Quick Fire🔥with Sekayi Fundafunda-Lungu

Sekayi is the innovation lead at BongoHive, Zambia’s first innovation and technology hub.

She also has a background in economics and 8+ years of consulting within the private sector. She is the co-author of Africa80: Transformation through Collaboration, a project by 80 members of the Global Shapers Community across 30 countries in Africa. She’s a Country Coordinator of Fashion Revolution Zambia, and a 2019 Mandela Washington Fellow.

Explain your job to a five-year-old.

I help big companies create things people will love.

What is your most-used emoji and why?

🌻 The sunflower emoji lately – This is probably because it represents to me what is new. I see it as centring and wholesome, so I tend to sign off with this emoji in messages.

What’s the first career you dreamed of having as a kid?

Surgeon. I watched a lot of ER as a child and was enthralled.

If you weren’t working in your current role, what other role in tech would you probably be in and why?

I would be working to develop policies for the technology sector. I believe that it is a fundamental element to ensure sustained industry-wide innovation.

What are you reading currently?

No single title comes to mind. But I am inspired by the work of Naomi Wolf, Noah Yuval Harari, and Eric Ries.

Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your 18-year-old self?

Stay curious. This will serve you in ways you currently couldn’t possibly imagine. The world expands exponentially with curiosity, and as the world expands, so do the possibilities.

A genie gives you one wish for the African tech ecosystem, what would yours be?

Innovation-enabling regulation.