Forty years ago, if someone started a video game development company in Africa, investors would laugh him out of court. Today, America, Europe and Asia have turned the video gaming industry into a sub-culture worth billions of dollars, with millions of players worldwide.
In 2008, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reported a growth of $11.7 billion from video game software sales in the United States. In South Africa, the Xbox 360 Console sold an average of 3,000 units per month as of October 2006. According to Core Gaming, a South African Nintendo distribution company, the Wii console sold around 4,850 units per month by October 2007. The South African gaming industry grew to the R1.7 billion ($198 million) mark in 2011, according to the GfK Group.
There has been a lot of controversy about who created the first video game. In 1948, Thomas T. Goldsmith Junior and Estle R. Mann patented the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device. It required players to overlay pictures of targets, such as airplanes, in front of the screen, making the term video game redundant.
By the 1950s, video game development became more popular. In 1952, Alexander S. Douglas, a computer science professor, created a version of Tic-Tac-Toe, which is rumored to be the first graphical computer game because unlike Goldsmith and Estle’s device, images were displayed onscreen.
In 1958, William Higinbotham, an American physicist, created Tennis for Two. Four years later, Steve Russell, a MIT scholar, spearheaded the team that created Space War.
Jonathan Musa, an avid gamer, remembers playing Pac-Man in the late 1980s. He owned an Atari console, which was operated by a control pad with a protruding joy-stick and one button.
“You could only play it for 30 minutes before the adaptor overheated,” says Musa.
His admiration for games was passed on to his younger brothers, Paul and Anthony, who were born shortly after the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) outpaced the Atari in the early 1990s. The games were sold in the form of cartridges. The boys were introduced to the Sega Mega Drive games, which hit Kenyan shelves in the mid-1990s. Japan released the console in 1988 and the Sega Genesis, took the American market by storm the following year.
Musa was still enjoying the Sega Mega Drive when the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES) was released soon thereafter. Imagine Game Network (IGN) reports that the console has sold more than 49.1 million units worldwide since its conception.
In 1994, the Japanese company released the Nintendo 64 (N64), named after its 64-bit Central Processing Unit, which rivaled all other consoles. The N64 sold 32.93 million units worldwide and was named the 9th greatest video game console by IGN in 2009. Sony released the Play Station on December 31,1995 in Japan; it came to Kenya the following year.
Due to the high cost of Play Station games, piracy became rampant. A popular trend known as hot-swapping gave the market its hardest blow. The process entailed loading an original Play Station game and then quickly swapping the disk for a pirated one once the Play Station logo appeared on the television screen. In Kenya, gamers who wanted to save money would buy one original game and several pirated ones. Video gaming is a lifestyle for some. The Xbox 360 and the Play Station 3 (PS3) have an internal cooling system so that gamers can play for hours on end. On weekends Anthony plays Battlefield, a first-person shooter (FPS) in 1080 pixels on a High-definition flat screen; 64-bits seems like joke now that the PS3 is compatible with Blu-ray. The current generation of videogames has left veterans awestruck in its wake.
Sony and Microsoft have established social networks on their online platforms. Players are represented by glowing dots on a world map; South Africa is the brightest country on the continent.
The video gaming industry has shifted to a mass market model. According to Video Game Charts, Nintendo’s Wii console sold 95.85 million units worldwide as of March; while Sony’s PS3 sold 63.9 million units; Microsoft’s Xbox 360 sold 67.2 million units in April.
The real-time data from first-person shooters is mindboggling: millions of people play Call of Duty at any given time.According to Activision, one of the world’s leading producers of video games, 1.2 trillion virtual bullets have been fired since the game hit shelves. On August 3, 2011, the company confirmed that the game had sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling game in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.
For the gaming industry in Sub-Saharan Africa, the proof is in the pudding. Stores like GameStop and Toy World have found the gaming industry to be very lucrative. The moment a popular game hits shelves, leaflets are distributed to shopping complexes. According to Toy World, Call of Duty is one of Kenya’s best-selling first-person shooters.
Today, your 12-year-old son is giving tactical commands in your living room. His friends are part of an elite squadron of soldiers, fighting a war on the Caspian border. Your neighbors are managing your favorite football teams. And your daughter is playing lawn tennis in the living room. Thanks to companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, millions of people around the world can do this from the comfort of their homes. Africa has yet to capitalize on the video
game market.

Let’s Play War  In Your Living Room

It is mid-morning and the bright light of a South African spring shafts through the windows. Outside, the bush birds twitter contentedly in the garden, inside, the whistle and thud of gloves pierce the air of the tiny gym in the suburb of Linden in Johannesburg.
Inside the ropes of the ring, Alan Toweel is having the time of his life behind the training pads; taking the punches to his palms, before wheeling his arms, shoulder high, to force his fighter to bob and weave. It is a work out that gleams with sweat and concentration. It is training to hone the skills and reaction that can make the difference between sweet victory and defeat in a bloody heap.
“People say boxing is dead, I don’t think so,” says Toweel with his broad smile.
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To say Toweel has made a change and taken a risk, late in life, is almost like saying Muhammad Ali was quick on his feet. Six months before spending his days sweating in the ring, Toweel occupied a cozy desk at the South African Revenue Service in Johannesburg, where he was a senior manager with 24 pensionable years of service under his belt. At the time he quit public service, for a life of boxing gloves and punch bags, he was offered an executive position at the age of 47.
“I was told it was a very good job and they were a bit surprised by my decision. I still get phone calls about it now from colleagues who can’t believe it!” he says.
“It is a bit risky, but I am a fitness trainer as well, so it all helps pay the bills. I am probably the only boxing trainer in the country who has a B.Com in finance and a higher diploma in tax.”
It is a tough game to switch to. There are too many titles and vested interests in the boxing world where a canny negotiator is as useful a solid right hook.
“There are too many titles, they should unify them and make it more interesting,” says Toweel.
The financial decision for Toweel to chance it, in the topsy-turvy world of professional boxing, was a split decision on points. Emotionally, to extend the metaphor, it was a first round knockout.
For Toweel, boxing is his working week and his Sunday rest. He is one of the fighting Toweels, the tough Johannesburg family, which produced a string of professional boxers. They include his late uncle, Vic Toweel, the Benoni Atom, a world-class battling bantamweight who won the world title in 1950 and ended up on the cover of The Ring Magazine.
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“He was the best this country has ever produced, he was this country’s only universal and undisputed world champion,” says Toweel.
On the walls above the ring, are pictures telling the story of the gloved Toweels with all their championship belts, knockouts, sweat and glory. As a young man, Toweel did his ring apprenticeship with the gloves and carrying the ice bucket in the corner. His relatives ran a string of professional fighters over decades.
In the ring below, one of Toweel’s new charges is one of many fighters who would give his eye teeth for the accumulated glory of the pictures above. Zolani Marali’s fists are pounding the pads like his life depends upon it and in a funny way, it does.
For months, Toweel has been training Marali for his last shot at greatness against father time and growing odds. If anyone has a claim to being Africa’s Rocky, it is Marali, the fighter who learned to box in his father’s garage in Mdantsane, near East London, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape.
The light welterweight is ranked fourth in South Africa and 67th in the world with five defeats in 26 professional fights. At the age of 35, Marali is deemed in his last five minutes as a professional boxer. The wiry southpaw, with his quick feet and sharp jab, was once known as “Untouchable”, now the young fighters call him “Old Bones”. Like Rocky, he believes there is at least one more fight in him and that he can defy the critics to be a champion of the people, standing proudly in the limelight, one last time. In any case, he needs two or three more good purses to set himself up after the final bell.
“I want to get enough money to set up my own gym back at home so I can train youngsters and make a living,” says Marali.
Toweel came across Marali at Emperor’s Palace, in Johannesburg , on a night of defeat in 2009. Marali lost to the up-and-coming South Korean, Ji-Hoon Kim, in a technical knockout in the ninth.
“His style was asking for a good right hand, he was fooling around and he got caught. I predicted that night that he would get knocked out. After that, he was written off and lost everything. About a year ago his manager came to me and said no one wanted to train him and months later we began to work together,” says Toweel.
“I want him to win three more fights to set him up for the future. He has got a bit of fuel left in his tank. He is a very determined and disciplined fighter, but he still has a lot to learn.”
On November 3, in Marali’s old stamping ground of East London, this education will be put to the test against what is likely to be a severe examination at the swift hands of Ali ‘Rush Hour’ Funeka, a classy fighter, ranked 41st in the world, who has fought in Las Vegas.
The fight has all the history and needle that makes for interesting boxing.
The two boxers fought their hearts out at Monte Casino in Johannesburg on November 19, 2011 for the vacant WBF light welterweight world title. Funeka won on a split decision.
“I thought he [Marali] won the first fight and I think the re-match in East London will be one of the best fights you will ever see,” says Toweel.
To spice it up even more is backyard rivalry. Marali and Funeka grew up and trained together in Mdantsane. They have been fighting each other since the age of 12.
“It is a bit like one of those kung fu films… You remember, 20 years ago you killed my father, you remember?” laughs Marali.
“Our wives are even friends with each other, but on the night there will be no laughing, just killing.”
Toweel wants to make sure Marali laughs last on his way to comfortable retirement to prove a boxing point on behalf of both of them.
Only the hardest of hearts would deny the Rocky of Africa one last hurrah.
<h4>The Agony of Victory</h4>
It was a story written in blood on an African night of fistic fury. Twenty thousand people screamed victory and millions listened in on radio as the referee raised the right arm of the new world champion, Vic Toweel, at the end of 15 grueling rounds. His battered and swollen face managed a faint smile and even planted a good natured kiss on the cheek of his equally bruised opponent, but inside he must have been in agony.
Toweel was taken from the ring to hospital where surgeons operated on his broken nose and busted ear drum. He was to spend the first week of his two-year reign as champion between the operating table and a hospital bed. It was the painful end to a victory that put the image of the young fighter from Africa on the streets of New York and on the cover of the boxing bible, The Ring.
In only his 14th bout, after a mere 16 months of professional boxing, Toweel had weathered a barrage of punches to reach the pinnacle of his chosen career. He was the new world bantamweight champion and South Africa’s only undisputed and universal title holder. Those were the days, a world away from the current plethora of throwaway alphabet soup titles, when there were eight weight divisions and eight world champions.
It was even sweeter for the Toweel camp that the title was taken from a truly elegant and world-class fighter, Manuel Ortiz, of Corona, California, one of the world’s great bantamweights who notched up 100 victories in 131 fights.
Many argue that Ortiz, then 33, was on his way down as a fighter, when he fought Toweel at Wembley Stadium, in Johannesburg. He had held the world title for more than two years after winning it in 1949, in Honolulu, Hawaii, the home town of Dado Marino.
Certainly, black-and-white film of the fight shows Ortiz oozing confidence as he breezed into the ring in a silk dressing gown looking like he was going for a Martini cocktail instead of a punishing boxing match. When Ortiz realized he was behind on points in the latter rounds he threw everything bar the kitchen sink at Toweel, so it was no easy ride for the new champion.
It was the fruit of years of sweat for the Toweel boxing clan. Toweel, who fought at the London Olympics in 1948, had been boxing with his brothers since the age of nine.
The patriarch of the family, Mike Toweel, who had immigrated to South Africa from Lebanon at the turn of the 20th century, had trained his sons to box in a tin shack at the back of the family home in Benoni in eastern Johannesburg. Each one was to make his mark
in boxing.
Toweel, a former woodcarver, held on to his title until November 15, 1952 when he lost to Australian Jimmy Carruthers at the Rand Stadium in Johannesburg, before 28,000 people. There were attempts at a comeback, but Toweel, who struggled with his weight and breathing problems, caused by his many nose injuries, called it a day after 28 fights, three defeats and one draw. He emigrated in the 1980s and died in Sydney, Australia, in 2008, aged 80, leaving a legacy of grit and determination that made the name of the Benoni Atom.

The Boxing Civil Servant  In Rocky’s Corner

I have had the privilege of being trained by world-class coaches throughout my career in Zambia, Belgium, Holland and Mexico. The coach is often seen as the key man at every club.
Management goes out to get the best man for the job. Planning is usually thorough, as teams want to win at all costs.
When the coach lands the job, each and every weekend is a battle for survival. No pity, or margin for error. In today’s game, the stakes are high and so are the coaching casualties at the club. Every now and then you pick up a newspaper to see that another coach has bit the dust because of poor results. The coach always carries the can, no matter who is to blame for
the defeat.
<div id="attachment_1417" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1417" class="size-medium wp-image-1417" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000_DV337003-300x216.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="216" />Ducth coach of the Polish national football team Leo Beenhakker attends a training session on June 13, 2008 in Bad Waltersdorf. Poland&#8217;s veteran Dutch coach Leo Beenhakker said on Thursday that the injury-time penalty awarded against his side which gave Austria a 1-1 draw in their Euro 2008 Group B clash was totally unjustified. AFP PHOTO / JANEK SKARZYNSKI</div>
How do coaches come by their jobs in Africa?
Well, it was the norm in the 1970s and 80s, when I was growing up, that the most revered player and popular in the club went into coaching as their playing days were coming to an end. In fact, it was acceptable by fans and players alike. Gradually, the veteran player would take over the running of the team on the strength of playing experience, with no preparation whatsoever.
In most clubs you would find that the senior players would assist the head coach in decision making and the like. Many of the generation of outstanding players of yesteryear went on to carve a career for themselves in coaching. Did they have what it takes to make it in football? Was it that the clubs and management merely felt pity for our ageing local heroes? Without any formal education, or coaching badges, where would they start? They would look for coaching material and start talking like coaches. They just assumed the difficult task of controlling the affairs of the team.
Times have changed. Today the Confederation of African Football wants you to have the necessary papers and certificates in order to sit on the bench. FIFA introduced and insists on all member associations having a qualified technical director. Now you hear everywhere, such and such has a C license, you need an A license; so on and so forth.
The job of coach has always been a controversial one in Africa. From time immemorial, Africa has been an importer of foreign coaches and an exporter of talented soccer players; be it to Europe and elsewhere. To Zambia came British coaches Bill McGarry and Ian Porterfield; German Reinhard Fabisch to Zimbabwe; Englishman Stuart Baxter to South Africa.
In 1996, whilst in the later part of my career, I decided to follow the path to coaching in Mexico. The Club America training ground was not so far away from the FMF (Federation of Mexican Football) Technical Center. Most of us older players decided to take the courses in the hope of one day being in charge of a team. It was not easy, we had to study four modules and each one took 20 weeks! We had to go to classes on Mondays and Tuesdays from 3pm to 9pm and the language of instruction was Spanish, which did not make matters any easier. But, I was determined and earned my Technical Director diploma in 1998 after two years of hard work. Needless to say, from at least 19 footballers with whom we had started, only around six were able to cross the finish line. It took dedication, sacrifice and lots of concentration. There were long days in class and of course long hours on the pitch doing practical work, which we enjoyed. With that qualification one could train at the highest level in Mexico.
<div id="attachment_1418" style="width: 211px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1418" class="size-medium wp-image-1418" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/51237789-201x300.jpg" alt="" width="201" height="300" />EINDHOVEN, NETHERLANDS &#8211; APRIL 7: (FILE PHOTO) Sir Bobby Robson makes a point during the Newcastle United training session at The Philips Stadium on April 7, 2004 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Newcastle are preparing for their UEFA Cup match against PSV Eindhoven. Robson has been sacked by Newcastle August 30, 2004 following a poor start to the new season. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)</div>
I retired as a player in 2000, with a wealth of experience, after having being on the pitch for nearly 21 years from Mufulira Blackpool, Mighty Mufulira Wanderers, as a school boy, through Europe and Mexico.
I was offered a job as assistant coach by my good friend, Eduardo Regis, around March 2001, with Potros Marte, a team that was in the second division. So really, I had not so much time to sit at home and get bored. In the same year I worked with Pablo Centrone, at Veracruz, where we won the Championship in my first full year as coach, and we were promoted to the top tier of Mexican football. So, yes, my early days on the bench went so quickly and I was up and running. When I was accepted to do the UEFA ‘A’ license by the KNVB, I took the chance and came back to do the course for a year, September 2002 to May 2003, whilst being attached at PSV Eindhoven—my former club.
In September 2003 I started my job as coach of the Zambian national team in my home country. The mandate was to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The aspirations of the Zambian people have been to see Chipolopolo win an African Cup and be present at a FIFA World Cup. Nothing motivates the Zambian people more than their love for football.
In order to get where I was, I had some fantastic men as coaches and mentors in the game. In fact it has been a privilege for me to have worked with international coaches of the highest caliber. Among them: Sir Samuel ‘Zoom’ Ndlovu at Mufulira Wanderers and Seoul Olympics 1988; George Leekens at Cercle Brugge, who introduced me to Europe; Guus Hiddink, who was my first coach at PSV Eindhoven in 1989; then former England and Fulham coach at PSV Sir Bobby Robson; Leo Beenhakker in 1994-1995 at Club America, the people still talk about that team he ran with Francois Oman Biyik; Marcelo Bielsa, of the Argentinian national team; Manolo la Puente and La Volpe of the Mexican national team. All of these great professionals shaped my thinking as an analyzer of football and a philosopher of the game.
In 2006, I decided to concentrate on my administration career. I was also vice president of FAZ since 2004. I was elected FA president in 2008.
Many a time, I have a different view of coaches. I want to protect the image of coaches, especially in Africa. Do teams in Africa respect coaches? During the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, of six of the qualified teams from Africa four changed coaches just before the Tournament was about to start! No wonder we had only Ghana close to getting to the elusive semi-final place at the World Cup. We as Africans, fans and supporters and administrators, have no confidence in the ability of our own people to take charge of the team. So many times at club level, coaches are under pressure. They lose one game and the red light flashes; two and there is a crisis; three and the coach will be shown the door!
African or foreign coach? This is the never ending debate in Africa. My thinking has always been that as long as the coach can do the job, color or passport need not be an issue. All the people want is good football and good results. I would want to see more of our people spend more time studying for football. In South America it takes you three years at college or University to become a ‘professor’ of football. In order for our game to develop in Africa, we need more investment for the would-be coaches of our young men and women. The problem is we in Africa have so much talent that it camouflages our shortcomings. Just look in the recent past—no African team at 2012 London Olympics went far. We are making up the numbers at all international tournaments, male or female. There must be something wrong we are doing and it’s important to arrest this now. The reality is that we do have a few capable good coaches and if
given the tools and support, Africa, the sleeping giant, will awake. In Brazil 2014, I have a feeling that one African team will reach the semi finals! Africa will have turned a new page in world football. It is a bold statement we have to make, together and with patience.

Next Time For Africa!

Gary Bailey has worked in one of the most unforgiving and pressurized businesses in the world: football. The hunger for success from management, the constant media scrutiny, and the demands of fans add to the pressure. Bailey played more than 370 games for Manchester United as a goalkeeper, one of the hot seats in the game.
“I’ve learnt my own lessons in how to cope with defeat, team problems and massive pressure to perform,” he says.
The highlights of Bailey’s footballing career are captured in his recently published book titled, Succeed Under Pressure: Converting Football Lessons Into Business Success written with Professor Rakesh Sondhi, an expert on leadership. The book is not a soccer memoir.
“It’s a business book, with a little bit of soccer thrown in to make it a nice read. [With] tools that people can use to be more successful under pressure,” says Bailey.
The idea to write the book came from a motivational talk, which Bailey gave in Dubai at a leadership conference, on how to succeed by using his experiences at Man United.
“I spoke about my background, how to recover from the first cup final we lost,” he says.
In 1979, they lost to Arsenal in the most dramatic fashion. Arsenal led 2-0 for 85 minutes and Man United equalized with five minutes to go but in the dying seconds Alan Sunderland scored the winner, giving Arsenal a remarkable 3-2 win.
Worse than that, in an FA Cup third round game, in January 1984, holders Manchester United were defeated 2-0 by a third division side, Bournemouth in one of the most famous FA Cup shocks and Bailey was in goals.
“It was so embarrassing. The following morning, I pick up the newspaper and there is a picture of me and all my teammates, double center spread with an axe through our heads ‘Get rid of them they are all garbage’,” says Bailey.
The loss is etched in Bailey’s memory, a stark reminder of how quickly life can change in football. It was fodder for the book, to use his experiences as a Man United player working under manager Sir Alex Ferguson, arguably the most successful and toughest football manager ever.
“It also makes sense to focus on the most successful manager in one of the toughest businesses and that’s Sir Alex Ferguson. I’ve followed his career and marveled at his ability to handle pressure and even to thrive on it,” he says.
“The book covers every aspect of leadership, whether you are the CEO of a big conglomerate or a one-man band operating from your home, and applies to big corporates and corner cafes alike,” says Bailey.
Pressure is not easy to manage and it can either build or destroy you and the book is for anyone to “manage pressure for your own benefit,” says Bailey. Some people thrive under pressure, while others fall apart, what makes the difference is how you choose to see the problem and how to deal with it and that’s the fundamental concept of reframing.
A poignant example of reframing, according to Bailey, is Ferguson’s congratulatory message to Manchester City on pipping Man United to the 2011/12 Premier League title on goal difference. Ferguson congratulated City but quickly warned his bitter rivals that United would come back stronger in the next season to fight for the trophy.
“Straightaway he turns it around, instead of moping and blaming each other,” says Bailey. Carlos Queiroz, former Manchester United assistant coach says in the book, “You see the best out of Sir Alex not when United are winning, but in our worst nightmares.”
A salient example, which epitomizes Ferguson’s adaptability, is when he had to adapt his style to cope with footballers from different cultures. Initially, Sir Alex wasn’t being understood and struggled to communicate with footballers from Latin backgrounds, players such as Juan Sebastián Verón and Diego Forlán. Bringing the tactically astute and multilingual Portuguese coach Queiroz, who is fluent in six languages and was born in Nampula, Mozambique was undoubtedly a stroke of genius.
“The coach subsequently made great strides in the way he [got] the best out of those players, for whom Manchester [was] a far cry from the sunshine and samba of their home footballing environment,” Bailey writes in the book.
For Bailey it has been a long road, his father, Roy Bailey played for Ipswich Town as a goalkeeper before moving to South Africa in the early 1960s to take up coaching. As a teenager, Gary went the other way to follow his own dream and to make his début.
“I arrived in Manchester United from South Africa as a 19-year-old goalkeeping hopeful and went from unsigned nobody to Manchester United goalkeeper,” he says.
For a man who has had the opportunity to play against soccer greats such as Diego Maradona, he singles out Kenny Dalglish as the toughest striker he ever faced. Bailey acknowledges that he is privileged to have had the opportunity to play for England and tour Europe and America with Man United. He warns that you must always stay humble.
“It’s easy to let fame go to your head,” he says.
Bailey learned the hard way, after a fight broke out with Man City fans in a pub where he was celebrating his debut 2-0 win against Ipswich, with his mates. The fight broke out after, “Manchester City fans started calling me unpleasant and rather unflattering names,” he says. Bailey got a call the next morning from the then manager, Dave Sexton, and was admonished to clean up his act.
After leaving Man United, Bailey returned to South Africa and played for Kaizer Chiefs. Bailey’s arrival at Amakhosi was welcomed and a cult status arose around him with the belief that he was unbeatable, which was quickly dispelled.
“When on my debut, against our bitter rival Orlando Pirates, they scored with their first attack&#8230; We went on to draw that game,” he says.
Despite the initial setback, Bailey played between 1988 and 1990, during which the team won five trophies, before hanging up his boots.
Bailey has also been involved in football development and worked with the University of Pretoria (Tuks) Academy between 2000 and 2004, running the business side of the academy. However, he concedes that the quality of South African footballers, especially at national level, struggles to match international standards.
“We don’t produce world class players… most of the academies in South Africa produces South African class players; they don’t necessarily want them to go overseas.”
These challenges in soccer development in South Africa, and in the broader business environment, make Bailey’s book timely and particularly salient. As he says in the book, “If the world’s business leaders share so many traits with football managers, then the men in the dugouts surely have much to teach us on the art of leading, and succeeding under pressure.”
Bailey’s experiences with Manchester United, under Ferguson’s wing, are surely a testimony that football lessons can be transferred into principles for the business world.

Bailey’s Net Worth

The best way to get corporate heavyweights in the same room is to host an event based on something close to their hearts—making money.
This is why investors from across South Africa flocked to the Michelangelo Hotel on September 14, for the Nigeria Business Opportunities Roadshow. The speakers, all dressed to the nines, wooed the crowd with words like ‘high returns’ and ‘economic growth’.
The roadshow was hosted by two Nigerian-based companies, AiQ Capital Management Limited and Detail. AiQ Capital offers financial and management advisory services as well as a hospitality and retail fund. Detail is a legal consulting firm specializing in cooperate and commercial law. It aids businesses in areas such as structuring partnerships, due diligence, as well as regulatory and corporate compliance.
According to Uzoma Nwankwo, CEO and MD of AiQ capital, Nigeria’s progressive economic climate is ripe for investors.
In 2011, Nigeria’s GDP was $247 billion with a growth of 7% driven by non-oil production. Industries including agriculture, manufacturing and services contributed to this growth. The Nigerian informal sector is the greatest employer of Nigeria’s workforce but is not reflected in GDP data.
“That is why you’ll find a street vendor with three children, two houses and a car, and wonder how he’s able to sustain his lifestyle when the country’s GDP per capita is $1,600,” says Nwankwo.
Almost all of Nigeria’s sectors need investment. The power sector may be one of the most needy, as production is dependent on it. Nigeria needs 10,000MW yet produces a mere 6,000MW.
The country loses $500 million annually to medical tourism as medical care is poor. Last year, 250,000 Nigerians traveled to India for medical care and each paid at least $30,000 on transportation, accommodation and hospital bills.
Then there’s the hotel industry. According to a biannual study by Hogg Robinson Group (HRG), hotels in Lagos are ranked as the second most expensive in the world; they charge an average of $341 per night, behind Moscow, Russia, where they charge $407. Debbie Peters, who heads the AiQ Capital Hospitality and Real Estate Fund, says that there is a desperate need for quality branded hotels in the middle market.
“The 20-year-old four star hotels are below international standards and charge very high rates,” she says.
“The middle class, roughly 40 million people, is the fastest growing market in Nigeria forming the biggest market for hotels,” says Peters.
According to the website howwemadeitinafrica.com, the risks involved in investing in Nigeria include: choice of partners, corruption, poor legal systems, difficult logistics, poor infrastructure and insufficient power to name a few. A common mistake investors make is partnering with corrupt people. Although it is vital to have a local partner for logistical reasons, local knowledge and market penetration, many potential partners claim to have connections in government, false credentials or undisclosed interests, which could affect one’s reputation.
On the upside there’s a population of 160 million people which has potential for a consumer boom. This year the country’s estimated GDP growth is 8%—placing it in the same league as India, China and Indonesia.
Investors at the Michelangelo Hotel appeared enthused by Nigeria. Patrick Katabua, from AfRES (African Real Estate Society), said that he had been to Nigeria and knows the need for affordable accommodation.
“There are so many overseas companies coming to invest in Africa. The potential in our countries is booming and if we do not invest we will lose out,” says Katabua.
Sandile Mabuza, CEO of Mbuza Capital &amp; Maika Holdings, was attracted to the possibility of high returns and is looking to invest in infrastructure and property. Mabuza’s main concern is the lack of strong institutions to protect investors.
The Nigerian minister of trade and investment, Olusegun Aganga, recently reported that 18 of the 20 countries he visited in the last year had shown interest in investing in the country. Among those countries were the United States and Japan. This gives testament to Vision 20:2020 made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to make Nigeria one of the 20 largest economies in the world by 2020.
Whether one should invest or not isn’t the most significant question at this time. Rather ask how to go about investing, who to partner with and understand the risks involved. The ball is ultimately in your court.

Nigeria: To Invest Or Not To Invest?  That Is The Question

Over the last 50 years, Africa has gone from colonialism to a continent on the verge of political and economic transformation. Despite the financial crisis, Africa has been growing at an unprecedented rate—rekindling optimism. Across the continent, there is now a greater sense of seizing the day. What does the next 50 years hold for Africa?
Well, the next half century offers good prospects for realizing a dynamic, diversified and competitive economic zone in Africa in which extreme poverty is eliminated within peaceful, stable and vibrant societies. It will see the transformation of fragile economies into more robust and developed markets, which will create opportunities for the poor.
Recent evidence shows that economic growth in Africa is generally strong: fuelled by business-friendly policy reforms; favorable commodity prices and an improvement in peace and security. African Development Bank (AfDB) estimates suggest that both Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita will increase steadily throughout the period 2010 to 2060. By 2060, most African countries will attain upper-middle income status.
In the most positive of scenarios, the AfDB estimates that Africa’s GDP could increase to more than $15 trillion in 2060, from a base of $1.7 trillion in 2010. Consequently, income per capita should grow from $1,667 in 2010 to more than $5,600 by 2060. The projected breakdown of GDP by sub-region indicates that North Africa will continue to post the highest income per capita. However, East Africa is likely to show the strongest growth performance, reaching 9.3% in 2030. By 2060, the sub-region will have a per capita income 10 times higher than in 2010.
One of the outcomes of Africa’s strong economic growth, in the past two decades, has been a significant increase in the African middle class, defined as earning between $4 and $20 per day. The middle class will continue to grow from 355 million (34% of Africa’s population in 2010) to 1.1 billion (42%) in 2060. Poverty levels are expected to fall, with the proportion of the population living on less than $1.25 a day declining from 44% in 2010 to 33.3% in 2060.
In the decades ahead, Africa’s growth prospects will be heavily influenced by trends in labor availability. The continued rapid growth of the economically active population, that is men and women aged between 15 and 64, at an average of around 3.5% per annum will lead to an increase in Africa’s working-age population to around 1.87 billion; around 74% of Africans will be of working age.
By 2060, life expectancy in Africa is projected to reach 70 years, compared to 56 years in 2010. North and East Africa are projected to have the highest life expectancy with 80 to 83 years, compared to the much lower 55 years in Central Africa. HIV/AIDS remains Africa’s bugbear. HIV prevalence rates are expected to decline from 2.1% in 2010 to 1.4% in 2060.
With respect to literacy rates, the current trend of rising rates is projected to continue, reaching around 96% in 2060 against 67% in 2010.
For Africa, the next 50 years are likely to be shaped by three major global forces: the changing structure of global trade; new trends in technology and the international architecture governing trade, finance and development assistance.
Africa faces three drivers of change related to its physical environment: firstly, climate change; secondly, the continent’s renewable and non-renewable natural resources and lastly, the continent’s land and water will come under increasing pressure.
Three human conditions will impact Africa in the next 50 years: a delayed demographic transition; the burden of AIDS and land access and tenure.
By 2060, several changes will have transformed the opportunities and challenges facing Africa in at least six dimensions: urbanization will accelerate; migration will increase and agriculture may well decline. How economies in Africa respond to these challenges will depend on the choices they make. Countries need to respond by investing in their cities, managing migration, transforming agriculture, managing their natural resources and making concerted efforts to break in at the bottom of the global market in goods and services. Action—by Africans, in the form of deeper regional integration, and by the international community, on trade and aid—must support the efforts of African countries.

We Will Live Longer  And Be Wealthier by 2060

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” runs the proverb and the accuracy of that callous observation can be seen in the current labor mayhem trashing South Africa’s platinum sector.
Through their actions, the illegally-striking workers are doing exactly what is needed to bring a positive correction to the fundamentals of the platinum business.
On the downside, they are likely to pay a heavy price in permanently lost jobs because of it. In fact, all South Africans will suffer because of the knock-on consequences to the nation such as the recent cut in the country’s sovereign credit rating. That hits Eskom’s ability to raise funds which affects every electricity consumer in terms of future higher power tariffs and possible future power shortages.
The platinum price collapsed from around $1,750 in March because it became clear the global slowdown combined with the previous expansion in South African supply meant there was a surplus of metal in the markets, which analysts estimated at up to 500,000oz.
Economics 101 lays out a simple solution: cut the supply and the price will recover—but the South African producers would not, or could not,
do so.
Would not—because all miners are optimists at heart and believe the good times will return sooner rather than later. Therefore they did not want to incur the costs of closing shafts only to re-open them in a year’s time while at the same time handing commercial benefits to competitors who did not cut back.
Could not—because the platinum miners are under extreme political pressure from government to preserve jobs and that pressure can be applied in a variety of unpleasant ways.
The strikers have now done management’s work for it. Estimates of the amount of platinum production that could be lost this year, so far, sit around 300,000oz.
Surprise, surprise—the platinum price has jumped more than 20% since the beginning of August from around $1,400/oz to around $1,725 in early October.
The platinum industry’s marginal projects—some of which should probably never have been started in the first place because they are only viable at sky-high prices—are now being squeezed out of business.
That’s likely to be permanent. Labor accounts for around 50% of total cash operating costs so steep hikes in wages have a huge impact on the financial viability of the mines.
What’s more, foreign investors—who put up the money previously for all the new platinum projects—are seriously unimpressed.
“The government needs to take control of the situation and solidify practice and protocol with regard to wage negotiations before the nation’s mining sector becomes uninvestable,” says Fairfax Securities analyst John Meyer.
Impala Platinum marketing executive Derek Engelbrecht recently stated, “The days of South Africa as a five million ounce platinum producer are long gone. The country could settle at output of between 4.25 million oz and 4.5 million oz. The challenges being thrown at the industry make the attainment of 5 million oz very, very difficult.”
Remember—this was the sector of South Africa’s mining industry with the best growth prospects. Not only has that growth been, at best, considerably delayed but there will be a heavy price in lost jobs from the present work force.
Estimates on the jobs that could be lost range from 10,000 to 30,000. That results from a trend that has been obvious on the gold mines for the past 20 years. Time and time again, the unions have pushed for, and received, annual pay increases running well above ruling domestic inflation rates and the mines have coped by cutting out the higher-cost production assets that were no longer viable.
The one ray of light, is the agreement just reached between Gold Fields and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) over the new operating model for the mechanized South Deep mine.
I find it significant that Gold Fields management, after exhausting normal negotiation procedures, took a hard line stance issuing a Section 189 notice putting all the jobs at this mine on the line.
Being a nice guy clearly does not work. In December, Kumba Iron Ore paid out R345,000 ($39,800), after tax, to each of more than 6,000 of its employees, in terms of a free five-year share incentive scheme.
As of early October production from Kumba’s Sishen mine was suspended after 300 workers went on strike and blocked access to the pit.

Unintended Consequences

For many years fashionista Omoyemi Akerele had been pondering the dearth of fashion designers in Nigeria. From her musings, she realized that the issue was not the dearth of designers, but limited platforms through which designers could showcase their works. This was the case for decades despite the efforts of pioneers such as Shade Thomas-Fahm who worked tirelessly throughout the 1960s to bring attention to the industry. Her fervor and creativity laid the foundation for the fashion industry, while she also inspired a plethora of designers to pursue their passion.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1401" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/LFW_005-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" />
Akerele is one of those stylists that have taken the baton from the pioneer in her commitment to extend the frontiers of the fashion industry. She started a fashion consultancy in Nigeria at a time when little attention was paid to the industry. Her vision is for the industry to flourish and be acknowledged all over the world.
“There is a lot of promise in the Nigerian Fashion industry… So much untapped potential [and] I see my role as a catalyst,” says Akerele.
It was her vision to see Nigeria and Africa take its rightful place in the global fashion industry that drove her to create Style House, a fashion agency that promotes and supports the industry. But this was not enough.
“There was a need for a unified platform that designers could benefit from by showing their work to the industry at large. I thought that if the designers could come together to show under one platform, we would get the press and the whole community involved during this period. There’s more strength in that as opposed to different individual shows at different times of the year”, says Akerele.
Her vision culminated in the launch of the Lagos Fashion and Design Week (LFDW) in October 2011.
Pulling off such an event was no easy feat. After various attempts at securing sponsorship, MTN, the telecommunications company agreed to sponsor the inaugural event.
“What MTN was offering us, was low compared to what we needed to pull off a show of this size, but when you have a vision, you know there’s got to be a way this can work so at least you start,” she says.
In the end, the inaugural Lagos catwalk on the runway set the bar beyond her expectations.
Another challenging issue was scouting for young designers. This was due to certain constraints such as funding, rent textile availability and lack of training and resource centers, which impede the development of the local industry. The average designer has little or no accessibility to funds. Product continuity is stifled by limited supply of certain fabrics. Designers who can afford to produce their own textiles are few and far between and this greatly increases the final cost of the garment.
In other parts of the world, the education sector places emphasis on empowering the fashion entrepreneurs through colleges and resource centers. The industry teams up with upcoming designers who are willing to give their time and energy to teach fashion and its workings. In Nigeria, fashion has no representation in the academic establishment and there are very little collaborative efforts in the fashion industry. The average fashion enthusiast is a graduate of an international fashion school or is self-taught.
“Recently, I got an email from one of our international partners, asking for a list of fashion universities or colleges in Nigeria. I could not reply to the email for two weeks. I was so ashamed. It is amazing to know that about 90% of the industry is self-taught; the other 10% obtained their degrees from international institutions. There are 1% [of Nigerian designers] that probably rely on private people like Ginani or Ituen Basi who run individual fashion courses but in terms of proper institutions that run courses, we have none,” she says.
“I was on the London underground and I saw adverts of British fashion universities. This year, a report was put out for the British fashion industry. As we speak, its contribution to the economy from both retail and the industry brought over £200 million into the economy and they are still focusing on how to make the schools and the industry better to ensure that they produce more. We do not even have fashion universities that function here. That really breaks my heart,” says Akerele.
The visionary founder of LFDW believes that her annual catwalk runway will continue to unearth and support the latent talent in Nigeria. The inaugural event last year brought to the fore names such as Bridget Awosika who received rave reviews from Vogue UK. The fashion magazine described her work as “authentic African design”. This was a proud moment for Akerele. When asked about the event she told Vogue that “the event marks an awakening among some designers here who have been able to gradually evolve from what they come to accept as fashion—let’s call it a more traditional approach—to a place where they now understand that there’s much more we can offer…”
With the amount of effort going into its preparation, LFDW 2012 promises to be even bigger. The event—sponsored by MTN, RIM, Blackberry, Virgin Atlantic Airways, British Council and Porsche­­­—will not just end with the runway. After the event Akerele wants to give designers more exposure in the local and international market.
“The plan is to raise the stakes, not necessarily by doing more things but in strengthening and solidifying the vision. We are just trying to make sure that we do this better and create a better experience for people out there. The pop-up stores come up right after fashion week in London. We believe that it is important for press and buyers to attend. As we speak, Nigeria is not yet a destination for buyers so we decided to take the people to the buyers. We are going for different appointments with buyers to position Nigerian designers to benefit from that. We are also working on the Nigerian market as well so designers can work together. We are working on garment manufacturing companies that can make clothes for Nigerian designers. We are also putting pressure on all the companies that are setting up malls across Nigeria, lobbying for spaces for designers in some of the malls. The more locations the materials can be bought, the bigger the impact on the industry. We want to make a difference in the businesses of these designers.”
Akerele is also the ambassador of the ‘Buy Nigeria’ campaign, an initiative to promote Nigerian made clothes. Her vision for the near future is for the Nigerian indigenous fashion industry to contribute significantly to the GDP and this can only be achieved through indigenous fashion retail.
“Nigerian designers have to think of how to make their designs accessible to the 150 million Nigerians out there. The more people consume, the more people will be aware and the bigger the industry,” she says.
The future of fashion is promising and surely more progress will be made considering the effort industry faithful are putting into its development. Akerele’s tireless task as an ambassador and catalyst for the Nigerian industry has earned her remarkable acclaim with both local and international fashion communities. She has managed to inspire tangible change within the industry in a relatively short period. When asked about her plans for the future, her face lit up and in an alluring response, her reply was ‘Watch this space’.

Why Fashion Breaks My Heart

When 12-year-old Alex Okosi convinced his parents to allow him to stay in the United States with his older brothers following a family holiday, they reluctantly agreed, hoping that their last born would quickly become homesick and return home, with his tail between his legs.
“We had gone on holiday to visit my older brothers who were living and studying in the US. At that point in time, sending your kids to go study in the States was the ‘in-thing’ in Nigeria among parents who could afford this privilege,” says Okosi.
It took only two years after he arrived in the US for Okosi to awaken to the realization that his parents would not be financially able to support his US education for very long.
“Being the last of seven children, my parents had basically put six people before me through school. In as much as my father had been an excellent provider, it was obvious that by the time I would need to go to university, he would have long retired by then,” he says.
At the age of 14, Okosi started playing junior high basketball, in the hope that he would excel at both the sport and the books enough to earn a basketball scholarship.
“I pushed myself to work extremely hard at both my studies and basketball. Even though it was obvious that I was a better student than I was an athlete, I managed to get the scholarship that paid my university tuition,” says Okosi.
Having excelled at his studies and sports, Okosi also managed to pack in numerous after-school jobs and internships that made it easy for MTV Networks, now Viacom, to hire him on a practical training basis after he had completed his economics degree.
“As an international student, getting a company to hire you after you complete your studies was a major feat. I joined MTV in New York knowing that I would only be there for a year, after which I would have to go back home to Nigeria, or apply for a work visa, hopefully sponsored by MTV,” says Okosi.
From the moment he walked in at the iconic music television channel, Okosi says he immediately dreamt of taking it to his home continent. To achieve this, Okosi resolved to work harder than everyone else, like he had been doing throughout his entire schooling career in America.
“After serving my practical training year in the New York branch of MTV, I was then moved to Los Angeles where I was to learn about all the other functions of the cable television network business,” he says.
After some time in Los Angeles, Okosi began studying for his MBA, but the idea of taking MTV to Africa was still very much alive, and circumstances were about to conspire in his favor.
“On a typical day at the office, I was called from my office to come meet the group CEO of MTV Networks at the time, where I was introduced by my boss to the big boss, as the star of the Los Angeles operation. I honestly expected that the compliments by the bosses were only for the purpose of boosting my morale and nothing beyond that,” recalls Okosi.
To his surprise, Okosi received a call from the head office summoning him to a lunch meeting with the group’s CEO he had met days before.
“I realized that this was going to be my one and only chance to table my big idea. It was going to be now or never. Even though I had a comfortable life, knowing that MTV was present everywhere else but in Africa really bothered me. There was music in our continent; there was youth culture just like everywhere else in the world. It just felt like Africa was the last frontier at that point because the business was everywhere but [in Africa],” says Okosi.
After that promising lunch meeting, Okosi was then sent to London to experience the launch of a new branch. This move was designed to test him.
“The idea was that I should go to the United Kingdom and start the process from scratch to see if by the end of it, I would still be interested in going ahead with my plan to launch in Africa. Above all the other requirements, the most important objective was that I had to make sure that the London branch was financially viable, a business that actually made money,” says Okosi.
After a successful run in London, his bid to launch the channel in Africa was given the final stamp of approval. This was in 2004 when Okosi started the journey back and forth between Johannesburg and London, where he was putting together a team that was to launch “MTV Base” in February 2005.
“Besides the challenges that came with setting up smaller supporting branches in Nigeria and other lesser-developed countries in Africa, after we had a successful launch of our African headquarters in Johannesburg, my team’s number one major challenge was getting quality content from African artists. Here we were, as a youth music channel, hoping to cater to a global youth who wanted to see both international and local material, but the majority of the local material—especially the music videos—was just not up to par with our requirements,” he says.
This new challenge gave birth to another of Okosi’s winning ideas: the MTV Talent Reps, a non-profit program which would see Okosi’s MTV team members go to musicians to train them on the basics of creating and shooting music videos that would be worthy of being aired on the channel and on other sister channels across the global MTV network.
“Our talent reps acted as the middlemen between the record labels, artists and us as a content carrier. How we, as a station, saw it, is that we needed good quality content to carry on our channel, so that we could attract viewers, so that we could in turn, attract advertising that would make us a financially-sound business that would ultimately be a successful business,” says Okosi.
After the initial teething problems expected from a project of this scale, today MTV Base is one of the predominant music industry players across the continent, reporting a double-digit financial growth year-on-year. Besides playing an important role in taking African music to the rest of the world, Okosi says one of his most rewarding experiences is seeing the company launch the careers of some of the continent’s most loved video jockeys.
“Seeing people—like Sizwe Dhlomo—come to us as presenters and go on to become business people, is something that makes me very happy,” says Okosi. As senior vice-president and managing director of Viacom International Media Networks Africa, Okosi has also spear-headed the launch of other global channels in Africa: Comedy Central, VH1, BET and Nickelodeon. And to think that it all began with a childhood holiday.

King Of The Last Frontier

For three aspiring engineers, our wheels of choice were 150cc Big Boy Scooters. At the start line, in the city of gold, we joined 60 other like-minded crews on a journey labeled as Africa’s greatest social rally—the Put Foot Rally.
The expedition, onboard our three stallions, would take us 7,000 kilometers, through seven countries and six border checkpoints, in 21 days, all in support of Project Rhino KwaZulu-Natal. The rally’s intention is simple: to catapult adventurous spirits into their backyard and in the footsteps of David Livingstone. We set out to prove that Southern Africa can be explored on any wheels you choose.
<div id="attachment_1394" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1394" class="size-medium wp-image-1394" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/P7030297-300x219.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="219" />Our Scooters parked on the beach at Senga Bay Lake Malawi</div>
With frozen fingers, James, Matt and I waved at encouraging hoots, as we cleared Jo’burg on a chilly winter’s morning. Finally, we hit the open road, full steam ahead at 70km an hour, and made our way to the first border post into Botswana. Our first taste of open road biking included: dodging suicidal flamingos and angry ostriches as well as the odd elephant—something extraordinary when on two wheels. For the first couple of days, as we rode towards Etosha National Park, our morning sessions were split into 30km stints interspersed with star-jumps on the open road and warming our hands on the exhaust pipe.
Traveling up to 700km a day, meant we arose early; behind the fog and cold came daybreak, which brought new surprises perched on the horizon.
Out in the wild, we had to constantly monitor our fuel situation. Fuel is gold and with a range of 200km we were bound to run out, somewhere along our adventure. This happened in Namibia en route to Windhoek. With two scooters curb-bound, James slipstreamed a 18-wheeler truck for 40km and returned with a couple of liters.
We learnt that poor navigation in the middle of the night is all part of the experience. The excited faces, accompanied with cold beers, at the checkpoints were moments of accomplishment. These checkpoint parties consisted of a 300-strong group dressed in anything from animal print to luminous polyester, where many a story were shared from the days’ travels.
Desert evolved into mountains, which turned into grasslands and we had made the first leg of the journey to Etosha Park. There are some roads that make your heart beat fast and others that take your breath away. Perhaps the greatest part of riding across Africa is that you see every rolling hill, every river crossing and every bustling village. We learnt to have conversations, while riding, without saying a word and there were many humorous moments while shepherding Matt—who before this trip had never ridden a scooter.
Riding through the Caprivi Strip towards Livingstone was quite an experience. With only a couple of shirts and a Leatherman, we were often invited to dine with hospitable locals. Here the spirit of Ubuntu is real. After breaking down 80 kilometers out of Grootfontein, we hitched a ride back to town in a copper truck, negotiated accommodation in exchange for three beers and had our scooters serviced by a resident mechanic for free. Within one day we were back on the road in Livingstone, Zambia.
Not only does the Put Foot Rally give travellers the opportunity to explore some of Southern Africa’s most beautiful spots but it also facilitates fundraising for a great cause. The crews raised R560,000 ($65,000), which was used to buy 450 new pairs of school shoes for schoolchildren in Livingstone. It also created awareness and raised funds to help fight rhino poaching through Project Rhino.
We had cruised the Kavango, traveled the entire interior of Namibia and enjoyed the crisp taste of a Mosi on the banks of the Zambezi River. On entering Zimbabwe the beaten track led us towards Kariba Dam. We hopped onto a ferry and had a full day of downtime, much of which was spent sipping on Lion Lager and snacking on Kapenta (Tanganyika sardines). Well refreshed, we made our way to colorful Malawi and rode hugging the ‘Lake of Stars’.
Exploring the fleamarket-style villages by scooter was an experience. Traffic was always a breeze and the interest we received from people gave us an opportunity to learn hidden secrets about the country.
A conversation was bound to be fired up at every pit stop, especially with police officials, who asked how we managed to pack everything including a golf club. Officials let us through every roadblock or border post, laughing ‘Hah, silly Mlungus’, a reminder that when traveling Africa always remember to pack a sense of humor.
Next, we rode southwards into Mozambique, which presented us with unique landscapes. The bright lights of Teté; long, white beaches of Vilanculos; the historical architecture and the waving coconut trees of Inhambane made for an atmosphere like no other. As we cruised to Barra lodge, the idyllic finish line of our scooter odyssey, the realization hit that while not everything had gone our way—breakdowns led to nights on the side of the road and a couple of tumbles had depleted spirits—Africa and her people always seem to provide. Traveling across Southern Africa by scooter gave us the chance to take it slow and travel uninhibited. The rally gave us the chance to bond and give back to communities and conservation.
Go ride, Africa is more accessible than you think.

7 Thousand Kilometers, 6 Borders,  Ride For Rhinos:  No Regrets

Worldwide, commuting has proven to be an increasingly expensive, stress inducing and environmentally unfriendly necessity—the latter due to the increase in carbon footprint generation, defined by the UK Carbon Trust as “the total set of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person”, thanks to more vehicles being used on our roads.
Alternate forms of transportation have been eagerly sought and this has led to companies such as Ultra Motor developing a range of electric and hybrid-powered bicycles designed to alleviate these personal and ecological issues. FORBES AFRICA recently got the chance to test ride a power-on-demand electrically assisted bike for ourselves and we were pleasantly surprised.
Developed with short distances in mind, the A2B Metro, the company’s flagship model launched in 2008, utilizes pedal power which can be offset by an infusion of electric-powered momentum, allowing you to slip in and out of traffic and get some exercise, or not, if you’d prefer—all for a greatly reduced running cost. And as for the headache of finding parking—consider that a thing of the past.
The A2B Metro weighs in at a robust 37kgs, which, while not light by any means, is only tedious when it needs to be shifted in or out of tight areas. Once in motion, the weight seems to disappear and the bike is highly maneuverable and fun to ride, even when pedal power is used exclusively. Thanks to a seven-speed Shimano derailer, changing gears is simple, quick and the chain never threatened to come loose from its gears or housing. Even traveling uphill is not an issue, thanks to the motor, which comes alive at a flick of the wrist, so you don’t have to go to that early morning meeting gushing like a geyser. Crossing large intersections holds no fear for the A2B owner; slipping off the pedals or not generating enough momentum in time for a changing robot are all offset by the ever-present motor that can take over as quickly as you need it to.
We found that the electric throttle became difficult to keep a grip on over extended periods, but that’s no doubt because it was only designed as an assist and not as an exclusive means of propulsion. The bike has a lithium-ion battery, with the option of a second one that can be installed in the Y-frame, which is placed on a rail behind the seat and housed in custom alloy for more efficient cooling. It takes a mere four to five hours of charging time at a standard outlet, and with two batteries installed, the bike has an effective range of 64km. Charging is easy as the rear battery pack simply slips off and is then attached to a standard wall socket.
Lithium-ion batteries have proven successful and popular in consumer electronics because they have no memory effect, lose very little charge when dormant and have one of the best energy densities available. In addition, they are much lighter than their counterparts, and it is advised that they be charged regularly, versus other batteries that should be totally depleted, making them more practical to use.
The frame of the Metro is created using hydroforming technology. The process entails placing lightweight aluminum on a negative mold of the desired shape, and then high pressure hydraulic pumps inject fluid within the mold, causing the metal to match the shape exactly. The benefit of using hydroforming technology is that complex shapes can be created with a higher stiffness-to-weight ratio, and at a reduced per unit cost.
The hand-sized 250W brushless hub motor sits on the rear wheel of the A2B Metro and there’s no visible cabling, making it safe to use and water tight. As opposed to conventional brushed motors, this variant has the permanent magnets on the rotor and the electromagnets are moved to the stator, essentially turning it inside out. The benefits are that without brushes which erode due to wear and tear, these motors are more reliable and cooler, with less sparking and noise produced.
The Metro comes with accessories in the form of pannier bags and racks so you can take your essentials with you. You don’t need a special license or gear, other than a helmet, which makes it far more user-friendly than traveling by motorbike. The oversized seat ensures traveling longer distances is comfortable and won’t result in regular chiropractic visits.
And if you thought the A2B was a slouch, think again—it’s capable of clocking speeds around 28km/h. Stopping the A2B is the task of multiple disc brakes that work tremendously well and won’t get clogged up or slip in wet weather conditions. The front wheel quickly clips off, allowing punctures to be fixed with relative ease­—not so much with the rear configuration—and the wide tires mean the bike can deal with some pretty tough terrain, albeit not off-road conditions. Front and rear suspensions, with the latter having the ability to be set as specific preloads, also help transition the ride over any bumps or potholes, as we South Africans are accustomed to experiencing frequently.
The Metro has a built-in display that shows the bike’s speed and range and also sports integrated lights in the front and rear for added visibility and night riding.
An issue we experienced was with securing the bike to standard racks. Due to the large tires, and also because the front one clips off, the A2B has to be turned around and secured using a long cable. Similarly, car racks will battle to transport the bike as a result of its weight and girth. We also found that the A2B attracted a lot of attention, making us somewhat paranoid at the thought of leaving it unattended outside a shop, even for a few minutes. And with an asking price of R35,000 ($4,000), it’s not a possession you’d want pilfered!
The bike’s quality is overwhelmingly good, so it’s no wonder this beauty was designed and built in Helmsburg, Germany. Ultra Motor is looking at the prospect of adding software to the Metro in due course, allowing bike technicians to plug it into diagnostic systems much like modern cars. While the jury is out on whether or not this is simply overkill, no doubt servicing the bike will call for an unwanted expense thanks to these ‘innovation

What A Way To Get To Work

Despite the overcast skies, Surrey Research Park closely resembles a small-scale version of the landscaped Californian campuses it emulates; undone only by its proximity to the looped roundabouts and grey concrete blocks of Guildford, a south London town ringed by industrial parks and close-packed, low-rise houses.
It seems an unlikely home for Nigeria’s space program but it is here, at Surrey Satellite Technologies Limited (SSTL), that the West African nation’s three Earth Observation (EO) satellites were designed and built.
NigeriaSat-1, Nigeria’s first EO spacecraft, was launched in September 2003 from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome, but like its two successors, NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X, it was built in Surrey.
The Nigerian space agency, based in Abuja, operates the three satellites principally for environmental and agricultural monitoring, but the data also has a role in security, monitoring the country’s empty spaces, through which vital infrastructure, such as pipelines, are at risk from thieves and insurgents.
Other African countries are set to follow suit. Simon Crouch, who heads SSTL’s Africa team, said the company is talking to around half of the continent’s governments with the hopes to provide them with its innovative low cost satellites.
“I think a lot of African governments have recognized that the Earth Observation satellite is a very useful tool for them to expand their mapping knowledge of their countries. It enables them to measure their forestation, or more accurately their deforestation. They can very quickly gauge when the forests are decreasing. Another application may be for crop monitoring and to optimize the use of fertilizers,” says Crouch.
A tender document for another Sub-Saharan country outlines the intended use of a desired satellite. It includes the monitoring of vegetation and soil conditions; control of desertification; the detection of illegal livestock routes and crop disease; taking headcounts of cattle; giving early warnings of drought and flood conditions; monitoring border areas and assisting in the response to natural and man-made disasters.
The usefulness of the satellites is undoubted, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where large geographical distances and a lack of institutional capacity hinder the monitoring of forests and rural areas. Similarly, the ability to judge the effectiveness of agricultural extension or irrigation initiatives and direct resources accordingly is of huge value to countries with scarce reserves of cash or fertilizer. The issue historically has been cost, which, due to the changes to the economics of the space industry, is rapidly decreasing.
In a 10 meter high clean room in SSTL’s Kepler Building, engineers assemble orders for the Kazakhstani government and the European Space Agency. Spun out of the nearby University of Surrey, the company has been building satellites for 25 years, and is a pioneer in lowering the price of the technology by using off-the-shelf components. Its expertise in adapting existing systems has allowed it to offer developing countries an opportunity to build their own space programs.
“When I spoke to one African country, they said ‘Is that all? That’s about the same cost as a military helicopter’. I can put forward a very powerful case that an EO satellite is more useful than a military helicopter,” says Crouch.
While Crouch won’t state how much SSTL charges for its basic satellite, the number is considerably lower than the industry standard. The cost of launching the devices has reduced significantly too. Africa has, for decades, suffered from the proliferation of military hardware from the former Soviet Union, but the end of the Cold War and the nuclear disarmament treaties have created a surplus of vehicles capable of achieving orbit: the Dnepr, once an intercontinental ballistic missile, is now a cost-effective way of getting satellites into space.
“Over the last five to ten years the cost of the launch has come down significantly for the sort of satellites we’re talking about,” says Crouch.
Typically, the launch makes up around half of the cost of a program, but the company has driven down the price by using commercially available technology.
“We will use processors on our spacecraft that are used in laptops. That sort of technology has proven itself in rugged environments. We test that technology again and then decide if it’s good enough to be used in space. In using a microprocessor that might have been used in a laptop in the last few years, and has been proven, we can cut down the development cost of that processor from millions right down to hundreds of pounds,” says Crouch.
One experimental satellite being developed uses the chip from a Google Nexus mobile phone—a sign of how mass-produced technology can be converted for use in space. These innovations have brought the cost of a satellite from hundreds of millions of dollars to tens and within reach of developing countries’ governments.
Earth Observation satellites are the simplest of the commonly deployed technology. Flying at an altitude of 700 km and relatively low in weight, they are an ideal entry point for early steps in space. SSTL aims to move into the more complex, and potentially more lucrative, navigation and communications markets, which require larger vehicles and greater orbits, at 24,000 km and 37,000 km, respectively.
The private sector has been buying and launching communications satellites targeting African markets. The massive growth of cellphone networks in Africa has meant not only a scramble to build fiber optic cables along the coastlines, but also to create satellite communications capacity to support the inevitable move to broadband internet.
David Williams—who began financing satellite technology for emerging markets in the banking sector in the 1990s—launched his second satellite as CEO of Avanti Communications in August. HYLAS-2 will cover parts of the Middle East as well as Eastern and Southern Africa, covering clients including mass market internet service providers, financial services companies amongst others. The economics of satellite communications in Africa are relatively simple, according to Williams, as the huge distances and infrastructure gaps mean that building cable into the continent’s hinterlands is unviable.
“The fiber in Kenya hits Mombasa, but how do you get the services from Mombasa to every home and business in Kenya? To put it in perspective, the UK—which is a highly densely populated island and I financed some of the early iterations of cable in the UK in the 1990s—the financing and building of cable infrastructure to the home began in the UK in the late ’80s. So some 25 years later, still less than 50 percent of UK homes have cable, and in the process, the cable companies went bankrupt twice,” says Williams.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, satellite might be the more economic option—not that it is cheap.
“It’s a bit like a mining operation. You spend a few years prospecting and getting a license to operate, and then you spend a few hundred million pounds building it, and then when it’s turned on it starts producing cash,” says Williams.
To make that money back is not too hard a prospect, he added.
“If I had about half a million broadband customers I would fill all of my capacity in Africa. So the question is, can I find half a million broadband customers in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana? I think the answer is a pretty simple: yes&#8230; So we’ve got capacity that’s big enough to generate well in excess of a couple of hundred million dollars of revenue per annum, and yet the capacity available is a small drop in the ocean by comparison with the demand that Africa is producing.”
So confident is Williams of the value of African markets that the company has bought another satellite, HYLAS-3, which will service West Africa.
When it comes to government-funded programs, however, it is not always easy to convince the world that the cost is worth it. George Ayittey, the Ghanaian economist, tweeted recently: “Nigeria can’t feed itself and spends some $120 billion on food imports but built the $89 million Obasanjo Space Center. What happened to it?”—a common viewpoint amongst external observers.
The assumption that any African space program must be a costly white elephant owes much to the legacy of Mobutu Sese Seko, whose wasteful initiatives in the then Zaire saw hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of dollars thrown into a futile and ego-driven attempt to build an indigenous agency. That spectre will haunt Africa for some time yet, and it was hardly dispelled when the most recent call for a coordinated pan-African space agency came from the Sudanese president, Omar Al-Bashir, in September.
However, what Bashir was referencing was a real proposal circulating within the African Union (AU) for the creation of AfriSpace, a framework of cooperation for peaceful space programs.
“Since many decades, space technologies are not only real tools of policy development for many countries but also provide commercial opportunity and strategic advantages for a tiny minority of countries controlling them,” the AU proposal document said.
“Indeed, outside of military applications where they derive part of their continuing evolution, space technologies are supporting the development of many sectors of human activity. The area[s] of communications and information technology, broadcasting, are among the known beneficiaries of space applications.”
The proposal acknowledges the investment required for space research, and suggests that a combined African approach would overcome the cost barriers and create large enough markets to make projects commercially viable.
The response to individual projects seems likely to remain cynical, although there is some support from development experts. Calestous Juma, a Kenyan professor in development at Harvard’s Belfer Center, co-authored a paper with Peter Waswa, an aeronautical engineer, outlining the developmental benefits of a space program for Kenya. They outlined how the country could use space technology not only to meet the domestic challenges through monitoring, as Nigeria has done, but to prompt a resurgence in scientific education and capacity building and ultimately become a manufacturer of its own space technology.
“India had this debate. The cost argument is a myth. Space science, not to be confused with space exploration and travel, is a critical aspect of modern development and pursued in incremental steps. It is less expensive than not having it,” says Juma.
India and Brazil both used domestic space programs to support their own development objectives and ultimately developed high technology industries on the back of their investments.
“My view on this is to take an incremental approach which starts with creating a legal and policy environment for space science,” says Juma.
“The next step would be to partner with countries that already have the capacity. Even if you can afford it, there is a learning curve that will involve working with other countries. What I think won’t work is where countries or regions see this as prestige projects and want to focus on launching their own satellites. In fact, if the AU goes this route the best it can do is create another layer of bureaucracy over existing programs.”
Space programs have always been an expression of nations’ self-confidence, at times to the detriment of practicality, but today’s programs are not easily dismissed as white elephants, according to Crouch.
“I’m absolutely sure we’ve jumped that hurdle, because you see so many African satellites being funded, and the data from so many African satellites being used,” he says.
That data has been used internationally.
“When Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans, the Americans wanted an image of New Orleans 24 hours after the hurricane struck. The only satellite in the area that provided that sort of data was NigeriaSat-1. So you had an example of a high tech nation asking Nigeria if they could provide some imagery. That is an example of how useful satellite data can be. If it’s useful to the Americans, it’s useful to the Nigerians,” says Crouch.
Of the three, NigeriaSat-X is perhaps the greatest testament to the country’s potential. Originally built as a training model for Nigerian engineers being trained on SSTL’s facilities, it ended up being launched.
“It quickly became obvious that the engineers working on the project were quite capable of producing a flight model. ays. “So it jumped the hurdle of being just a training model to becoming a flight model. They did a fantastic job of adding extra systems like the propulsion and the solar panels, and it’s flying now.”

3…2…1… Another African Satellite

He has more than 190,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel; more than 10 million views and more than 130,000 Twitter followers; 70,000 Facebook subscribers and chances are, you’ve never heard of him. In his own words, “I am a South African teenager who sometimes talks to a camera.” He is, Caspar Lee.
His dry humor tweets range from “I had four too many strawberry milkshakes today” to “If my feet are happy then I am happy” and some which are slightly more risqué. The video content is made up of such simple concepts as babysitting his niece and nephew, prank videos that include getting passersby to send suggestive text messages to friends and a guide on how to be awesome.
“Usually I make videos that I edit and I do funny things in them,” says Lee in one of his YouTube videos.
The 18-year-old matric student, residing in Knysna, South Africa, started making videos in November 2011 out of boredom because he wanted to do more with his spare time. It was then that the self-confessed gaming addict turned to YouTube.
“And then I made another video and another video,” says Lee in his YouTube monologue titled ‘Pro YouTuber’.
“I’d won a competition in which I received R40,000 ($4,600) worth of equipment from Google including a Canon 60D with an L-Series Lens, two studio lights, microphones, stabilizers, other lenses and tripods,” says Lee in an email to me.
Yet, true fame only came when he started collaborating with YouTube stars in the United Kingdom such as Jack Harries (JacksGap), Sam Pepper (OfficialSamPepper), Marcus Butler (MarcusButlerTV) and Alfie Deyes (Pointlessblog).
“I went to England and met some of the best people in the world and they made videos with me,” says Lee.
This was a case of crossover audience marketing at its best. People started subscribing to Casper Lee’s YouTube account and now he is in a position to record his social media videos full-time.
“I’m gaining 1,700 new subscribers on YouTube a day at the moment—that’s more than 50,000 in the past month,” he says.
However, the story is so much more lucrative, as there are some economic rewards that come with online fame.
“Most people don’t know how lucrative YouTube is for the top 1,000 channels. It is a full time gig! Not only do you get paid to make videos on YouTube, you also get paid for all the other things that go along with it such as selling T-shirts, broadcasting live webcam shows, sponsorships, and so much more! It is so exciting,” he says.
Although he was hesitant to reveal how much he is earning to justify being a full-time YouTuber, Lee assures me that the top YouTubers are making a small fortune through shared advertising revenue models with YouTube and promotional work.
With YouTube comments galore from adoring fans which run along the lines of “How do you make your hair all sexy like that?” and “Hi, my name is Alison and I’m a unicorn,” it becomes quite evident that Lee is a hit with the ladies or just a hit in general with those who enjoy an energetic youngster from the Western Cape. In Caspar’s opinion, 99% of the things that go viral are either really funny, really sexy or really cute. The formula has proven to work for him.
Social media tends to be a bit like compound interest. The more followers you have, the more you are bound to receive. When asked about the secret to his fame, Lee enlightens me that it has something to do with being South African, which is a rarity on YouTube and the fact that he is very open and genuine.
With all this social media traction, not seen by some of the country’s biggest media and celebrity brands, what could marketing professionals and brands learn from Caspar Lee?
“I see so many marketers and brands automatically sharing everything they do and it just becomes irritating. Less is definitely more when it comes to social media. I don’t really follow any brands unless they’re funny because if I want to buy one of their products I’ll research it myself rather than having them shove their products down my throat every five minutes,” he says.
There is no talk of university degrees or studying in the near future. He plans to move to London in 2013 to become a professional YouTuber, or in other words, to record himself, in a room, upload it onto YouTube and make money through endorsements and advertising whilst entertaining a new following of people, that have subscribed to his accounts, since you started reading this article.

YouTube Me

Crocs Inc. is an American company started, in 2002, with an idea of a comfortable boating shoe. After having sold all their stock, in 17 colors, at boating shows, the founders expanded their market. In 2006, the company listed on the NASDAQ Exchange and has a current market capitalization of $1.45 billion.
The company’s shoes are made from Croslite; its propriety closed-cell resin which is lightweight, eliminates odor and prevents bacterial and fungal growth. The material allows the shoes to perform both in and out of water, much like the amphibian crocodile—hence the name. Crocs Inc. has operations in three regions: the Americas, Asia and Europe; with Africa falling under the Asian market.
Gareth Kemp is the managing director of Crocs Inc. South Africa and is in charge of the company’s growth on the continent. A qualified engineer, Kemp left the South African Navy in 2002 and opened a retail store because he lost interest in seafaring. His career in the Navy was more about managing people than actual engineering, which was done by external contractors. Kemp says he was always interested in business as both his father and brother were
in business.
“I just had a calling to business and retail was a channel that I was quite interested in and just pursued it,” he says.
In 2005, he was approached by the South African distributors of Crocs, Tiger Trade, and started selling for them. The distribution company was bought out by Crocs Inc. in 2009 and Kemp took over as the marketing and sales director. In 2011, he became managing director.
Crocs South Africa distributes into the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Ghana, Mauritius, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Kenya, Uganda and Angola. Angola is its newest entry with the first store opened October 25.
“Keeping in mind the challenges around strict visas and currency control we&#8217;re happy with what has been achieved,” Kemp says referring to performance in Angola.
Kemp feels that Africa has huge potential and opportunity and is ready to deal with the challenges that lie ahead. Some of which he says are the stigma associated with the continent, language barriers and making sure you choose the right partners.
Crocs used to be something that only chefs and nurses would be caught dead in. Being on your feet for hours on end meant style took a backseat to comfort. According to Crocs, this need no longer be the case. The company has come a long way from the clunky clog. With more than 300 styles per season Kemp says the biggest challenge is changing people’s style perceptions about the brand. The footwear is designed in Japan, Italy and the United States. In moving towards diversifying their products, the company also has golf shoes designed with consultation from internationally renowned golf instructor Hank Haney.
“One of our slogans from the
past was ‘Ugly can be beautiful’,”
says Kemp.
Most of the product gets shipped in from China, warehoused in Cape Town and distributed to the rest of
the continent.
The research and development is market-specific. The product merchandisers go out into the field and find out what the customers want. All the global markets have an input in the design direction. The new ranges are then presented twice a year in Singapore. There are three distribution channels: retail, wholesale and online.
If demand grows beyond the company’s current capabilities then a factory on the continent may be a possibility, but Kemp thinks this is still a long way off.
Crocs earned a place in TIME’s “The 50 Worst Inventions” list alongside Farmville, Hair in a Can, Spam email and asbestos. The shoe was however included in the Design Museum’s book entitled “Fifty Shoes That Changed The World”. It was named one of South Africa’s ‘Super Brands’ in 2010, based on market dominance, longevity, goodwill, customer loyalty and overall market acceptance. There’s even a blog called ‘I Hate Crocs dot com’ as well as a ‘I Don’t care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like A Dumbass’ Facebook page with 1.6 million ‘likes’. Love them or hate them, Crocs don’t seem to be going anywhere.
“I must be honest, in the beginning I wasn’t a fan myself. It was quite a strange looking shoe,” says Kemp.
Last year, the company launched what it refers to as its fashion styles. Although the company is worried about moving away from its core market in the lifestyle and outdoor sector, to fashion, its customers don’t seem to mind. Kemp says the fashion range sold out in a month.
“We had to scramble to get more stock. It was certainly very refreshing and very exciting for us.”
Kemp admits they were worried about knock-offs in the beginning. The first batch of fake Crocs in South Africa came sometime between 2006 and 2007. He doesn’t feel that this affects the company much anymore since the level of counterfeiting has decreased as it’s getting harder to keep up with the various styles. The cost of a children’s pair of authentic Crocs does however make it easier for parents to buy
the counterfeit.
There’s a joke that goes something like this: “In a million years from now when aliens land on earth, all they’ll find are landfills with Crocs.”
Crocs are recyclable. There used to be an initiative where people would drop off their old Crocs and the company recycled them into new ones for the less fortunate. A hundred thousand pairs were sent to Japan after the 2011 tsunami. However, the recycling process became too much of a logistical nightmare.
The company’s 2012 second quarter results revealed that revenue for the quarter had increased by 12% to $330.9 million—the highest revenue level in its history. Asia was the best performing region with revenue increasing by 20.5% (as of June 30); there are 233 company-operated retail locations in the Asian region and Africa is benefiting from being a part of this market. In 2011, Asia experienced a 34% year-on-year increase, which was higher than the global increase
of 27%.
As far as the future is concerned, Crocs Inc. has partners creating spectacles, sunglasses and children’s clothes under license. South Africa is focusing on current operations and avoiding growing its retail arm too aggressively. The company wants to become a fully established footwear company. Who knows, the fashionistas may be won over.

Stepping Out; Make It Snappy

Quitting your job to embark on a new business venture is always a risk. But leaving stable employment when living in Khayelitsha, South Africa’s third largest township where half the population is out of work, almost borders on insanity… or genius.
Wongama Baleni (23), Vuyile Msaku (25) and Vusumzi Mamile (24) have done exactly that. The childhood friends opened Khayelitsha’s first real coffee shop in July that sells cappuccinos, espressos and americanos brewed from top quality coffee beans.
“It was our dream to own our own business. We convinced each other that it was time to try something new,” says Msaku, who used to work as a barrista at a well-known South African coffee shop chain and brought the professional know-how to the venture.
Something new they did indeed. In a place where stores are usually housed in metal containers or rickety wooden stalls, the Department of Coffee (DOC)—a professionally branded shop with a modern logo and corporate colors—is the real deal.
“We are the first and only ones to sell quality coffee and cappuccinos in the township. The only other coffee you get here is instant,” says Msaku full of pride.
As a trained barrista it was Msaku’s job to source fresh beans for their store. He got a supplier to prepare a special blend of Arabica, Ethiopian and Italian beans that will be sold solely to the DOC.
“It’s a mild, medium roast, not too bitter. I created it with the people of Khayelitsha in mind,” he says, explaining that his average customer comes from an instant coffee culture and isn’t used to Italian-style strong, thick coffee.
At $0.80 for a regular americano, $1 for a cappuccino and $0.90 for a double espresso, the DOC is an affordable place to get one’s caffeine fix. The shop also sells muffins at $0.30 a piece and cookies for a mere $0.25. In summer, iced latte and cool drinks will be added to the menu but the food offering will remain limited.
“We don’t want to go too broad. We rather focus on our brand, on coffee. At most, we might sell sandwiches and coffee in a combo.”
Baleni, Msaku and Mamile have given careful thought to the branding of their store. The primary color is a warm, bright orange “to attract customers”, says Baleni, combined with either white or black. The uncluttered logo is made up of two stylized coffee beans, diagonally placed so that they form a heart shape, symbolizing love for coffee. The three owners wear stylish black shirts with the orange DOC logo stitched onto their back under orange aprons with the same logo printed in black. Trendy straw hats round off the look. The message: drinking good coffee is hip and cool.
Six weeks after opening its doors, the trio already sells more than 200 cups of coffee a day. With 30 to 55 cents profit per cup, that’s about $2,500 in earnings a month—not bad for a small start-up in a township setting. A key to their early success has been the choice of location. Positioned opposite the Harare train station, one of Khayelitsha’s main commuter hubs, and close to the local magistrates court, hospital, shopping mall and taxi rank, the DOC benefits from the bustling foot traffic of hundreds of residents each day. To make sure they won’t miss early risers, the DOC opens its doors at 4am, seven days a week, closing only at 6pm, when the after-work rush is over.
Apart from take-away sales, numerous people who work in the area call in for deliveries.
“In the beginning, we were worried that the township people wouldn’t understand [coffee culture], but they surprised us. There’s a new generation in Khayelitsha that is keen to change the perception of the township, lift the standard,” Says Msaku.
For this young crowd, drinking cappuccinos is fashionable, a small status symbol that shows “I’m moving up”. It’s something worth spending a dollar on, at least once a day.
The DOC’s business premise is spot on. According to a report by the African Development Bank (AfDB) last year, the continent&#8217;s middle class tripled in the past three decades. Now, a third of all Africans, or 313 million people, belong to this group. Although the data has to be treated with caution—the AfDB’s definition of lower middle class includes anyone earning $4 to $10 a day, while those earning $10 to $20 a day count as upper middle class—one thing is certain: Africa’s growing middle class has brought a new kind of consumerism to the continent as more and more people can afford to buy things beyond their most basic needs. Cappuccinos are just one example.
It was a difficult road to travel until the trio’s dream of opening a coffee shop became reality. In early 2011, Msaku, Baleni, a fireman, and Mamile, a worker in a towel factory, quit their jobs to pursue a “Micro-MBA” at business school—The Business Place eKapa, which specializes in small to medium-sized enterprise development. They studied store management, costing, pricing, stock control, marketing and accounting, and after several months of intense market research identified a gap in the market: the cappuccino in the township.
“We took a huge risk leaving our jobs. [Financially], it was a very difficult period for us until the opening,” says Mamile.
The three men lived off their meager savings and relied on support from their families until they hurdled the problem of finance. In the beginning, it didn’t look promising. Several banks had turned down their applications for a loan, as neither had enough financial security to qualify for credit. But then a chance encounter helped getting their venture under way. A group of private entrepreneurs from Cape Town, who were looking for an opportunity to “pay it back” and liked the trio’s coffee shop idea, offered them an interest-free loan, repayable within three years.
“They liked our concept and decided to mentor us,” says Baleni.
How much venture capital they invested to get the shop up and running, the three young owners are reluctant to disclose, however.
“We don’t want to attract too much attention,” says Baleni, fearing envy from the community that might lead to theft. In Khayelitsha, where high unemployment rates have caused massive poverty, drug abuse and crime, safety remains a prime concern. The set-up of the coffee shop reflects this, too. The windows are protected by thick burglar bars. Intruders are kept at bay by a heavy security gate and a wooden door, which is locked at all times. Earnings need to be banked at least once a day to lower the risk of a hold-up. The short walk to the bank is never done alone.
But that’s the reality of South African township life, Mamile says, something every entrepreneur who wants to do business here has to reckon with.
“We’ll do whatever it takes to make this work,” he promises, because the trio’s business plans don’t end here. Once they have paid off their loan—the three count on a return on investment within the next two years already—Msaku, Baleni and Mamile want to turn the Department of Coffee into a chain.
“We plan to open more stores in Khayelitsha and in other townships,” says Baleni.
With that, he does not only think about their own success but has a bigger picture in mind: economic growth and upliftment within previously disadvantaged urban communities.
“At the moment, all money is flowing out of Khayelitsha. Everyone spends their hard-earned cash in the city. The wealth doesn’t stay here,” he says.
The DOC might be one step towards changing this.  <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1374" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DOC_8_KPalitza-300x197.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="197" />

Tag: November 2012

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