Tech events in Africa...
Tech events in Africa...
How to think about the next one.
“Everyone wants to host the definitive ‘African tech event’,” I wrote in June 2023, “but what is the true value of an African tech event?”
When I wrote those words, we were three months away from hosting the first Moonshot conference at TechCabal and five months away from putting up the first Norrsken Africa Week I was involved in.
My editor and our publisher at Big Cabal Media had separate meetings with me within the week I sent the email. Understandably. I probably would have done the same if my employee questioned the broad space within which we had a premium (and loved) product. Kelechi and Tomiwa were graceful even if they may not have understood me, so thankfully, the piece was not pulled (it was already in inboxes anyway). Moreover, Moonshot 2023 went on to set the pace for the laudable event that happened this year. Ditto for Norrsken Africa Week (which will return next year). Some readers of that 2023 piece emailed me, they were impressed at the honest take and had some useful feedback. If my memory serves me right, I had at least one call with a reader based on that piece.
People care about meeting other people. People care about events, and in the technology business world where telling people about the product is often as important as building the product itself—because tech people buy a lot (of products, talent and capital) from each other—tech events are an important part of the package.
But not all events are created equal. It’s also easy to lose yourself bouncing from one event to another. Since 2018, the number of tech business-focused events has ballooned (it’s lucrative if done right), and the quality has plummeted. I wrote then:
There is a school of thought that dismisses the overall value of attending events. I think it’s an incredibly short-sighted school of thought, especially when applied broadly and they got louder during the “focus on positive unit economics” era of venture capitalists, just a few months ago. And while there is merit to the argument that startup money is not supposed to fund tourism, one could just as easily dismiss the real chance to score new leads or even deals, find and nurture relationships. Or have the opportunity to do things as basic as increasing discoverability—especially for B2B firms.
My point is not whether attending events can be useful. It personally is. But it is also probably subjective to each person’s experience. My concern is whether our events are too undifferentiated to matter, especially in a relatively small “ecosystem” where tech startup relationships with traditional businesses are underdeveloped and the transitional businesses who are most likely to talk to tech startups are mostly in financial services.
Creating better tech events will likely be a long road, at the end of which some events will be solidly cast as segment pillars that people will enthusiastically look forward to. Getting there will mean carefully curating event playlists that combine the right amount of optics, business savvy and attendee value. A few of the personal gripes I wish I could fix with the wave of a wand include what appears to be a lack of interest in boring technical events and the catch-all events that offer standard fare.
What is on everyone’s minds, but goes politely unspoken is often, After celebrating African tech in March, why should I celebrate it in August and again in December?”Is it over-indexing on public relations versus meetings that change things? Can meetings change things? From one event attendee/quasi-planner to another, talk to me, what am I missing?
One year plus later, after attending a handful of tech events in five countries across two continents, I think I’ve found what I was missing. I’ve also developed a rubric for grouping tech events. The framework is simple. Tech events broadly fall into:
Content events
Business prospecting events
Legacy events
Vibes and inshallah
Two events were key in helping me create this event grouping rubric. The first was attending the second NOVACOM Summit in Diani, Kenya, and the second was a retrospective look at the first (and my only) Moonshot by TechCabal. Both events fall into the first two event groups, and in my opinion, the first two categories tend to hold the most value, so let’s dig into those two categories briefly.
Content events
Content events are meetings where the focus and depth of the experience and value are created around and on top of the knowledge the event is built to deliver! Academic conferences are the poster-child (pun intended) of this. Many moons before the event, editors call for and rigorously screen conference papers and sessions are built around discussing knowledge.
Given that Technology businesses are not typically concerned with the latest esoteric obsession in physics or even the intricate math behind large language models; content events (for our purposes) are much more difficult to create and curate.
The most successful content events can combine learning, inspiration and depth with brilliant delivery to engage their audiences.
Think back to when you first watched a TED talk, especially older TED talks. Brilliant content events can create a live-action stream of this learning experience across a range of delivery formats on stage. That is, whether it is a panel, fireside talk, keynote or audience Q&A, the learning, depth and inspiration quotient remains high.
This (for Mallence’s brilliant delivery) is one of my favourites from the TED content library.
This is not always an easy feat. The quality of the speakers, the quality of the stage control, event design and management, and even the quality and engagement level of the audience need to be tuned properly to pull off a successful meeting. Need an example?
You guessed it! Moonshot by TechCabal is undoubtedly one of the leading content events in Africa today. From the social media praise I’ve read, post-event essays from Communiqué, this raving review from a properly awed attendee, and the proud ownership from Big Cabal Media staff on Twitter/X. The second edition hit the right notes with its audience.
I used to describe Moonshot by TechCabal as a live experience of the tech and business journalism that Africa’s diverse ecosystems have come to trust, fear and respect. Since the audience at Moonshot is also the day-to-day constituents of TechCabal.com, this year’s success bodes well for the publication.
But more importantly, it (should) send an important signal about the quality of daily conversations TechCabal should be curating for its audience (the casual reader) and its stakeholders (the engaged reader, and the corporates who buy ad space).
The quality of TechCabal’s daily news and/or editorial conversations is now non-negotiable because the fate of Moonshot—now a defacto flagship product, may just closely follow the fate and quality of the conversation on TechCabal dot com.
For me, Semafor’s Alexander Onukwue captured the social media sentiment from Moonshot beautifully. “It is beginning to *feel good again, I think. Moonshot by TechCabal was evidence of not just enthusiasm but actual hunger.”
This is what great Content Events do best. The crystalise sentiments a.k.a Clarity-as-a-service.
Business events
You can also call these prospecting events. The key differentiating factor is that these events are targeted, niche and hyper-focused on engineering business development or some other specific outcome.
This year, I’ve attended three events that fit this bill closely. The most recent was a Mercy Corps AGRIFIN event for their agriculture-tech-focused program in Kenya. I’ll write more about this event later because it was excellent on a personal level. Before this, I was at a Deeptech Summit in Kampala. 100 of us, led by a team from Open Startups Tunisia were tasked with providing recommendations to help the government of Uganda understand and hopefully take the first steps towards catalysing hardware, bio-science, climate-tech and artificial intelligence startups in the country.
But the crown of these sorts of events sits with NOVACOM Summits. Organised by a small team led by Ryan Anderson, William Austine and Harriet Thuku, a NOVACOM Summit is an unpretentious premium telecoms-focused event that happens twice a year in Franschhoek near Cape Town, South Africa and Diani, Kenya (for now at least).
You’ve probably never heard of it or paid any attention to it, but NOVACOM Summits represent at least to me, what it means to be deeply intentional about providing commercial value to everyone who takes to time to attend the event. If memory serves me right, the entire attendance at the second edition of NOVACOM barely touched 80 people—plus the organisers and media crews, and I think I’m being generous.
The business value started before the event itself began. While heading to Diani that rainy night from the airport in Mombasa, my fellow passengers were staff from Angola Cables (submarine cable company) and a gentleman from a telecoms firm in Comoros. Mind you, this was around the time we experienced multiple submarine cable cuts and connectivity issues at the west and eastern coasts in Africa. As you might expect, the conversation (and subtle sales pitching) during the ride was enjoyable to listen to as an outsider.
During the event itself, around 3 hours each day were devoted to curated in-person meetings, with a few general and breakout discussion sessions sprinkled throughout the day. As you might expect, the event was not cheap. My memory about pricing is vague, but if I remember correctly, it cost at least $25,000 (probably) for a company to be represented. I am not privy to individual rates—or if the option even existed. Was it worth it? According to attendees from leading telcos, ISPs, etc. It was. Some of them had the broad outlines of potential deals sketched by the end of the event.
A few weeks after NOVACOM Kenya 2024, I had a catchup call with a fellow attendee who had to catch his return flight soon after we had just met at the event. The gentleman runs E2E, a Dubai-based outfit that designs, supplies and deploys Fixed Wireless Broadband solutions among other connectivity-related businesses.
I have never wanted to be in the connectivity business as I wanted to after we had that call.