Worth a look {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? While the privacy problems with video-recording smart glasses are an absolute shambles RN, ones that add live captions in real life seem cool (and not only for those with hearing loss). 👓

Send this to a friend who needs a pair of live-captioning glasses. 😎

In This Open Letter

SA’s Chartered Accountant pipeline is leaking: We’re short 20’000 skilled CAs, with a dismal 39% pass rate and major shortages – but this Joburg founder’s fellows gave him an idea to fix it…

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) is obvs super worried, since most candidates study through distance learning (UNISA’s accounting college alone has over 37,000 students!), and they really need extra support. 

And we don’t need to tell you the fallout of a CA shortage will be catastrophic for SA business, right? Fewer CAs means thinner finance teams, slower audits and fewer qualified hands in the seats SA businesses need filled.

The local startup fittin’ to bring the CAs

CA-Live is a 24/7 study and support platform built for aspiring CAs, particularly the ones working full-time, raising kids and studying after hours.

For just R649/month, students get 1:1 mentorship with working CAs, on-demand tutors who set their own rates Uber-style, podcast and streaming content for studying on the move.

The platform also has an AI study buddy called TBos-AI that’s trained only on the full CA curriculum, with guardrails to keep it from hallucinating. And everyone gets a direct line to auditing firms (to get jobs) and an Upwork-style space for qualified CAs to pick up freelance work called Hire.

Built from life experience

Founder Kabelo Ntsoane did his articles in Cape Town's Southern Suburbs, where he saw colleagues drowning under the weight of working, studying and family. So he taught himself to code through Udemy and Codecademy, and built a simple prototype. 

When we caught up with him, he reminisced about running Facebook ads, tutoring in the evenings and answering WhatsApps from UNISA students looking for help – all by himself in those early days.

Now the team is sitting at four, with nearly 2’000 students subscribed to the platform and 63 tutors. And Kabelo says CA-Live’s standout user is the commuter: A third-year student plugging into CA Live podcasts on the day's tax module on the train. Nice.

We're watching this space…

Have your say…

If you’re building SaaS in SA and want global reach, Cloud On Demand's partner programme is open to ISVs, MSPs, channel partners and cloud resellers. The application is a short form on their site. From there, a named account manager walks you through onboarding.

What you get depends on the track. ISVs land in a programme built around:

Commercially: a 7% Azure cost reduction, flexible 30-day payment terms, and access to global vendor relationships without minimum commitments.

MSPs and resellers get a parallel path: Predictable pricing, a curated vendor catalogue (Microsoft, AWS, AvePoint, ESET, Mimecast, NinjaOne, StorVault), local time-zone support, and migration and security expertise on tap.

You handle the innovation. They handle the infrastructure, billing and channel.

🚗 Your AI Car-Buying Copilot. An SA founder built a cool AI buddy for car-buying to help you get the best deals from local dealers. Lekker.

💰 Gates Dumps Microsoft. Bill Gates’ Foundation Trust sold its last 7.7 million Microsoft shares worth $3.2bn (roughly R58bn). Why? Well, have you ever used Teams? Can’t blame them (issa joke).

📺 SA’s New Free Streaming Service. Sentech's free Afree TV launched the same week Showmax shut down, bumping SA’s free streaming lineup to 10 platforms. Can SA ad budgets sustain a dozen players when YouTube already eats the lion's share?

🤖 Google's SME AI Academy. Google has opened registrations for the 2026 Hustle Academy; free AI and digital skills training for SA entrepreneurs and students, now in short, flexible one-day bootcamps and 60-minute webinars, so hustlers can actually attend.

💬 Amazing Results. One Chat Inc retail client saw a 2’000%+ return on campaign spend using WhatsApp. Another hit 335% ROI on a single voucher campaign. Maybe it’s because they have an 85% open rate? See what real performance marketing looks like in SA.

* From our partners. Find all the best service providers for your business in our Founder Stack.

Most of us want to automate more in our businesses; we just don't always know where to start. So we got an SA AI consultant who builds automations for businesses to show us how it's done.

Turns out, there are 5 affordable steps to getting n8n and building your first automation yourself.

☝️ Send this to a friend who’s always too busy at work.

In crypto, trust is the new currency. Binance SA's Sam Mkhize writes in TechCentral that compliance is reshaping Africa's crypto ecosystem. Binance now has 580+ dedicated compliance professionals, and its exposure to illicit activity dropped 96% between 2023 and 2025. Trust isn't optional anymore; it's the product. Read the full piece.

AI vs AI: Binance blocked R36bn in fraud. Binance's AI defence systems intercepted 22.9 million scam and phishing attempts in Q1 2026 alone, preventing roughly $1.98bn in potential losses. But AI-powered exploits now cost attackers just $1.22 per contract and are getting 22% cheaper every two months. The arms race is real. See how AI fights AI.

May market trends are out. The latest monthly roundup covers markets shrugging off geopolitical risk, a surge in pre-IPO perpetual contracts, rising vault-style borrowing and more. Read the May insights.

Disclaimer: Digital asset prices can be volatile. The value of your investment may go down or up and you may not get back the amount invested. You are solely responsible for your investment decisions and Binance is not liable for any losses you may incur. Not financial advice. For more information, see our Terms of Use and Risk Warning.

Leads & Lattes: GTM Strategies for African Markets – 27 May, CPT: Marlon Dickerson breaks down how to build a sustainable revenue engine for the African context. Stop chasing clicks, start building a pipeline. Register now.

The Lekker Network: Storm Rider with Matt Bromley – 28 May, CPT: Big-wave surfer Matt Bromley on building a mindset for storms, followed by a live panel on riding chaos across AI, coaching and BPO. Get tickets.

AI in Action: How SA Teams Are Using It – 4 Jun, CPT: Three live AI demos, a deep panel and proper networking at Innovation City. Drinks on us. Grab tickets.

Stop Building Things Nobody Wants – 11 Jun, CPT: Annu Augustine (NedRock) on product discovery — why 80% of features go unused and how to test assumptions before you burn budget. Save your spot.

🧩 Tool to Try: LorePanic helps you run tabletop games with ease.

🌍 That's Interesting: A man watching Antiques Roadshow saw a blanket similar to one his grandma left him. He got it out of the closet, and it sold for $1.5 million.

⛳ Next Level: Watch this German golfer make a hole-in-one without the ball touching the ground on the European Tour.

🌌 Wow Site: The Galactic Archive is an interactive Star Wars galaxy map. Warning: Spoilers ahead.