Member-only story
A front-row seat on Shadrack Kubyane’s upbringing, and his rise into a Pan African tech leader shaping financial inclusion for farmers through blockchain technology.
I was born at the intersection of 3 provinces — sub-regions within South Africa’s 9 regions that make up the country’s diverse landscape — which were once countries in their own right, in South Africa’s old apartheid regime. Even though my province falls within the Platinum belt, where 80% of the world’s platinum deposits come from this particular region, the nation’s Northwest region. I was instead born in the Agriculture driven side of the province.
I used to see this negatively when I was growing up, I felt like I missed out on the mining boom. But now, it all makes so much sense today how everything in my childhood was preparing me and moulding me into the leader I am today. By the age of 9, I could speak all the 11 official languages that are spoken in South Africa due to being exposed to the melting pot of multiple cultures at that intersection of 3 regions and thanks to travelling merchants from Across Southern African countries, those lived-experiences shaped me into the Pan-Africa I would later become, even from my childhood.
I was raised by 2 generations of fierce and industrious farming women, my late grandmother…
