Despite seeing assault rifles stranded in the stands, the Africa Games in Brazzaville left swimmer Ricky Ellis impressed. He came back with one gold and three silver medals from the small francophone country, it was a time of his life, in the pool and out.
In 2013, Mornay Walters warned Forbes Africa that hackers listen to your conversations and sabotage your deals. Two years later, he has reaped the reward of privacy paranoia and is now head of a $130-Million company; proving that secrecy, as well as the customer, is king. Industrial espionage is not a threat, its a promise, he says.
Olagunju is the fresh face of renewable energy in Africa. By a twist of fate, this young lawyer, who grew up with her grandmother by candlelight, is now spearheading Africa’s dash for energy. “I’ve always known I was going to go into resources. I just didn’t know if it was going to be mining or oil and gas... The biggest thing for me is why Africa, which is so well-endowed in resources, remains the poorest continent. I always hated injustice, growing up in apartheid South Africa,” she says. Her deals have put two wind farms and two solar photovoltaic (PV) farms onto the barren landscape of De Aar in the Northern Cape. Two deals she patched together that will contribute 254MW to South Africa’s energy grid. Olagunju’s childhood was far from electricity. She grew up in Matatiele, a village in the Eastern Cape 782 kilometers from the boardrooms of Sandown where she now works and lives with her Nigerian-born husband. This may be a drop in the ocean but it’s a very important one. Renewables have been a saving grace. According to Olagunju, 39 of these projects are up and running, supplying 2,050MW to the South Africa’s energy grid.
