Embedded Podcast : Three Challenges Facing African Tech Entrepreneurs
Kate Kallot, Founder and CEO of Amini AI on how just 2% of African data gets processed in Africa and what she's doing to change it.
Kate Kallot is the Founder and CEO of Amini AI, a Nairobi-based data infrastructure company building the data stack for Africa and the Global South.
The company digitizes, collects, aggregates, and structures large amounts of data, with a focus on environmental data on agriculture, minerals, and energy. Amini's technology can fusion up to 1,000 different data points from multiple sources, including satellite imagery, drone data, IoT sensors, and socioeconomic information.
Challenges for African Tech Entrepreneurs
Kate highlighted three critical issues that need urgent attention:
Ease of doing business: It's often easier to set up a Delaware company and get funding than to establish a business on the continent (with exceptions like Rwanda).
Cross-border complexities: Expanding across African markets means navigating different currencies, tax regimes, and business registration requirements, creating enormous friction.
IP registration: African entrepreneurs often must register their patents abroad because the infrastructure for IP protection on the continent remains inadequate.
Only 2% of African data gets processed in Africa
The rest? Taken elsewhere, structured, and sold back to us at premium prices. Kate shares her views on AI as a pivotal technology that can either perpetuate patterns of dependence or become a mechanism for equitable and inclusive prosperity. Her work focuses on making environmental data accessible and actionable to empower communities at the forefront of climate change while at the same time building up local AI capacity.
We recorded this conversation at the Global AI Summit on Africa as part of a special series in partnership with The Rwanda Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Watch the full episode:
More on Kate and Amini AI
Operating in over 25 countries with 2.5TB of training data and analysis of 80 billion hectares of land, Amini provides insights that help farmers understand soil health, crop conditions, potential disease outbreaks, weather forecasts, and yield predictions. The company works with a network of data partners in a revenue-sharing model that returns value to communities while breaking down data silos across organizations and governments.
Named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI in 2023 and a Young World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2024, Kate is also a member of EY's Global AI Advisory Council Before founding Amini in 2022, Kate worked as head of emerging areas at NVIDIA.
Kate's journey from political science student to tech leader offers a powerful counternarrative to the idea that AI is only for people with technical backgrounds. She learned on the job, through passion and persistence, bringing a unique perspective that centers human impact rather than just technical innovation.
Her message to women across Africa is clear: You don't need a computer science degree to enter the AI field. What you need is passion, community, and the willingness to jump in and learn by doing.
Control The Data
Her approach focuses on retaining control of Africa's foundational data rather than building the biggest models. Without this control, the economic value of Africa's data will continue flowing elsewhere, recreating colonial extraction patterns with a digital twist. The historic $60 billion Africa Declaration on AI, announced at the Global AI Summit on Africa, aims to address this imbalance by building the continent's data sovereignty, processing power, and local AI ecosystems.
🌍 Africa's 2% data processing dilemma and how it perpetuates digital colonialism
🧩 Breaking data silos between government agencies to enable meaningful progress
💰 Creating equitable revenue-sharing models with communities who provide data
🛰️ Harnessing geospatial and satellite data to understand agricultural and environmental patterns
👩💻 Kate's journey from political science studies to tech leadership without a CS degree
⚖️ The practical challenges African entrepreneurs face with cross-border business
🚀 Building AI that's useful for local context rather than chasing the latest Silicon Valley architectures
The 2% Data Processing Crisis
"I see data as being the new oil, as really being one of those resources that's fueling AI systems. And as of today, what is happening is that only 2% of African data actually gets processed on the African continent. Most of our data is sent elsewhere. And that's really sad, because you know what's happening?"
Without local data processing capacity, Africa remains a supplier of raw materials (data) while missing out on all the value creation that happens further up the chain. Kate sees this as her mission: preventing Africa from repeating its colonial past in the digital era.
Watch the full episode:
Break Silos
African governments are sitting on treasure troves of data, but it's locked away in separate ministries that don't share with each other. The Minister of Finance can't see agricultural data, the Minister of Agriculture can't access financial projections…
These walls between government departments prevent the holistic, data-driven policymaking that countries desperately need. Breaking down these barriers won't require massive investment either - it's mostly about changing mindsets and building systems that encourage data sharing while maintaining appropriate security and ethics around handling.
Start by breaking the silos. There's a lot of silos. Even in ministries and government agencies, there are a lot of data there, but all of it doesn't interact or talk to each other, and that's already a major problem
Building Ethical Data Ecosystems
Amini AI isn't just building technology – they're creating an entirely new economic model for data. They work with a network of data partners in a revenue-sharing arrangement, ensuring that communities benefit financially from the data they provide. This sends capital back to the people whose data drives the system, creating a virtuous cycle instead of extraction.
This approach demonstrates how African startups can build technology that reflects our values and addresses our unique challenges. Instead of just adopting Silicon Valley business models, Kate is pioneering an approach where technology serves communities and helps distribute wealth rather than concentrating it.
Next on /Embedded
I speak to Nigeria's Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. ‘Bosun Tijani. As both a former tech entrepreneur (co-founder of Co-Creation Hub) and now government minister, Dr. Tijani brings a rare dual perspective. We talk about Nigeria's ambitious AI agenda, football, and jollof Rice … of course…
Drop a comment below with your thoughts on data sovereignty - is this the most critical area for Africa's technological independence? And what did you make of Kate's practical advice for government leaders about breaking data silos?
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