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The BIG5D.TV Podcast is a companion to our BIG5D.TV video series. Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you are interested in sponsoring BIG5D.TV or the BIG5D.TV Podcast, please write to use at info@bigfivedigital.org.
This episode features a conversation about earned wage access with SmartWave CEO Simon Ellis. EWA is an increasingly common tool that gives employees access to wages before payday, usually for a small fee. EWA platforms are popping up all across Africa, where the need is acute. By some measures, nearly 80% of lower-wage workers in South Africa run out of money before payday, leaving them vulnerable to payday lenders. Simon walks us through the business model, detailing both its challenges and opportunities.
Episode 19: Simon Ellis, SmartWage
Mohamed Al Fayed is co-founder and CEO of grubtech company that is emerging as a key infrastructure player in the UAE’s exploding ghost kitchen scene.Grubtech has built an operating system to address the friction points arising from running a high-volume food delivery business.
Episode 18: Mohamed Al Fayed, Grubtech
Tori Samples is co-founder and CTO of Leaf Global Fintech, a company based in East Africa that offers a blockchain-based digital wallet for refugees and migrant workers.The podcast focuses on whether a mission-driven business can also be a scalable fintech. And why blockchain can transform the African small business fintech space.Note: The interview with Tori begins at the 6:45 mark.
Episode 17: Tori Samples, Leaf Global Fintech
This episode features Firas Ahmad, /CEO of AxamPay, an East African fintech that is a division of Azam Group, the East African conglomerate.Firas is a thought leader on African fintech in addition to running a payments platform. His view that mobile money is not sufficiently innovative forms the nucleus of our conversation.
Episode 16: Firas Ahmad. AzamPay
Katharine Budd and her business partner Ian Dillon spotted a huge underserved community in the Gulf Region. The millions of lower-wage migrant workers are largely unbanked and send billions of dollars back to their families in their countries of origin. NOW Money has created a digital banking solution, including remittances. for this population. The TAM is huge, but so are the challenges facing this business model.
Episode 15: Katharine Budd, NOW Money
We engage Zapper CEO Brett White on the stage of small business in South Africa one year into the pandemic. We also discuss innovation, fintechs vs banks, and the technologies that will drive the payments space in the years to come.
Episode 14: Brett White, Zapper
Lauren Kagori works with Pezesha, a financial inclusion platform in East Africa that is trying to solve to problem of poor access to capital for small businesses through crowdfunding.
Episode 13: Lauren Kagori, Pezesha
Flutterwave's head of global partnerships chats with the BIG5D Podcast about her company's meteoric rise to become of just a few tech unicorns in Africa. Among the topics covered include Flutterwave's $170 million Series C round, its new deal with PayPal, and the complexities of simplifying payments in Africa.
Episode 12: Omosalewa Adeyemi, Flutterwave
Cloudone's TallOrder point of sale solution is designed for a mobile-first present and self-service future in the retail, dining, and hospitality industries.His company's newest product VerPay, adds a needed trust layer to take payments over a voice call.This episode also features a discussion of the battered state of South Africa's hospitality industry in the wake of the pandemic and how the industry will change permanently in the future.
Episode 11: Dana Buys, CEO, Cloudone.mobi
This is the first in the BIG5D Podcast's Fintech Founders Series, This episode features OZÉ CEO Meghan McCormick.Meghan explains her journey from American Peace Corp veteran and management consultant to founding a small-business fintech based in Ghana that helps SMMEs get organized with SaaS tools and get access to capital on fair terms.Meghan comes to everything with a core mission of creating jobs by helping small businesses thrive.
Episode 10: Meghan McCormick, Co-founder & CEO, OZÉ
The pandemic has created challenges for the region’s logistics players — ride-hailing services, food delivery apps, and others. But there is also a tremendous emerging opportunity to offer an ever-widening array of services. We will explore this landscape with Uber’s Kartik Taneja.
Episode sponsored by MatchCraft (www.matchcraft.com)
Episode Nine: Kartik Taneja, Head of B2B Solutions, EMEA, Uber
This episode of BIG5D.TV features an interview with Samantha Naidu, CEO of Volt Africa. We discuss the optimal digital solution set for African SMEs, particularly in times of crisis.
This episode was sponsored by Duda: www.duda.co/
Episode Eight: Samantha Naidu, Volt Africa
Today’s guest is Colin Timmis, the South Africa country manager for Xero -- the global cloud accounting platform.
We had a great conversation about what it takes to get SMMEs to overcome their anxiety about technology and use it to their advantage.This episode is sponsored by Duda
We had a great conversation about what it takes to get SMMEs to overcome their anxiety about technology and use it to their advantage.This episode is sponsored by Duda
Episode Seven: Colin Timmis, Xero
Cape Town entrepreneur Grant Greeff shares his experience of trying to save one company, EHire, while launching another, OpenRoute, in the midst of a global pandemic.
Episode 6: Grant Greeff
This is the podcast version of the BIG5D.TV video series. This episode features a conversation about sales during the COVID-19 pandemic with Wayne Bischoff, CEO of Mediamark, a media sales house in South Africa, and George Lieth, EVP Sales at Vendasta, a Canadian martech company. The original interview was conducted in July 2020.
Episode 5: Featuring Wayne Bischoff & George Leith
This podcast features a conversation on the challenges of building location databases in emerging markets. Our guest is Trevor Nadeau, founder & MD of Local Knowledge FZE, a listings management company based in UAE. Trevor has spent decades in the region learning the ins and outs of building location databases in challenging environments. Great discussion for anyone who is interested in the digital opportuity for small business in the AME region.
Episode 4: Trevor Nadeau, Local Knowledge
This episode of the BigFive Podcast features a conversation with Gustav Praekelt of Praekelt.com. Gustav is an engineer and developer whose company creates UX design and engineering solutions for corporate clients. Our conversation centered around how conversational applications are transforming small business in emerging markets.
Episode 3: Gustav Praekelt, Praekelt.com
Louw Barnardt is a chartered accountant by training and an entrepreneur by nature. He is the co-founder and MD of Outsourced CFO, a Cape Town start-up than gives SMEs and fellow start-ups access to financial expertise that they cannot otherwise afford in the early stages of their growth. OCFO also offers cloud accounting solution based on Xero. We talked about startups, the Cape Town scene and how the cloud has transformed how businesses are formed today.
Episode 2: Louw Barnardt, Outsourced CFO
Ezana Raswork, is founder and CEO of Africa118, a directory of business listings throughout Africa and a provider of digital marketing services to Africa SMEs. On the podcast we hear Ezana’s founding story, how Africa 118 is trying to address clear market need, his optimism about business opportunities in Africa and the environment for entrepreneurship on the African continent and how it can be improved.
Episode 1: Ezana Raswork, Africa 118
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