Marcus speaks with Charles Murito, Regional Director at Google, responsible for Government Affairs and Public Policy in Sub Saharan Africa. Charles sheds light on the large scale investments the tech giant is making in infrastructure connectivity solutions, in growing the software developer ecosystem in SSA, and in supplying early and growth stage African startups with funding. He outlines too the principles and approach that he adopts when working with policy-makers to support homegrown technology innovation and the digital economy.

"We need to equip our youth to compete in the global economy and participate in the 4IR. There were 720,000 certified software developers in Africa at the start of 2022 (mostly in SA, Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria), of which more than 38% were working for projects and companies outside of Africa.….Over the next three years Africa has a chance to gain $180bn in GDP from the digital economy. ‘’ Charles Murito.