NewThink - Radical Ideas for Development in Frontier Markets

Aubrey and Gyude are joined by Maya Horgan Famodu a venture capital investor, entrepreneur, Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneur, and the founder of Ingressive Capital, a $10 Million venture fund focused on early stage African tech as well as Vivian Nwakah, the CEO of Medsaf and a serial entrepreneur that has created and innovated around execution in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and energy space. Vivian is an award-winning Founder having received recognition from Forbes, the British Royal Family, Women in Africa, Seedstars and many more, as a high impact entrepreneur.

On this episode we dive into Africa's space sector through a discussion with Abimbola Alale, who was appointed CEO for Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited by former president of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan and re-appointed in 2019 by current President Muhammadu Buhari; Levin M. Born, Managing Director of Afamba LLC, a US company that supports mobile network operators and ISPs throughout Africa and the Middle East; and Alex Ntale, CEO of the Rwanda ICT Chamber Private Sector Federation.

On this episode, Aubrey and Gyude are joined by Charles Overby, the Chief Engineer for Norwegian Public Roads Administration. Charles has spent his career seeking more durable and economical technologies for road preservations and rehabilitations. He's worked in various parts of Africa for decades, particularly Botswana, helping to grow road infrastructure .

Aubrey Hruby and Gyude Moore are joined by Tesi Rusagara, Managing Director and Kigali Innovation City and Artem Ermrolaev Chief Information Officer for the Moscow Government Minister, and President at NGO "Smart Cities" to discuss how smart city technology can create jobs and generate economic activity in Africa's largest cities. Tesi Rusagara leads Kigali Innovation City, whose mission is to nurture and accelerate Rwanda’s innovation ecosystem to position Rwanda as a pan-African hub. She was previously with Deloitte Consulting in San Francisco advising financial services clients on digital transformation, growth strategy and divestitures. Tesi has also worked in the President of Rwanda’s Strategy and Policy Unit where she focused on technology, urbanization and private sector development. Prior to this role, she worked for Bank of Kigali, Rwanda’s largest commercial bank. Tesi holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate school of Business and a Bachelor of Business Science in Finance from the University of Cape Town. Artem Ermrolaev is currently launching a new project, NGO “Smart cities”, aggregating his expertise in smart cities and connecting activities from government, consulting, business and academy to share the experience on city management and citizen engagement, and to provide some visionary insights that can be applied by cities and companies. Previously, in 2011 Artem headed the newly established IT Department as the Minister of IT of the Moscow Government. Artem coordinated building the ICT infrastructure for e-health, e-education, public services delivery, and citizen engagement projects. He was also responsible for designing Moscow Digital strategy 2030 aimed at completing digitalization in Moscow.

Aubrey Hruby and Gyude Moore are joined by Sim Shagaya, Femi Longe, and Lydiah Kemunto Bosire to discuss how COVID-19 will affect Edtech across Africa. Sim Shagaya is a Nigerian media and technology entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of uLesson Education - an app built to make education available to a learners across Africa. He is the founder and former C.E.O of one of West Africa's largest e-commerce websites Konga.com and the founder of E-Motion Advertising - a leading out-of-home media company acquired in 2019 by Loadstad Media. In 2014, he was named in Forbes list of "10 Most Powerful Men in Africa". Dr. Lydiah Kemunto Bosire is the Founder and CEO of 8B Education Investments, a fin-tech social enterprise specialized in lending to African students to attend world-class global universities. A Kenyan national who studied in the US and the UK, Lydiah brings to the field of innovative finance her personal perspective, and over fifteen years of experience working on issues of international politics, development, and human rights. Prior to founding 8B, Lydiah worked at the United Nations, the World Bank, and leading global NGOs. Femi Longe is a social entrepreneur, enterprise trainer, innovation consultant, and speaker with a keen interest in helping individuals and organizations be their best selves and to do their best job to enable a better world. He is currently the co-Founder and Director of Innovation at Co-Creation Hub, Nigeria’s foremost social innovation center committed to stimulating and supporting innovation for a better Nigeria. As Director of Innovation, Femi drives collaborative co-creation processes to generate innovative technology solutions for social and commercial challenges. He is keen about helping individuals find the intersection between their passion and the needs of the world. He is an avid traveler and has visited or lived in 42 countries and counting.