Episode overview: 
In this conversation, South African strategist Wabo Majavu, executive strategy and business operations leader at Africa Data Centres, unpacks how technical expertise at organisations like MTN and Intelsat laid the foundation for her distinctive approach to strategic leadership and digital activism.

From building radar applications at the CSIR to optimising cellular networks through late-night, township-sourced sheep's head dinners with seasoned veteran technicians, Majavu's journey illustrates how hands-on technical experience and savvy adaptation becomes the bedrock of strategic thinking. She discusses navigating workplace discrimination, helping transform organisational culture at state-owned Sentech, and her prescient work in AI before it became a global phenomenon.

Andile Masuku explores with Majavu how strategists shape a company's future direction, the delicate balance between commercial viability and digital inclusion, and her current mission to democratise coding through native African languages.

Key topics:
- From radar systems at CSIR to RF optimisation at MTN: building the technical foundation for strategic leadership
- How experiences at Intelsat shaped her understanding of managed services and market transformation
- The Sentech years: leading digital transformation while learning that culture can eat even the best strategy for breakfast
- Studying AI and signal processing before the global AI boom, and formative educational experiences in Malaysia that shaped future vision
- Strategic stakeholder management: converting union leaders into product managers and building collaborative ecosystems
- Balancing commercial imperatives with digital inclusion through long-term strategic thinking
- Where to start learning AI: practical advice for breaking into the field

Notable points:
1. Majavu's radar applications work at CSIR and cellular network optimisation at MTN provided the technical depth that informs her strategic decision-making today
2. At MTN, she overcame racial barriers by building relationships with Network Operations Centre (NOC) technicians through after-hours learning sessions, bringing sheep's head delicacies from Mamelodi township to earn their trust and knowledge
3. At Sentech, she learned firsthand that "culture can eat strategy for breakfast," successfully converting a well-respected, highly influential union leader into a turnkey product manager spearheading the roll-out of new digital services
4. Majavu studied signal processing and then AI before it became mainstream, building web crawlers and predictive systems
5. Her approach to change management involves understanding each stakeholder's agenda and finding areas of alignment, demonstrated through her successful transformation of adversaries into collaborators

Listen for Majavu's insights on how strategists inform a company's trajectory, why patient capital and technical depth are essential for Africa's digital transformation, and how past experiences become the lens through which strategic leaders view future possibilities.

Image credit: Konecta

Strategy Diaries: Wabo Majavu on Balancing Commercial Success with Digital Inclusion

There Is A Way

John O’Nolan is the founder and head designer at Ghost, an open source, hackable platform for building and running online publications. Ghost is used to power blogs at NASA, Sky News, Elon Musk’s new Open AI initiative, and literally a million other online publications. The interesting thing about Ghost is that it’s run as a non-profit organization with only 10 full-time employees. All of Ghost’s code is open source and the company publishes its financials, including run rates and salaries, on its website.

In this conversation we discuss life on the road, tips and tricks for digital nomads, and how to keep a team in sync across time zones. We also discuss the founding of Ghost, and John’s ideas about the role of the designer CEO, and touch on women in tech, the best tools for virtual teams and a lot more.

Awesome with Simon Dingle

Why do you do? with John O'Nolan

In this conversation, Andile Masuku asks PesaCheck.org Managing Editor, Eric Mugendi, to reflect on the unprecedented leveraging of digital technologies by leading actors in Kenya's controversial elections, and to factor in on how the country's emerging tech ecosystem is doing in the aftermath.

Quick (Tech) Chats

Kenyan post election reflections with PesaCheck.org Managing Editor Eric Mugendi

Back on the show for the first time since contributing his fair share of involuntary hot takes on Episode 109 entitled "Investor Bias Debate 2.0 + Should Africa Embrace Uberisation?" (http://bit.ly/investorbias) Tapsnapp Founder, Vije Vijendrenath assumes co-hosting duties in Musa Kalenga’s absence. Andile Masuku chats to him about the workarounds he's deployed to secure funding for two startups that he previously struggled to get investors to take seriously-- namely, www.tapsnapp.co and www.youbabyandi.com.

Then, joining Andile and Vije on the show for a deep dive into South Africa's mobility scene is Obakeng Morapeli Matlhoko, the Founder of AftaRobot-- South Africa's ambitious "Uber for minibus taxis". Obakeng shares trench insights into his company’s audacious attempt usher in a new paradigm for the country’s notoriously fragmented minibus taxi industry.

Music Credits:
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

African Tech Roundup

A Peek Under the Hood Of South Africa's Mobility Scene feat. Obakeng Morapeli Matlhoko

In this relaxed chat - taped on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 - Business Report (South Africa) Content Editor, Philippa Larkin and African Tech Roundup Executive Producer, Andile Masuku, chat about topical global issues impacting Africa's tech and innovation industry.

Listen in to hear how the conversation takes some unexpected twists and turns as Philippa and Andile discuss the continent's unfolding digital transformation journey.

Philippa Larkin and Andile Masuku's tech and innovation catch-up

This podcast is the first instalment of a two-part conversation Andile Masuku had with one of Zimbabwe’s most well-known and widely-respected business people, the economist turned banker, entrepreneur and investor, Dr Nigel Chanakira. 

Dr Chanakira is probably most famous for founding Kingdom Financial Holdings Limited in 1997, and for orchestrating that company’s much-publicized merger and demerger with the Meikles Africa group before eventually selling out to the Mauritius-based AfrAsia Holdings in 2013.

Prior to founding Kingdom Financial Holdings, Dr Chanakira spent long stints working for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and Bard Discount House. Over the years, he has sat on the boards of numerous leading companies and institutions, including Econet Wireless Holdings, Success Motivation Institute (Africa), the Christian Community Trust and Kingdom Meikles Africa.

Listen in to hear Dr Chanakira's fascinating personal and professional origin story. And heads up, this episode features an intriguing anecdote about role Dr Chanakira played in setting up Econet founder Strive Masiyiwa to become one of Zimbabwe’s most prolific entrepreneurial successes to date, and how he may have simultaneously made the poorest investment decision of his career.

Image credit: Pepi Stojanovski

Investment Diaries With Dr Nigel Chanakira Part 1 - Worst investment decision in Zimbabwean history?

In this episode of the African Tech Roundup podcast, Andile Masuku and The Subtext’s Osarumen Osamuyi are joined by Iginio Gagliardone for a candid introductory chat about the budding Africa-China/China-Africa tech collaboration dynamic.

Iginio is an Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand and an Associate Research Fellow in New Media and Human Rights in the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at the University of Oxford. He is also the author of a new book called China, Africa and the Future of the Internet, which has taken him the better part of ten years to write.

This context-setting conversation covers a lot of ground. Some of the questions discussed include: 

1) Where big-money moves in tech and innovation sector are concerned, is there an Africa-China or China-Africa dynamic at play? [12:17]
2) How committed is China to promoting mutual commercial beneficiation in Africa? [15:51]
3) Is there substance to stereotype of “Everyone has a plan for Africa, except Africa”? [20:13]
4) Are there any “good guys” left, and if so, is China one of them? [25:02]
5) Is China’s influence in African “technopolitical” circles inducing a neo-Third World psyche? [30:23] 

The episode is chock-full of fascinating real-world anecdotes, provocative ideas for how things can and should be and even a lively lightning round near the end of the show which elicited reflex takes on Africa-China tech stories that have trended over the last short while.

To view resources referenced in this episode, visit https://www.africantechroundup.com/africa-china-tech-dynamics/

Image credit: Kayla Kozlowski

Is The Africa-China/China-Africa Tech & Innovation Dynamic Win-win? feat. Iginio Gagliardone

Africa-focused technology, digital and innovation ecosystem insight and commentary.

Strategy Diaries: Wabo Majavu on Balancing Commercial Success with Digital Inclusion

African Tech Roundup

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