Mm

...

when they train their algorithms.

Even people are saying that like when you talk to Gemini 4 now, this latest model, that it's actually a bit refreshing because basically it's so dif- it's smart as hell, but it's different- Mm ... to how, say, Claude, Fable, or like GPT Astra would, would talk.

Welcome.

Because those two now seem so alike, 'cause these guys are basically competing.

One releases tomorrow, the other releases- Yeah, although ...

Now, that was, that is

So where do you think like Africa's biggest opportunity lies now? You know, is it generating more ideas or building stronger systems that can, you know, take existing ideas from the prototypes that we're seeing to, you know, the market.

I think it first requires a rethinking of the model with which venture capital might be raised on the continent.

And why do I say that? I think that there is a question around, is the model that we are trying to replicate here, the Silicon Valley model, that says prioritize growth at all costs, that no matter what it costs you and whether you run losses, we want you to grow, grow, grow.

So if you look at Silicon Valley in the West, broadly speaking, even to a certain extent, maybe perhaps in places like India, you find that unicorns, right? Some of them don't have an obligation to make profits or be sustainable, but they are growing, right? Even if you look at the broader state of AI and many of the research labs that are there, right? from, you know, entropy to open AI.

We've been very excited.

We have an upcoming research, as I mentioned, on AI with what we're seeing out of China with the open-weight, open-source, you know, models and competition that's there.

Africa is benefiting from that.

You know, over like the next decades, which three would you choose and what are your reasons?

It also operates in other African countries, and it uses mobile numbers to make financial transactions.

And so allowing a new definition or a new paradigm around financial services where the SIM card essentially replaces even the concept of a bank account.

And so there's global financial services companies that have come to Africa to study.

And if we look at 2025, there were over $2 trillion flowing through mobile money globally, and over $1.4 trillion of that was in sub-Saharan Africa.

So really what we're talking about is a continent that has essential service innovations that then scale up and impress people in all parts and all corners of the globe that then led to the continent defining its own narrative and really proving that there's a lot more to Africa than sort of the proverbial natural resources, tourism, conflict, or other societal challenges.

Innovation expands across Africa.

And so we can look to the four corners of the continent.

If we start in Southern Africa, for me, that's one of the places on the continent that's produced some of the best of what I'd call the liquidity events, which is a way of saying that technology companies will raise money and then exit, meaning they'll be bought out for hundreds of millions of dollars, in some cases, billions of dollars.

And is that where we can categorize the kind of exchange that we've been seeing online between the U.S. and Iran since the war started? I mean, we've seen accounts ran by embassies and diplomatic missions, especially in Africa, pretty much become meme accounts.

Yeah, they've essentially taken on what looks like some liberties to communicate in two ways that really are very different.

So one is at a volume.

So sometimes they're not even necessarily creating new content as much as on places like X, formerly known as Twitter.

They are doing something called quotes posting, formerly known as quotes tweeting.

So they take someone else's content.

And that could be a meme too, but it's the tone, it's the language, it's the ability for us to see.

What do you think?

Here's an expert who knows all about this quickly developing landscape.

I'm Mark Kaigwa, the founder and CEO at Nendo, a research and creative agency based out of Nairobi in Kenya, which some people call Silicon Savannah.

NENDO did some research work and so we were tasked with looking into a number of knowledge gaps that were there around social media use and internet and mobile phone use within the dry land regions in four different African countries and examining what opportunities for resilience markets and livelihoods there was even amidst conflict or certain land issues among these communities.

Our main findings were that pastoralists really are using and participating in social media and finding great ways to get access to information on weather or food and fodder or water or livestock prices.

Mark Kaigwa joins us again to tell us about the alternatives.

Pastoralists across Africa, because of their nomadic nature, moving with their herds of livestock from place to place, have a unique relationship with their phones.

They will either have at the bottom of the pyramid a basic phone.

It can call, it can text.