African Tech Roundup Podcast

This is our 100th episode! To everyone who's ever listened in to the show, interacted with us via social media, recommended the podcast to other people, made an audio contribution, emailed a comment or question, been featured as a guest, attended one of our live events, tuned in to a live stream on Facebook, or even come on board as a podcast/event sponsor, thank you. We all did this. The love is...

It's been barely a week since we hosted the African Tech Round-up LIVE: State of the Startup event in Johannesburg, and believe it or not, next week will mark the 100th podcast we'll have published in consecutive weeks. We've done our best to deliver the biggest digital, tech and innovation headlines from Africa and beyond while offering candid analysis and commentary, as well as useful insights g...

The Tech Minute 17-03-2017 by African Tech Roundup

Mobile telcos on the continent are certainly having a rough time of it on the continent. In the same week that MTN South Africa CEO, Mteto Nyati, announced his resignation, a consortium of banks including Guaranty Trust Bank, Access Bank and Zenith Bank reportedly assumed control of Etisalat Nigeria over an outstanding $1.72 billion loan. Media reports suggesting that Etisalat Nigeria failed to me...

In this Tech Minute, Brian Lupiya shares the latest on Etisalat Nigeria's $1.72 billion credit dispute with a consortium of banks including Guaranty Trust Bank, Access Bank and Zenith Bank, and reveals which international VOD subcription service has set its sights on seven African countries. Music credit: Muzikid

Oops... Amazon is still recovering from their embarrassing human error that caused a massive outage of their Simple Storage Service, leading to significant portions of the web to go down for several hours. For more on that story and one other major news item from the past week, listen in to this Tech Minute with Brian Lupiya. Music credit: Muzikid

Pule Taukobong is a Founding Partner at CRE Venture Capital (CRE VC), a seed-focussed fund which invests in technology-enabled startup companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Their impressive portfolio includes stakes in startups like Andela, Esaja, Angani, Flutterwave and more recently, Yoco. Pule is responsible for the group's deal flow and performs industry and financial due diligence on both incoming...

Whatever you think of Nokia's re-introduction of the legendary 3310 device, you've got to hand it to HMD Global for completely owning Mobile World Congress 2017 in terms of capturing headlines. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to recall any other major announcement made at the world's premier mobile showcase this year. In this week's African Tech Round-up, Andile Masuku is joined by Zambian author,...

In this Tech Minute-- media reports have surfaced alleging SAP South Africa Managing Director Lawrence Kandaswami's involvement in a kickback scandal linked to the Department of Water and Sanitation. For more on this and other leading tech news from the past week, be sure to spare a minute to listen in.​ Music credit: Muzikid

Katlego Maphai is the co-founder and CEO of the South African mobile payments startup, Yoco.   Yoco launched out of beta in October 2015 and the venture has since acquired over 6 500 merchants, has gone on to process approximately $76,7 million (R1 billion rand) in annualised transactions. The company has recently announced the conclusion of a Series-A funding round (sum undisclosed) led by two fo...

In this Tech Minute, Brian Lupiya unpacks how Kenyan banks have teamed up to take on the disruptive threat posed by M-Pesa, and touches on two other leading stories from the latest African Tech Round-up podcast. Music credit: Muzikid

We're often asked what informs our opinionated take on the biggest tech and innovation headlines each week. Our secret is having five to ten times as many conversations per week than most people. From established tech entrepreneurs and high-flying C-suite types to striving startup founders, career tech-heads, VC’s, business angels and everyday Africans who are leveraging tech to make a better life...

While at the World Business Angels Investment Forum 2017, Chris Campbell, co-founder of both the African Business Angels Network (ABAN) and the South African Business Angels Network (SABAN) catches up with Nigerian angel investor and president of ABAN, Tomi Davies, to get his thoughts on how readily the world is starting to think of Africa is a serious tech investment destination.

In the same week that Neotel officially became part of Liquid Telecom (a subsidiary of the Econet Group), Anglophone Cameroon clocked a month of going without internet access. Brian Lupiya shares the details in this Tech Minute. Music credit: Brian Lupiya Image credit: Edouard Tamba

Alison Treadaway is a director and shareholder of the South African eBilling and eMarketing software and services company, Striata. In this chat, Alison unpacks the noble aims of South Africa's imminent enaction of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI), and highlights some of the pain points that this ground-breaking piece of legislation is expected to address-- gaps that other African...

The continent's two most prominent central banks-- the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), have decidedly different attitudes towards the notion of adopting virtual currencies. While the CBN has recently warned the country's financial institutions and citizens that virtual currencies are not legal tender, the SARB has displayed a willingness to emulate Tunisia...

In this Tech Minute, Brian Lupiya gives the lowdown on an impressive large-scale green project in Cape Town, South Africa and touches on two other leading stories from the latest African Tech Round-up podcast. Music credit: Muzikid

Lionel Chmilewsky is the CEO of Cambridge Broadband Networks (CBNL), a UK-based, privately-held multipoint microwave tech firm which has an impressive client list that includes seven of the world’s top ten mobile operators-- among them, African biggies like MTN and Vodacom. Lionel shares insights on the state of play on the continent’s wireless network scene, and explains why recent advances in mu...

The Indomitable Lions of Cameroon are probably still celebrating their win against The Pharaohs of Egypt in the AFCON final. How ironic that roughly 20% of the Central African country’s population was unable to celebrate their national team’s win on social media thanks to the government’s ongoing broadband blackout following anti-government protests in the north-west and south-west regions of that...

Got a minute? This brisk, energetic podcast presented by Brian Lupiya delivers the top three digital, tech and innovation stories featured in the latest episode of the African Tech Round-up (AfricanTechRoundup.com). Music credit: Brian Lupiya

Africa's 'high-end' VOD scene is hotting up, and for home-grown heavies, ShowMax and Kwesé, the race to achieving critical mass is on. ShowMax is on the prowl for mobile telco partners that can help it hack growth while leveraging the enviable stash of international licensed content that its mothership, DStv, has in its vault. Meanwhile, Kwesé has the benefit of being part of the Econet Group-- a...

Got a minute? This brisk, energetic podcast presented by Brian Lupiya delivers the top three digital, tech and innovation stories featured in the latest episode of the African Tech Round-up (AfricanTechRoundup.com). Music credit: Brian Lupiya

Several well-respected voices we featured on the show last year predicted that we would see some major agtech plays happen in 2017. Sure enough, Mastercard made headlines last week for launching a digital marketplace platform called 2KUZE which connects smallholder farmers, agents, buyers and banks in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The app allows farmers to buy, sell and receive payments for agricult...

The team at the African Tech Round-up has returned from the Festive break, and so we’re officially back to our normal programming. At the tail-end of this episode, Andile Masuku chats with Nicholus Steward, founder and CEO of the Swazi Bridge Project. He attended the world’s biggest tech show, CES 2017 in Las Vegas two weeks ago, and he’ll be sharing insights he gleaned from the event. We’re also...

We are one week away from returning to our regular coverage of the week’s biggest digital, tech and innovation headlines, once the team at the African Tech Round-up returns from the Festive break. This week's show features yet another sneak preview of Season 6 of the African Tech Conversations series. Andile Masuku chats with Simon Carpenter, Chief Technology Officer at SAP Africa. With 2017 well...