If you had to think back a decade or even 6 or 7 years back, the digital technology media landscape across most parts of Afrika was considerably different from what it is today. Most online publications, if any, that covered technology innovation were doing so from a developmental and social impact point of view. If not that, they were covering mostly enterprise technology.
The era of personal digital technology blogs gained popularity somewhere around 6 or 7 years ago, online media publications focussed purely on digital technology innovation and startups started emerging in different countries across Africa. One such publication that emerged in 2013 is TechCabal.
Founded by Bankole Oluwafemi (Banks), TechCabal took an angle of covering the growing Nigerian tech ecosystem from what was happening in the startups ecosystem and it would eventually grow into an authoritative voice on most things technology in Nigeria. Not only that, the company itself has gone on to become a great storyteller of Nigerian youth culture, and West African culture at large, through its other publication - Zikoko.
In this podcast, I look back with Bankole at how the innovation and startup ecosystem in Nigeria, and the rest of Africa, has transformed over the years as well as how the publications (those that are still alive) that cover it have also grown.
We also touch on the important issue of how policymakers should be interacting with innovators and startups.
