“It’s been a story of a lot of pivots”: Day 1-1000 of Insight7
Odun Odubanjo became obsessed with data during his time as a computer engineering student at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, in southwestern Nigeria. He recalls using J2ME, a technology for developing applications and games on older mobile phones, to build mobile applications for Java-supported phones. Although he was skilled at programming, he was drawn to understanding how data could be used in real-world scenarios. Fresh out of university, he cofounded Twinpine, a mobile advertising startup, in 2011. The company eventually evolved into a cloud-based marketing data platform, pulling him deeper into data-driven decision-making. Still, that passion for working with data didn’t let up. Odubanjo relocated to Toronto, Canada, in 2019 to join Security Compass, a cybersecurity startup, as a Product Innovation lead. But as he gained more experience, he noticed a disconnect in how data was used. During his one-year stint at Security Compass, Odunbanjo said he found teams relying on spreadsheets to manually piece together insights, struggling to turn information into something usable. Later at Shopify, an e-commerce company, where he worked as a Product Lead for three years, he encountered a more complex version of the same problem: companies had access to data but lacked the clarity needed to act on it. “It was clear to me that there needed to be tools that would help you really understand your customers and markets, and then use that data to make the right product and market decisions in your business,” he said. “I immediately recognised that there was an opportunity here.” In May 2022, Odubanjo set out to build Insight7, an AI-powered platform designed to help businesses turn qualitative data—such as interviews and customer conversations—into valuable insights. Insight7 operates in the conversational intelligence and customer experience analytics market, projected to reach $27.4 billion in 2026 and grow to $60.3 billion by 2036, according to Future Market Insights, a market research company. The startup primarily serves United States-based mid-market and enterprise businesses, and has seen growing adoption in European markets, including the United Kingdom and Germany, according to Odubanjo. It is now expanding into Nigeria. Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox Select your country Nigeria Ghana Kenya South Africa Egypt Morocco Tunisia Algeria Libya Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Djibouti Eritrea Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Chad Cameroon Gabon Equatorial Guinea São Tomé and Príncipe Angola Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Lesotho Eswatini Mozambique Madagascar Mauritius Seychelles Comoros Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau Senegal The Gambia Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso Mali Niger Benin Togo Other Select your gender Male Female Others TC Daily TC Events Next wave Entering Tech Subscribe Day 1: False starts and building anyway Insight7’s earliest version aggregated job postings and mined them for company insights. The thinking was that if a company was hiring for certain roles, the data could reveal what it was building. That kind of intelligence could help sales teams identify prospective clients and better product positioning. However, the model required a large volume of data to be useful, making it difficult to execute, according to Odubanjo. So, he scrapped it. When he tried again, he changed the model. This time, instead of collecting external data, he built a system where companies could bring in their own data, and Insight7 would synthesise it. The pioneer team had four engineers and later grew to seven. Their focus was building the product, testing it with potential users, and refining it based on feedback. “The early days were us just trying to figure out a product that could analyse interviews for product managers or product teams so that they could understand their customers better,” he said. The final product launched publicly in January 2023. Day 500: Understanding wasn’t enough After Insight7’s public launch in January 2023, Odubanjo’s focus shifted from building the product to adoption. “There was a lot of confusion around what we were doing,” he said. “The idea was to prove that conviction.” So, he reached out to founders and product leaders in his network to show them what his product could do. He said he walked them through the problem of understanding customer behaviour from qualitative data, such as interviews and conversations, to explain why it mattered that they use his solution to fix the problem. He posted consistently on LinkedIn to build an audience around the idea and get the product in front of as many people as possible. For a while, it seemed to be working for him. He explained that he was getting in front of decision-makers at large companies—he declined to disclose. They understood the problem and, in some cases, described it as serious. But these conversations kept ending with interest and not commitment. Even when Insight7 started making money, bringing in a few thousand dollars in monthly revenue, according to Odubanjo, it did not change his conviction that the product made sense. But, but it was just not a priority for the people he was speaking to. “There was revenue,” he said. “We could see that there was something here, but we couldn’t get traction. It was clear that the urgency of the pain wasn’t there.” For Odubanjo, Insight7’s day 500 felt like being stuck, but not for much longer. Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox Select your country Nigeria Ghana Kenya South Africa Egypt Morocco Tunisia Algeria Libya Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Djibouti Eritrea Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Chad Cameroon Gabon Equatorial Guinea São Tomé and Príncipe Angola Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Lesotho Eswatini Mozambique Madagascar Mauritius Seychelles Comoros Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau Senegal The Gambia Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso Mali Niger Benin Togo Other Select your gender Male Female Others TC Daily TC Events Next wave Entering Tech Subscribe Day 1000: Pivots and the pivot hell Insight7’s first pivot came in 2024. After months of trying to convince product teams to act on a problem they acknowledged
Read MoreFour graduates are building an AI video-dubbing tool for African filmmakers
Apotierioluwa Owoade had a problem he could not stop thinking about. He had spent time working at Aforevo, a local streaming and dubbing firm in Lagos, Nigeria, and his experience stayed with him. During his time at the company, from 2022 to 2023, he saw firsthand how cost-prohibitive the dubbing industry could be. Translating a film into another language costs upwards of $500,000 for a full production, according to Owoade. Yet, beyond the cost, something frustrated him even more: the lack of nuance that most translators failed to capture in the local tongue. Voice actors, overstretched and underpaid, flattened the emotional texture of scenes they were recording. The existing software tools were no better. He had seen Yoruba rendered so poorly that the phrase “I am pregnant” came out flatly as “I have a ball,” he explained, his face visibly grimacing over our video call. He wanted to fix it. He called his friend David Mac-Asore, who was a Computer Engineering undergraduate at the time and a software developer. Owoade and Mac-Asore had known each other for years, a friendship anchored partly through shared work at Living Faith Church Worldwide International, one of Nigeria’s largest churches. Since 2022, the two have collaborated on projects to bridge the language divide between the church’s English and French-speaking congregations at its headquarters in Ota, Ogun State, in south-western Nigeria, said Mac-Asore. When Owoade pitched his idea, Mac-Asore was in, but they agreed they needed someone steeped in machine learning. Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox Select your country Nigeria Ghana Kenya South Africa Egypt Morocco Tunisia Algeria Libya Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Djibouti Eritrea Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Chad Cameroon Gabon Equatorial Guinea São Tomé and Príncipe Angola Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Lesotho Eswatini Mozambique Madagascar Mauritius Seychelles Comoros Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau Senegal The Gambia Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso Mali Niger Benin Togo Other Select your gender Male Female Others TC Daily TC Events Next wave Entering Tech Subscribe Assembling a team Mac-Asore reached out to two of his former schoolmates from Covenant University, a private Christian university in Ota: Maryann Nnaji and Emmanuel Ibiang. Both had graduated in 2024. The four got on a call. At the time, they did not even have a name for what they were building. According to Owoade, they called it the Hagen Project, a name that made me chuckle. The ‘Hagen Project’ eventually evolved into Reedapt in 2025. Nnaji brought the machine learning depth the team needed. Before joining, she had built a sign language-to-speech and text model as part of her undergraduate thesis, working through the full pipeline from data collection to training, deployment, and testing. She had noticed the friction the hard-of-hearing (HOH) community faced in everyday interactions and wanted to use technology to address it. She had to put the work on hold, partly due to a data gap that would later feel very familiar when she began working on Reedapt. According to Nnaji, most research on sign language recognition was built on Western contexts, not Nigerian or African ones. “When I started the project, it was just a way to actually see how technology could be a way of bridging this gap,” Nnaji said. “To prove something to myself that this is applicable.” Ibiang, Reedapt’s product engineer, arrived with a different but equally critical instinct: an obsession with usability. Where the AI engineers on the team reached for accuracy, Ibiang optimised for the user. “Can the average Joe use your product without having to be walked through?” Ibiang asked rhetorically, almost as if he was expecting a response. “Ease of use of the product—that’s what my role optimises for.” For a product as technically complex as Reedapt, that perspective has been the team’s internal check against building something impressive that nobody can use. In a four-man small team where Mac-Asore and Nnaji are the technical engineers, and Ibiang is the product specialist, Owoade was described by his teammates as the person with the ideas. The four of them, all fresh out of school and under 25, decided to build together. From a translation tool to a dubbing platform I first met Owoade and Mac-Asore at the Builders Summit by Founders Connect in May 2025, a networking event for early-stage technology founders held in Lagos, Nigeria. At the time, they told me they wanted to build a translation tool that allowed users to move between different languages over text or audio, without needing to learn a new language. I remember joking that their ambition would eventually put Duolingo out of business. More seriously, I asked them why this needed to exist in a world where we already have DeepL. They didn’t have a clear answer. I sensed they were still finding the edges of it. Since that conversation, the vision has sharpened considerably. Reedapt is now focused on becoming the go-to dubbing and real-time multilingual streaming platform for Nollywood filmmakers, churches, and African content creators who want their work to travel further than the English language will take it. The startup, Owoade said, has signed two enterprise dubbing contracts with a Nollywood gospel producer, with those projects expected to be completed before the end of 2026. Reedapt’s paying customers today are a mix of Nollywood producers and churches. It currently serves over 200 active users. About 94% are individual creators on its consumer tier, while the remaining 6% are enterprise clients who generate the majority of revenue, said Owoade. Reedapt makes money by charging subscription fees. Pricing is structured in dollar-denominated tiers: a free plan offering up to 60 minutes of usage, a creator plan at $11 per month, and higher tiers at $39 and $99. The decision to price in dollars was deliberate, said Owoade. The team had experimented with Naira pricing early and found that it undercut their credibility with both users and potential investors. “Most of our costs are not in
Read MoreNigeria’s data consumption hits record 4 million terabytes in a quarter
For the first time, Nigerians consumed more than 4 billion gigabytes of data in 90 days, according to the latest data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). In the first three months of 2026, the country recorded 4.06 million terabytes of data, the highest level since the NCC began tracking the data, and a clear sign of how quickly Nigerians are going online. A terabyte is equal to about 1,000 gigabytes; 406 million terabytes brings the number of data consumed to above 4 billion gigabytes. The new record surpasses the previous high of 3.86 million terabytes recorded in the last quarter of 2025. It also shows steady growth, even though the pace has slowed slightly after the spike typically seen during the festive season at the end of the year. March 2026 played a major role in pushing the numbers higher. It was the busiest month ever, with 1.42 million terabytes of data consumed. This marked a strong recovery from February, when usage dipped. On average, Nigerians used about 45,896 terabytes of data every day in March, overtaking February 2026’s 45,002 TB/day. Behind this surge is a massive expansion of the country’s Internet infrastructure. Moving 4 million terabytes of data requires a network of undersea cables, fibre optic lines across the country, and more than 20,000 telecom towers working at high capacity. Telecom operators have significantly increased investment. MTN Nigeria spent about ₦1 trillion ($726.97 million) on network upgrades last year, while Airtel committed around $500 million and Globacom expanded its infrastructure footprint. The scale of growth has been rapid. In early 2023, Nigeria’s monthly data usage stood at about 517,000 terabytes. By 2026, that figure has more than doubled, highlighting how quickly both demand and capacity have expanded. Another key factor is the shift to faster Internet technologies. As of March 2026, 4G networks account for 53.76% of all connections in Nigeria. Older networks like 2G and 3G simply cannot handle this level of data traffic. Meanwhile, 5G, though still in its early stages at 4.2% penetration, is helping to carry heavy data loads in major cities like Lagos and Abuja, especially for high-definition streaming and cloud-based services. This shift is reflected in rising demand for fixed wireless and fibre services, driven by telecom operators expanding into home Internet. The fixed Internet subscriptions saw a 10.02% jump in March, with MTN Nigeria dominating the market with 80.7% of total subscriptions.
Read MoreNGX nearly doubles profit as transaction fee income climbs 189%
The Nigerian Exchange Group Plc (NGX Group) nearly doubled its profit in the first quarter of 2026, as a surge in trading activity drove transaction fee income up 189.08%. Profit after tax rose by 93.67% to ₦4.09 billion ($2.98 million) in Q1 2026, according to its Q1 2026 unaudited financial statements. Total income climbed 70.51% to ₦7.80 billion ($5.67 million). The growth was driven primarily by transaction fee income, which surged 189.08% to ₦5.80 billion ($4.22 million), making it the largest contributor to the group’s revenue. The spike reflects stronger trading activity on the exchange, buoyed by improved investor sentiment, rising retail participation via digital platforms, and higher market turnover. Investors gained ₦29.83 trillion ($21.69 billion) on the exchange in the first quarter, as market capitalisation rose 30.02% to ₦129.21 trillion ($93.98 billion) by March 31, 2026. While transaction fees powered growth, other income lines showed mixed performance. The NGX Income Engine Explore how the composition of NGX’s Total Income shifted between 2025 and 2026. Hover (or tap on mobile) to see each stream’s exact share of the pie. Total Income ₦7.80B +70.5% YoY Q1 2026 Q1 2025 Transaction Fees ₦5.80 Billion 74.3% of Total Listing Fees ₦0.73 Billion 9.4% of Total Treasury Income ₦0.63 Billion 8.1% of Total Other & Rental Income ₦0.64 Billion 8.2% of Total Hint: Hover or tap bars to see percentage share. Source: NGX Group Q1 Unaudited Financial Statements Technology and data-related income, captured under other income, also fell by 75.41%. Drivers & Drags: NGX Other Income Tap on any line item to see the core businesses driving NGX’s side income—and the macro FX factors dragging it down. Q1 2026 Q1 2025 Total Other Income ₦579.7M -43.0% vs Q1 2025 Source: NGX Group Q1 2025 & 2026 Financials (Note 5) ${item.val}
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Framework laptops worth buying in 2026
Table of contents Framework laptop 12 Framework laptop 13 Framework Laptop 13 Pro Framework Laptop 16 Framework desktop Side-by-side comparison If you have ever bought a laptop and felt frustrated when something breaks, you cannot fix it yourself, or the battery dies just two years in, Framework laptops were built for you. Framework Computer is an American laptop maker founded in January 2020 by Nirav Patel, a former Apple engineer who also led hardware at Oculus and Meta. His idea was simple: laptops should be built to last, and when something goes wrong, you should be able to fix it yourself without sending it to a service centre or buying an entirely new device. That idea turned into a company that now has about 60 employees, ships to 32 countries, and has raised around $44 million in funding. YouTube creator Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips personally put in $225,000 in 2021 because he believed in the concept. Framework laptops have received a 10 out of 10 repairability score from iFixit, the gold standard for measuring how easy a device is to repair. TIME magazine named the first Framework laptop one of the best inventions of 2021. Every Framework laptop ships with a screwdriver in the box. Every important component, such as the battery, RAM, storage, and ports, can be swapped out by you without any special tools or technical skills. Framework also sells individual replacement parts through its own marketplace, and it commits to keeping those parts available for at least five years after a product is discontinued. Recommended Framework laptops The lineup today covers five products: a compact convertible, two 13-inch laptops, a larger performance machine, and a desktop PC. Here is a breakdown of each one. 1. Framework laptop 12 Image source: Brad Colbow on YouTube The Framework Laptop 12 is the most affordable and most portable in the lineup. It is a 12.2-inch 2-in-1 convertible, meaning the screen can fold all the way back so you can use it like a tablet. It launched in 2025 and is aimed at students and everyday users who want something light and practical. Display 12.2-inch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio 1920 x 1200 resolution 60Hz refresh rate Over 400 nits of brightness Glossy glass with touch and stylus support (MPP 2.0 and USI 2.0 compatible) Processor and performance Intel Core i3-1315U or Core i5-1334U (both are 13th Gen Intel chips) These chips do not have an NPU, so this is not a Copilot+ PC Three power modes: Performance, Balanced, and Efficiency Integrated Intel UHD graphics Memory and storage One SO-DIMM DDR5 slot, user-replaceable, up to 48GB M.2 2230 NVMe storage slot, user-replaceable, up to 2TB Battery 50Wh battery Battery life is the weakest point of this model, a known trade-off with the older Raptor Lake chip Build and design TPU-overmolded plastic chassis built for shock absorption and drop resistance Dimensions: 287 x 213.88 x 18.45mm, which translates to roughly 11.3 x 8.42 x 0.73 inches Available in five colours: Black, Gray, Lavender, Bubblegum, and Sage Chassis uses 30% to 35% post-consumer recycled plastic Ports and connectivity 4 user-selectable Expansion Card slots plus a 3.5mm audio jack Card options include USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, DisplayPort, Ethernet, MicroSD, SD, and storage cards Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 Other features 1080p webcam with a hardware privacy switch Stereo speakers Fingerprint reader Windows 11 pre-installed on pre-built models; DIY Edition supports Linux and other operating systems Price DIY Edition: starts at $549 (you bring your own RAM, storage, and operating system) Pre-built: starts at around $799 to $849 The DIY Edition is for people who want to save money and are comfortable setting up their own storage and OS. The pre-built version is ready to use out of the box. The stylus is sold separately. 2. Framework laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series) Image source: Framework on YouTube The Framework Laptop 13 is the standard version of the 13-inch line. It was updated in 2025 with AMD Ryzen AI 300-series chips and remains the most balanced option in the lineup if you want a portable everyday laptop without paying premium pricing. It is in stock and ships immediately. Display 13.5-inch screen with a 3:2 aspect ratio, which gives you more vertical space for reading and working Two panel options: 2.2K (2256 x 1504, 60Hz, over 400 nits) or 2.8K (2880 x 1920, 120Hz, over 500 nits) Both options are matte with anti-glare coating and cover 100% sRGB No touchscreen support on this model Processor and performance AMD Ryzen AI 5 340 (6 cores, 12 threads, up to 4.8GHz) AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (8 cores, 16 threads, up to 5.0GHz) AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (12 cores, 24 threads, up to 5.1GHz) Integrated AMD Radeon graphics: Radeon 840M (4 cores), 860M (8 cores), or 890M (16 cores), depending on which chip you pick Memory and storage Two SO-DIMM DDR5-5600 slots, user-upgradeable, up to 64GB M.2 2280 NVMe storage, user-upgradeable, up to 2TB from the order page; larger drives can be installed yourself Battery 61Wh battery Real-world battery life is around 8 to 11 hours, depending on what you are doing Build and design Aluminum top and bottom covers with magnesium-aluminum internals Dimensions: 296.63 x 228.98 x 15.85mm, same footprint as the Laptop 13 Pro Weight: approximately 1.3kg Ports and connectivity 4 Expansion Card slots plus a 3.5mm audio jack Full compatibility with the Expansion Card library Wi-Fi 7 via AMD RZ717 and Bluetooth 5.4 Other features 1080p webcam at 30fps with a 9.2MP sensor and 87-degree field of view Hardware privacy switches for the webcam and microphones Keyboard with 1.5mm key travel Conventional Windows Precision touchpad Dual-array microphones and stereo speakers (no Dolby Atmos on this model) Fingerprint reader Linux works well on this model; Fedora 40 is widely reported to work out of the box Price DIY Edition: starts at approximately $899 (AMD Ryzen AI 5 340, no RAM, storage, or OS) Pre-built: starts at around $1,099 to $1,199,
Read MoreTalstack partners BII, Ventures Platform to teach ESG to African startups
Talstack, a corporate learning platform, has partnered with British International Investment (BII), the United Kingdom’s development finance institution, and Ventures Platform, a pan-African venture capital firm, to launch an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programme to help African startups build more sustainable businesses. The programme, which went live on Wednesday, offers a series of courses designed for founders and startup teams who want to understand and implement ESG practices as they grow. For many African startups, ESG remains an obligation to figure out when raising capital rather than something built into daily operations. As investors place greater weight on ESG, this programme is an attempt to turn compliance into what founders can understand and implement early. A Bloomberg Intelligence survey found that nearly 85% of investors expect assets allocated to ESG strategies to grow over the next two years, showing how capital is likely to be deployed. Yet, for some startups, ESG remains difficult to implement. “When people hear ESG, what they think about is a complex set of rules and policies or things they have to do to be able to either raise financing or access a certain type of capital,” said Kayode Oyewole, cofounder of Talstack. “But understanding the importance of this (ESG) is critical to the sustainable growth of their company.” ESG refers to a set of standards that guide and measure an organisation’s environmental and social impact, including emission reduction, climate change, waste management, labour practices, human rights, gender diversity, leadership oversight and direction, and board diversity. Sonal Premjee, the investment director for venture capital at BII, told TechCabal that across BII’s venture portfolio and during investment discussions, many African startups lacked practical ESG capabilities suited to early‐stage businesses. “ESG was often treated as a later‐stage compliance exercise, while existing frameworks were too complex or designed for SMEs or larger corporates rather than lean startup teams,” Premjee said. “This left founders and VC managers without clear, usable guidance and core risks around people practices, supply chains and business integrity were being addressed too late—or not at all.” Launched in 2023 by Seni Sulyman and Oyewole, Talstack is a business-to-business (B2B) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that delivers content, tools, and other infrastructure to support and upskill talents. It focuses on companies in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana. The ESG learning track is delivered through Talstack’s platform as a series of self-paced, pre-recorded courses, which comprises four courses: respectful workplaces, human resources (HR) and people management, anti-bribery and corruption, and supply chain risk management. Each course is broken into modules that combine instruction with practical application. After completing a module, learners are assessed on their understanding and then guided through frameworks designed to help them implement what they have learned within their organisations. Ventures Platform said it plans to integrate the ESG track into its founder onboarding process and is encouraging adoption across its portfolio, while exploring ways to extend the programme to other funds and ecosystem partners. “We contributed ecosystem insights drawn from our experience investing and supporting companies,” said Damilola Teidi-Ayoola, Principal, Platform and Networks at Ventures Platform. “We were actively involved in the content review and development process, ensuring that there was alignment between both organisations.” Oyewole shared that access to the programme is free for portfolio companies of Ventures Platform and BII. Other companies can access the courses through a paid Talstack subscription, ranging from ₦13,000 ($9.46) to ₦156,000 ($113.50) annually, which also unlocks the 400 other courses on the platform.
Read MoreQuick Fire 🔥 with Michael Emeeka
Michael Emeeka is the Business and Customer Operations Lead and Country Lead for Blockchain.com in Nigeria, where he oversees user operations, market growth, and customer-centric strategies for one of the world’s leading crypto platforms. Previously, Emeeka worked at Luno, an Africa-focused crypto firm, as a Customer Relationship Specialist, supporting high-value and high-volume traders across retail and business accounts. Before he entered crypto, Emeeka had a tenured career in traditional finance, where he worked as a Customer Service Executive at Nigerian lender, Zenith Bank. Today, he focuses on building user experience, customer support, and building practical systems that help more people participate in Nigeria’s digital asset market. Explain your job to a 5-year-old. You know how you can send a message on a phone? I help people send money like that, making sure none of it gets lost. Describe a day in the life of a Country Lead for a large crypto firm like Blockchain.com. I spend most of my day fixing problems, talking with my team, and trying to make things easier for people using our app. I’m also focused on growth, finding ways to get crypto to more people who actually need it. Some days are calm, and everything runs smoothly. Other days, it feels like everything is on fire and we’re just trying to fix things as fast as possible. If your job were a warning label, what would it say? Be ready. Things will break. Why did you leave banking to join crypto? Wasn’t that a risky move as of 2022, when the status of crypto in Nigeria was murky? Honestly, it felt like a bet on the future, but also curiosity. I wanted to really understand what was going on. Crypto had become global; everyone was talking about it, and I always felt like there was light at the end of the tunnel, even with all the uncertainty. In Nigeria, especially, people were already using it regardless. That was the signal for me. Banking was stable, but this felt like where things were heading. I just felt like if I got in early and figured it out properly, it would be worth it long term. From your perspective, what does it take to become an executive in the global crypto industry? It takes time, mostly. You need to be willing to learn all the time, solve problems, and really understand people. You also give up some comfort. You’re constantly dealing with pressure and making decisions that affect a lot of people. What is the biggest misconception people have about the crypto market here in Nigeria and abroad? Most people think crypto is either a quick way to make money or just a scam. There’s a lot of noise like that, to be fair. But at the end of the day, it’s really just another way to send and receive money. Like anything else, there are good parts and people who misuse it. But the real value is that it makes it easier for people and businesses to move money across borders and operate globally without so many barriers. What’s your favourite way to switch off from the noise of being a crypto executive, whether it’s a place you go or an activity you enjoy? I keep it simple: go to the gym, listen to music, watch football and have a bit of banter about it, or play games on my phone like Call of Duty: Mobile.
Read MoreMTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola earned $3.4 million in 2025
MTN Nigeria chief executive and Vice President, Francophone Africa, Karl Toriola, earned R56.997 million (approximately ₦4.69 billion, $3.4 million) in total compensation in 2025, a 61.2% jump from the previous year. Toriola’s compensation included R17.9 million ($1.07 million) in earnings, including benefits, R15.18 million ($908,571) in short-term incentive (STI) compensation, and R23.9 million ($1.43 million) in long-term incentives (LTI) vesting, according to MTN Group’s 2025 full-year financial report released on Wednesday. MTN Group’s record performance year and a higher share price drove up his bonuses and equity awards. It is Toriola’s highest single-year compensation, including bonuses, since 2021, when he became CEO of MTN Nigeria. Short-term bonuses were determined 70% by company performance and 30% by team performance, while long-term incentives vested after three years and are tied to strategic and sustainability metrics, according to the 2025 report. Performance bonuses tied to annual targets and long-term incentives vested in shares at a price 62% higher than the previous year, according to the report. Karl Toriola’s Total Compensation (2021–2025) Figures represent total single-figure remuneration in millions of Rand (R). Hover over bars for details. R50.05M 2021 R43.34M(Restated: R50.20M*) 2022* R39.07M 2023 R35.36M 2024 R57.00M 2025 *Nuance Note: The 2023 Annual Financial Statements restated his total 2022 remuneration as R50.20 million (from R43.34 million) depending on the accounting methodology for currency splits and share gains. Source: MTN Group’s Integrated Financial Reports, 2021–2025 TECHCABAL TOOLS “The increase in total remuneration between FY 2024 and FY 2025 is primarily attributable to the vesting of long-term incentives and the increase in share price, which was R124.6 in the FY 2024 vesting and R202.2 in the FY 2025 vesting,” MTN Group said in its report. “Furthermore, the increase in company performance weighting to 70% for all executives, combined with strong Group performance, resulted in higher STI payouts.” Toriola’s shares held at MTN—including shares in MTN Nigeria and Scancom (MTN Ghana)—were valued at R43.65 million ($2.6 million), which is 2.94 times his required minimum shareholding, according to the report. Group CEO Ralph Mupita held shares valued at R269.6 million ($16 million)—6.78 times his required minimum shareholding. Executives sold shares in March A March 31 regulatory announcement filing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) shows that Toriola, along with other MTN executives, sold shares in March following their vesting under the Performance Share Plan (PSP). Toriola sold 72,053 MTN shares on March 26 at a volume-weighted average price of R202.2 ($12.06), realising R14.57 million ($869,000) in proceeds. The shares were described as an off-market sale, according to the filing. The Karl Toriola Era: 2021–2025 Hover over or tap the bars to view Revenue, Profit, or Loss figures. Rev: ₦1.65TProfit: ₦307.2B 2021 Rev: ₦2.01TProfit: ₦348.7B 2022 Rev: ₦2.47TLoss: ₦137.0B 2023 Rev: ₦3.36TLoss: ₦400.4B 2024 Rev: ₦5.20TProfit: ₦1.11T 2025 REVENUE PROFIT LOSS Source: MTN Financial reports, 2021–2025 TECHCABAL TOOLS Mupita also sold his entire vested allocation of 239,229 shares for R48.4 million ($2.9 million), while CFO Tsholofelo Molefe sold 50,991 shares and retained 58,666. MTN South Africa CEO Ferdi Moolman sold 69,836 shares for R14.1 million ($841,500), and Senior Vice President, Markets, Ebenezer Asante sold 86,634 shares for R17.5 million ($1 million). According to the filing, MTN said it obtained prior clearance for all transactions in accordance with its policy and JSE’s listing requirements. On April 7, Toriola and other senior executives at MTN were awarded shares tied to the company’s 2010 Performance Share Plan (PSP). The MTN Nigeria CEO received 28,704 shares worth approximately ₦463.7 million ($335,000). The shares carry a three-year vesting period ending in December 2028 and are tied to performance conditions, including fintech growth, 5G expansion, net zero emission in environmental, sustainability, and governance (ESG) targets, and broader group competitive metrics.
Read MoreYC-backed fintech Grey registers as payment service provider in Canada
Grey, a Y Combinator-backed cross-border payments platform, has been registered as a payment service provider (PSP) in Canada under the country’s regulatory framework for payments companies, the Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA). The move builds on Grey’s earlier integration with Interac, a Canadian interbank network, which allows Grey users to send Canadian Dollars directly to any Canadian bank account. Between 2019 and 2024, merchandise exports from Canada to Africa grew by 13%, while imports from Africa increased by 109%. Still, payments across the trade corridor rely on multiple intermediary banks, which could lead to slow settlement times and high foreign exchange costs. Founded in 2020 by Joseph Femi Aghedo and Idorenyin Obong, Grey plans to sit at the centre of these global money flows by offering multi-currency accounts in dollars, pounds, and euros, enabling transfers to more than 170 destinations. “Registering under the RPAA framework is an important step in aligning our operations with Canada’s regulatory expectations,” said Obong. “Our goal is to provide a reliable and transparent way for users to send money to Canada, with delivery times that can be near real-time depending on the payment method used.” The RPAA, which came into effect in 2024 and is overseen by the Bank of Canada, sets standards for local and foreign payment service providers, including their registration requirements and how they manage operational risk, safeguard customer funds, and report incidents. By registering under the framework, Grey can now offer payment services directly to users in Canada while complying with local regulatory standards. Under the RPAA, PSPs are required to implement stronger safeguards around customer funds and system failures. Grey will now be expected to provide annual compliance reports to the Bank of Canada and undergo an internal review every three years to assess compliance. Grey said it is also registered as a Money Services Business with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) in Canada and with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in the United States.
Read MoreHe survived a misdiagnosis. Then he built an AI platform for clinical decisions.
On March 20, 2017, Clement Okoh walked into a Lagos hospital with what previous doctors he consulted believed was a muscle strain and routine pain. Hours later, he said he could no longer walk. He later learnt the muscle strain diagnosis was incorrect. What had been dismissed as routine pain was later diagnosed as aggressive multiple myeloma—blood cancer that develops in plasma cells—eating away at his spine. By the time the error became clear, the damage was severe. The tumour had weakened his vertebrae —the bones that form the human spinal column—so much that a minor fall was enough to fracture his spine and leave him paralysed. Within hours, Okoh said he was flown to the United States. The doctors at John Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, he said, gave him four to five years to live, with a range of immediate risks: stroke, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, blood poisoning, and internal bleeding. Surgeons removed the tumour and fused his spine. Okoh recalled his neurosurgeon once telling him that he would never walk again. But he did. That recovery did more than save his life; it shaped his direction afterwards. During his time in intensive care and rehabilitation, he resolved that if he survived, he would return to Nigeria and work on building systems that could reduce the chances of similar outcomes in the future. That promise became Monte Sereno Health, an artificial intelligence-powered platform designed to deliver proactive primary care and continuous health management, founded in 2021. The company is attempting to address a deeper structural problem in Africa’s healthcare systems: fragmentation. Patients often move between informal providers, under-resourced clinics, pharmacies, and labs that rarely share data, while overstretched doctors make decisions with limited information. A 2021 World Health Organisation (WHO) report on health information systems found that 30 of 47 African countries lacked the capacity to accurately register births and deaths, with cause-of-death data largely unavailable. The absence of common data standards further limits the ability to integrate and compare health information across systems. Okoh’s misdiagnosis, he said, was not simply incompetence. It was the predictable outcome of a fragmented system, where doctors operate with limited data, patients carry paper records, and there is little real-time verification or support during clinical decisions. In many cases, diagnosis depends on a single doctor’s judgment, often without access to full patient history or decision support tools. A study by Mayo Clinic, a non-profit academic medical centre, shows that up to 20% of serious conditions are misdiagnosed during initial visits globally. Telehealth, which has expanded access in recent years, does not fully solve the problem. It connects patients to doctors, but offers little oversight or quality control during consultations. “You have no idea who you’re talking to, and there’s no real-time quality check,” Okoh said. Monte Sereno’s answer, Okoh stressed, is not another telemedicine app. It is what he describes as a healthcare operating system: a full-stack digital infrastructure designed to sit above and connect every part of the care journey. A healthcare operating system Instead of isolated consultations, the platform works by embedding artificial intelligence (AI) into every interaction. During a medical session, Monte’s AI agent, called StarPilot, sits alongside the doctor and patient, analysing symptoms in real time, pulling medical records, and querying global research databases. If a patient reports a fever and headache, the system does not stop at common assumptions. It asks where the patient has travelled, cross-references disease prevalence, and suggests follow-up questions or tests. A visit to Lagos, for instance, would trigger prompts to rule out malaria or typhoid and not just flu. The goal for Monte is not to replace doctors but to reduce the margin of error, according to Okoh. A 2025 cross-sectional study of Nigerian medical practitioners found that prevalence rates for medical errors range from 42.8% to as high as 89.8%. “The AI can challenge both the doctor and the patient in real time,” Okoh said. “But the doctor still makes the final call.” One of the platform’s central features is a portable electronic health record that follows the patient across providers and geographies. Monte Sereno’s system digitises records, even from paper, using uploads. Once integrated, the data becomes part of a continuously updated profile that informs every interaction on the platform. The system not only stores information; it interprets it. If a medication becomes unsafe due to new research, the platform flags it automatically. If a doctor prescribes a conflicting drug, it alerts both parties. Designing for scarcity Monte Sereno is being built with Africa’s constraints in mind, according to Okoh. The continent faces a deepening health workforce crisis, with a projected shortfall of 6.1 million workers by 2030. At the same time, data from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and UNECA shows a $66 billion annual gap in health financing. In Nigeria, doctor-to-patient ratios can reach one to 10,000, according to the Nigeria Medical Association. In some rural areas, patients travel more than 30 kilometres from their homes to get medical attention where available. Through built-in translation tools, Monte allows doctors in other countries like India, Egypt, and Latin America to consult with patients in Nigeria without language barriers. In pilot tests, multilingual consultations were conducted seamlessly, with each participant seeing responses in their preferred language. It also supports shared consultations, where multiple patients can be assessed using a single device. Inspired by trials in India, this model helps extend care to communities with limited access to smartphones and reliable internet, where a single phone can serve thousands of patients. But this approach raises privacy concerns. When multiple patients use the same device, sensitive data, such as medical histories, diagnoses, and personal details, can be exposed if safeguards are weak. In low-connectivity settings, where devices are reused, and security is harder to enforce, the risks of data leaks or unauthorised access increase. Without strong encryption, user authentication, and clear data separation, patient confidentiality could be compromised, especially in communities where health-related stigma is high. Okoh
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