As the world restarts from the paralysis of Covid-19, I see these factors shaping industrial sectors and domains in Africa. 

• Digitization and Cloud Migration: The pace is accelerating and most industries would be eaten and also saved by software, running on computational systems in the cloud.
• Semi-automation: Disintermediation of humans will accelerate as machines become starter. The chatbots deployed by banks will simply get better.
• Hybridized Supply Chain: Flexible, adaptive, global and local, at the same time. Great companies are revamping their supply chain strategies. Coca Cola Nigeria just noted that Nigeria’s currency fluctuation has minimal impacts as most of its raw materials are now sourced locally. 
• Remote Everything: The web will run the world across sectors.  From education to entertainment and beyond, the unbounded and unconstrained nature of the internet will continue to bring new ordinances in markets, homes and offices.

In my State of the Tech Nation address, I explained them comprehensively. Let me say this: the most important thing in business is your business model. There is a reason we have a $2 trillion Microsoft and $140 billion IBM today. Check the chart, just a few years ago, both were close. But Microsoft changed its business model under  a new CEO while IBM continued on the quest of filing more patents! Nothing bad about it, but technology must be put in its own position – help you execute the right business model.

I am very happy to report that the Bank of Industry Limited Nigeria in less than 8 months has processed N900 million (about $2 million) to startups and businesses which members of Tekedia Institute Mini-MBA are managing. We designed a program and actually brought a manager in Bank of Industry to assist! Today, through our program, innovators are getting guidance and unlocking the finances they need to advance their missions.

I congratulate our members: the plastic manufacturer and the cashew processor. I also congratulate the agro-processing exporter.

Nigeria is a place where people are complaining of drinking water even though they are living on top of a water table. When we looked at the whole thing, we came to one conclusion: lack of the right information is part of the paralysis.

At Tekedia Mini-MBA, we are operating a new type of school, to give people the right information to advance. The impacts are huge. Why not ask the tax officer to teach tax compliance? Why not ask the lender to teach lending? No theory; all practical cases!

Register for the next edition which begins Sept 13; early registration ends soon.

Good People, join me to welcome Texas-based but Africa-focused healthtech, Lafiya Telehealth, to Tekedia Capital. Lafiya Telehealth is fixing a major friction in the healthcare sector, creating extremely affordable medical tools, and superimposing those tools to run on aggregation construct, powered by intelligent software. Unlike other telehealth solutions, Lafiya has brought a convergence between atoms and bytes by unifying the physical and digital worlds in the healthcare domain. 

Yes, Lafiya will send you sensors to do that temperature, etc measurements at home so that your doctor, anywhere on earth, unbounded by geography, can have quantitative data to understand the state of your health. From offices to embassies to state parliaments, the Lafiya is changing the basis of competition.

This is a category-king medical device equipment maker, differentiated by a business model, run on proprietary software, and ushering an amazing future.

At Tekedia Capital, we fund the best, and are happy to partner with this innovator. I also invite you to learn more about Tekedia Capital here.

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.

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.

Mines of Knowledge