is telling the stories of Africans making a difference in the world of tech.
Before he turned ten, a typical Friday would find Vuyane Mhlomi on one of many trains making his way back home from school.
His journey typically did not end at home. He would only stop there to pick up a change of clothes for his father who was very often hospitalised due to his poorly controlled diabetes.
Coupled with his mother’s cardiac condition, Vuyane spent a lot of his time in hospital queues waiting for any one of his parents to be attended to.
He tells me that the doctors worked hard. There were just too many people who needed help and not many doctors wanted to move to Khayelitsha, his hometown, due to the high crime rate.
is telling the stories of Africans making a difference in the world of tech.
As our interview drew to a close I asked her what dreams and goals she had. “Essentially, I just want to be happy…” This was how she began her answer.
The other part of her answer that stuck with me was her plan to sell natural hair wigs to “black women everywhere.”
With her business Natural Girl Wigs, she now ships to black women in over 65 countries.
We talk about growing up in Lagos and falling in love with her hair. Her story takes us from building a community on social media to later growing a successful tech-enabled business with that same community.
Ethiopiaâs mobile money decision
Seerbitâs Omoniyi Kolade wants financial inclusion for all Africans
Everyone talks about the moment they knew what they wanted to do with their lives.
For some people this moment comes very early – an engineer may tell you it was the first time she ever saw LEGO bricks as a kid. For some others, it comes at the cusp of adulthood, just as adolescence starts to fade.
The former is where Omoniyi falls. His realisation came sometime during his penultimate year in the university.
This “knowing” happened during the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) program – which is basically compulsory work experience in the year before your final year at university in Nigeria.
Opera’s unaudited Q1 report
The Norwegian web company Opera has released its unaudited report for the first quarter of 2021. In Africa, Opera is most famous for its browser’s data-saving feature.
But the company also owns a news platform called Opera News hub, with an app on Android and iOS. The app reportedly has over 300 million users, with many users doubling as paid news creators.
It means that Opera has multiple revenue streams, and in Q1, all those streams saw huge improvements.
Highlights:
Opera s monthly active user base increased by 16 million year-over-year in the first quarter; driven by 12% and 14%