Special Topics • Partnership Between Africa & Japan • 5Interview with Nico de Wet from South Africa working at the Global Business Division of
SoftBank Corp’s Enterprise UnitB

ridging Africa & Japan –Entrepreneurial Engagement
for a Young African

By Japan SPOTLIGHT
Nico de Wet, a young South African, talks about his experience of the ABE Initiative, the “African
Business Education Initiative for Youth”, one of the most important outcomes of the TICAD process so far.
He also talks about the NGO initiative “Kakehashi Africa” (Bridge of Africa), an important offspring of the
ABE Initiative. He works for SoftBank, a major Japanese telecommunications company that started as aventure, and is learning entrepreneurship from them.
(Interviewed on July 12, 2019)

Introduction
JS: How did you become interested

in Japan, and why did you decideto stay working in Japan for
SoftBank?

The ABE Initiative &“Kakehashi Africa”
JS: What do you think about theABE Initiative? Is your assessment
mainly positive?

Nico: I am from South Africa, and before
Nico: From my perspective, it was a very
I came to Japan I studied philosophy and law
good return on my own investment because
at Stellenbosch University, which is locatedI ended up working for a very good company.
close to Cape Town, and worked for nearly
The mission of the ABE Initiative is to enable
five years for a group of companies
the creation of partnerships between
specialized in space engineering, GIS
Japanese and Africans, and in terms of thatapplications and other technologies. I worked
mission, in my personal case, I havein a team that was specifically involved inaccomplished that by being employed byusing technology to help NGOs be more
SoftBank, who have given me the mandate toeffective. Then I came to Japan under the ABE
penetrate the African market. So for me, theNico de Wet
Initiative, spending two years at Ritsumeikan
outcome was very good. In addition to
University in Kyoto, where I studied
employment by SoftBank, during the ABEinternational relations, followed by a six-month internship at
Initiative and all the events created by the Japan International
SoftBank Corp. The reason for joining the ABE Initiative was because
Cooperation Agency (JICA), I managed to meet a lot of Japanese
I felt that Africa and Asia would become very important continents incompanies and build a very good network. This helped me create athe future, due to population and economic growth. At the same timevery good foundation for my future mission of building bridges
there are not many people that can be a bridge between the two
between Africa and Japan.
markets, so I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to
specialize in that space. Two and a half years of the ABE Initiative
JS: Kakehashi Africa is one of the NGOs acting insounds like a long time but it was not enough to build a deep
making bridges between Africa and Japan, and it
understanding of how Japan works, so that’s why I decided to stayconsists of alumni of the ABE Initiative. Could you
longer in Japan. I was very fortunate to join a Japanese company
briefly explain about Kakehashi Africa?
that has a large appetite to change the world and has a lot of
resources that can be used to satisfy that appetite. It also gives me a
Nico: Obviously, during the two to three years of the ABE Initiative
good opportunity to deepen my knowledge of Japan and to continue
program, each ABE participant has a great opportunity to build abuilding my networks in Asia.
great network and gain lots of knowledge, but if this is not followed
up by a platform to make sure that the relationships that were built
actually reach some kind of concrete result, then the return on
https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/

Japan SPOTLIGHT • September / October 201943

Special Topics 5

investment will never happen for the ABE Initiative. So the mission of
Kakehashi Africa is to kind of continue the mission of the ABE
Initiative even after it finishes by creating a platform that allows ABE
participants and Japanese to continue their engagement. This is thereason why we created Kakehashi Africa: to continue the momentumof the ABE Initiative towards and beyond the point of making ameaningful impact for all stakeholders. We also felt that Japan has
already done so much – the Japanese taxpayer has paid so much bybringing us here and giving us this education, internship andnetworking opportunities. So Kakehashi Africa is an initiative by us
Africans, as it is our turn to take co-ownership and contributeproactively to this mission of the ABE Initiative.
In terms of what we do practically, currently Kakehashi Africa isfocusing on building a formal member network where ABE
participants and alumni, Japanese companies, NGOs, governments
or anyone can become a member of the network and then they canhave access to two platforms: a virtual online platform for knowledge
exchange, sharing opportunities, requesting employment, funding,teams or skills – so a kind of a business intelligence and matching
platform – and also a physical platform in the form of branch
activities. We are creating branches across African markets, but alsoin Japan, where people can attend networking events, workshops or
have business tours. So basically we want to develop Kakehashi
Africa into an enabling platform to continue the idea of bringing
Japanese and Africans together to do real business.
Currently, since we are still in the early development stages of theplatform and need to get a few more things in place, we have limited
the membership to ABE participants. We have about 500 ABE
participants who have indicated their interest to be involved; morethan 250 of them have formally registered and this number isincreasing week by week. We have a board of directors, elected byour members, who have appointed me to lead the executive
management. We have a lot of challenges, because all of us are
doing this during our spare time as we have day jobs; neverthelessslowly but steadily we are getting things in place.
JS: How about your budget?
Nico: We don’t have a budget at the moment. Recently, we legally
registered the organization in Kenya and the expenses of registering
the entity were covered out of our personal pockets. The Japan
International Cooperation Center (JICE) – which has been contracted
by JICA to help manage the ABE Initiative – has often supported ourtransportation and accommodation costs whenever we had major
events or meetings. So, our first mission is to create a basic revenue
stream. We want to do this by creating a way for people to pay a fee
when they become a member of our network.
JS: Your members have mostly been working forJapanese companies. Are they successful in building
up links between Japan and Africa?

Nico: The majority of ABE participants go back to Africa so only a
few remain in Japan working for Japanese companies. I think there
is some concern among those who return about what to do next. To
44 Japan SPOTLIGHT • September / October 2019address that concern, I think that Kakehashi Africa can really help tocontinue creating opportunities for those who have returned to dosome real business or projects with Japanese entities. It’s a big
challenge but we are committed to addressing it.

View of TICAD
JS: Moving to TICAD, the ABE Initiative must be one of

the important products of the TICAD process. How
do you assess what TICAD has achieved so far?

Nico: My only exposure to TICAD is the ABE Initiative so I can’t talkmore broadly about what has come from TICAD. I think that the ABE
Initiative is a great program for contributing to the development ofAfrica while at the same time creating opportunities for Japanesecompanies to expand their business. However, since the focus of the
ABE Initiative is human capacity development and relationshipdevelopment, the results of the program will not happen overnight,
so I think we will need to give it some more time to see the fruits of
the ABE Initiative. There have been some small successes, such as
people like me who joined Japanese companies to help them expand
into Africa or people who have created new enterprises inpartnership with Japanese, but to have the scale of successnecessary to tell the Japanese taxpayer that this program was a goodinvestment we will need to give it more time and seriously follow up
the ABE Initiative with something like Kakehashi Africa. The real
success will be determined and achieved by what we do next after
the program.
JS: How about TICAD VII in Yokohama this year? Do

you have any particular expectations?

Nico: It is now our turn as Africans to contribute to the success of
the ABE Initiative, but it would be very helpful if the Japanese
government and private sector could continue to commit theirsupport and particularly help us to follow up the program andactively participate in the projects that we may organize for that
purpose. The ABE Initiative has created all these relationshipnetworks and ideas for business partnerships, but now we needother resources, such as venture capital, to invest in these ideas andmake them happen. So if there could be some kind of investment
fund that could help lower the risk for Japanese companies to enter
into partnerships with ABE Initiative alumni, this could be very
helpful. Furthermore, another type of ABE Initiative program could
also be good, perhaps one that is focused on technical skills
development – practical skills that could make an immediate impact.
JS: How do you think Japanese businesses could

contribute to African economic development? The
bottom-up pyramid approach would be an effective
way to achieve economic development, but there
may be other ways.

Nico: The answer to this question depends on the industry. Generally
speaking, the challenge for Japanese companies is that there is a lot

Special Topics 5of competition with emerging economies and specifically other Asian
players who are offering a cheaper price on products and who thesedays are even increasingly providing high-quality products. So
Japanese companies will have to be very creative and strategic in
their thinking. One benefit they have is that because they are from alarge and highly developed economy they are very cash rich; they
could become very good investment partners. Secondly, Japanesecompanies still have a very good reputation in the world. They are
respected and trusted. Other foreign players in Africa do not havethat brand of trust, so if Japanese firms can leverage these things totheir advantage, it could help. A company like SoftBank, for example,
is very good at making investments and building partnerships, andhelping develop ecosystems around a certain industry. Instead ofcompeting, if Japanese companies could invest in the enterprises ofother players or facilitate the building of partnerships based oncommon values, it could be an interesting approach. Generally
speaking, Japanese companies are not geared towards the “bottomof the pyramid” as their products are very high quality andsomewhat pricey, and most African countries do not have enoughpeople in the higher ends of the market who could appreciate andafford those products yet. So Japanese companies are going to haveto think differently, perhaps acting as a facilitator or partner in orderto target the majority of Africans.

Digitalization in Africa
JS: I understand you are working on a digitalbusiness. Digitalization is spreading all over theworld, and in particular in Africa there is a lot ofprogress. How do you assess the future of digitalbusiness in Africa? Is it limited to startup
businesses?

Nico: No industry can escape digital business/technology thesedays, and this will increasingly become the case. If we as Africans do
not create technological or digital solutions or adopt these solutions,
we will lose out. The gap between us and the rest of the world will
simply become wider. However, Africans have a good appetite forusing tech, and mobile penetration is moving very fast, evencompared to the rest of the world. Mobile wallets such as M-Pesa inEast Africa, for example, show how eager Africans are to use digitalsolutions. There are many challenges that prevent Africans fromusing more digital solutions: tech infrastructure, especially telecoms
infrastructure, is an issue, as are the political and businessenvironments in terms of regulation and corruption. Some of thesethings could perhaps be leap-frogged or disrupted with newtechnology. However, education cannot be so easily leap-frogged.
We cannot escape the hard work over a long period necessary toensure that you have people with the right skills and mindset. Frankly
speaking, Africa has the worst education systems in the world andthis is preventing digital business from taking off properly. For acompany like SoftBank – and I think this should maybe be the casefor other Japanese companies as well – the correct approach would
be to focus on building local partnerships, investing in local capacity
development and making capital available for local people in a

supportive role. This would really help Africans to reap the benefits
from the digital economy. It is not going to be easy; there is a lot of
potential but a lot of challenges that need to be kept in mind.
JS: In the case of the digital economy, open

innovation might be very important. Do you think that
SoftBank could contribute to more innovation in yourcountry?

Nico: SoftBank wants to be the player that makes the biggest impact
in an industry. If we are talking about agriculture, they want to lookat the whole ecosystem and be the platform underpinning that
ecosystem. SoftBank can make a huge contribution to help develop
the necessary technology infrastructure and make sure that the rightplayers are in the value chain and that the right players are supported
to enable value creation. Creating an open innovation platform isdefinitely good, but Africans need to be equipped with the right skills,
knowledge and capital to really leverage this opportunity. African
governments will also have to take ownership. Once again, education
is an important key – if we don’t have education the rest will not fall
into place, or foreigners will just come to Africa, capitalize on all theopportunities and reinvest most of the profit in their own or otherregions. If we want to enable Africans to become wealthy and be able
to contribute to the world with their own solutions, we need to makesure that they have the necessary skills and mindset to do that. For
that we need solid education.
The ABE Initiative is only one part of the bigger solution to the
problem of education or human resource development, so we needto look beyond it. The ABE Initiative is the right approach however,and I really want to compliment Japan for it.
In terms of other anticipated outcomes of the upcoming TICAD
VII, in addition to human resource development programs that bringpeople to universities, there is perhaps also a need to focus ontechnical or practical skills development, like giving Africans
apprenticeships in factories, that may translate into immediate
practical benefits. A follow-up to the ABE Initiative that further
supports the skills development of alumni may also be helpful. For
example, every year or more frequently, Japanese agencies like JICA
could facilitate seminars or workshops in African countries to which
ABE Initiative alumni are invited. The Japanese government is
actually already supporting African governments through a wide
range of activities to make an impact on the systemic challenges of
education. However, Japan cannot make the necessary impact alone
and needs to collaborate with the whole global community who areinterested and involved in solving the challenges of education in
Africa.

Prospects for South Africa
JS: South Africa seems to have a lot of growthpotential. What is your view of its growth potential?
Perhaps in two or three decades its economy will bebigger than Japan’s.

Japan SPOTLIGHT • September / October 201945

Special Topics 5

Nico: I like that idea! I don’t know if it will happen though. South
Africa’s current economic growth is nearly zero, and we had somequarters recently when we were technically in a recession. However,South Africa does indeed have tremendous potential because wehave the best infrastructure on the continent. There are hugeinequalities in South Africa, but the people who have skills have very
good skills. Our large companies, like those listed on the stock
exchange, are of global standard. South Africa has so much potential
and we are geographically positioned in a region of emerging
markets full of potential, so we really have the opportunity not toonly leverage our own resources but those of the whole continentand really be a leader for Africa. We can be a regional leader that
does things differently from the heavyweights in other regions in theworld by truly creating shared value for the whole region rather than
exploiting our neighbors primarily to our own benefit.
The problem is that we are our own worst enemy. We have a lot ofinternal issues that are a result of our past. We have gone through astage over the past decade under the previous administration where
we have not made progress and in fact have gone backwards. This isvery unfortunate, but with the new current government andleadership I think there is a lot of new hope. I have a lot of faith in the
new government and we are making slow but steady progressheading in the right direction. All we need to do is to maintain thismomentum. There are still a lot of risks and challenges and it will bevery difficult, but we are moving in the right direction. In a few
decades, maybe we can be an important player even if we are not as
big as Japan!
JS: When Africa hosted the World Cup in 2010 there

were serious concerns about security. Has the
security situation improved?

Nico: I believe there have been some small improvements tosecurity, but the overall picture is still not that good. However, one
needs to maintain perspective on this. I lived for a very long time inSouth Africa and have never experienced any serious incidents –nothing more serious than what you may typically encounter in the
United States or Europe. It really depends on where inside cities yougo, and as long as you follow common sense, you should be fine. So
I don’t think it presents a serious obstacle to doing business andshould not stop us from moving forward.
JS: So mitigating the security risk might lead to more

foreign investment?

Nico: If there is more direct investment and economic opportunities,
our security situation will be alleviated, so it goes both ways. But wedo need to take the issue of security very seriously and I think South
Africans are doing their best to alleviate the security challenges.

Nico: In terms of the long working hours, I often also worked longhours in South Africa before coming to Japan. So, I think the work
hours may not be that different to many South African companies.
However, Japanese do certain things very differently. For example,
the way decisions are made and the way people act are very different
from what I am used to in South Africa. I have learned a lot about
humility, to really consider others, and about consensus in decisionmaking. Also to do things systematically by focusing on small
details. I have respect for this working culture and have developed anadmiration for it. There are challenges: for example, you don’t always
move as fast as may be necessary, but if you are open-minded about
the challenges then it does not present a problem. I am always
discovering new aspects to Japanese culture. The culture is very
deep and sophisticated. It is a very interesting experience for a
foreigner like me to be part of a journey to understanding it better.
JS: In particular, corporate culture is hierarchical andrequires a lot of consideration of others.

Nico: Maybe I am not a good example because SoftBank is not sucha traditional company, and moreover I am in the global businessdivision which perhaps has a different business culture from the restof the company. There is a lot of space there for you to take theinitiative and not follow the hierarchy. My bosses are very openminded people so I am not really experiencing hierarchy. I think wehave a very healthy culture at my company. However, because you
always have to accommodate people instead of going it alone, youhave to slow down sometimes; but this teaches you humanity and toreally consider others, which I see as a good quality. Of course,
I benefit from this practically as well, when others in the company
have to slow down to accommodate me.

Future Plans
JS: What are your future plans for continuing to be abridge between Africa and Japan?

Nico: I would like to establish an office for SoftBank in Africa, and as
its mission I would like it to become the best facilitator ofpartnerships between Japanese, other foreign companies and local
African companies – partnerships that create real solutions that willaddress the real needs of Africans. But also to enable partnerships
between African and Japanese companies or other companies thatcan be taken to the rest of the world. We need to create opportunities
for Africans to generate their own wealth, and a part of doing that is
opening up markets around the world for Africans – throughpartnerships, this can be achieved. I hope to facilitate such good
partnerships between Africans and the global community.

Views on Japanese Culture & Business Life
JS: How do you find working in a Japanese company?

The culture must be very different.

46 Japan SPOTLIGHT • September / October 2019

Written with the cooperation of Joel Challender, who is a translator,
interpreter, researcher and writer specializing in Japanese disaster preparedness.