Name: MPW London 2019: Africa's NextGen Changemakers
Uploaded: 2019-12-26
Duration: 19 min 26 s
Description: The Continent’s innovation revolution is creating uniquely African opportunities within its tech-savvy 52 countries and its increasingly global-minded consumers.

MPW London 2019: Africa's NextGen Changemakers

Tech

The Continent’s innovation revolution is creating uniquely African opportunities within its tech-savvy 52 countries and its increasingly global-minded consumers.

everybody Me. So just to give expand a little bit on the introduction. Viola Llewellyn is the co founder and president of Bamba Solutions, which is a fintech company serving the African continent. Um, and new news. Now I'm gonna do it right? Yes. Is head of Africa for Facebook little company you may have heard of. So I know that this session is called Africa's next Gen Change makers and we are talking about the African continent. But it's also important to know, I think, straight off the bat, that this is not a monolithic market. So quick question for you guys. How many languages are spoken in Africa? Throw out a number. Do you think it's in the tens? Raise your hand 102,000 around 2000. So let's talk about that and the opportunities and challenges that that present so well I want to start with you. Um, one of the things that you offer consumers the people that you serve and entrepreneurs is a chatbots service. How does that work? It works with great difficulty visible where a B to B solutions to fund smaller medium enterprises the short term capital for trade. We've particles consumer. No, no, that's okay. We're now a trade tech solution. When it comes to financial inclusion, no matter how sexy your technology is, if customers can't actually interact with it a bit of a waste time on. One of the things that we discovered was that the banking solutions and many other financial institutions are making assumptions about either last milers or individuals who may be functionally illiterate or informal but intelligent and the ease in which they can discuss business in a cogent fashion or a way that you would Hume an educated person would. But you start to talk to somebody in their own language, and you will get the detail that a lot of the data repositories just don't keep because they advertise frequently undercounted underestimated. So by creating a natural language chapel, you can't off somebody. Question. What is your current balance sheet? You are. How much did you sell last week and how much is left over using a I machine learning. You can start to put together the financial picture of a company in order to give them inclusion. To do that by just using a conversation versus something to complete or to go into a bank where they may be intimidated with filling out an application form finally gives the seats at the table that informal deserves. Is that what from from a Facebook perspective and a big company perspective, what have you found in, uh, the again the opportunities and the challenges of serving technology products to the market? I think that they're a couple of opportunities in the continent. We certainly located as, ah, wide opportunity regions. I think they're number of things first, to the to the stuff that you started with it so often that when we discuss Africa, we don't get the granularity off the diversity of the region. The region is quite diverse. It's a region that is to that 54 countries and those languages so way. Look at that, however, a technology company, our single biggest day to make sure that we continue to bring people in line. So that's where we start. Fundamentally, we still have a region that is under collected, so we make sure that we're bringing people lining. We're giving them affordable and good quality Internet so that they can have the kind of conversations that you're wanting them to have so at a base level that is a region that we deal. It was. But if you just take a step forward and you look at the region, this is gonna be one of the youngest regions in the world. And how are we dealing with that? And what? What does it mean for technology and bringing young people in line? That is something that is very exciting for us. This is gonna be one of the region's, which has perhaps we're going to have some of the highly intensified city. And we're looking at that. How do we make sure that these cities are not only then, but actually they have the technology to make them run? So we really, really excited about the prospect of the region and were cognisant off what we need to do today so that by 2025 the region had can live up to the potential that everybody talks about. And even though you mentioned, uh, communities that are not yet connected that are not yet online in Africa, those who are are very connected, and Facebook has 145 million users on the continent, and you in in Africa, you've got the highest percentage of access via mobile phones. It's at 97%. So it is the highest out of any other region. And it's interesting because now, with Facebook, you know, new pivot more to messaging payments. It seems like the Continent sort of already had the perfect marriage of maybe not perfect in perfect marriage of of telco and Fintech, which I'm sure you have a lot to say about as well. But can you explain? Sort of, you know, are there opportunities that are unique to Africa today? From Facebook's perspective, Because of that mobile penetration, the key thing is, yes, your point. There's 100 and 45 million people that come into our service is every month. Now that is a huge opportunity. What we see a space book is two things of financial service is, for example, there There's a group off industries that, for some reason or another, structurally, people are serving structural issues. So what she's solving for his issues off people that are unbanked in all of that, So their companies and amazing innovation in that area finish service has been one of them agreed have been also another area, very great area serving and almost fixed in some of the issues that we've heard before from this tractor point of view. And then, on the other hand, Africa just like any way in the world, This is not a continent that only looking for useful solutions. We're looking for solutions that are going to take a far. We've seen companies that are beginning to drive at this point in time. Adopting a I saw some of the issues that they have beginning to take V r. Beginning tucked up, though, So I think that when you look in Africa and the play, I always start with the diversity issue, the problems, the opportunities are equally diverse, exciting because we are really there with a I am really driving some interesting technology to some of the real issues in Africa. But on the other hand, there was a panel area on hooking up, up, make up some of the company's already using. They are for you to be able to try and lipstick and purchase. So e commerce is beginning to boom because of things like messaging platforms. Social Comment is one of the fastest growing comets that we've seen the region because people can actually could converse and transacted. Are you really are using untapped opportunities in fintech and other technologies that come to mind that are really, really workable on deductible to the market? Yes, and in a weird way, I mean, who could see the future? The things that I see coming online that are really solving problems outside of natural language chatbots are some of the things that will debunk most of the ideas that people have become super comfortable with. Especially, it comes to what we visualize a smaller medium enterprise to bay. It's not some little woman in a colorful outfit trying to dig a hole and feed her family on $2.50 a day. Thank you, Sally Struthers, which you've never done that it's more than that. We are company, for example, funds up for half a 1,000,000 for for a trade transaction. What we're seeing is more people getting comfortable with funding the missing middle with more than they ever had before. But in order to do that in a way that the threat of the digital divide does not put people into those that have digital access and those that can't afford it being able to create the algorithms that measure people both by by their ethnicity, by their culture and the places that they really come from, and understanding the African genome for success as it relates to How do we really behave when no one's actually really looking? We need to be able to open up. So facial recognition, intellectual property management on I. D. All of these things are actually an impertinent hat to financial institutions and to the world of fintech. We're really talking about the difference between those that will do well. And with companies like Facebook, they are becoming what we saw in the wild Wild West, whereby it wasn't the people that came to dig for gold. The people that kindly helped create the pick, axes and the shovels in order to create an ecosystem that worked for the long haul regardless off geopolitical, regardless of anything else, but creates that opportunity for men, women, Children, everybody the democracy of opportunity. That's what Fintech is doing. So again, access to capital measuring algorithm, secondary markets, housing, finance, education, secondary education, post professional education and AP eyes and connection to places that really just begin to see the tip of the iceberg and, you know, you bring up but several good points, but you mentioned facial recognition. Technology is a few other forms of tech, and obviously we have seen unequivocally that technology is a double edged sword used as a force for good, it can be used as a force for bad. I want to ask you from Facebook perspective. You know, we have this issue now across the country, not just in Africa, of course, misinformation, campaign hate speech on the platform. And we have seen how hard it is to police. And even when the right policies maybe are in place to enforce, right, how are you addressing it specifically in This has been a hot topic. There is, I think it's been a huge topic around the world in one that we take huge responsibility for, and we continue to work on it, and I don't think we'll ever get to a place where we say finally, we've sorted it out. But this is what we're doing in the region. We already have spectacles in the region. So around the globe, what we had set up is that whole system off fact checking and we don't do. We don't check the fact ourselves, but we'll go ahead and partner with various companies, and we've done that in the region, will set up in many of the countries where we believe that there's a huge numbers of people coming online. So we do that. So that's one area off the work that we do. The second area that we do actually have introduced content moderation in in the continent. So we have people in various languages. He spoke about 2000 languages. You don't have all languages represent, we don't know. But we have a lot of the languages that people use. Okay, spread almost in a geographic pattern is almost predictable. Basing on the origins off, whether you were a trader or a nomad, for example, feel I made in Poland really emulation rules that so we will continue to expand the languages that are available. But we feel result that is that really important, that the people sit in the region and they're able to do that and just generally across the world, our A eyes getting better and better at being able to detect that speech as it happens before you. And I even seed at some point you can up to 90 95% of the time. Detect that before anyone. If you post something, eh? I can detect it and folded victim Oh, completely holding back and send it to really humans to say I think this needs to be properly so this is a global phenomenon, and this is something that we take particularly hard, hopefully not reaching just to make sure that we are good. And we believe that we're a force for good, particularly in the region. I want to turn to you for questions in just a second here. Do you keep your questions in mind once but real quick A question prevail because this came up in another earlier session on transformative investing and you mentioned or somebody in the room mentioned the French Government fund for African startup. And that's not the only government fund. It's not beyond, you know, their private sector funds as well. Of course, focused on the confident, but you raise a really interesting point about it. Uh, it's not a net positive. Can you please explain your view and not necessarily in that positive. Before I say anything, please. French government impact of policy, not French humans, that I have a challenge with you. So just want to say this. I I have come to understand and feel very comfortable playing that very few African nations have survived contact with French colonialism, and the fallout from that is that the the economic engagement in the ability for these countries, Cameron or any other Francophone nature to take a strong sense of leadership and self agency is highly impaired. So we're moving into a new fourth industrial revolution right now, where, by the opportunity to become fully realized, fully globalized and to be included as a human being has never been better before, especially in the hands of women in leadership. However, the legacy off some of the policies that have been in place that govern the management of Treasury, where African bank can put their hard currency where the evaluation is constantly being pushed. The ability for many individuals to take natural resources and do transformation on the continent means that various industries don't get to grow. We have in Douala camera, for example, we are the gateway to the cement region, but we don't actually teach logistics. Instead, we have one individual that manages all the logistics for us, and we have other industries that should be skyrocketing right now. And the impetus for my comment was that there is an opportunity for Africans to use digital transformation and smart investment to become great contributors to the world, to not be in need off handouts, that there be collaboration and cooperation and that there are some of us who take this very personally as their their directors. It's our responsibility. How do we use technology to spread enough innovation, skill and bravery, chutzpah, so to speak, in order to save our continent so we can make a better contribution to the human race? We've got more of us than there are of you. My gang is huge way have amazing resources. And the best resource of all that I mentioned was the 1.1 current human beings with brains that desire to do something better with themselves. And that's whether that comment came from okay, I know we have questions I do when I get to them. Uh, we have Mike runners. Take a question over here and then we'll go to you. OK, shallow David for again. One of the constraint to Internet access in Africa is the limited digital infrastructure on the continent. Onda, we know that if there is sufficient, did you tell him investment you Dr e Commerce, like you said financial inclusion et cetera. Now it's good news that AWS have finally decided to invest at least starting from South Africa. And I believe Microsoft as well. Now the question is, are you collaborating with them that have, given the areas you work into, kind of encourage the spread off, you know, investments in cloud investments in data centers, because without that, everything else we're doing it is gonna four flat. Thank you. You could be very brief. In your answer. We might be able to take one more very quick question. I think you're absolutely right. This whole idea of connectivity is not something that one company can do. And we have seen the greatest amount of collaboration, particularly in this issue, off building infrastructure, to be able to developed the continent. So absolutely, we're going to see huge investments over the lot next couple of years, just around infrastructure with governments and also private companies and wear happy to play a role in that. Yes, I used them both. Yeah, one more very, very brief question. Think over here. There's my coming to you right over. Thank you. Im Lara, from Jordan. I work for a public service TV station. My questions for you know, regarding the changes that happened without the algorithms on Facebook, what would you say is most important, uh, metric a news organization should watch out for, in terms of meaningful engagement enjoyed and 70% of Jordanians of under the age of 30 and Facebook is the main platform to access information. So it's our responsibility to deliver fact based news. What should we as the admin watch out for in the in the metric? I think for us what is important, really to make sure that people get accurate news and we will continue to make sure that people get accurate news. So you have the ability to check the sources and make sure that whatever you're reading at this point in time is valid. And you know, the source is so that's one set off. Ah, things to watch out on one end and ultimately you want to make sure that people remain engaged. So we continue to work to people that actually put content on our platform and drive that constant and make sure that the content is good and sticky. You talk about young people, I can talk about some of the programs that we do, for example, in Nigeria working with content creators. This is something that we take personally responsible for to make sure that content creators are put to the rack contents from our platform. It's a game that will continue to expand. Unfortunately, sitting here today, I can't talk about Jordan by immediately very, very involved in the idea off the content that goes into our platform and also making sure that from the news point of view that that is accurate and that you can actually check it. Well, we do need to wrap up. And I'm sorry. No, we had more questions, but thank you so much new New and viola for joining us today.