Catching Up with Babusi Nyoni
Tech entrepreneur, innovator, designer, app developer and music producer, Babusi Nyoni is building tools for Africa and, in the process, making AI more accessible and relevant. We caught up with the mastermind.
Where in the world are you right now?
I’m in Amsterdam.
What are you reading, watching and listening to currently?
I’m listening to “Masters of Songs” from Kiing Bhutie’s upcoming EP, Poison, and I am reading Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, a book that is teaching me a lot about the power of negotiation.
What are you wearing right now?
I’m wearing Botoxclubstudio, a Dutch fashion brand helmed by Richard Soesanna.
Who or what inspires you at the moment?
Right now, I’m honestly richly and deeply inspired by myself. I’m motivated by my potential and I look forward to the amazing things to come in the next five years.
Tell us about Sila Health…
I started Sila Health in 2019 after realising the opportunities for technologies such as artificial intelligence to bridge the gap created by institutional voids in public healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa. To date, more than a million messages have been exchanged between our chatbot and users in more than 50 countries and we’ve recently raised funding to expand our business into new markets. I’ve just returned from Nigeria and Ghana where we are opening a country office to serve our customers in West Africa, and we’re going to focus extensively on that in the coming year.
On that note, can you share a bit more about the other apps you’ve been involved in creating?
I created SafePace in 2019, while living in Cape Town, to help vulnerable people move around South Africa more safely. I did this by utilising crime data and a custom contact crime formula to discreetly give people an indication of safety levels as they move between spaces. Also in 2019, after building the Vosho Fo’sho dance app (a vision-enabled web app rating the then-popular “Vosho” dance move), I used the technology to build Patana AI, the first computer vision-enabled application assisting in the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. In 2020 I created Blackgirlhair.js, the first machine learning model that can accurately identify black girl hairstyles in a web browser. I imagined and built all of these things through my creative agency, Tripleblack.
What’s the story behind Tripleblack Agency and what does your role entail?
I started Tripleblack Agency in order to create beautiful things using emerging technology to centre people in the global South. I did this after spending close to a decade working in advertising and unsuccessfully trying to create cool digital things due to a widening skills and trend-awareness gap between myself and the creative leads I worked under. I figured I didn’t need a client or a creative director to make dope tech things and I guess I was right. I describe my role as the Head Honcho because I really hop across responsibilities, from tech to art direction to strategy, and everything in between. As a part of Dutch Design Week, we recently co-hosted a hybrid event with MU Hybrid Art House, affect lab and The Hmm using a metaverse platform that Tripleblack Agency built, which enables people in the physical reality to connect with those in the virtual realm as part of Dutch Design Week 2022 so we’re still coming down from that W.
You also recently released your first musical project. How did you get into music production and what’s next?
I learnt music production in 2006 through a high school friend (ja, I’m that old), who taught me how to use production software and how to make a basic beat, and since then I have been producing on and off. I recently picked it up again in the summer of 2020 in order to try my hand at making my favourite genre of music, Gqom, and explore how to propel it forward in the context of constantly shifting global music taste. Right now I’m managing an artist and working on a follow up to my debut EP, Gqom Today, which will see me merge Gqom with contemporary genres from the African diaspora and beyond.
You often have ideas that are completely outside the box yet practical, with an emphasis on helping people. What comes first for you: an idea that leads to helping others or the necessity to have an idea to help others? Essentially what’s your process?
I create in a vacuum. That’s the most important part of my process. Most of my peers work and create in community and that works out really well for them. I’ve just found that creating from ego allows me to create things that go against the grain of what’s perceived to be possible and enables me to truly make the “new” over and over again.
You’re well-travelled! What are your favourite cities and what do you like about them?
My favourite city in the world so far is Barcelona. Between Gaudí’s organic, almost-surreal architecture, the incredible food and the warm secret beaches along the Balearic Sea, what’s not to love?
What are your hopes, aspirations and dreams for the next 5-10 years?
To truly change the world, for the better.
