2 minute read
Grad Gallery: Tebogo Mokwena
LinkedIn: bit.ly/3vcTF7v
Current position:
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Co-founder and CTO at Akiba Digital
Past positions:
Digital Analyst at McKinsey & Company
President of World Merit South Africa
Software Developer at Allan Gray Proprietary Limited
Academic history:
2017 Master of Science in Computational Science at Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
2015 Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Genetics and Biochemistry at UCT (with a one-year exchange programme at University of California, Los Angeles)
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What is Akiba Digital and what led you to creating it?
Akiba is a next generation financial marketplace that is AI and data driven. Our mission is to help Africans build a better relationship with their money. The idea for Akiba Digital stemmed from the rigidity of financial systems as they exist today; they don’t cater for the bottom of the pyramid and are not very inclusive. We decided to use alternative datasets to enable financial service providers to give better access to finance using real-time alternative scoring.
As CTO, what do your day-to-day responsibilities look like?
As CTO my job largely entails enabling people (mostly technical and product teams) to deliver value to our customers and align with business objectives. This includes prioritising product builds that will add the most value to our clients, product road-mapping, creating teams that can deliver on these products and aligning technical outputs with business objectives (and bottom lines). This touches on people enablement, product [development], partnerships and overall business strategy.
What value do your qualifications add to your work?
My qualifications have given me the technical aptitude to develop software products, to contribute effectively in a team and to create product roadmaps.
Which qualities do you look for in employees?
The most important qualities for me in an employee is willingness to learn and share their knowledge with others. Someone who has a vision to contribute positively to society and a fiercely goal-driven and autonomous individual who can also be an effective team player.
What impact has COVID-19 had on your career and industry?
Personally, COVID-19 tested my commitment to the mission I have to enable better access to financial services for all Africans. Our business nearly went under in the first half of the lockdown and could only be saved by my commitment as an entrepreneur to the mission. The second half of 2020 offered us clarity on what our core offering should be. Since then we’ve been flourishing! More and more financial service providers have needed to optimise the way they deliver [products] to their consumers, and they need us to do so quickly and effectively.
How do you see fintech evolving in the next few years?
In the next few years, I see fintech companies collecting and using more and more data to effectively deliver services and enhance user experiences for their customers. The ones that are truly data-driven will make the most impact because they will offer highly personalised offerings.
