Hi, Quartz Africa readers!
[insertSponsor]
Innovation is your friend too
Over the last 48 hours, the world’s eyes have been focused on the unfolding political scenes in Turkey. As we now know so far, there was an unsuccessful military coup attempt to overthrow president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As a journalist it was fascinating to see how quickly social media was breaking the news from Istanbul and Ankara.
As an African, the coverage of the coup was particularly intriguing. I witnessed a few as a youngster in Nigeria, before the Internet and mobile age. Successful coups ‘happened’ on the radio in the morning and were ‘completed’ on TV by the evening when you were introduced to the new head of state. But that’s all changed with Internet technology. It helps explain why several African governments are ready to unplug the Internet at the first sign of citizen uprising, at election season or even, oddly, during exams in Ethiopia.
Yet, technology is not the enemy or the cause of these uprisings (or exam cheats). Technology, and the innovation it enables, is a large part of the solution for the problems we face on the continent. And there’s a huge irony of course. Erdoğan, under whose watch Turkey has introduced some of the most restrictive Internet regulations, resorted to Apple’s FaceTime app to ask the Turkish people to rise up against the coup plotters. And it worked. #KeepItOn.
Yinka Adegoke, Quartz Africa editor
Five stories from this week
Social media activism helped the anti-Mugabe movement score a major victory. Activist Evan Mawarire, dubbed ‘Captain Zimbabwe’, was released after only a day in prison—no small feat in a country known for a crackdown on those who oppose 92-year-old president Robert Mugabe. The failing economy may have pushed Zimbabweans to massive protests, but Lynsey Chutel argues it was groundswell on social media that emboldened and shielded demonstrators.
Uganda’s Museveni took a call on the side of the road, and became a meme. We may never know who the increasingly eccentric president was speaking to, or why he needed to be stationary for a call on a mobile phone, but Ugandans’ reactions were priceless. The call launched hundreds of memes and copycat images on social media.
Kenya’s taxman wants new revenue from M-Pesa users. There are billions of dollars being transacted over Safaricom’s M-Pesa mobile money platform. On the other hand 35% of Kenya’s economy is in the informal, largely untaxed, sector. Joshua Masinde in Nairobi, has found the Kenya Revenue Authority sees new opportunities to meet its targets, but could put consumers’ privacy at risk.
A Nairobi business ethics lecturer used Kendrick Lamar lyrics in an exam and his students loved it. Q: In the words of Kendrick Lamar (popular rapper of the good kid, m.a.a.d city fame), “If you get your first big cheque and you cop a chain before you buy a house. You’re a vanity slave.” Caleb Kandagor, a philosophy and ethics lecturer at Strathmore University tells Lily Kuo this was a great way to connect with his millennial students.
Germany finally apologizes for its Namibia genocide
. Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has said her country will make the apology for
nearly completely wiping out the Herero people of Namibia
between 1904 to 1907. Some historians see the atrocities committed by Germans then as a precursor to the Jewish Holocaust a few decades later.
Table of the week
Only ten of the world’s top 1,000 universities are in Africa. The annual ranking, compiled by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), bases 75% of its ranking on quality of education, faculty and alumni employment, explains Yomi Kazeem. One strategy to improve standards might be to collaborate with academics in more advanced economies. But Hanne Kirstine Anderson worries if global academic collaboration ends up as a new form of colonization as local academics follow the money and needs of their counterparts rather than fixing local problems.
Other things we liked
Cape Town’s tech entrepreneurs are solving local problems. Elon Musk may be South Africa’s most famous techprenuer, but for the developers, founders and dreamers still living in Musk’s birthplace, it’s solving uniquely South African problems that is putting Silicon Cape on the map, as Emma Featherstone discovered for the Guardian.
Mozambique, from poster child to cautionary tale. For a while there, it seemed post-war Mozambique was finding its feet with promises of natural gas deposits and skyscrapers springing up along Maputo’s beachfront. Then, the discovery of a $1 billion hidden debt burst that bubble, becoming a burden that will fall on the shoulders of ordinary Mozambicans, as Paolo de
Renzio and Adriano Nuvunga write in African Argument
Keep an eye on
The Quartz Africa Innovators Summit. It takes place this week on Wednesday July 20, Radisson Blu Hotel, Nairobi. The evening will highlight the work of a few of our full list of 2016 honorees. Attendees will hear from media-savvy activists Burkinabe hip hop artist Smockey and Kenyan photographer Boniface Mwangi; Bamboo Bikes’ Ghanaian founder Winnifred Selby, Kenyan furniture designer Ciiru Waweru; and Cameroonian scientist Wilfred Ndifon among others. There’ll also be performances from Just A Band’s Blinky Bill. If you’re in Nairobi you may still be able to register. There will also be live streams for which we’ll share links via @qzafrica on Twitter.
Don’t just take our word for it, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates acknowledged all of our Quartz Africa Innovators this week on his social media platforms: “I’m always impressed by the innovative spirit in Africa. Here’s a great list of African innovators.”
Nigeria, South Africa will release inflation data. On Monday July 18, Nigeria investors and economists will get a bit more of a sense how consumer prices have been doing since the local currency, naira, was allowed to float a few weeks ago. South Africa will release its own inflation data on Wednesday July 20. It recently had the first positive economic news for several months when Bloomberg reported South Africa had overtaken Egypt to be Africa’s second largest economy again. There’s even a suggestion Nigeria’s devalued naira will shrink the economy enough that a growing South Africa might catch up.
This week is also UNCTAD14 in Nairobi. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development will take place in Nairobi July 17 to July 22. The theme will be From Decisions to Actions and feature ministerial debates, high-level round tables, and a series of forums, including world investment, global commodities, youth and civil society, among other events..
Our best wishes for a productive week ahead. Please send any news, comments, your favorite Kendrick Lamar lyrics and best Museveni #M7 challenge photos to africa@qz.com. You can follow us on twitter at @qzafrica for updates throughout the day.