Craig and Tony sit down for a conversation at YOW! Conference with Betty Enyonam Kumahor (stands for good for me, on the way there) who is a technology leader in Africa:

• Tony and Enyo are mutual members of the Alistair Cockburn fan club
• YOW! Conference talk “Frugal Innovation and Scaffolding Software“
• Software engineering uptake in Africa is very low, need more technologists because it is is not an industry it is an enabler
• Lots of diversity challenges in Africa – lees than 1% of the South African IT industry is women, but also diversity in languages, education and belief systems
• Diversity is a multi-pronged issue, need to be patient but not complacent to move the needle forward, give girls the confidence to be competent and to push the boundaries
• Frugal innovation in Africa – building technology in a space of constraints such as inadequate power, everything happens by mobile feature phones, needs to be built fast and cheap
• Agile in Africa – need to make communities more aware of Agile practices, share what developed world has learnt but also what needs to adjust for the context of the continent
• Growth of techpreneurs, expensive to do business in Africa, focus on local market rather than off-shoring to Europe
• Andela program – train to be a software engineer, become a fellow and work for offshore clients
• Successful conversions from tech hubs to startups is below 5%
• Biggest issue is lack of access to expertise in Agile / Lean practices as well as lack of people to adapt it for the continent
• South Africa is a great landing point into Africa

TheAgileRevolution-121 (27 minutes)