Unboxing Africa’s Digital Future with Director Thomas Kaberi
Tech Talk AfricaPlay episode
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International Telecoms Week x Datacloud Africa 2026 Conference Podcast Edition
Director of Partnerships, Growth & Commercial, Thomas Kaberi - Qhala
AI talk gets loud fast, but the truth is quieter and heavier: cables, power, fiber, cooling, racks, and data centers decide what’s possible long before a chatbot ever answers a question. From the floor of ITW Africa 2026, we sit with Thomas Kaberi, Director of Growth and Partnerships at Nkala, to unpack the idea of “unboxing Africa’s digital future” and why infrastructure is not a side quest, it is the foundation.
We get into what Nkala actually is, a research-driven team that also builds, ships, and partners as a “think and do tank.” Thomas shares his own path from early programming to commercial strategy and back into deep tech, plus what he’s learning at a hardware-heavy conference where people are obsessed with latency, fiber routes, policy, and the real timelines of building data centers. If you care about AI infrastructure in Africa, this conversation makes the stack concrete and actionable.
Then we zoom out: AI is not one thing, it’s infrastructure, data quality, talent, financing, and finally the products the public sees. We challenge the default “just build more” mindset with a simple principle: not all engineering problems need an engineering solution, sometimes software efficiency and smarter design change the economics. We also tackle a bigger question for Africa’s digital economy: how does a continent that is 19% of the global population move from 2.5% of global GDP toward truly “pulling its weight” by 2050 through higher productivity across sectors like agriculture, health, education, and finance.
If you want clear thinking on digital infrastructure, AI strategy, partnerships, and what it will take to build at scale, listen now. Subscribe, share this with a builder in your network, and leave a review so more people find the conversation.
Credits
Host:
Stella GichuhiProducer:
James NjorogeExecutive Producers:
Harry HareAgutu Dan
