Author: Toby Shapshak

As investments lead for Flourish in Africa, Ameya Upadhyay has been helping build African unicorns for a decade. His acumen is as impressive as his success rate, including notable startups like Flutterwave and Lidya (listen here). He tells Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about “baking” an African unicorn – which he has done multiple times. His insights into investing in Africa, especially in fintech, are a master class. Also available on Apple podcasts | Google podcasts | Spotify Visit getshyft.co.za for more info.

Arguably the most important first step in digital and financial inclusion is getting people online in the first place. The largest provider of free public wifi in sub-Saharan Africa is BRCK, a truly remarkable Kenyan start-up that has grown from its revolutionary first BRCK v1 to a SupaBRCK to connect rural villages in Rwanda to its brilliant Moja free public wifi. Co-founder Erik Hersman, who also co-launched renowned tech firm Ushahidi and the iHub in Nairobi, tells Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about why the internet should always be free. Also available on Apple podcasts | Google podcasts | Spotify…

“Lights stay on” the headline read on a street pole last week. South Africa is so entrapped by Eskom’s broken power supply that it’s now newsworthy when there isn’t any load shedding. I thought of that street pole headline when news broke that the Independent Communications Regulator of SA (Icasa) had convinced Telkom, MTN and Vodacom to drop their impending lawsuits over spectrum allocation. This is in fact the second time in a year that Icasa has convinced angry mobile operators to back down from their legal high horses – when it attempted to auction off spectrum this March but…

If you didn’t already know the future of internet connectivity involved fibre, this month’s massive R13.2bn deal between Vodacom and Remgro to combine their fibre offerings into a new infrastructure company should be enough confirmation. Vodacom will combine its fibre assets – worth R4.3bn – with that of Remgro’s 57% owned Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH), which will combine its Dark Fibre Africa and Vumatel into the new InfraCo venture. Vodacom is injecting R6bn in cash, and will hold 30% of the new company, with an option to acquire another 10%. This kind of consolidation is part of a global…

Any doubt that Facebook wasn’t aware of what it was doing and the consequences of its “growth over safety” strategy have been blown away by the Facebook Papers. This trove of internal documents revealed by whistle-blower Frances Haugen shows that the social giant’s leadership knew what they were doing. If they didn’t, they were deliberately not reading their internal research and shocking findings. The Facebook Papers have been widely reported on by numerous news organisations, laying bare just how damaging Facebook’s apps and out of control hate speech and misinformation are to youngsters’ mental health. Facebook “went a little too…

How do you explain what the Covid-19 vaccine does to defeat the virus and help convince sceptics that vaccination is not only a good thing, but also safe? Like every other rational South African adult, I have been double vaccinated. But I am astounded at the flimsy, unscientific excuses from anti-vaxxers about why they refuse to take a vaccine that could save their lives – and prevent them from infecting other people. Madhav Sarda, a psychiatrist who works in medical education at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada tweeted a brilliant and funny explanation. He describes himself as being “in medical…

The latest controversy to hit Facebook is its lame attempt to change its holding company’s name to Meta, believing it will somehow convince people not to notice its ongoing privacy and mental health scandals. Named for the metaverse, an early depiction of virtual reality conceived by science-fiction author Neil Stephenson in his groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. Published in 1994, it depicted a computer virus and, arguably, one of the first examples of cybersecurity. CEO Mark Zuckerberg – besieged by the swirling dragons of angry shareholders, US state attorneys-general, the US Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission – tried…

Sim Tshabalala is a modern-day Medici. Appearing like a conventional banker in his immaculate suit and tie, he’s a deep-thinking man who understands the power of commerce to uplift the country, the role of arts in society and democracy. He’s also the CEO of Standard Bank, the largest financial institution in Africa, who isn’t afraid to compliment (and name-check) smaller competitors. He spoke to Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about the 159-year-old bank’s evolution in this new cloud computing era, and how small fintechs are helping revolutionise financial inclusion in Africa. Also on Apple podcasts | Google podcasts | Spotify…

When someone thinks you are wrong on the internet, they waste no time telling you – nor smirking when they think they have proved you wrong. I’ve experienced it many times over the years, but perhaps never as intensely as after a recent column about Minerals & energy minister Gwede Mantahse’s frankly irrational defence of “cleaner coal” as a power source for the future. My Twitter timeline was clogged with response in defence of Mantashe – and I was followed by numerous fake accounts which I blocked and reported to Twitter. It’s noteworthy that the only time I see clearly…

“How easy is it to type on?” a friend asked me about the smartphone I was testing. It’s not a question I get very often, but then the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G is not an ordinary phone. It’s the third generation of Samsung’s remarkable new form factor which has a foldable screen. It’s an innovation I didn’t ever think I would come to like so much, because it enables you to open the “normal” sized 6.2in phone into a small tablet with a 7.6in screen. It’s a screen that folds. That alone is impressive engineering, especially given how badly-received…