 Live from Washington D.C., it's CUBE Conversations with John Furrier. Hello everyone, welcome to a special On the Ground here with theCUBE in Washington D.C. I'm John Furrier, the co-host of theCUBE and co-founder of SiliconANGLES. We explore the disruption in Washington D.C. with cloud computing and all the hot stories. We're here with Timothy Cohten who's the founder of Superfluid Labs. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks so much. So you guys do some pretty disruptive stuff. Obviously societal change and ventures for good. Social change is a big part of the stories we're covering. You're in the middle of it here at PeaceTech Accelerator. We're here at the United States Peace Institute. What's your story? Thanks for having me. Superfluid Labs, my organization, is a data analytics firm working in Africa. And what we do is we help small businesses to unlock their potential using the power of data. For some organizations, this means being able to deliver essential services to millions more people. So for some organizations, it means increasing revenues. And for some organizations, it means understanding opportunities for greater efficiency and productivity. You know, PeaceTech Labs and PeaceTech Accelerator is part of this global movement where people want to apply AI for good, data for good. In some cases, good is just business, right? Yeah. Economists, economies are thriving with big data in the cloud. You guys are using the cloud to bring new business models to Africa to start. You're going to land and expand and take over the world. What's the key thing for you? Great. Thanks. So the key thing for us is really that in the last few years, there's been an explosion in data globally. 90% of the data in the world was created in just the last two years. And this presents a huge opportunity to unlock impacts for businesses. And so some of the clients I've worked with, for example, one of our clients is providing off-grid solar systems for households in Sub-Saharan Africa. And the innovation, the key innovation behind this model is the ability to deliver energy access as a service where individuals pay on a pay-as-you-go basis. It's interesting, you know, helping society is not just donating money, but enabling entrepreneurs to be successful. You're an entrepreneur. You're here at the accelerator. What do you, how do you get off the ground? I mean, that's great about the cloud is you don't need to provision all these servers. You're using the cloud. How are you guys going from a zero-stage start to getting into market? What's what technology are you using? What strategies are you deploying? Excellent. I think innovations, such as the cloud, have really been essential to our business model. A decade ago, we would have been impossible to launch the business similar to ours. So we use several cloud providers. Obviously, Amazon Web Services is one of them, and many others. And what these services have allowed us to do is, they've allowed us to focus on the innovation that we are delivering, the solutions that we are delivering, and less on infrastructural provisions, and worrying about power outages, networking, and all of that. In Africa, what's the conditions there? I mean, obviously, mobile is everywhere, but there's no telephone lines. You've got mobile RF flying all over the world. Mobile is huge in Africa. I'm going to tell you an interesting start. In the next three years, there are going to be an additional 300 million smartphones in Sub-Saharan Africa. That's more than the population of the US in just the next three years. Huge growth market. Huge growth market. How are businesses adapting? Because this is where you're taking your angle, right? Using data, and how does that connect to the proliferation of phones and how do business folks use it? Is that where you want to target in terms of your solution? Excellent question. So the most innovative businesses that we have seen have taken advantage of access to mobile phones to develop innovative business models. So we have banks, for example, in Kenya, that have developed mobile-only lending and savings products, and they've expanded from 40,000 customers in 2012 to over 20 million customers at the end of last year. What's the ecosystem like in Africa, and what's the entrepreneurial crossover when you go outside the borders of Africa? Obviously, in other continents, other economies. How is it all working together? Is it Bitcoin? Is it blockchain? Is it just a standard cloud? How is the emerging landscape in tech impacting the emerging growth in, say, Africa? It's really phenomenal. And what is most exciting, especially for me, given my experience both in the US and in the West and also in Africa, is that a lot of the cutting-edge technologies, whether that is AI or cryptocurrency or blockchain, is actually being used to good effect. It's actually being used to deliver essential services in Africa, and you'd be shocked. I was telling someone the other day that when you talk about payments, money transfer, innovation, Africa is really the hotbed for this. So you see crypto and blockchain hot in Africa right now? It is, and it's actually being applied in many other use cases beyond payments. So you have some companies that are innovating in land title administration, using that for glove tech and many other use cases. Great for property, great for store of value. Exactly. Talk about your journey here at the Peace Tech Accelerator. How is that working? Obviously, they're helping you guys, but they're providing a lot of services. Tell us about what those guys are doing. Great. So the time here, this is the third week. This is actually the third week of our time here. I mean, it's really been very, very, very interesting. And we've been exposed to mentors who have generously given their time to come and share their experience as either previous or experienced entrepreneurs or executives that run large corporations. And there's mentoring sessions. We're exposed to investors. We're exposed to a cohort of other similarly-minded entrepreneurs. That's great to get you accelerated. I got to ask you a question. As the entrepreneur, you're always seeking for, you know, most entrepreneurs are always seeking for that data edge, you know, try to understand the market forces, all that good stuff. What have you learned here at the Peace Tech Accelerator? What was that something that you, you said, wow, that's something I never would have got? Very interesting. So one of the things that has really stood out during my time here is really the emphasis on the fact that business, delivering great business or delivering business for good can cut across multiple sectors, even for for profit businesses like mine. And I think that has been very reassuring to know that there's a growing recognition globally around the impact and the social good that businesses can deliver. Since you're using mobile as your backbone for your connectivity, how is the internet of things or IoT and AI going to be part of your plan? You see that consuming most of your IP and commercial property? Very much so. So given the stats I gave earlier on around the growth and explosive growth of data and explosive growth of mobile access, that is going to be essential to our IP and our patents. And we think that's what really give us the edge in this market. Great, final question for you. Does DC get this? I mean, DC certainly is trying to be more global. You're also here in DC an accelerator, what's your assessment of the Washington DC culture here? I think DC really gets it. I mean, I think DC is really the hub of a lot of international development and international outreach by the US government and many other international organizations. So my being here is actually evidence of the fact that DC gets it. And originally from Ghana and from Africa and we have other members of our cohorts who are flying in from all over the world. And so that's the true evidence. How's the cloud impacting you? Honestly, it's helping you to bring that innovation. What kind of edge do you bring with cloud computing? It's providing speed, it's providing cost-effectiveness and it's also providing scalability, rapid scalability. All right. I'm John Furrier here on the ground in Washington DC where all the innovations happening here in the United States Peace Institute. We're here with Peace Tech Accelerator. Obviously great stuff happening. Entrepreneurship in social sectors are really happening. AI is a big part of that. IoT, cloud, all the trends are helping out a new generation of startups. Thanks for watching. Thanks.