, with 23% of the world’s population and 34% of the people without access to electricity.
Only seven countries in Africa – Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa – have electricity access rates exceeding 50%.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) says 55% of Nigerians, 70% of Ivorians, 76% of Ethiopians and 85% of residents of the Democratic Republic of Congo do not have access to electricity. A 2015 report by the Africa Progress Panel, People, Power, Planet, confirms this dark reality: 621 million Africans have no access to electricity. That’s two out of every three Africans.
The report warns that global demand for modern energy is set to surge, fueled by economic growth, demographic change and urbanization. “As the costs of low-carbon energy fall, Africa could leapfrog into a new era of power generation. Utility reforms, new technologies and new business models could be as transformative in energy as the mobile phone has been in telecommunications.”
The World Bank says Africa’s power consumption, at 124 kilowatt-hours per capita per year and falling, is only a tenth of that found elsewhere in the developing world, barely enough to power one 100-watt light bulb per person for three hours a day.
Thankfully, Africa does not suffer from a dearth of energy resources. Kenya is currently ranked the seventh-highest producer of geothermal power globally, as the second phase of the Olkaria geothermal plant comes on stream.
South Africa’s Medupi power station, the fourth largest coal plant in the southern hemisphere, recently received a $2.1 billion loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB).
Morocco, Africa’s poster child for clean energy, spends over $3 billion annually on fuel and electricity imports. The country aims to generate 42% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
Most multinationals and manufacturing firms in Nigeria disengaged from the national grid years ago. Investing in captive power plants to remain competitive, they now generate about 1,600MW of power off-grid.
Power firms, like Cummins Incorporated and Clarke Energy, working with General Electirc and local players like CET Power, are mostly behind these efforts, designing, constructing, operating as well as maintaining gas-fueled power plants across the country.
Power proposals for Africa abound. We have the Britain’s Energy Africa, United States President Barack Obama’s Power Africa and the AfDB’s New Deal on Energy.
We now need to switch on these plans.

Power, Pain  And Progress

As democracy gradually spread around the world, capitalism was favored over the more repressive feudal system. It meant that those who were not born of royalty, nor had genetic ties to nobles, could amass their own fortunes through innovation, hard work, perseverance and a bit of luck. It finally meant that peasants could elevate themselves from the depths of poverty to unfathomable heights of wealth.
Many would argue that there has never been an economic system in modern civilization that has liberated more people from poverty and created more millionaires and billionaires than capitalism. However, in some circles, particularly among the socialists and labor unions, there is an argument that this wealth has been accumulated through the exploitation of others. They argue that the bearers of capital offer workers lower than acceptable compensation and they in turn receiving preposterous amounts in profits.
We ought to bear in mind that no one is forced to work; every individual in the free world has the choice to be a part of the labor market and join an organization to work for in exchange for remuneration. A major proponent of capitalism is that it provides an environment for entrepreneurship. After all, all the colossal corporations of the past two centuries started small and over time grew. Today, they consistently post higher annual earnings than the entire GDP of smaller nations.
At the helm of capitalism lies the CEO, the captains who steer their companies. CEOs bring vast knowledge and experience to the party – many having studied in some of the most prestigious universities and business schools around the world.
The reality is that the CEO has one of the most challenging jobs. They are tasked with the laborious task of driving revenue for shareholders; representing the firm as its head; ensuring that all the divisions of the company function effectively, notwithstanding defining the corporate culture of the firm and instilling it in its employees.
Then there’s the socialist ideology that affirms that capitalism is a modern form of slavery masqueraded as the archetype economic system that was founded in principle on human liberty. Evidence has shown that socialist states have failed to address inequality and have compounded the issue by creating elitist factions who benefit at the expense of the majority.   It is almost paradoxical that CEOs are viewed as employees of the organization when there is a level of self-interest at play. CEOs are often granted equity in the firms they represent as a part of their remuneration packages. They then have the added incentive to protect their stake by enacting management policies and tactics that will drive profitability, sometimes at the expense of the ordinary worker. The mining sector is a prime example: when the price of commodities such as gold and platinum rises, the shareholders benefit from the increase in profits. However, when demand subsides and prices fall job cuts become the order of the day.
Several years ago, my management lecturer said the compensation that CEOs receive ought to be globally competitive.
“Great CEOs are in high demand and as such their remuneration should reflect this, but more importantly should perturb them from seeking better opportunities abroad.”
This is the world that the capitalist system has created. Instead of asking whether it is fair that CEOs earn vast amounts of money compared to others, the question should be whether this system of self-interest masqueraded as capitalism is one that is just and equitable, especially in South Africa, where there are skewed levels of income between low-income and high-income households.
Despite capitalism’s faults, there has never been a system that comes closer to benefitting all. Until such a system is conceptualized, we will continue to debate the exorbitant salaries of CEOs and why capitalism continues to fail us.

equity and  equality

Giovanni Schiuma is relatively thin, with a sharp face framed by wavy hair that jiggles and jounces when he gesticulates. He speaks in a hoarse whisper, his Italian enunciation crisp. He is director of the Innovation Insights Hub at the University of the Arts in London, has penned close to 180 essays, articles and books, and is regarded by many to be the guru on art’s interesting relationship with business.
I first heard about Schiuma when scratching around for information on African innovation, coming across one of his 2011 blog posts, which referred to the arts-based renaissance of organizations: “As organizations are challenged to cope with complexity… their survival and prosperity will depend from the capacity of transforming themselves into… creative organizations, where the rational and engineering dimensions are merged with the emotive and artistic characteristics.” Some might read that and grin in wonder: how can anyone be this committed to a cause so intangible? Schumia is committed, for sure, but he is also an encyclopedia on the topic. His theories on art and its permanent place in the strategy and operations of any company can be gruelling to those uninterested in the idea, but he has a point. Thanks to the global economic meltdown companies need to shift their paradigm. Schumia believes that business needs to develop the capacity to be imaginative. Innovation is the key to survival. Courage, not caution, leads to creativity.
We sat down with him to get some quick pointers on why business needs art to survive the future.
&nbsp;
<ol>
<li>Let’s get right to it. Why does business need creativity to survive?</li>
</ol>
Business needs to absorb change better, to also generate change and keep that competitive edge. But to do that it needs to pay attention to a new dimension: emotion. It is now, more than ever, important that management engage with the emotions of employees, learn what will make them more passionate about what they do. Managing people’s emotions and passions correctly teaches org-
anizations to get creative, absorb stress better and cultivate resilience. To have people emotionally engaged in what they do will bring about excellence.
&nbsp;
<ol start="2">
<li>Creativity leads to innovation. But how do you go about instilling better creativity in linear-minded individuals?</li>
</ol>
Art is there to get people out of their comfort zone. In any organization people create comfort zones – use the same practices, processes and technologies. People don’t like change. But, art is a good way to experiment with change inside an organization, to provoke creativity and critical thinking, this helps individuals change their approach, their paradigm, in a way, and remove them from linear-thinking toward a lateral approach.
&nbsp;
<ol start="3">
<li>What about management?</li>
</ol>
Good point. Art in business also helps change management mindset. Executives are somehow stuck in the old, scientific approach to management. They believe that they can manage an organization like a machine, but an organization is a living system, and needs to be managed accordingly. Art introduces management innovation – more imagination and creativity generates new ideas and a whole new innovation process.
&nbsp;
<ol start="4">
<li>‘Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.’ What does that quote mean to you in relation to art driving business innovation?</li>
</ol>
Yes, for creativity to be an operating dimension, individuals need to be in touch with themselves, with their ‘inner creative’. When employees are not in touch with their emotions; distanced from their feelings, they don’t put the best of themselves into what they do. Individuals need support in giving their best, only then will they be able to reach into themselves and find the ideas. By letting them experiment, they’ll innovate.
<ol start="5">
<li>And does having varied artwork in business surroundings help keep the innovative juices flowing?</li>
</ol>
Yes, most certainly. Installing art, or hosting exhibitions on the premises, can work on the number of levels. Sometimes art can be seen as a metaphor or an analogy for stimulating lateral thinking concerning internal company situations, such as, change management. The other way is to use art to create experiences, to build a new atmosphere to release innovative behavior in employees. Companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft like to transform their organizations into art galleries, to create artistic experiences, bringing in artists – in the form of residents, whose work rotate through their offices a few times a year – or hiring artists as creative directors to lead ‘innovation teams’.
&nbsp;
<ol start="6">
<li>But not everyone is creative. How do you get minds to come around to the idea?</li>
</ol>
I believe that everyone is potentially creative. We become creative when we’re put into the right environment. In order to be creative we need to get involved. That is where art becomes the tool for organizations, because the traditional managerial models learned at business school don’t help executives create that creative atmosphere, art does.
Think about it, art can move business and its people to another level – by offering up new skill sets, opening minds to new avenues of business that companies may not have seen before. Art helps boost creative self-confidence.
&nbsp;
<ol start="7">
<li>What does that creative self-confidence lead to?</li>
</ol>
It leads to an open view. What I mean is, work pressure leads to employees and managers sticking to tunnel vision in time of crisis. Creativity teaches us to step back – look at the whole picture. That is the power of a stimulating environment, and artwork helps open these avenues of thought.

Does business need art? Yes (More Than You Realize)

It’s a popular hubris that we live in an age of unprecedented technological innovation – that our ancestors lived in a time where there were fewer technological advances, blinded as they were by their primitive superstitions and lack of access to the resources we have today.
While we certainly live in an era of amazing technology, it’s not necessarily true that our level of innovation is unprecedented. The fact of the matter is that our ancestors were just as smart as we are (in fact, given the human brain size has been shrinking for centuries, they might have been smarter.) And as archaeologists uncover more about the past, they’ve also learned that many technologies we take for granted today were first developed centuries or even millennia ago, only to be lost.
Take, for example, plastic surgery. It’s something we think of as a relatively new technology, right? But in fact, plastic surgery was practiced in India centuries before the birth of Christ. It continued to be practiced for thousands of years, but wasn’t “discovered” in Europe until the 18th century, when British doctors learned about it from India.
Recently, there have been two recent engineering discoveries from Ancient Rome that have the potential to shake up some major areas of industry – discoveries that show we still have a lot to learn from our ancestors.
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The first finding is rather astonishing. As noted earlier this month by Zeeya Merali, a 1,600 year old chalice known as the Lycurgus Cup have proved to be more than just a stunning work of art. It’s also an example of one of the earliest forms of nanotechnology.
The cup, as Merali notes, was actually a mystery for centuries. That’s because it appears green when lit from one angle, but red when lit from a different angle. It wasn’t until the 1990s, after decades of study in the 20th century, that it was determined how it was created. As it turns out, the glass itself was infused with particles of silver and gold that were only about 50 nanometers in diameter. The particular ratio of the mixture was definitely known, as other similar cups have been discovered.
In a paper from 2007, scientists who have studied the cup noted that “[e]ven using modern powerdriven tools, this type of vessel takes a great deal of time to complete.” But more than that, this technology might turn out to revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry.
That’s because researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, using the same techniques the Romans used, earlier this yeardeveloped a device that enables them detect DNA and proteins without having to chemically modify them first. That lowers the overall costs and helps resist errors that occur in the process. The team estimates that their device is about “100 times better sensitivity” than any other similar product.
In their paper, published in Advanced Optical Materials, the research teams says that “We envisage extensive use of the device for DNA microarrays, therapeutic antibody screening for drug discovery and pathogen detection in resource poor setting and a low cost, higher sensitive alternative to existing SPR/LSPR instruments.”
But the Ancient Romans aren’t content to only revolutionize medicine. Soon, you may be living or working on a building or road that’s built with the same materials that the Romans built their own with – materials that, when created, also produce fewer carbon emissions.
That’s thanks to the work of a research team at the University of California at Berkeley, which has studied the ways that Roman concrete has managed to endure for over 2,000 years in the same conditions that cause modern concrete to degrade after about 50 years.
The key to the durability of Roman concrete was its mixture of lime and volcanic ash, which produces a concrete that includes aluminum, something most modern cements lack. Modern cements also rely on limestone, but the Roman recipe calls for much less of it. That means that Roman concrete can be created at temperatures nearly a thousand degrees lower than modern cements. As a result, using Roman cement means not only a more durable material, but also one that can be produced with less fuel in less time – making it both more efficient and more environmentally sustainable.
That’s a good thing, considering that “manufacturing Portland cement accounts for seven percent of the carbon dioxide that industry puts into the air,” as lead researcher Paulo Monteiro noted in a statement. The research team’s chemical analysis of Roman concrete was recently published in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society, and more of their research will be published later this year.
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These new applications of Ancient Roman technology have, I think, something powerful to teach us in the present day. Many of the problems that face civilization are as old as civilization itself. And as we look for innovative ways to deal with those problems, it’s a mistake to only look for guidance in new ideas. It may be that if we look backwards at what our ancestors did, we maWy find that they’ve already solved our problems for us. We just have to be humble enough to accept that.

Tag: Innovation

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