All set for today’s presentation at Alibaba Holdings Annual Meeting. I do this regularly around the world, and happy I can share this part-publicly. I will go very professorial, come back to technology, and connect all to human development. Then piece together the agents of Change and why it’s time for do-tanks and not think-tanks.
Knowledge Is The Best Product You Can Acquire
I flew this United Nations helicopter to meet His Excellency and his cabinet. As they moved me from the First Class cabin to the helicopter to the UN vehicle, one thing came to my mind: how possible for this village boy?
Yes, the greatest investment is knowledge at personal, corporate and national levels. When a nation invests in building Mines of Knowledge (not just hydrocarbons), it advances. And when people invest in the acquisition and application of knowledge, they compound impacts.
And whenever you are given an opportunity to showcase that knowledge, demonstrate practical competence that a president can “spend” his precious hours listening to you. Elevate his perspectives so that he can raise his nation higher.
Young people, nothing opens palaces, presidential villas, corporate boards, etc than knowledge. It is the best product you can acquire! Go for it. Build mines of knowledge.
MaxAB, Egyptian e-commerce Startup, Raises $40m in Series A Round
MaxAB, an Egyptian ecommerce startup, has closed a $40 million Series A investment led by RMBV.
Also participating in the funding round are IFC, Flourish Ventures, Crystal Stream Capital, Rise Capital, Endeavour Catalyst as well as existing investors including Beco Capital and 4DX Ventures.
This takes the total funding raised by the startup to $46.2 million having raised $6.2 million in September 2019.
MaxAB plans to use the latest funds to first expand across every key city in Egypt by the end of the year and then in some new markets across the region. The money will also be used to scale recently launched verticals including new supply chain and embedded finance solutions, said the Egyptian startup in a statement.
Founded in 2018 by Belal El-Megharbel and Mohamed Ben Halim, Maxab helps small retailers in Egypt procure inventory for their stores using its mobile app. It makes procurement easy for retailers by enabling them to order everything from one supplier (Maxab), offering transparent pricing and 24-hour delivery.
Since its launch, the startup has helped over 55,000 retailers in Egypt, fulfilling more than 1 million orders, and creating 1,600 direct jobs in the process, it said in a statement.
Belal El-Megharbel, co-founder and CEO of Maxab, said, “Three years ago we embarked on an ambitious mission to create a more cohesive, transparent and efficient food and grocery supply chain in Egypt.
“This additional capital will allow us to continue to give retailers the economies of scale our platform offers while serving many more new customers. Being backed by a diverse group of renowned and experienced investors will enable us to rapidly scale our operations across the MENA region and developing markets.”
Ahmed Badreldin, Managing Partner at RMBV commented: “The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the unique structure of Egypt’s economy, with hundreds of thousands of shopkeepers and small businesses becoming the lifeline of our country at the time of crisis. We are delighted to be backing visionary entrepreneurs that have created a transformative business with impressive growth that is a catalyst for financial inclusion and job creation. We look forward to supporting MaxAB in its next phase of development as they continue delivering on growth and innovation.”
Ameya Upadhyay, Venture Partner at Flourish Ventures, said, “MaxAB is set to play a central role in retailers’ financial lives – it directly boosts retailers’ profits by reducing the hassle and the cost of buying inventory and, with embedded fintech products in its core offering, customers can easily buy more goods and pay for them seamlessly. With its founding team of seasoned operators who have scaled world-class ventures before, MaxAB is pioneering the global trend towards Embedded Finance. We are proud to back MaxAB as our first investment in Egypt and eager to see the next step in their journey.”
The round puts Egypt in line to be one of Africa’s best destinations for start-ups. South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya lead in start-ups investment in the continent.
No Victor No Vanquished: Pentagon Cancels Controversial $10bn JEDI Contract
The legal tussle, which followed the $10 billion JEDI contract awarded to Microsoft, instigated an unexpected decision by the Pentagon on Tuesday.
After several years of fighting and jockeying for position by the biggest cloud infrastructure companies in the world, the Pentagon finally pulled the plug on the controversial winner-take-all, $10 billion JEDI contract, leaving both Microsoft and Amazon out of the deal. TechCrunch has the story.
“With the shifting technology environment, it has become clear that the JEDI cloud contract, which has long been delayed, no longer meets the requirements to fill the DoD’s capability gaps,” a Pentagon spokesperson stated.
The contract procurement process began in 2018 with a call for RFPs for a $10 billion, decade-long contract to handle the cloud infrastructure strategy for The Pentagon. Pentagon spokesperson Heather Babb told TechCrunch why they were going with the. single-winner approach: “Single award is advantageous because, among other things, it improves security, improves data accessibility and simplifies the Department’s ability to adopt and use cloud services,” she said at the time.
From the start though, companies objected to the single-winner approach, believing that the Pentagon would be better served with a multi-vendor approach. Some companies, particularly Oracle, believed the procurement process was designed to favor Amazon.
In the end it came down to a pair of finalists — Amazon and Microsoft — and in the end Microsoft won. But Amazon believed that it had superior technology and only lost the deal because of direct interference by the previous president who had open disdain for then-CEO Jeff Bezos (who is also the owner of the Washington Post newspaper).
Amazon decided to fight the decision in court, and after months of delay, the Pentagon made the decision that it was time to move on. In a blog post, Microsoft took a swipe at Amazon for precipitating the delay.
“The 20 months since DoD selected Microsoft as its JEDI partner highlights issues that warrant the attention of policymakers: When one company can delay, for years, critical technology upgrades for those who defend our nation, the protest process needs reform. Amazon filed its protest in November 2019 and its case was expected to take at least another year to litigate and yield a decision, with potential appeals afterward,” Microsoft wrote in its blog post about the end of the deal.
But in a statement of its own, Amazon reiterated its belief that the process was not fairly executed. “We understand and agree with the DoD’s decision. Unfortunately, the contract award was not based on the merits of the proposals and instead was the result of outside influence that has no place in government procurement. Our commitment to supporting our nation’s military and ensuring that our warfighters and defense partners have access to the best technology at the best price is stronger than ever. We look forward to continuing to support the DoD’s modernization efforts and building solutions that help accomplish their critical missions,” a company spokesperson said.
It seems like a fitting end to a project that I felt was doomed from the beginning. From the moment the Pentagon announced this contract with the cutesy twist on the Star Wars name, the procurement process has taken more twists and turns than a TV soap.
In the beginning, there was a lot of sound and fury and it led to a lot of nothing. In the end, it’s a no victor no vanquished tale.
Thank You For Funding the Future By Donating To Tekedia General Scholarship Fund
Good People, join me to THANK Nnaemeka Anyanwu, MBA, PMP who just made a donation to Tekedia Mini-MBA General Scholarship Fund. Through his generosity, more young people will experience our world-class business education. Thank you Nnaemeka for funding the future!
To learn more about Tekedia Institute, click here.