NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

By Wiza Jalakasi

In the centre of Gauteng Province, a reluctant winter sun paints the Roodepoort sky with the day’s first semblance of warmth. Amongst lush flora in suburban utopia—Fairlands, an apt name—the gentle whirr of the heating AC quietly dominates the room. A wall of pixels is the centerpiece of attention, as a business analyst sips her coffee and closely watches the graphs.

The city of Kampala, an hour ahead of South African time, is fast approaching the peak of mobile money usage for the day. Even a few minutes of downtime can be costly in a country where $34 million moves through an intricate digital highway every day, and you’re the one in charge of traffic control.

The MTN Group Innovation Centre is a vibrant campus in the Johannesburg metropolitan area with hundreds of invisible hands gently maneuvering the silent but tremendous beast.

Photo courtesy of John O’Bryan.