Technology
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The US mining industry faces a talent crisis just as demand for critical minerals surges, and expanding the demographics of who enters the industry is an untapped solution.
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A neighbor’s premature death sparks a vision for connecting Black communities to ownership — not just employment — in the energy and mineral industries shaping the future.
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Trust is essential in a functioning society. We need it to hear each other, see each other, and work together. When trust leaves, the guards go up, caution enters, and forward progress slows down. What happens when trust is lacking in a society? This has been on my mind over the past few weeks after…
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I was so excited to see the announcement last week that 54gene had raised $15M in additional funding for their work sequencing the genome of African folks. That type of work – building technology, research, and infrastructure is what Africa’s going to need as soon as possible. The wave of nationalism that has continued to…
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Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Report Banks Have Too Much Money Now – “But ideally what you want is for banks to have lots of capital in bad times, and then relax those requirements—let them lever up and buy stuff and take deposits and lend and trade Treasuries and generally support the financial system and the…
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Facebook has been on the hot seat as more information comes to light about the role it played in Russia’s meddling in the November 2016 election. The hot seat treatment brought the company’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, to DC for an exclusive interview with Axios co-founder Mike Allen to discuss the situation and what Facebook was…
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Investor Highlights African Financial Services Opportunity Despite Headwinds Kurt Davis surveys the financial services industry across Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cote d’Ivoire as ones where investors will find an upside though the current state of the industry isn’t the prettiest to look at. His projection of Cote d’Ivoire becoming the centerpiece…
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Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend who is raising a fund for her Lagos-based startup. At one point in our conversation, she shared the effort she has had to go through to get people she has met with in Silicon Valley up to speed on what is happening in Nigeria’s tech space. This has…
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Eric Osiakwan stated this at the Africa Technology Summit a couple weeks ago, and from what I hear the Summit was a great success. Something of a debate broke out on what sub-sector of the technology industry was the next big thing in Africa. Eric pointed out communication, content and commerce and their impact on health,…
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I nearly clicked my heels when I saw the news of Amrote Abdella being named Regional Director of Microsoft’s 4Afrika Initiative, an effort for Microsoft to support economic development on the continent while finding new business opportunities. I’m a big fan of Amrote’s. Seeing Davidson alumnae killing it will never get old. What is getting…
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Take a look at the tweet below. If you follow economic development across Africa, you have seen the referenced charts. All I will say about the paternalism in this tweet is that the reasons for optimism about Africa go back further than 60 years. Moving on. Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU, said that the…
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I opened up my Pocket to develop my latest “Reads” post a few minutes ago, and got the message you see in the image. For five seconds, I felt like my world had fallen apart. That’s not good. There are so many different ways I can access the news, but have built the majority of…
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I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing Eric Osiakwan about his experience building internet infrastructure in its early days in African countries, and the transition to investing in African startups. On top of that, he is pushing to get more Africans in the investing game to support the growth of the technology industry across the continent. Here’s the…
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I was glad to see the news about the launch of Valor Ventures, a VC firm led by women and focused on finding women founders. Another firm that excites me is the Impact America Fund. Here’s a good interview it’s founder, Kesha Cash, did with the Andreesen Horowitz team. Some time ago, I posted First…
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No. A little over a year ago, Jehiel was telling me about this idea he had for smart tractors. A few days ago, he talked about what Hello Tractor is doing while moderating a panel with President Obama. Amazing. It is so frustrating to read story after story on America’s failing infrastructure. Great post by Mark…
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Tidjane Thiam gets off to a nice start at Credit Suisse Silicon Valley’s Political End Game Rocket Internet’s portfolio value has grown $2.5 billion in nine months Wistia founder shares how not being fake helped them close an account with a big customer Not sure I buy the analysis that Eurobond issuances among African countries with…
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What does it look like for tech startups and governments to work together well? Andreessen Horowitz posted a new podcast with Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser today to discuss this, alongside former DC mayor Adrian Fenty. Pretty good conversation. Some of the topics covered in the conversation, included: 1. Catching up to the technology startup sector…
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Chinedu Echeruo gave a talk at Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series on the value that creativity unleashes into the world. In it, he shared a parable David Foster told in a speech to Kenyon College’s 2005 graduating class. There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish…
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Marc Andreessen’s frenetic pace on Twitter has fascinated me for the past year. He seems to devour a ton of information and makes nice connections between the current technology landscape and the history and theory that got us to this point. The New Yorker did a helpful profile on him – the kind that makes…
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When I first saw, the agenda for the Africa Rising seminar at this year’s IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings, I posted a tweet: There's a peculiarity in the agenda for IMF/World Bank Spring Meeting seminar on "Africa Rising." What is it? http://t.co/wiuvyow1We — KWAME (@KwameSomPimpong) April 7, 2014 Probably not the wisest thing to not provide any…
Kwame Som-Pimpong 