Gqom: The Babusi Nyoni Story

This special piece of podcast storytelling offers a compelling glimpse into the heart and mind of one of Africa's most gifted multi-hyphenate technological innovators, Babusi Nyoni. Babusi is a Zimbabwean creative technologist, social entrepreneur and gqom producer with an extraordinary personal story. He is a self-taught tech pro whose project credits include creating what Forbes magazine described as “the world’s first AI football commentator” for the UEFA Champions League final (on behalf of Heineken) in 2016. In the same year, he built a prototype for predicting human displacement in Africa using AI. The latter initiative led to him launching an AI project pilot for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). In 2019, Babusi built a prototype app for Parkinson’s disease early diagnosis using computer vision and presented his findings at the Skoll World Forum at Oxford University. In 2020, he co-founded Sila Health, a healthtech startup that provides last-mile health care access across Africa using chat platforms and creates comprehensive datasets to advance healthcare in the region. SPECIAL THANKS: This podcast was written, produced and narrated by Andile Masuku, with invaluable editing and soundscaping assistance provided by Spike Ballantine and Rasmus Bitsch. SUPPORT US: Value our work? Then, join our Patreon Community (www.africantechroundup.com/patreon/) and help the African Tech Roundup platform remain single-mindedly focused on serving Africa's tech and innovation ecosystem with robust independent insight and learning content.