In Conversation: Leaving Google for Kenya, the Token Economy and more

Earlier this week I interviewed Timbo Drayson, the CEO of OkHi - a Kenyan company that provides a mobile addressing system for citizens in Nairobi.

The chat was part of MEST Africa’s event The Next Frontier: The Year of the Africa Scale-Up, which took place in SHACK15: The Data Science Hub based in Shoreditch, London with an audience of around 80 guests.

Timbo spoke frankly to me about his journey, including why he left his job at Google to build OkHi; raising finance for his startup, and shared advice and realities about being an aspiring entrepreneur.

Our conversation was followed by an investment-focused panel moderated by Paris Petgrave, founder of RareSeed Capital, and featuring Tomi Davies, Co-founder and President of the Africa Business Angel Network and Nicole Anderson, Managing Partner, Redsand Partners.

Nicole (pictured top right) is heavily involved in structuring ICOs, and a very intrigued audience listened carefully as she spoke about the growing excitement around the token economy.

I of course took the opportunity to throw Steemit in to the mix!

I don’t have any footage of the event, but do believe it was voice recorded. Once I get hold of it, I’ll transcribe and post!

Some background on MEST and The Next Frontier:

‘Launched in 2008, MEST is a Pan-African entrepreneurial training program, seed fund, incubator and tech hub, headquartered in Ghana.
‘With strong ties to Silicon Valley, MEST has hosted a series of Africa-focused networking events dubbed The Next Frontier (TNF).
‘The objective of TNF is to strengthen the entrepreneurial and diaspora communities in each pocket of the globe, and to allow networking and an exchange of information around what’s happening on the African continent.’