Tech Champions

‘We’ve done the heavy lifting,’ says Cassava Technologies’ Hardy Pemhiwa

In depth

This article is part of the dossier: Top 50 tech champions

By Nicholas Norbrook

Posted on Friday, 8 April 2022 18:50, updated on Tuesday, 8 November 2022 15:26

For Liquid Intelligent Technologies (#167), the pandemic has produced yet another example of Africa leapfrogging. “We saw a five-times increase in data throughput,” says Hardy Pemhiwa, the chief executive of Liquid’s holding company, Cassava Technologies, recalling the huge demands suddenly placed on its vast fibre-optic network on the continent in 2020. Many companies were forced to digitalise to survive.

This is part 9 of an 11-part series.

Cassava Technologies was created to house the new ambitions of Strive Masiyiwa, the Zimbabwean founder of Econet Wireless and elder statesman of African tech. Masiyiwa now wants to “create a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind”, Pemhiwa says. Cassava separates Econet Wireless from the digital infrastructure and digital services business – essentially the fibre network, cloud services and data centres.

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