Pure Digital Passion with Moses Kemibaro

In this recent episode of the Pure Digital Passion Podcast, I sat down with Sven De Cauter, CEO of Teleperformance (TP) Kenya and Nigeria, for a revealing conversation about the growth of one of Kenya’s most remarkable digital business services operations. From 60 employees in 2020 to over 2,500 today, TP Kenya has become a significant case study in what is possible when global scale meets local talent, operational discipline, and long-term ambition.Sven shares his journey from Belgium to the UK, Tanzania, Barcelona, and eventually Nairobi, where he came in to help build a business that now serves clients across 170 markets and 21 languages. We discuss why Kenya was chosen, what he learned from TP’s Barcelona multilingual hub, why Mombasa became part of the company’s footprint, and how AI is reshaping the future of customer service and BPO.This conversation goes beyond headcount and office locations. We also talk about impact sourcing, youth employment, infrastructure, GDPR adequacy, the EU-Kenya Digital Dialogue, and what Kenya must do if it wants to become a serious global destination for digital business services. Sven is candid about both the opportunities and the gaps, and his perspective is especially valuable because it comes from someone who has built across markets and understands what scale really requires.Chapters0:00 Introduction and why this conversation matters2:19 Sven’s background and the road to Nairobi6:16 What TP is and how it evolved globally8:01 Why Kenya, and how the move happened10:52 Why Kenya’s talent pipeline matters13:26 Soft skills, onboarding, and customer service readiness15:17 The growth story from 60 to 2,500 employees19:55 Why Mombasa became part of the operation23:17 Why Two Rivers and TRIFIC made strategic sense28:14 AI, emotional intelligence, and the future of BPO31:07 Green energy, GDPR, and Kenya’s competitive edge33:56 The 10,000-jobs ambition35:26 Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and the pan-African view39:01 Infrastructure, latency, and cost42:32 Kenya’s culture of learning and adaptability48:58 Changing lives through impact sourcing51:15 Advice for young people entering the industry55:55 Closing remarks and where to find TP

In this episode of the Pure Digital Passion Podcast, I sat down with Denis Bundi, a Kenyan-born AI-Native business builder, engineer, and founder of Agentyc, DBX Engine, and ClawFolks, to unpack an extraordinary journey from Nairobi to Houston, Rice University, Texas Instruments, Google, Microsoft, and finally back home to Kenya. We talk about the evolution of computing, the rise of agentic AI, why infrastructure matters more than hype, and what Kenya and Africa must do to avoid being left behind in the next era of technology.Denis also shares practical lessons from building at the frontier of AI, from working on enterprise systems and cloud partnerships to now helping teams deploy AI agents that can check inboxes, calendars, CRMs, and Slack, and take action on behalf of users. This is a conversation about systems thinking, engineering quality, entrepreneurship, and the urgent need for Africa to build, not just consume, the future of AI.Chapters0:00 Intro and why this conversation matters2:37 Denis Bundi’s background and journey from Kenya to the US9:34 Rice University, engineering rigor, and early career foundations12:31 Texas Instruments and the hardware/software mindset21:29 BMC, Google Cloud, and the move into customer-facing roles35:00 Returning to Kenya and building for the agentic era42:21 Agentic, DBX Engine, and ClawFolks50:55 Why AI could reshape labor and productivity57:30 Advice for young people in Kenya and Africa1:01:00 Closing reflections and where to find Denis’ work

Kenyans have always loved real estate – from shambas and plots to townhouses and apartments. But the classic model is capital‑intensive, illiquid, and almost always shilling‑denominated. In this episode of the Pure Digital Passion Podcast, we unpack a very different way to own prime Nairobi commercial real estate and earn in US dollars.
The TRIFIC Green USD I‑REIT is an income‑generating Real Estate Investment Trust anchored by the TRIFIC North Tower – an EDGE‑certified Grade A office building located inside a private Special Economic Zone within the wider Two Rivers ecosystem. It is authorized by the Capital Markets Authority as an Income REIT, targeting an 8% annual net yield in USD, paid twice a year, with a minimum entry of just USD 1,000. The unrestricted offer is open to both institutional and retail investors – including the Kenyan Diaspora and chamas – and closes on 12th June 2026.
To unpack what this actually means, I’m was joined by:
Brenda Mbathi – CEO, TRIFIC SEZ (Two Rivers International Finance & Innovation Centre), which hosts the TRIFIC North Tower inside Kenya’s only private, services‑focused Special Economic Zone.
Pius Muchiri – CEO, Nabo Capital, the REIT Manager behind the TRIFIC Green USD I‑REIT, describing the vehicle as a “regulated chama” that lets Kenyans pool resources to own institutional‑grade assets.
We dig into:
What a REIT actually is, in Kenyan terms
Why the TRIFIC North Tower is fully let, dollar‑denominated, and green‑certified
How the 8% targeted USD yield is constructed
Why Centum, TRIFIC, Nabo, NCBA, and a long list of institutional partners matter for governance, transparency, and investor protection
How retail investors, Diaspora, institutions, and chamas can practically apply – and what happens after the 12th June 2026 closing date
If you’ve ever looked at a big commercial building in Nairobi and thought, “I wish I could own a piece of that,” this is one of the rare moments when that statement is literally true. The bell is expected to ring on the Nairobi Securities Exchange on 23rd June 2026 – but the application window is now just about two weeks away from closing.
Key links
TRIFIC Green USD I‑REIT information & prospectus: https://trific.co.ke/i-reit
Online application portal (C&R Group): https://trific.candr.africa/
Timestamps

00:00 – Intro: Why Kenyans love real estate – and why this conversation is different
02:00 – What is TRIFIC and what is a REIT? Brenda and Pius explain in Kenyan language
07:30 – From plots to a “regulated chama”: How the TRIFIC Green USD I‑REIT works
13:00 – Why traditional property is capital‑intensive and illiquid – and how a listed REIT changes that
18:30 – Inside TRIFIC SEZ: tenants, incentives, and why everything is dollar‑denominated
25:00 – The TRIFIC North Tower: Grade A, fully let, EDGE‑certified, and sitting inside the Two Rivers ecosystem
31:00 – Following the cash flows: how the target 8% USD yield is built – and why the sponsor supports the first two years
38:00 – What this means for retail investors, Diaspora, institutions, and chamas
44:00 – Governance, “regulated chama” vs informal chama, and why structure matters
51:00 – How to apply: brokers, C&R online portal, Safaricom Zidii Trader, and what happens if it’s oversubscribed
56:00 – Timeline: 12 June closing, 15–19 June allocations and CDS credits, 23 June expected NSE listing
59:00 – Final thoughts: why this moment matters for Kenya’s services economy – and why the deadline counts
If this episode helps you think differently about how to earn in hard currency from Kenya’s professional services economy, share it with someone in your personal, chama, or Diaspora circle and visit the links above before 12th June 2026.

Simon Bransfield-Garth was writing his doctoral research on artificial neural networks at Cambridge in 1985 — forty years before most people had heard of AI. In this episode, he traces that journey through Myriad Solutions (a vector processor company that preceded the GPU era), Symbian (the smartphone OS that defined the pre-iPhone world), Cellcrypt (mobile voice security for governments worldwide), and Azuri Technologies (pay-as-you-go solar for 250,000+ households across nine African markets) — and explains how all of it led him to found Akili AI in 2024.
We discuss: why 42% of Kenyan internet users use ChatGPT but most Kenyan boards think they have zero AI in their business; what Akili Snapshot reveals when you run it on a typical EastAfrican financial institution; how Akili AI took a loan processing workflow from two weeks to five minutes; and why Simon believes the biggest risk for Africa is not adopting AI too fast — it is adopting it too slowly.

CHAPTERS
00:00  Introduction
03:10  Simon's early career — Cambridge, neural networks, Myriad Solutions
08:35  The Symbian years and the lesson of a platform that missed the shift
12:53  Cellcrypt and the intersection of security and AI
15:36  Azuri Technologies and a decade of building in Africa
19:34  Why Akili AI focuses on financial services
21:22  AI adoption in Kenya — the consumer/corporate gap
27:51  The three things AI actually is — and why governance is the hard part
31:45  Introducing Akili Snapshot and Akili Assured
42:24  What boards do not know about their own AI exposure
46:16  Two scenarios for AI in Africa over the next decade
49:18  Advice for corporate leadership, startups and the general public
55:04  Where to find Akili AI and take the free Snapshot assessment
 
LINKS
Akili AI website: https://akili-ai.com
Free Akili Snapshot assessment: https://assured.akili-ai.com
Simon Bransfield-Garth on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/simonbransfieldgarth

In this episode of the Pure Digital Passion Podcast, I sit down with Yannick Lefang — Founder & CEO of Kasi Insight, Africa's leading decision intelligence company — for one of the most intellectually rich conversations I've had on this podcast.
Yannick's path to founding Kasi is unlike almost any other founder story in the African technology biased ecosystem. Born in France, raised in Cameroon, trained as an electrical engineer at the University of Ottawa (cum laude), he spent over a decade in financial risk management at TD Bank in Toronto — before joining the International Finance Corporation to advise African banks on risk frameworks across East, Southern, and West Africa. That experience revealed a data gap no one had filled: Africa had no reliable, high-frequency, pan-continental consumer intelligence platform. So in 2017, he built one.
Today, Kasi Insight tracks consumer sentiment, economic signals, brand performance, and retail dynamics across 21 African markets — conducting 120,000+ interviews annually and generating 80 million data points. Their Kasi Index of Consumer Sentiment is distributed on Bloomberg and Refinitiv.
We cover his entire journey — from his grandfather's entrepreneurship lessons in Cameroon, to the Nortel collapse, the Lehman Brothers crisis at TD Bank, the Kasi founding story, and what it actually takes to build Africa's consumer data infrastructure from the ground up:
00:00 — Introduction & background: Who is Yannick Lefang?
03:33 — Growing up in Cameroon: the grandfather who shaped an entrepreneur
10:00 — From medical school expulsion in Benin to engineering in Canada
18:36 — Cultural shock: arriving in Ottawa from Cameroon in January
20:44 — The collaboration lesson that turned his academic career around
24:41 — Career journey: Nortel, E*TRADE, and moving to Toronto's financial industry
30:00 — Inside TD Bank: market risk, capital markets, and the 2008 financial crisis
33:00 — Two weeks into a new TD role — and into the middle of a Lehman Brothers write-down
35:00 — The mentor question that started everything: "If you had a magic stick..."
36:17 — The inflation basket that didn't work, and the pivot to survey data
37:33 — Why Kenya (not Cameroon): the lunch conversation that changed the company
38:51 — The founding logic: Africa was making decisions without a feedback loop
44:57 — The moat: why 9 years of primary data cannot be bought at any price
47:35 — From data company to market research company to decision intelligence company
52:23 — Building the infrastructure: 1,500+ ground-level researchers, country by country
54:33 — Why Kasi built its own platform (Tableau was $2,999 per user)
55:18 — Who the clients are: Bloomberg, Reuters, African banks, FMCGs, NGOs
56:49 — Kasi tracked COVID in Africa before the WHO declared a pandemic
1:00:14 — What separates Kasi from traditional research companies
1:03:44 — The vision: becoming the Bloomberg of Africa
1:06:50 — Advice for young Africans: work ethic, challenging the status quo, and the informal market
1:10:48 — Closing reflections