Episode 2 with Kingsley Besidonne

In today's episode, we talk about the challenges that Technology companies face in Africa. Tech companies are known to play a major role in the development of regions, countries, and even continents. What challenges do Tech companies in Africa face and is there any hope for these companies?

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Transcript

Nadine (00:21):

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Reflections. We are on episode two and as usual, we are looking at some of Africa's biggest problems. Today, we'll be talking about technology in Africa and I am so excited because we have a special guest joining us. In our last episode, we talked about education leadership and even our culture. And we heard from a number of young people from different African countries. I wouldn't waste much of your time and I'll just go in and introduce Kingsley Besidoni. Hi, Kingsley. Welcome to the show.

Kingsley (00:53):

Hi Nadine. What's happening? I'm happy to be here. I'm very excited we're finally doing this, finally after are the whole back and forth, we're finally here, but this is exciting to be here. Thank you for having me.

Nadine (01:08):

Thank you. Thank you for being here. It's an honor to have you. I've known you for a while, so I was really excited when this opportunity came to have you on the show. For our listeners, sorry. I'll just want you to tell us a bit about your background, where you are currently, what you do and how you got here.

Kingsley (01:25):

Yeah, definitely. I'm Kingsley Besidoni, like you said. Originally Nigerian. Left Nigeria when I was 17 or so or 19, I'm not sure. Went to Ghana, Ashesi university where I met you. Studied computer science. My third year of university, came to the US for an accelerated degree. Studied masters in computer science as well, graduated last year, got a job before I graduated with Goldman. And then, currently technology analyst or software engineer at Goldman Sachs. It's exciting. My journey has been very interesting. Definitely having that experience of being in Nigeria, being in Ghana and also being in US, being exposed to the different environments tech wise and also cultural wise. But that's a bit about my journey and about me. Well, yeah.

Nadine (02:32):

Wow.

Kingsley (02:32):

Exciting.

Nadine (02:34):

It is. I guess that will lead me to my next question actually. What was your dream job out of school and was it in Africa? And if not, why was it not in Africa?

Kingsley (02:45):

Yeah, that's interesting. So when I was in... Surprisingly, when I was in Ashesi, I was definitely thinking of going into that entrepreneurial space of starting up with a startup, a tech startup in Ghana, or in Nigeria and just do my own thing. I definitely wasn't open to the idea of masters in computer science because as at that time I didn't see the benefit of even getting a master's degree. I was like, what's the point? Because the mindset I had was like, oh, it's still... What matters in computer science is still your skillset and all of those things. But coming to the US, definitely coming from graduate school definitely changed my thinking around computer science and what I knew then and what I know now, it's completely different.

Kingsley (03:41):

And my growth in the two, three years, almost three years I've been in the US has definitely shaped me into the person I am today tech wise. And my dream job then was being entrepreneurial. And when I came to the US, definitely saw the knowledge gap in terms of like, I thought I knew a lot, but then when I came here, it was like, wow. It's like I didn't know anything. So it's like starting from scratch and learning a lot again. And my dream job definitely changed.

Nadine (04:18):

Okay.

Kingsley (04:19):

Given that you get exposed to classmates and people that are working for big tech companies. I remember there was a time I was working on an assignment and I saw a couple guys, just a couple seats from me talking about how one of them got an internship at Amazon. And I was like, wow. So I'm close to the big tech companies now. It's like, I know people that work at these companies, started making friends. One of my very close friends, also currently works at Amazon as well. And so it's like, I started getting influence in the idea of getting into this big tech companies and seeing what it's like working there. And so, my dream changed a bit.

Kingsley (05:07):

But definitely still have that hope, I still have that passion of entrepreneurship, but now coming in new, I don't really know that much about tech as I thought I did. My dream changed a bit to be like, grow as much as I can in the tech space here and get to a very senior level, maybe principal software engineer or higher. And then I feel like I'll be at the point in my career where I can go back to Africa and start up a tech company or something like that.

Nadine (05:40):

You mentioned a lot that your dream changed, right?

Kingsley (05:44):

Yeah.

Nadine (05:44):

And initially it was entrepreneurship and I was just looking on some statistics and I found that a majority of tech companies in Africa start out with some kind of entrepreneurship, right?

Kingsley (05:56):

Yeah.

Nadine (05:56):

And they're able to get a lot of funding. So 60% of those that start out, do actually get external funding.

Kingsley (06:02):

Yeah. From VCs and stuff.

Nadine (06:04):

Exactly. But what's stopping these companies is the fact that compared to Asia, US and Europe, which are all getting above 11% returns on that capital investment, the tech companies in Africa are getting just about 2.7%. So did you know this before you decided, you know what, I think I'm going to start my tech career with one of the big giants. Because when we talk tech, we're talking about Amazon, we're talking about Google and all these companies are not African companies, right?

Kingsley (06:37):

Exactly.

Nadine (06:37):

They've gone global.

Kingsley (06:38):

Exactly.

Nadine (06:38):

But they're not African companies. So does this issue of the market and some of the issues are really low consumer purchasing power, right? You might start something really innovative, but-

Kingsley (06:51):

But people don't know-

Nadine (06:53):

... It's hard. Exactly.

Kingsley (06:54):

People don't know it's innovative, yeah.

Nadine (06:56):

Exactly. So in your opinion, what's stopping the tech startups in Africa and even some of the tech companies that we know in Africa from doing as well as those in this part of the world in the west?

Kingsley (07:08):

You've mentioned one thing, right? One thing you've mentioned is you might think of something innovative. You push it out there. People just don't get it. My mom would still prefer her small [inaudible 00:07:19] phone or a small phone that's not a smartphone to do her day to day. She'll keep her smartphone at home and then go outside with her phone that's not as technologically efficient as the other one. But I think definitely adoption is slow in Africa and we can say it is an educational problem. We can say it partly is an educational problem. You can see people don't... Some of us are fortunate to start off early getting like... Some of us going to universities where, like Ashesi is like, you have to have a laptop, you have to have this... You have to be technologically proficient to be at the school.

Kingsley (08:08):

Because everything is via web applications, your learning materials are online. And that's the culture. Some universities, it's just not like that. I hear some of my friends in Nigeria also study computer science where their computer classes, some students, some computer science students don't have laptops and they have to write the programming languages on the board and stuff like that. And it's crazy. So we can say it's partly an educational problem. It's partly like, there needs to be more orientation towards tech. But one thing I would say is, there's one thing I believe, business funds education. That's one thing I've always known. The many business, like the Dangotes, the Tony Elumelus, and the big boys in Nigeria and also the big men in Ghana that are into different businesses, they can drive conversations around tech.

Kingsley (09:09):

They can shift their focus and start investing more into tech. And one thing I know is, the moment the businessmen start pushing for tech, schools will be forced to shift their focus. And now it's now a thing of, there's more funding for schools to have labs and research labs around tech. We see things like... We hear conversations like, oh, Microsoft has maybe a lab somewhere in Nigeria, or Google has a lab somewhere in Ghana, stuff like that. That helps build the tech space in some sense and drive the conversations around tech. Because one thing I've also noticed is every... Look, I might be wrong about this. I might be wrong about this, but this is what I have noticed is my observation personally, look, it's my observation, my opinion.

Kingsley (10:04):

But what I've noticed is, every single tech guy or tech bro I come across from Africa is solving the same problem. It's like, they're always trying to [crosstalk 00:10:13] the same thing. If I'm talking to someone it's, if you're not going into a payment system, you're not going into innovation around that, it's like, man, I can predict what you're going into at the start of what you're competing in and you can't blame them for that really. Because that's what is trending and that's the space where you can bring out something and people will adopt it more. But when there's more push or more research into tech and how we can use tech to make our lives efficient more in Africa. And there's more funding for universities to grow tech wise, I guess there'll be more spaces to innovate in, than the same spaces these startups come [inaudible 00:10:59].

Kingsley (10:59):

A very clear example before we move on to something else is, you see labs in MIT come up with, surprisingly, come up with so many products that you might not know have come across-

Nadine (11:09):

That's true.

Kingsley (11:11):

... Came out of MIT labs, and you'll be like, wow, this is coming from the school. And these are the things that would happen if businesses and businessmen, especially African businessmen shift their focus from rice and sugar and spaghetti and cement into now, okay. You know what? Let's get into tech space. How can I use tech to make my business processes better? That's what's going to drive... That's one of the things that'll help, I guess.

Nadine (11:44):

I mean, you make a very strong point about the influence of education on the state of tech in our countries. And in last week's episode, we actually had a discussion about education, leadership, mindset of young people. And it's interesting that you see when our business people start to shift their focus into the tech space, you also drive education in that direction, right?

Kingsley (12:06):

Yeah.

Nadine (12:06):

We've seen what tech has done in the middle east. Let's take Dubai as an example. It's just the city, the United Arab Emirates, but it has become such a tech hub that we have a whole FinTech hive over there and it's starting to build something that's almost like what we have here in the US, right? But when we come to Africa where maybe I just try to Google top tech companies in Africa, and most of what I'm seeing, like you said, are Paystack, Floataway. All of these are in the financial sector.

Kingsley (12:39):

All the same thing, yeah.

Nadine (12:40):

All in the financial sector. So do you think that the mindset of even the young people that are going into these tech spaces, do you think that is a limitation? Because if we had more people that were thinking bigger than we are already thinking, maybe there'll be a bit more innovation if we had young people that were passionate about things outside of the financial sector, maybe we would see some change. So what are your thoughts on that?

Kingsley (13:11):

That's a very interesting question. Looking back at when I was in Ashesi and just thinking through some of the ideas I had tech wise, me and my friends, surprisingly, most of them weren't around the common things you see tech wise, like payment systems and stuff. We had different ideas, but looking at it, if these ideas we're trying to bring them out, would that have been like... Would we have made money out of it? Because at the end of the day, the startup is a business. It's more a business than the technology. And my experiences have made me realize this. And man, I would say the reason why most people are going into the same things is because that is what is profitable. At the end of the day-

Nadine (14:03):

Wow.

Kingsley (14:04):

At the end of the day, when you come up with an idea, when you come up with your pitch deck or whatever thing you present to the VCs, they're looking at how do they make money from this? Because I can have an idea, I can have an MVP, a minimum viable product that just works... that just has a few things working that I did, me and my friend just did and go to a VC and they like the idea. We can get as many engineers as we want to work in it and push it out, right?

Nadine (14:31):

Yes.

Kingsley (14:33):

So when you start thinking about it, it's more of a business than just technology. So how do we look... So the conversation really is, how do we look for problems that are necessary, that tech can be a better alternative towards solving the problem? That should be the conversation now. And when we find that niche, we would be... We will start having people do something else. I don't know if you get what I'm trying to say?

Nadine (15:05):

I get what you are trying to say, yes.

Kingsley (15:09):

It's more problem solving that you think. It's more, I'm solving the problem that people need and I'm solving it in a way that is helpful. I'm solving it in a way that is convenient for people at the level of exposure they are to tech. And I'm presenting it to the VCs in such a way that they see the business aspect of it. This is a business. And we're able to get as many engineers as we want to work in it. There's so many talented engineers in Ghana, so many talented engineers in Nigeria. Man, I will tell you, there's so many smart guys back in Africa, trust me. Guys are doing things I'm like... Every day I scroll from my LinkedIn and I'm seeing someone posting a project. That's crazy. I'm like, wow, exciting. But some of these projects that they're posting is like, will the market adopt it? If you present it to a VC, will they adopt it?

Kingsley (16:03):

Are you solving a problem that is necessary? And when you solve this problem, the people you're solving it for, do they know they have that problem? And will this help them in the way they need it to? So these are conversations around tech that would help. Most of the guys I see come out of Africa or different countries in Africa tech wise have this... Are driven more by the innovation. They're driven more by the technology, the innovation, how to use machine learning to do this crazy thing. Among the tech boys, among the tech communities we're like, wow, bro, this is crazy. This is like, man, this is crazy.

Kingsley (16:44):

But tell my mom, she'll be like, I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know what you're saying. So our focus now should be user-centered. The tech in Africa needs to shift the focus to how the situation of the climate is back home. And when you solve tech problems, looking at the climate, how the climate is back home, you start coming up with different innovative tech startups that are doing things that's not that crazy. So that's what I think.

Nadine (17:19):

I totally agree with you. I think one of the technologies, even though it's still in the banking and finance sector that really has changed a lot of things in a lot of African countries was mobile money, which started as M-PESA, right?

Kingsley (17:33):

Exactly.

Nadine (17:33):

It's solving a real problem that an everyday person has.

Kingsley (17:38):

Exactly.

Nadine (17:38):

What I'm getting from you is, we need appropriate solutions.

Kingsley (17:42):

Yes.

Nadine (17:43):

Right. So now I guess that turns it back again to us, the young people. It turns it back to us because we have such a young population, a majority of Africans are below 30 and that young population will continue to remain that way, at least for the next 10 years, right? And there's a rise in internet penetration, we're starting to see a lot of rising cities in Africa. And, but then the emerging technologies just don't match how young our populations are. If you look at most of the Western countries, their populations are much older, but somehow they've managed to bring technology into their everyday lives. So looking at where we are now, how can we move forward?

Kingsley (18:33):

That's a very big question. Is the question even I alone can't answer, even I alone can't provide a very straightforward answer to. It's both a very necessary question as well. How do we bridge the gap? How do we move forward? How do we make sure what we are doing tech wise is trendy enough for the younger crowd? It's simple enough for the older crowd to grasp? That's a very big problem to solve. You get that [crosstalk 00:19:06] problem. But then again, that's where finding your niche is important. What is your technology? Who is your technology focused toward? What demographic? That's something you need to think about tech wise when you're getting into this space.

Kingsley (19:25):

I definitely don't know. I don't know the straightforward answer towards how we can bridge that gap. I can say lot of things like, maybe we should do this way, we should do that. Or let's get into the fundamentals really. The fundamental definitely is, do we have a growing tech space? Yes we do. Do we have capable young people that can change the tech space in Africa? Yes we do. Are we growing exponentially? Are we growing well? Yes we are. We are growing well. We're growing... Our growth is crazy. The amount of people that are switching majors from doing something in business or in arts, that are getting into software engineering, that are getting into computer science, is growing every day. Every day, a friend of mine is learning how to code, every day code is getting more technologically savvy.

Kingsley (20:23):

So we are growing, but are we there yet? I don't think so. Would we get there? Yes. I know we will. How do we get there? I don't know. I don't know how we're going to get there, but are we going to get there? Yes, we are going to get there, some way, somehow. Another fundamental we need to understand is, somehow we do not have a very good infrastructure to innovate. Some of our countries have as simple as light problems, some people don't have light, it's true. And this is a problem. How do you effectively work in a team of people trying to bring up a tech solution if you can't even get electricity?

Nadine (21:08):

That's a good question.

Kingsley (21:09):

That's a fundamental we've not thought about as well. The one thing we need to realize is we're definitely growing and we'll definitely get there. I believe in the human resource, I would say, I believe in the people. So, yeah.

Nadine (21:29):

It's interesting that we started out on education and we've gone to our approach to solving these problems. Maybe if we could change our approach and start looking at what are the problems that need to be solved specific to my context, instead of how do I apply this big machine learning concepts that I've learned? Maybe just start from somewhere little. And now we're talking about infrastructure. So, my question is, why is tech important to us? Why should it matter?

Kingsley (21:59):

Tech is such a beautiful space because it's independent of politics in some sense. In some countries, they are crazy. They turn of the internet [inaudible 00:22:06]-

Nadine (22:05):

That's true.

Kingsley (22:12):

Some countries are crazy. Let me correct myself, some countries are crazy. But then again, this doesn't happen every time. This doesn't happen every time. And you can grow out of like... A tech company can start off in a particular country in Africa and grow exponentially to different parts of Africa. So tech is so beautifully in that sense that, Google started out in the US, and then we have Google in the UK and in all places around the world. And that same thing can happen for companies springing out of Nigeria or Ghana. What is necessary is, we need the right leadership in tech to drive that.

Kingsley (22:49):

And this, it comes back to the people in the business, business drives education. That's just the fact. Sometimes we look at... Is like the chicken and the egg concept of business drives education and education helps business. But the business side is necessary. We need more business leaders getting interested in tech, heavily. And that's the climate in the US. Every single company here is concerned about technology. And why is that the case? Because everybody's competing in such a capitalist society in the US. You want to compete, you want to make more money, you want to... And the best way to compete is with tech. Whatever thing you're doing and tech fits in well into everything. Technology fits in well into everything, healthcare, even sugar, your logistics business, you have a unique tech.

Kingsley (23:54):

It's definitely necessary. And so we need more business leaders shifting their focus because sometimes, one thing you notice in Africa is, people are just stuck on the same way they've been doing things since inception.

Nadine (24:05):

I agree.

Kingsley (24:06):

We've been doing this. We're not ready to change. This tech business, we don't understand it. I hear people, one of my friends, one of my very close friends told me he did a short internship at a company and then they were still storing their information in the files, file cabinets and stuff. I'm like, it's the crowd, what's happening? Come on. So we need businesses to start changing the way they function and start adopting more technologies. So that's what we need. Businesses drive businesses... The business has to drive the conversation now. Now it's up to the business leaders to push for more technology or more adoption of technology.

Kingsley (24:50):

And the educational sector, people will see these things and start changing things, the curriculum starts changing in some sense to be like, oh wow, this company actually uses data science and now the conversation of data science comes up in schools and people start... Maybe Dangote will decide like, oh, in my sugar factory, decide to do some logistic stuff or some data science.

Kingsley (25:16):

Which part of Nigeria uses more sugar and do some data analysis of some sort, and then maybe a school like UNILAG will be like, oh, let's have more people going into data science and then Dangote will hire them. That's just an example of how business drives these conversations. So the business leaders are definitely the ones to start the conversation of tech in Africa, so.

Nadine (25:45):

I was just going to mention one of the businesses that I think is really rising because of that tech side to them, which is Jumia, Jumia is becoming the Amazon of Africa. And I'll just pick on your point, right? In summary, if we want to see technology progress in Africa, we need... Our businessmen need to start investing in technology and-

Kingsley (26:07):

In technology.

Nadine (26:08):

... And that's basically you. So thank you so, so much for being here.

Kingsley (26:15):

Thank you, Nadine.

Nadine (26:16):

It was an honor. You have so much to give and I'm really glad that we finally got to do this. And I'm excited-

Kingsley (26:23):

Finally.

Nadine (26:25):

... To see what comes out of this episode. Thank you so much, Kingsley. It was absolutely an honor. And-

Kingsley (26:31):

Thank you.

Nadine (26:31):

... I hope we do this again sometime actually. Keep engaging with my person Baobab. And if you don't know what Baobab is, it's a platform for young Africans that are passionate about creating change. You can go to www.baobabplatform.org. Until next time, bye.