How Jorn Lyseggen is Empowering African Entrepreneurs with MEST

Jorn Lyseggan is a serial entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and founder of Meltwater as well as the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, popularly referred to as MEST.

Jorn started off his career as a research scientist in artificial intelligence and machine learning at the Norwegian Computing Centre, but decided to leave to start up his own ideas. He launched his first business, an internet consulting business, in 1995. This he sold off in 1997 to EUnet International.

He joined Mogul as CEO in 1998 and led the company before selling it in 1999 to Optosoft. He thereafter served as CEO of Mogul Group AB, leading it to its IPO in 2000.

With a $15,000 investment, Jorn launched Meltwater in his home country, Norway, in 2001, and the company has gone on to become a formidable force in the B2B media intelligence space.

The company initially started off as Magenta News, which analysed online news in real time. The company experienced a meteoric rise, so much so that within two years it had raked in $2 million in revenue without outside funding.

It later went on and changed its name to Meltwater News and moved its headquarters to San Francisco in the mid 2000s.

As of 2017, the company currently boasts over 1,500 employees located in 55 offices spread across six continents and more than 30,000 clients worldwide.

Jorn believes in the empowerment of the future generation of entrepreneurs and this inspired his founding of the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), a pan-African institute which serves as an incubator for African entrepreneurs as well as a seed fund and training platform, in a bid to empower tech entrepreneurs and startups coming out of Africa in 2008.

Speaking on his philanthropic efforts, Jorn said during a locally organised TEDTalk in 2017 that his philanthropic journey has been nothing short of accidental, alluding this to some experiences he went through while growing up.

“I have never been a tree hugger, and I’ve never been on a mission to save the planet. But over the years, I accidentally found myself becoming an accidental philanthropist, “he said.

MEST, which has its headquarters in Accra, Ghana, has a presence in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast. MEST was, in 2015, recognised by Fast Company as one of the 10 Most Innovative Organisations in Africa.

He also launched SHACK15 in 2016, as the world’s first data science hub, where promising and leading data science startups can come together to meet, collaborate, and innovate.

In 2017, Jorn released his first book, Outside Insight: Navigating a World Drowning in Data, which predicts the emergence of a new software category that will leverage insights gleaned from the vast amount of external information available on the web to help corporate leaders in their corporate decision-making.

Speaking with Forbes on what inspired the book, he highlighted the importance of data in today’s world in the decisionmaking process.

He said, “External data is one of the biggest blind spots in executive decision making today.” That’s because external information contains so much forwardlooking information. If your competitors are hiring, and your customers are changing their behaviour, those are external forces influencing your future performance, and it can be found in online ‘breadcrumbs’ and external data.”

Jorn was awarded “The Europa Hall of Fame Award” at the Europas Awards 2016, a gathering where Europe’s most progressive and forward-thinking tech companies are celebrated.

He was also named No. 5 in Digest Africa’s “Top 50 Most Influential People in the African Startup Ecosystem” for his mentorship and investment in MEST.

“External data is one of the biggest blind spots in executive decision making today.”

The world has come a long way. However, Africa’s Place in the last two or three phases of development has been a lacklustre one, with the continent playing second fiddle in the scheme of things.

With the world rapidly developing, Africans need to appraise and consciously work on the continent’s preparedness and how much it can take advantage of the technological advancements emerging at this time. The question all stakeholders on the continent need to examine critically is whether Africa has all it takes tap into the potential the fourth industrial revolution, which is already underway.

A quick look at the journey so far

The world has gone through different stages of industrialisation, which is a term used to describe the shifts in technological advancement and the way work is done. The first industrial revolution, which began at the end of the 18th century and continued to the beginning of the 19th, saw a shift in the way humans got by. It was the age of mechanisation that saw the practice of agriculture improve with the introduction of equipment that boosted the mechanisation of processes.

The first industrial revolution also saw a shift where agriculture became the backbone of the world economy. Massive coal extraction began to happen, which created a new form of energy - steam

Africa’s Place in the 4th Industrial Revolution

energy, and led to the establishment of railroads.

The second industrial revolution saw the emergence of energy, arising from a leap in technological advancement during this period. This led to a boom in industries as electricity, gas, and oil became a part of man’s daily life.

The third industrial revolution began in 1969 after, more than a century of the second industrial revolution. This period saw the emergence of nuclear energy and brought a rise in electronics manufacturing, telecommunications, and computers. This period saw a new experience with space expeditions, research, and biotechnology with the latest technologies invented.

The fourth revolution, which began at the dawn of the third millennium, is upon us, and this is the period that gave birth to the global phenomenon called the internet. The world has basically shifted from an industrial-based one to one largely premised on the use of the internet, with ideas such as the metaverse, and virtual reality worlds, being infused into how we live and how work is done.

The fourth industrial revolution, aptly called Industry 4.0 is a convergence of the digital, biological, and physical worlds where new technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud computing, broadband cellular networks, the Internet of Things, 3D printing, and many more are all ushering in an era of boundless possibilities. This comes with its attendant impact on the socioeconomic indices the world over.

According to the World Economic Forum, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution represents a fundamental change in the way we live, work, and relate to one another. It is a new chapter in human development, enabled by extraordinary technological advances commensurate with those of the first, second, and third industrial revolutions. These advances are merging the physical, digital, and biological worlds in ways that create both huge promises and potential peril. The speed, breadth and depth of this revolution are forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organisations create value and even what it means to be human.”

Africa’s place in the past industrial revolutions

With the world moving at such astronomical speed with tech development, Africa has primarily played the role of an onlooker and has been more of a consumerist in the previous revolutions.

The question now is: how well is Africa positioned to play an impactful role in the scheme of things as the fourth revolution is underway?

So far, it appears the continent is yet to firmly put its feet in play to leverage the new possibilities, as many indicators still point to a weak position for the continent. However, it is good to note that many now see the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) as a much-needed precursor to Africa’s development.

There have been significant improvements in the deployment of information and communications technology (ICT), a major component needed in this era. This is notable as many technologies being developed at this time offer Africa the opportunity to play big on the global stage by driving innovation.

It is commendable to note that ICT has continued to grow, and this is expected to get better.

According to Brookings, mobile technologies and services have generated about 1.7 million direct jobs both in the formal and informal sectors, contributing about $144 billion of economic value and $15.6 billion to the public sector through taxation.

It is only imaginable how much more can be achieved if ICT is further leveraged on the continent.

Notable individuals such as South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa have argued that Africans

need to leverage the possibilities of the 4IR in order to leapfrog the continent’s development.

In fact, South Africa is one of the countries moving fast in the implementation of strategies to fully leverage the possibilities that now abound.

He led the charge when he announced that by 2030, South Africa will be an economy that has leveraged the possibilities in technological innovation to drive a revolution in its manufacturing and industrial processes, energy provision and distribution.

“We want to demonstrate how science, technology, and innovation have been used to enhance our food and water security and to build smart human settlements,” he said.

In October 2019, the South African affiliate of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the 4IR Network was inaugurated. Subsequently, in January 2020, Cyril Ramaphosa announced the creation of a presidential commission on the 4IR. The commission is made up of start-ups, researchers, cybersecurity specialists, and researchers, among others.

The possibilities

Indeed, Africa needs to leverage 4IR technologies to leapfrog development in sectors such as education, food security, health, energy, and financial accessibility.

Pre-covid, there were already efforts to deploy components of the 4IR to improve the quality of life. For example, in Kenya and parts of West Africa, blockchain has been deployed in use cases ranging from agriculture to property record verification. It has also expanded access to credit in the informal sector. In 2016, Rwanda made history as the first country to deploy drones within its health care sector to deliver blood to remote regions.

Hopefully, this drive will be sustained into the years to come so that the continent and its people, especially its young people, are able to keep up with the rest of the world. While adoption is on track, several limitations still pose challenges to the uptake and adoption of 4IR technologies.

Africa still lags behind on some major indicators when compared to developed continents like Europe.

According to Brookings, several African firms indicate very low levels of business preparedness to adopt five major 4IR technologies, namely AI/robotics, IoT, big data/data mining, 3D printing, and blockchain. And this, the African Development Bank says, is a result of leadership’s inability to develop effective digital strategies, low level of education, and employee skills. This, sadly, is a reflection of the continent at large.

Also, Africa still scores low in the areas of access to technology, internet bandwidth per user, percentage of households with a computer, percentage of households with internet access, and number of fixed broadband subscriptions.

The report reveals that in developed countries, there are as many mobile broadband subscriptions as there are people, but the contrast is the case in Africa, where the continent has just about 25 subscriptions to every 100 people.

According to management consulting firm Mckinsey, internet penetration is low as it averages less than 40% compared to 62.7% in the rest of the world. It also reports that the technology sector is still not yet a top priority for many African countries. This is because African countries currently spend just about 1.1% of their gross domestic product on digital investment, and this, it says, is less than the share of what developed economies spend.

Electricity, which is a huge backbone to even the most basic of development, is still a mirage on the continent. According to Armando Manuel, former minister of finance of Angola and current World Bank alternate executive director for Angola, Nigeria, and South Africa, access to electricity on the continent currently stands at 45%! This is a far cry from what is needed for robust development.

“You can’t develop in the darkness, and you can’t go to the moon when you have constraints to go to the next corner,” he says.

Things are, however, not all bleak for the continent. Following COVID-19, Africa’s digital economy could contribute $180bn to the continent’s GDP by 2025 following an e-commerce boom that has been seen on the continent, according to Google and the International Finance Corporation.

The Way Forward

As we move on, the challenge is for African policy leaders to effectively position their economies to benefit from the 4IR even as they battle to overcome present challenges that include unstable political environments, civil unrests, poverty, and agricultural deficits. Political leaders and policymakers must prioritise in order to leverage the possibilities of the fourth industrial revolution.

The danger of not doing this is that the continent may again lag behind in developmental strides when compared to the rest of the world.

African governments must invest in critical infrastructure that will enable countries to leapfrog their preparedness and capacity to leverage 4IR technologies. Education and programs that reskill their populace with the capacity to manage new technologies must also be given increased attention. Also, access to physical and digital infrastructures that support technologies such as broadband internet must be made a priority.