Greetings Glocal Citizens!
This week on we’re moving into the new year with some wise words and insights in Part 2 of my conversation with Ghanaian investor and developer of new businesses, Eric Osiakwan. With 25 years of experience spanning 32 countries in Africa gained through a number of successful tech start-ups, Eric is a leading pioneer of internet in Africa. Having worked in multiple countries building internet service providers (“ISP”) and ICT businesses, some of his successful exits include iBurst in South Africa, One2Net in Uganda, and BusyInternet in Ghana, to name a few. Eric also founded and ran the Africa ISP Association for eight years, during which the ISP industry grew by almost 120 percent. He then moved on to leading efforts to build submarine cables on the continent. Eric was part of a public-private partnership in Kenya that built and launched the TEAMS submarine fibre cable, the first to connect East Africa to the rest of the world. He subsequently contributed to the building of terrestrial fibre networks in Ghana and Nigeria. As we learned in Part 1 of the conversation, he Co-Founded Angel Africa List, Angel Fair Africa and currently heads Chanzo Capital (https://www.chanzocapital.com/#abt), a venture and growth capital firm, investing capital, capacity and community in high-tech startups and scaleups in Kenya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
Where to find Eric?
ericosiakwan.com (https://www.ericosiakwan.com)
On LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericosiakwan)
On Facebook (Eric Osiakwan)
On Instagram (Instagram (@eosiakwan))
On X (https://twitter.com/eosiakwan)
What’s Eric reading?
Works by Cheikh Anta Diop (https://www.amazon.com/stores/Cheikh-Anta-Diop/author/B000APFJ2O?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true)
Other topics of interest:
How Greater Accra (Tema) is the geographical center of the Earth (https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/Is-Ghana-Really-The-Centre-Of-The-World-221634)
About Panafest (https://panafestghana.org/history-of-panafest/) and Kojo Yankah (https://pahmuseum.org/founder/)
On Ghana’s Joseph Project (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10802304)
Year of Return (https://www.yearofreturn.com)
Full Circle Africa Economic Conference (https://fullcircleafrica.org)
Stripe Payments Platform (https://stripe.com)
Safaricom and the roots of Mobile Money (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa)
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: African Information Society Initiative(AISI) (https://repository.uneca.org/handle/10855/14949)
UNDP Internet Initiative for Africa (http://web.undp.org/evaluation/documents/essentials_5.pdf)
What are Internet Exchange Points? (https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/glossary/internet-exchange-point-ixp/)
The African Internet Service Providers Association (https://icannwiki.org/AfrISPA)
ICANN (https://www.icann.org) and Esther Dyson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Dyson)
About TEAMS (https://www.teams.co.ke)
Bongo Hive (https://bongohive.co.zm)
About the BenBen App (https://benben.com.gh)
On Eric’s book KINGS of Africa’s Digital Economy (https://medium.com/@eosiakwan/the-kings-of-africas-digital-economy-tedxberkeley-by-eric-osiakwan-4a211e746955)
Special Guest: Eric Osiakwan.
