There are technology events you attend, and there are technology events that stay with you on the drive home. The Ikigai Industry Nights panel I had the pleasure of moderating on the evening of the 2nd July 2026 — provocatively titled CTRL + ALT + HUMAN — was firmly in the second category, and

The final part of my three-part conversation with Tito Alai begins with a question that challenges one of the most familiar narratives in African technology. What came before M-Pesa? For many people in Kenya and beyond, the history of African mobile money begins in 2007 with Safaricom’s launch of M-Pesa.

Part 1 of my conversation with Tito Alai ended just as he was leaving Unilever and moving into Africa Online. That transition matters because it captures one of the central themes running through Tito’s career: the deliberate pursuit of reinvention. By the time he left Unilever, Tito had worked in