Remind us of the concept of Africa Tech Summit, whose 2022 edition will be held on February 23 and 24 in Nairobi.
Africa Tech Summit is a conference that brings together the main protagonists in the African tech scene. When I conceived the event in 2016, the idea was to meet the needs of people seeking to expand their network, but also the expectations of investors, start-ups, policy makers ... Today, we are at our fourth edition on the continent, the previous one having been held in Rwanda (Editor's note, in February 2020).
The event has grown along with the pan-African tech ecosystem of which it has become a barometer...
Indeed, the African tech sector has grown enormously in recent years, as has the volume of investment in the sector. Last year, more than 4 billion dollars were invested in African start-ups, which tells me that the continental tech sector has developed a lot. Better still, beyond the increase in investments, we are now seeing African technology companies acquiring other companies and establishing themselves in new markets outside Africa (Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia). Clearly, we are in an exciting era for African tech and Africa Tech Summit is helping to bring these different players together, helping them do business and establish partnerships.
International investors will indeed be at the Africa Tech Summit. What are the main trends in this area?
Fintech is still the leading investment sector, as it is essential for the smooth running of other tech services. Without it, there is no payment and e-commerce infrastructure that allows other sectors to sell their services and get paid. But there are also many other tech segments that solve real problems, such as technology applications related to health (e-health) or education (Edtech), which have seen their use increase sharply during the health crisis born of Covid.
"The pandemic has contributed to accelerate the conclusion of many deals”
From this point of view, the pandemic has contributed to accelerate the conclusion of a number of deals: as investors can no longer go to Nairobi, Lagos or Accra to meet their selling partners, many operations have been finalized via Zoom calls. Another observation is the development of syndicates, groups of investors. These structures sometimes bring together 100 to 200 members, each of whom can put up $5,000 to $10,000, which ultimately makes it possible to conclude larger syndicated operations. The crisis has had its share of victims, however, with many start-ups failing, in part because no one was using their services during the lockdowns. Others, on the other hand, were able to "pivot" and reinvent themselves, like SafeBoda in Uganda, which grew from a motorcycle cab company to a broader platform of transportation and delivery-related services.
The health crisis has highlighted "made in Africa" innovation and resilience of these start-ups. How can we ensure that they have a greater impact on the real economy?
The biggest issue at the moment is jobs, and this is true across the whole continent. When it comes to job creation, there is every reason to believe that some jobs will be more or less affected by new developments such as automation and artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, new technology-related opportunities may also emerge. For example, look at the small and medium-sized enterprises in any African city that sell local products and Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG): the technology deployed by e-commerce and logistics start-ups - which also often offer credit purchasing options - allows these SMEs to optimize their inventory purchases/sales, which ultimately leads to increased business, and therefore jobs.
"There is a huge need today for technology-related skills”
Also, and this is something you will hear a lot about at the Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi, there is a huge need for tech-related skills today. The tech ecosystem is growing exponentially every year in Africa, but at the same time there is a total talent shortage. I'm not saying that every child should become a developer, but if we look at the creative industry for example, it is already very important in terms of music content, games... So there is a need for animation specialists, people who can create and shape these ideas.
Of course, technology is not the solution to all our problems and producing thousands of application developers may not create the efficiencies we need in national economies often centered on agriculture. Still, this technology, when adapted, can help the farmer increase his yields, better understand his inputs and outputs, leading to real change on the ground. Similarly, more and more fintech startups are providing loans to farmers, allowing them to secure cash flow, which is critical to the activity of African economies.
"Faced with the major challenge of food sustainability, I think we will see, in the next four or five years, a wave of African companies specializing in food tech"
In another register, facing the major challenge of food sustainability, I think we will also see, in the next four or five years, a wave of African companies specializing in "Food tech". They will start offering sustainable products and services, capable of feeding the continent (and why not the rest of the world), like this company in Nigeria that sets up a tomato processing plant. Or these girls in South Africa, who raise fly larvae, fed with organic waste, in order to use them as food for animals.
Another consequence of the pandemic is the development of e-events. Is there a market for this in Africa?
Yes, online events were obviously necessary during the pandemic and are here to stay. That said, Africa Tech Summit is primarily built on networking people, direct interactions. The core value of our event is to connect people to do business and that kind of thing necessarily requires a dose of nuance in meeting people: you have to sit down and have a coffee with them, look at them, observe their body language. These are all things you can only do at "real" events.
"Tired of Zoom video calls, people are very happy to be back and have a real contact, face to face"
As an example, last December we held an Africa Tech Summit at the London Stock Exchange. It was the first live event we'd held since our previous summit in Rwanda in February 2020, and the energy in the room was unlike anything I'd experienced before. Tired of Zoom video calls, people were very happy to be "back" and have real, face-to-face contact. On another note, if you look at the metaverse right now, there are certainly people who have ambitions to organize online events and other such virtual events. In such a context, where everything remains unpredictable, it will be interesting to see what happens there as well. It's clearly an exciting time.
