Introduction with Suban Nur & Michael Eadie

Welcome to Africa Untangled.

This introductory episode sets the foundation for a series of conversations that go beyond headlines, hype, and surface-level success. Africa Untangled is a space for honest dialogue—where stories are unpacked, systems are questioned, and leadership is examined from an African perspective.

We share the why behind TALO: why this platform exists, what it seeks to challenge, and the kind of conversations we believe Africa needs right now. From leadership and innovation to culture, failure, and growth, Africa Untangled is about the stories behind the decisions shaping our future.

This is not about perfection or performance. It’s about perspective.
It’s about listening, learning, and unlearning.
And most importantly, it’s about telling African stories with depth, nuance, and intention.

This episode invites you into the journey—setting the tone for the voices, ideas, and narratives that will follow.

Welcome to TALO.
Let’s talk.

Credits
Host:

• Suban Nur

Producer:

• James Njoroge

Executive Producers:

• Harry Hare
• Agutu Dan

Chapters

• 0:00 Teaser
• 0:30 What is Talo? The Business & The Movement
• 6:22 Building Teams That Build Solutions
• 7:56 Rewriting Africa's Future (Not Repeating It)
• 9:29 Digital Sovereignty & The Cost of "Free"
• 14:48 Personal Dynamics & Complementary Strengths
• 18:29 Closing Thoughts—Reclaiming Narrative, Story, and Agency

Transcript

Teaser

Mike 0:00

So there's two sides to Talo Suban. Two sides to the story. Tell me more. We will ask the difficult questions. And you call it tell the Africa story. You know, we're solving problems by educating people. We're not just a business. I want us to go and understand that part because here's the unique part. It's where real conversations happen. So there's two sides to tallow, Suban. Two sides to the story. Tell me more.

Suban 0:36

Um, there's two sides to every story, and sometimes the side that we've never never hear is the one that actually changes things and it moves the way people think, the way culture changes, um, the way social behaviors work. Um so Talo is Talo podcast is not an interview, it's where real conversations happen, where we discuss some taboo stuff. Sometimes we criticize, sometimes we applaud what we're doing on the continent. Um and sometimes we give people the room to talk where they can feel heard and understood. And sometimes when you're a builder, you feel like people don't understand you, and you need a room where people listen and understand you. What's Tilo for you?

Mike 1:28

Well, we're gonna talk to some of the builders, but uh part of part of my role in Talo will be to build teams that do the building. Okay, which will create some amazing solutions to problems. And I've spent the morning talking to um a number of people, and whenever you strip the conversation down, whether it's you're talking about digital transformation, going so what problem are you trying to solve by using tech, by using a piece of AI or by using a standard off-the-shelf solution? What what problem are you trying to solve for your customers or for the way in which you run your business? Um, and that's exactly the same whether or not from Talo's perspective, we are looking at building their media story, their public relations, the face, the bands, yeah, different narratives. Exactly. You know, we're solving problems by educating people, by teaching them about what AI is for them and how to use it, and how to build an agent, and you know what LLMs are about. We are essentially solving problems, but a lot of people aren't doing what we're doing. We're really going to focus on the problem and you find in the toolkit to help them do that. And we're experienced enough to do that. So before we go much further, tell me one unexpected thing about you that other people may not know.

Suban 2:51

Oh god.

Mike 2:52

Um you're going through the censored versus uncensored version, aren't you?

Suban 3:04

Um I'm very I'm very loud. I'm very I'm very creative in my in my brain. And this is why you and I work very well together. I I I do the creative stuff and you bring me back home. Does that make sense?

Mike 3:22

Yeah.

Suban 3:23

Um you are so what am I? I I I don't know. What do you think I am? Looking for someone who knows and works with me, how would you describe describe me?

Mike 3:34

I've done for a while now. So yeah, yeah, very innovative, very focused, very driven, short attention spam as well. Yeah, which is which going, okay, when Suzanne's bored with something, I'll catch it and I'll run with it. Yeah. Which is great, because it needs that vision, it needs that energy and drive to actually get things started. Um, but it also takes the process and the discipline and the organization and the working out whether things are real.

Suban 3:57

And the overthinking.

Mike 3:59

You do overthink.

Suban 4:00

I think everybody I don't know.

Mike 4:02

I think everybody overthinks to a certain extent. It depends what you overthink about. You know, if you're obsessing about your customers and solving problems and ideas, that's not overthinking, that's just creative. You're an entrepreneur. Um I like that. Yeah, and I overthink about how do we actually get things delivered.

Suban 4:20

And and that's what it always inspires me when I look at you. I love how you how you try to educate people through the process, right? You don't want to leave anyone behind. And I think for Talo, it's one of our key um strengths is that we take you along, we come along on the journey with you. Um, and that's what I really, really um admire about you. Yeah. Yeah, and I I think and the tattoos, they're pretty cool.

Mike 4:48

Yeah, yeah, okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool. But then that's um it always surprises people that you're wearing a nice shirt and a jacket and looking kind of sensible in your your whatever era I am. You know, other people guess that. Um but then you have an inked story on yourself. Yeah, that's this is my story. That's quite private.

Suban 5:07

Yeah.

Mike 5:07

So there's and everything's got a message, it's not just I ended up in a tattoo parlor in Ibiza when I was 18. Albeit I did. Never actually had the danger mouse tattoo put on that part of my anatomy ever. Thankfully. I chose, I chose to create the creative story, and I guess you know, you look at me as kind of the organized deliverer, but I also think I'm in that creativity space as well. So, you know, being able to get into AI quite early and understand what it actually means and how it can speed up and simplify processes and people's understanding of fairly complex systems or knowledge. So I can create things for you.

Suban 5:47

I like that.

Mike 5:48

So, and but what do you want created? Because that's where people fall down with AI, they don't understand what they want as an output. Yeah, yeah.

Suban 5:56

And also what story you're trying to tell about yourself. Because I'm realizing a lot um is we don't have a talent problem in Africa. It's how do you sell your personal brand? Your personal brand can be you as Michael, Jonathan, Ed, or it could be your company, right? Um, so uh yeah, I completely agree.

Mike 6:22

So, in terms of building tallow, you know, we're essentially four you know, synchronous but unique business units where one is the narrative and building the delivery. We don't tell our stories very well, you know, in in any kind of business. So it's about getting that bit right. The PR and the communications at the heart. Digital transformation and AI, absolutely critical on people's agendas. You know, just read that uh you know somebody's success has been defined by their digital transformation and their FS organization over the last four, six, eight years. Fantastic, great. So, you know, but a lot of organizations really don't have that right and are in the mix, aren't sorting their data out and their processes and aren't choosing the right systems and vendors well. So we can help with that. But in that AI space, it's about educating and taking them along the journey.

Suban 7:18

Yeah, it's the education piece that's missing.

Rewriting Africa's Future (Not Repeating It)

Mike 7:20

Yeah. Tello Observatory is our place whereby we're gonna start to have these conversations, start to talk and educate, make sure people it's well founded in uh sustainable evidence, deliver our white papers, deliver our podcasts, have a whole foresight, yeah. And you call it tell the Africa story. And I love that. Yeah, someone who came here and just fell in love. I've been in various parts of Africa through my life, but coming at Kenya, I came here and went, This is my home and I'm staying. But love Africa. So tell me about telling the Africa story.

Digital Sovereignty & The Cost of "Free"

Suban 7:58

The Africa story is and I keep saying this to everybody, it's it's messy, it's beautiful, it's colorful, it's rooted in culture, tradition. Um man, it's it's one of the best uh stories that anyone can ever tell. But in order for that to happen, you have to immerse yourself into it. Um, you can't just be someone who's looking in from the outside for you to really understand. You have to immerse, be part of the process of that. Um yeah, it's it's a beautiful story, and I get really emotional when I talk about this because it's coming from a Western country born and raised, and then coming back home. I've I've I've never been more happier than ever been in Africa and feel more proud of my culture, but we're losing that culture, and we're not losing it because we don't want to, it's we're losing it because where people that were raised, our grandparents, great-grandparents were raised by culture and tradition, and it was quite orally, most of the stuff. A lot of the stuff hasn't been written down, right? So we're losing it. My my generation is losing it, my children are losing it. So we need a tallow observatory that looks after this and that actually keeps those stories and that culture going.

Mike 9:30

And we're moving into a time where we're about to build potentially an amazing new story. Rewrite a chapter whereby we don't have hopefully we don't have all the chips on our shoulders with all of this. We don't you know this is the French side, and this is the British side, or German side, or all of that's gone. We're way past that now. We're defining our own history, and now about 60% of the continent's population is under the age of 25. I know how you don't know this stuff, so there's a little bit of going help them with the traditions, help them understand where they've come from, the cultures, cultures, but also help them understand that they can rewrite a very different future than potentially this last few generations has had because it was kind of defined within getting organized, getting structured, building governments, you know, getting out of old colonial systems in some ways, and then getting into new ones. What's right for Africa is there to be written and built. And we we talk quite a lot, you and I, about doing things like what do we mean when we talk about sovereignty? Yeah. So people kind of go, Well, sovereignty in the digital systems work. What does that actually mean? Well, it means your data stays here, data is yours to yours.

Suban 10:52

Everything. Yeah, I own everything.

Mike 10:54

And if a hyperscaler has offered you a solution, yeah, and is then you're running that solution because they've given it to you for nothing. But there's a reason behind it. There's a reason behind that because they have access to some of your data. Yeah, which means that you you're not owning it from a sovereign perspective. And we've got to change that, and we've got to stop it being more expensive to do sovereign than to go chat to Amazon or Microsoft or any of these other big hyperscales. They've created you know a skill set in our youth.

Suban 11:21

But that expensiveness is a a way of being kept. Oh, yeah, it keeps you in a box, keeps you in that little box, right? So you and I and then and people and other diasporics, uh Africans coming in and saying, No, actually, you can't keep me in that box.

Mike 11:37

Let's have a look at this.

Suban 11:38

Let's have a look at this. It scares them.

Mike 11:40

Yeah. Why did and is the Google AI being given away to every single student three?

Suban 11:50

And no one what I don't understand is, why isn't anybody asking those questions?

Mike 11:56

That's the conversation, isn't it? That's right back to the start.

Suban 11:59

And I just don't understand. So I see on LinkedIn, everyone, oh my god, Google, well done.

Mike 12:04

Yeah.

Suban 12:05

I'm like, but what why why did Google do this?

Mike 12:08

Yeah.

Suban 12:08

Google didn't decide to spend billions to give things for free to you. There has there's a reason behind it. So how do we unlock that? Yeah. Um, but we can't we can't we can't keep our eyes closed.

Mike 12:22

But but you've got to go into it with a bit more, as you say, not eyes closed, a bit more cognitive approach, going, I'm choosing this because it's useful for me, as opposed to that's a great deal. You know, I'm getting it something for nothing. It's that hands out has got to change. But then taking control, changing the narrative.

Suban 12:38

Yeah, and then the other thing that also sometimes frustrates me is I again I see on online platforms and social media, you see very powerful Africans um leaders or or just people that we really look up to who are applauding them for this, who are like, Yeah, well done, Google, go ahead. And that for me is the scary part because as one of those very leaders that we look up to, and you're signing this off, you're co-signing this, that we don't own any of our data, we don't own anything, we're being used. I think you saw a story about a Chinese um firm in Nairobi who were um using Kenyan youth to train some some of their AI systems, and they were getting paid, what was it, 200 shillings a day? Like, how? How are we working under conditions when I am the brains behind this? Anyway, I can I can talk about this all day.

Mike 13:47

That and that's the hustle and that you can congratulate the fact that these kids are there going, okay, I've got a phone, I can get into access to the technology. You're someone actually gonna pay me to go 200 shillings, though? Chuck stuff at them, but they're not in control, are they? You know, as other people are in control of that destiny, and that's that's got to shift, you know, and we've got to educate people and we've got to help people, we've got to bring them up to say, actually, you know, I will help you with that, but I've I've got a worth, I've got a value. And to do that job has a value. Um, and that hustle community, which we take a lot of pride in in Africa, maybe has to become a little bit more business oriented, a little bit more structured, not not taking away the hustle, not taking away the energy that creates that, but actually pointing at a direction. So someone sitting there that's already created their own little small business to sell within their community, how do they break out of that? How do we help them start to think about what's next? And nobody asks them what's your PL, you know, what you know, because they go they go, What? Yeah.

Suban 14:48

So I think for Talo Podcast, we will ask the difficult questions, we will ask the hard questions, and people will have to answer for it. And if you don't have the answer, I just want to spark another person's mind for them to start thinking about this this way. So it won't be easy conversations, as you know, Mike. We're not gonna have easy conversations here. Um, and we're going to call people out on a lot of things. We're helping build. No, because this is looking back.

Mike 15:21

Yeah, but it's a work in progress, isn't it? So we are helping but shape some of the building because of the conversations, because of how we approach how we help organizations, and you know, I do like to keep things quite simple. I'll say I have a lot to say, but I'll try and keep things simple. If you can solve a problem that someone has with a solution that you provide, and you both go away smiling and feel that there's value in the transaction, that's a business. That's all it is. That's what Talo is. That's all the organizations that are doing things out there.

Suban 16:00

But Talo's also a bit more than that. We're not just we're a movement.

Mike 16:06

So we're not just a business. I want us to go and understand that part because here's the unique part that you as founder absolutely inspires me with every single day. Yeah? Because I can help build businesses and help some of those business problems, but there's a uniqueness about how tallow operates. Why is it a movement? What is it about our council? What is it about our teams? What is it about our ecosystems? What is it about our associations that makes it?

Suban 16:33

It's the council for me. Um, and as you know, tallow in Somali means counsel, wisdom, advice. And having been brought up in a culture where before I make a move, I seek guidance, I seek counsel, and I don't just seek it from anybody, I seek it from the elders, right? Because they've lived through it, they've seen it. Um, so for me, this is not just a business. This is us, like you said, 60% or 70% of the African youth is under 25. I want to change how they think of things. I don't want people taking advantage of them anymore. We've been taken advantage of so many times, over a hundred years. So this movement is for us to reclaim what's ours, our narrative, our story, the way we do business, and the way we portray ourselves to the outside world.

Mike 17:32

Amazing.

Suban 17:32

Yeah, so it's it's not a business, it's a a movement of minds and hearts and people. I'm gonna leave it at that if I get too emotional.

Mike 17:46

Great, couple more things. Um, a myth you that you would like to kill. Ooh. No, I'm not gonna answer that today. I will. Okay. I think everything's you know, the best practices that work in other parts of the world should be applied here. Same kind of systems. Oh, we'll bring Oracle systems, we'll bring, you know, health systems. Well, yeah, not true. But we have different challenges. The future here does not need to be Western, it can be uniquely African.

Suban 18:15

Look at Safaricom. Look at how amazing Safaricom is, and it was set up because it's unique to us.

Mike 18:23

It solved a problem.

Closing Thoughts—Reclaiming Narrative, Story, and Agency

Suban 18:25

It solved the problem, right? And man, I miss those innovators. That's what we need to get back. Yeah. Right? All these digital transformation reform systems and stuff coming in, they don't work for us, they're not meant for us. You're right, we have different problems. But who will say that out loud? We won't say that out loud because we won the money. Right? It all comes down to I want that aid, humanitarian money.

Mike 18:52

Yeah. And we're we're not comfortable, but we look to a very specific route you know, of handouts of you know, just a few key investors to try and solve the problems, and we panic now and it goes away. But actually, maybe the panic subsided now. You know, you saw the the pull-out of USAID and so many projects that were helping in in East Africa, all the way through Africa, and the that panic seems to have subsided now. Now we need to work out our own ways of generating money to and not just go, we'll borrow from someone else.

Suban 19:23

We need to start borrowing. This is why I'm happy with Donald Trump. I support Donald Trump. Get out, go go fix your stuff, leave me to my life.

Mike 19:33

Yeah. But he has come back in direct to the governments and is handing out money. So, you know, it all he's done is going, I'm not gonna go through a fat, you know, bureaucratic organization.

Suban 19:45

Again, you know what it is, and I'm going to say this very bluntly today. We need new leaders in Africa. That's it. Our only problem we have is our leaders. Is the old man who sits at the throne, who doesn't want to leave, who only thinks about making international wealth for himself. I'm so sorry. I I think you guys need to go.

Mike 20:09

That's our problem. Change is gonna cost a lot of relationships. It's gonna have to. Things have to change for things to change. And do you want to become part of it? Or and Talla, we want to lead it.

Suban 20:23

We want to lead it.

Mike 20:24

We want to stimulate conversations, we want to deliver solutions that help with that. You know, I want to shake things up a little bit. You know, I chat to people about, you know, here's your current education plan, or here's your current solution for this. And they're going, okay, what about these? And they go, that's a bit uncomfortable. Going, we have to change. And I yeah, we're gonna have tough conversations with organizations, with businesses, with leaders, with governments.

Suban 20:47

Um we have American foundations who come in, who give us money to to do a strategy without a policy.

Mike 20:54

Yeah. And because they want to write our policies, they want to write the policies.

Suban 20:59

Why?

Mike 21:01

Again, it comes down to it serves them. It serves them to control systems. Anyway, yeah.

Suban 21:07

Thank you. This was great.

Mike 21:08

That was really interesting. Thank you. Yeah. One thing you're gonna leave us on today. What's what's going on for your weekend?

Suban 21:14

Oh, that.

Mike 21:15

Yeah.

Suban 21:16

Um polo everyone, see your polo.

Mike 21:18

Okay, great. Thank you for that. What value uh I'm gonna have motorcycle again.