Our path to the G20 formally began in September at the ICT Ministerial Summit in Cape Town, hosted by the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies under Minister Solly Malatsi. It was here at the Tech Challenge and the AI for Africa Conference that African tech companies were not side-notes but central actors at a global ministerial platform. And it was here that the foundations for what followed were laid.
In Cape Town, supported by a South African delegation led by Ms. Jeanette Morwane, Khoi Tech entered bilateral talks with the Spanish government. These discussions did not end with polite handshakes; they ended with commitments: research partnerships, technology transfer frameworks, and concrete pathways for South African SMMEs to access Spanish and broader European markets.
But this is bigger than Khoi Tech. It speaks to a continental urgency.
Africa’s Technology Sovereignty Is Not Optional. It Is Survival
For centuries, Africa’s value has been extracted – gold, oil, minerals. Today, the new resource is data, and the risk is no longer colonialism of land, but colonialism of our digital territory. Technology Sovereignty, Device Sovereignty, and Data Sovereignty are no longer intellectual debates; they are economic imperatives.
1. Technology Sovereignty: Building Our Own Digital Spine
Technology Sovereignty means having the power to build, adapt, and own the systems that define our economies. At Khoi Tech, we chose not to be just another hardware reseller. Our Afriwatch smartwatches and Afripods earphones plug into an integrated suite of home-grown SaaS platforms for health-tech, logistics, sports performance, and wellness.
Our devices act as IoT nodes feeding into our proprietary software stack. This is not accidental. It is strategy. Whoever owns the platform owns the future.
2. Device Sovereignty: Moving From Importers to Manufacturers
Africa imports nearly all its electronics. This is not sustainable. Our model is intentionally phased: begin with offshore manufacturing to gain market traction; transition assembly and production to South Africa; then expand into a broader portfolio including broadband and consumer electronics. Local manufacturing is not a vanity project, it is an industrial strategy. It creates high-skilled jobs, builds national capability, and ends the cycle of dependency.
3. Data Sovereignty: Keeping Africa’s ‘New Oil’ in Africa
African data is being harvested, exported, and used to train foreign AI systems, which are then sold back to us. We must flip this script.
By ensuring that our devices and platforms store and process sensitive data locally, especially in health technology, Khoi Tech is protecting a critical national asset. Data must enrich African communities, fuel African AI models, and support African problem-solving.
The Shield of Sovereignty Is Law
During the G20 Tech Summit in Cape Town, I made an appeal directly to Minister Solly Malatsi: South Africa needs a national technology sovereignty strategy.
Not as a slogan but as law.
If local manufacturers are to survive and scale, government departments and state-owned enterprises must procure a meaningful portion of their devices from local OEMs. Without policy protection, no local tech industry will withstand the tidal wave of imports.
This is how economies are built. This is how youth unemployment is reversed. This is how industrial capability is sustained.
Africa Must Not Just Consume Technology, We Must Create It
After the ICT Summit, Khoi Tech continued its G20 engagement at the Startup20 Summit under Minister Stella Ndabeni Abrahams and the Department of Small Business Development. Presenting our platforms to Ministers and delegates from 32 countries did more than raise our visibility. It reinforced one truth: African solutions are not inferior. They are ready.
The G20–UK Bilateral Was a Continuation, Not a Beginning
By the time we engaged British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in Sandton, this was not an introduction but a progression. We built on relationships forged earlier in the year at London Tech Week.
During the meeting, we tabled:
- Our reverse-engineering strategy
- Our protected IP foundations
- Our phased manufacturing plan
- Our SaaS platforms that directly address African health service challenges
The outcome was definitive: a path for Khoi Tech to export products and services into Europe from 2026. This is not just a win for Khoi Tech but for South Africa’s digital industrialisation.
A Blueprint for an Africa That Builds, Competes, and Leads
Khoi Tech’s journey from Soweto to the G20 is not a feel-good story. It is a case study in how African companies can scale. How global influence is built and how sovereignty is achieved.
True digital power comes from the fusion of: Technology Sovereignty + Device Sovereignty + Data Sovereignty backed by deliberate government policy.
This is the formula for Africa’s self-determined digital future.
The Future Is Ours to Build or Ours to Lose
Africa stands at a fork in the road. One path makes us permanent consumers in a global system we do not control. The other path, the path of sovereignty, makes us architects of our own destiny.
The blueprint exists. The momentum is rising. The world is watching.
The digital age will not wait for Africa. But Africa can still lead if it is bold enough to build.
By Seati Moloi, CEO & Founder of Khoi Tech
