Siyanda. M
Technology journalist and startup analyst tracking venture capital, entrepreneurial breakthroughs, and commercial machine learning scaling in Africa.
Published Beat Articles (5)
South African Startups Championing Large Language Models
Johannesburg and Cape Town innovators are tailoring open-source LLMs to localise language barriers and boost business productivity — but building for African languages is harder than it looks.
How ShambaAI Offline Models Save Smallholder Crops in Kenya
Custom offline computer vision models help Kenyan farmers diagnose crop pests in under 10 seconds — no internet required. We look at the engineering choices that made mass-market deployment possible.
LuluFinance: Alternative Credit Risk Scoring via Mobile Deep Learning in Lagos
How a Lagos-based fintech is using recursive neural networks to score informal market traders — opening access to micro-capital without traditional collateral requirements.
Code Before Committees: What African AI Startups Need From Regulators Right Now
Across the continent, AI founders are shipping products into regulatory vacuums. The question is no longer whether regulation is needed — it is whether regulators can build frameworks fast enough to be relevant before the market has already decided the rules.
From Soweto to Sandton: The Builders South Africa's AI Panel Cannot Afford to Ignore
AI governance in South Africa remains the domain of boardrooms and lecture halls. But the most consequential AI work on the continent is happening in township innovation hubs, co-working spaces, and open-source collectives that no policy panel has yet consulted.