International Women’s Day

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With a background in finance, marketing and events and a digital poetry album just short of one million streams globally, Mo Malele is a multifaceted woman with seemingly paradoxical passions. But, she says standing at the intersection of the arts and technology has taught her that intersectionality matters. “Nothing can be viewed in isolation,” she says. “The world is far too complex and far too connected for that, and even the different roles I play in different situations cannot be viewed in isolation of each other.” 

Malele is the CEO and co-founder of Shopapolitan, a tech start-up with an ambitious goal: to digitalise informal economies across Africa by making innovative e-commerce technology affordable and accessible to informal traders, and to build the leading Afrocentric e-commerce platform globally. “In doing so, we are creating a platform that will serve African merchants and enable access to new markets, while customers across the globe can explore a world of unique, Afrocentric wonders.” 

Her belief in the interconnectedness of it all and the importance of approaching humans as multifaceted, layered beings plays an important part in how she shows up as an entrepreneur and as a business leader. She realised early in her journey with Shopapolitan that gender inequality, the poverty gap and the digital divide cannot be treated as unrelated or separate, and that a solution that narrows one gap will likely impact all. 

Intersectional and connected

She says the women in the communities that Shopapolitan operates in cannot be viewed through a single lens; they are women with all the associated social and economic vulnerabilities that comes with that, but they are also caregivers, mothers, creatives and entrepreneurs who wear different hats and operate in a number of different contexts. “That’s what intersectionality is at the end of the day,” she explains. “We are layered and complex humans, and our identities, experience and overall truth are influenced by a number of sub-identities that contribute to who we are as whole people.” 

It’s in understanding how these identities play out where the overlaps of gender, poverty and digital and financial literacy come into play, and it’s in addressing this intersectionality where the sweet spot for solutions-driven engagement lies. “Because they are so interconnected, a solution that addresses one of these problems can improve the others.”

But, she cautions, for the same reason this can also work in the opposite direction: “Technology can be a double-edged sword, and with every advancement and every change, we need to ensure that we are not leaving more people behind. The Covid pandemic showed us that technology genuinely has the ability to improve lives, but the further it advances, the more inaccessible it gets to those who really need to see the incremental effects of those changes in their lives.”

Adding value through a person-centred lens

This, she says, is why it is vital to never forget the human in the technology, or the human position in the value chain: “This is especially true in Africa; we are a continent that is largely a labour market, where technology is something everyone is scared of, including our governments. People often equate technology and the use of technology with the loss of jobs. But there will always be a need for human creativity, human learning, human input, human adaptability, human-ness in everything that we do. 

“Technology might change the work, but it doesn’t change the fact that we have a role in the work that needs to be done. Especially in the era of AI and machine learning, we cannot deny that there  still needs to be a human at some point in our considerations, the value chain and in what the technology is going to deliver.” 

She believes that when the focus is on human value, AI can be a powerful tool. “We are currently working on using AI to automate the processes in identifying merchants and vetting them according to our structures, to onboard them, and incorporate and leverage data to connect buyers and sellers; ultimately, we aim to leverage AI as a job creation tool,” she says.  

Also of critical importance is the element of language. “South Africa is particularly complex, in that we have 11 official languages, and Africa as a continent is extremely diverse,” she says. “Even countries that only have one or two official languages, there may be 50 indigenous languages or dialects, and this complicates communication and trade.” This is one of the areas where she believes AI can be leveraged. “We hope to be able to incorporate it into our platform to translate the services into all our official languages, and those beyond our borders. That is one of its capabilities that blows my mind.” 

Access is not enough

Shopapolitan supports and empowers women-owned and female-led businesses through its e-commerce platform, but, as Malele points out, it is not enough to simply grant access. “Everyone ‘can access’  the internet because the internet is there to be accessed,” she says. The internet is not a closed system with specific criteria for exclusion. “The fact is that the barriers to access come from lack of knowledge, and of education, infrastructure and devices; even just the cost of data is limiting. We need to stop this blanket approach of talking about access, and start talking about meaningful access.” 

And that, she says, is at the core of Shopapolitan: “When we talk about gender equality and empowering the women who make up the majority of our users, we understand the realities, challenges and nuances that working women face. We understand that they have responsibilities within the existing ecosystems of their households, their families and their communities, and these are responsibilities that need to be honoured while growing and sustaining a business. This is so often overlooked; the way you engage with people and their contexts within your commercial ecosystem can be an empowering or disempowering mechanism in its own right.” 

Bridging one gap narrows others

The challenges that women face as informal traders or township entrepreneurs must also be taken into consideration. “The three main challenges that our merchants face when leveraging technology for the betterment of their lives are: a lack of education about technology, technological solutions and how to implement them in business operations; the next is a lack of infrastructure and devices to support this implementation; and the last one is capital outlay, because at the end of the day it actually costs money to get online and run a digital or e-commerce presence.” 

As with all things, she says, these issues are connected: “We set out with helping to bridge the digital divide in mind, but know that if we alleviate infrastructure challenges, address education and knowledge gaps and aid in investment capital, it not just the digital divide that shrinks; gender inequality is lessened and the poverty gap begins to close too. Where we increase digital access, we aid education and empowerment beyond just the commercial ecosystem. When we equip women with digital literacy and digital tools, we’re able to impact society at a much faster rate and on a much larger scale than we can even imagine.”

This responsibility, she says, rests on everyone. “ Unemployment is everyone’s problem; it impacts the employed as well as the unemployed, and until we can all pull together to address the factors that lead to unemployment and the resulting poverty, we will all continue to be impacted by the effects.” 

Intentional action for a better tomorrow

The focus should be on creating jobs: “One way to do that is by supporting local businesses and contributing towards an environment that is conducive to their success; not just starting them, but maintaining and sustaining that success. Be intentional about your support, because the role of women in the economy and to the wellbeing of society is undeniably important. Despite this, they are less likely to find employment in the formal sector, and even when they do, are more at risk of losing their jobs during times of economic turndown. When the economy turns up again, women are less likely to be rehired. This is the reality that we need to be conscious of when we talk about intentional action.” 

This is what she means when she says that South Africa needs to build an ecosystem of inclusion and empowerment. “Technology is a critical part of that ecosystem, for sure, but it is just one part of it. Technology is not the ecosystem.” — Jamaine Krige