By Andile Masuku
Over 2.5 days in September 2023, a luxurious Franschhoek wine estate venue played host to the inaugural Digital Transformation Strategy Summit Africa, curated by Novacom Summits.
South African journalist and podcast producer Refiloe Mpakanyane joined the fray to spend time with C-Suite leaders and innovative solution providers working in African telecoms; gleaning live dashboard insights about the state of digital transformation on the continent.
Mpakanyane taped medium-length video interviews with four seasoned corporate C-suite executives and distilled them into a share-worthy podcast pulse-check featuring eclectic insights into the evolution of Africa’s telecoms-driven digital transformation.
Digital economy participation is the new black
In conversation with Mpakanyane and The African Pre-seed’s managing editor Adam Wakefield, former director of Google West Africa Dr Juliet Ehimuan put forward three pivotal pillars of digital transformation: access, local content development and tech entrepreneurship.
Ehimuan highlighted the importance of skills development as a linchpin for participation in the digital economy and cited the crucial role governments might play in fostering digital skills among citizens.
“One of us” in the seat of power
I would hazard that, like many other hopefuls, Ehimuan might like to see more impact flexes like those being made by “tech rebel”-turned Nigerian minister of communications, innovation, and digital economy, Bosun Tijane, happen across the continent.
Since his surprise appointment to the highest echelons of the Naija government in August 2023, the social media-savvy Tijane has maintained an actively “open-API” public profile. It’s been headlined by an ambitious, five-pillar strategic agenda which appears to have been cautiously and optimistically well-received despite early mixed reviews regarding the merits of his appointment.
Doing the regulatory shuffle
Dr Willie Oosthuysen, the chief strategy officer of Liquid Intelligence Technologies, stressed the need to confront regulatory challenges that persist in every African market.
Oosthuysen’s perspective, undoubtedly shaped by his strategic purview over Liquid Intelligence Technologies’ business presence and vast fibre optic network in more than 20 African countries, paints a nuanced picture of steady, albeit checkered pan-African progress.
He says African markets, despite grappling with regulatory lags and fragmented framework adoption, routinely adopt successful technology models with a lag of two to three years, showcasing noteworthy resilience and adaptive capacity.
However, think tank pundits like Melody Musoni, the policy officer in the European Centre for Development Policy Management’s digital economy and governance team, are concerned. Even as numerous African nations seek to increase participation in the digital economy and introduce or modify data protection and privacy regulations, the unprecedented rise of AI technology is spurring the urgent need for decisive regulatory responses to safeguard the interests of African citizens.
The emergent reality will probably exacerbate the regulatory fragmentation risks observed by Oosthuysen and flagged in an article titled “Top 10 risks for telecommunications in 2023” by EY’s Global consultants Tom Loozen and Adrian Baschnonga.
Autonomous power to the people
Continuous Power Africa’s website states that the company “develops and supplies products and solutions that enhance the reliability of telecoms in Africa”. The firm’s CEO, Varun Giridhar, referenced widespread energy infrastructure challenges in his chat to Mpakanyane.
Reflecting positively on continent-wide gains he has observed since the company’s launch in 2019, Giridhar cited as progress the growing number of telecoms players keenly adopting operationally efficient and cost-effective distributed energy solutions.
Think of the sort of hardware and software solutions which help lower diesel fuel use in underserved urban, peri-urban and rural telecoms sites and optimising the use of the eye-wateringly expensive battery tech that mobile carriers rely on to keep their base stations online. Giridhar was particularly bullish on recent trends towards deploying remote control and autonomous interventions.
Indian Ocean connections
Finally, Mpakanyane’s interview with Elhad Kassim Said Ahmed, the head of Submarine Optical Fibre Network at Comoros Cables, channelled distinctive industry perspectives from a small island nation with grand connectivity ambitions. Ahmed is spearheading an ambitious corporate drive to position Comoros as a key strategic broadband connectivity hub in the Indian Ocean. Success hinges on leveraging Comoros’ strategic geographical location, off the east coast of Africa, to become a choice connector not just for the whole of Africa, but also for growing Middle Eastern and Asian markets.
In an article titled “Undersea cables in an age of geopolitical competition”, assistant professor of International Security at Khalifa University, Dr Ash Rossiter, underscores the critical geopolitical security sensitivities and socio-economic dependencies linked to Africa’s relatively limited undersea cable infrastructure. Rossiter cites devastating instances of accidental cable damage due to shipping and fishing activity and intentional cable slashing by various determined actors with wide-ranging disruptive intent. With the installation and safeguarding of undersea cables laid over vast oceanic expanses being a costly and arduous matter, to say nothing of the complexity of repairing of damaged cables, Rossiter puts into perspective the gutsy ambitions of Ahmed and the team he leads at Comoros Cables.
All told, the diverse narratives presented in the four C-suite exchanges paint a mosaic of challenges and triumphs, big and small, which reflect the dynamic nature of Africa’s digital transformation. While acknowledging the hurdles, Mpakanyane’s journalism deftly spotlights resilience, adaptation and innovation as hallmarks of progress.
Digesting the insights, it’s evident that Africa’s digital transformation is not a linear journey but a multifaceted evolution in which the telecoms industry has a big part to play.
Andile Masuku is the co-founder and executive producer at African Tech Roundup and the head of Community at Africa-focused early-stage tech investor Founders Factory Africa. Connect and engage with Andile on X and via LinkedIn.
BUSINESS REPORT