MeliaCRED: Conversations with Elvis

Elvis speaks with Dr. Yabebal Fantaye, a cosmologist-turned-AI educator and co-founder of 10 Academy, about transforming African talent into global AI professionals through intensive boot camps. From analysing the universe with 10,000 supercomputers at Berkeley to building Ethiopia's AI workforce pipeline, Yabebal shares his remarkable journey from pursuing a Nobel Prize in physics to democra...

Elvis speaks with David Cushman, Executive Research Leader at HFS Research, about how to separate hype from reality in agentic and generative AI and what a shift toward Services-as-Software means for people, providers, and clients. They explore where AI hits first in services, especially CX/BPO, why headcounts haven’t collapsed yet, and how value migrates toward human-AI teams and enterprise agent...

Elvis speaks with Wondwesen Zewdie about what happens when data, algorithms, and national identity collide on the football pitch. They explore R&D Group’s “Moneyball” contribution to professional football analytics with artificial intelligence, and the Ethiopian outsourcing association’s (EOA’s) approach to regional and global networking in the Global Business Services sector. From data-driven...

Elvis speaks with Georgina Hutchinson, Associate Partner at Dalberg Data Insights and former Senior Advisor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Georgina has spent years at the intersection of technology, policy, and governance, working to democratize AI for the public good. In this episode, they explore what life could look like in the company of artificial general intelligence (AGI). F...

Elvis speaks with Jente Rosseel, founder and CEO of Elewa, a Nairobi-based technology and education company working primarily with startups and SMEs across Europe, the UK, and South Africa. Jente shares his journey from Belgium to Kenya, detailing how Elewa bridges the gap between ambitious startups and cutting-edge technological solutions through innovative apprenticeship programs, managed talent...

Elvis speaks with Beruh Yayehyirad Kitaw, Director of Technology at MMCY, a global talent company based in Addis Ababa. MMCY operates at the intersection of technology outsourcing and business process outsourcing, providing talent across tech and customer support. Beruh describes MMCY's journey from a purely tech-focused firm to a hybrid organisation, their use of AI agents in recruitment and...

Elvis speaks with Samuel Mussie, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Mereb Technologies, about Ethiopia's rapid transformation into a software outsourcing destination and the double-edged impact of AI on junior developers. As the CTO at Mereb Technologies, Samuel is passionate about turning complex tech challenges into seamless, user-friendly solutions for global partners, leading a ta...

Elvis speaks with Kaleab Mezgebu, co-founder and CEO of MinabTech in Addis Ababa, about practical applications of AI in Ethiopia. Kaleab shares how MinabTech developed HaHuJobs, an AI-driven employment platform, and discusses the role of AI in addressing employment, data classification, and efficiency. They explore Ethiopia's economic development, sociopolitical challenges, and the realistic...

Rahul Srivatsa is the Managing Director of Techno Brain GBS. We spoke about the transformation of business process outsourcing (BPO), the automation threat to contact centres, and what workforce planning could look like across Africa in the ear of artificial intelligence (AI).  Topics covered: How BPO operations may change with AI; the geographic diversification of global business services post-CO...

A discussion with Barrett Nash, founder of InfiniteUp, about building AI-powered business tools, the democratization of artificial intelligence, and strategic career planning for the AI era. Topics covered: – Building "thick wrappers" vs simple AI integrations – The symbiotic relationship between humans and AI – GPT-4.5's breakthrough in multilingual capabilities – Why coding as a c...

A discussion with AI strategist Johan Steyn about education disruption, the future of coding careers, and Africa's evolving business services sector. Topics discussed: – Why traditional universities may become irrelevant within a decade – The transition from coding skills to AI collaboration capabilities – Africa's demographic dividend and the Business Process Outsourcing industry transf...

After a long career at the Boston Consulting Group, Martin Hecker created AmaliTech, a social business that specializes in exporting digital services from Africa to the world. Martin also created the DSAA, a club that funnels German development aid funding to global business services firms that set up offices in Africa.

Software development is among the most complex and best-paying jobs that can be offshored. This is what put the Indian IT-enabled Services sector on the global map. Yet a worldwide talent shortage still exists.  As ever more young Africans now enter digital labour markets, ever more young software developers become available to the world. In this conversation, I speak with Objectivity's Jacqu...

Global Business Services (GBS) companies come in many shapes. Deriv is an online brokerage firm that turned Kigali, Rwanda, into one of its global delivery locations. I spoke with Godfrey Zveynika, the Country Manager,  about Kigali as Deriv's decision for its Africa office, about Rwanda as a possible destination for other GBS firms, about Kigali's eco-system of digital services exporter...

Are you a Rwandan graduate, looking to start your career in IT services?  Are you a Global Business Services firm, looking for a new delivery location in Africa? Are you a government official, seeking to facilitate a digital services export cluster in your country? Are you an international development partner, hoping to support future-oriented job creation in an African metropolis? If you ticked y...

Kigali is home to a tight-knit ecosystem of up-skilling and work-readiness programs, tailored to the Global Business Services (GBS) sector. Firms interested in coming to Rwanda to export IT-enabled services, or firms interested in importing digital services through the internet from Rwanda might find this conversation interesting. In it, I speak with Vivens Uwizeyimana, founder and CEO of Umurava,...

Across the world, many people's dream job is located somewhere in the creative economy. Making films and creating video content has become much more accessible over the past few years, and as the digital realm brings the world closer together, collaborations across borders can emerge in creative fields that were hitherto limited by geography. In our conversation, Hassan Tha Kreator tells me a...

Imagine you're a global business services firm, thinking of setting up a new delivery center in an African country. Your first problem will be to decide on the right country. The next problem will be to figure out how to manage the local workforce. What are the labor laws, customs, and skill levels in that country? PesaChoice is a human resources management platform that seeks to help incomin...

When Global Business Services (GBS) firms choose new delivery locations, they look for stable governance, conducive regulations, reliable infrastructure, and workers with the right skills. Rwanda already tops Africa’s charts on governance, regulations, and infrastructure. And the Government has now begun an initiative with international development partners to train a large pool of GBS workers. Or...

Rwanda's progress over the past three decades has turned this small country into one of Africa's newly emerging technology hubs. Global Business Services (GBS) companies have recently set up delivery locations in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, and Joseph Semafara is a leading figure in providing these investors with a "soft landing." His company, SOLVEIT AFRICA, trains young graduat...

Africa is full of young people who see the internet as their ticket to a better life. Adewale Yusuf, a Nigerian tech entrepreneur, saw this continent-wide drive as an opportunity to connect African workers, mainly programmers, with global clients, mainly tech companies – all remotely. For this, he built TalentQL, a platform that acts as a wormhole – transporting African coders into the borderless...

The University of Oxford is home to the Oxford Internet Institute. Behind the blue door of a townhouse, too many researchers from around the world scramble for desks as they try to makes sense of life in the digital era. In his room on the third floor, Vili Lehdonvirta saw something in the data that gave him an idea he couldn’t shake. So, he did what academics do, he wrote a book about it. Lehdonv...