CAPE TOWN - Sagarmatha Technologies, under the leadership of investor guru Paul Lamontagne, is the first company to present a sharp vision of world-class technology platforms for Africans.
Lamontagne has recently been appointed as the chief executive of Sagarmatha Technologies, an integrated multinational technology platform group, with ambitions to open offices on the continent in three other regions over the next twelve to twenty months.
“Africa is the next global growth story and technology is the enabler for the African economic growth in the next century. The time is now to invest in Africa, the continent needs a company like Sagarmatha, offering a fully integrated value proposition for consumer and business audiences,” Lamontagne said in an exclusive interview with Business Report (BR).
Africa will have the largest young population in the world in absolute terms; by 2035 Africa will have more than half of the world’s under-35 working age population.
Sagarmatha successfully pioneered and partnered with associate and group companies to develop propriety software technologies, maximising the platform effect and enabling the group to optimise the opportunities presented through the Fourth Industrial Revolution, especially in emerging markets with a special focus on Africa.
Lamontagne revealed to BR that Sagarmatha, through its associate and group companies, has its own software, data engineers and capability, and content management services, supporting the vision of the group to offer Africans their own customised solutions.
Africa’s economy is expected to grow to at least $5 trillion (R68.14 trln) by 2030, presenting massive opportunities in both business and consumer markets.
Online subscription and transactional revenue models have started to mature globally and according to Lamontagne “Africa is at a tipping point with an expected explosion in
online spending just around the corner”.
Emphasising that data is the new oil, Lamontagne stressed: “Sagarmatha’s technology allows data to be used for fast and efficient monetisation in the e-commerce space”.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is an unprecedented opportunity for Africans to embrace and fully participate in the technology metamorphosis to create Africa’s own digital future and assist the African people to move from low to moderate prosperity, and better living standards”.
Solutions for Africa
Sagarmatha Technologies business solutions include B2B content distribution, B2C applications, enterprise technology solutions such as data storage, cloud computing and digital automation, and a propriety digital video and entertainment platform.
Other areas of focus are in fintech, healthtech, edutech, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented virtual reality.
Sagarmatha’s business offering enables African entrepreneurs to have access to global business and consumer markets, to develop their own disruptive business models and new jobs will be created.
Africans will soon be enabled to make a quantum leap thanks to technology and be able to do business in Africa and globally at a reduced cost.
“Sagarmatha’s business model is agile, scalable, integrated and able to drive the marginal cost trend of the integrated businesses towards zero, using our platform. Through international partnerships we are confident that Sagarmatha’s global audience reach will exceed more than one billion people and companies by 2020”, said Lamontagne.
Sagarmatha represents the new Africa, a company which is proudly South African, and infused with African talent. Its propriety developed platforms and technologies will allow Sagarmatha to dominate its markets and compete with the tech giants across the globe.
“Silicon Africa is part of Sagarmatha’s strategy to take Africa to the world and bring the world to Africa through our platforms. The speed of innovation in terms of development
and diffusion is faster than ever.
Silicon Africa
“Today’s disruptors such as Airbnb in the hospitality industry, Uber and Didi Chuxing in the transportation arena, Alibaba and Amazon in the e-commerce and Facebook and YouTube in the social media space, and Google, are now household names that were relatively unknown just a few
years ago”, Lamontagne said.
So true. Some facts to strengthen this visionary leader’s statement is the ubiquitous IPhone, the world’s first smart phone, that was launched in 2007 – at the end of 2016 there were more than two billion smart phones.
Or Google when it announced its first fully autonomous car; Elon Musk’s electric cars, and Tesla’s improved battery storage systems, with the world’s largest solar powered battery storage plant in Australia.
Professor Klaus Schwab, the founder and chairperson of the World Economic Forum, defines revolution when “abrupt and radical change, new technologies and novel ways or perceiving the world trigger a profound change in economic systems and social structures”.
Sagarmatha’s objective is to leverage technology to create platforms that connect Africans to each other and the world.
Lamontagne’s Africa First vision to become the dominant platform player on the continent consists of a partnership approach, a commitment to strengthen its distribution platforms, a determination to build a broad products and technology offering for both the consumer and business markets, and to arm African entrepreneurs with the information, the content and the technology tools “to make choices and fully access opportunities of the digital economy”. Sagarmatha is for Africa, by Africans.
Adri Senekal De Wet is Executive Editor of Business Report.