Back to the future {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Elon Musk just unveiled the new Tesla Roadster by making it flip upside down and fly, SpaceX thrusters and all. Here’s to being excellent at everything you do this Friday. 🚀

In This Open Letter

He promised his gogo he'd find a way to give her her eyes back again – and 13 years later, the software works…

What would you say if we told you a 24-year-old from the Eastern Cape is making real tech to help the visually impaired in Africa "see" again? It kinda makes sense; South Africa has a huge need:

A grandson's promise

Founder Elihle Amahle Stali grew up as his visually impaired grandmother's navigator, holding her hand and reading the ground aloud: "Gogo, there's a rock ahead." And, at 11, he told her that one day he would build something so she could walk by herself.

She laughed, but he went on to study computer science, discovering that some imported wearables, like the OrCam MyEye 3 Pro (at around $4'250, roughly R75'000), exist, but with drawbacks: it can only read text, not describe what's around the wearer, and doesn’t speak South African languages.

So Elihle created designs for a "seeing-eye" prototype that speaks English and isiXhosa (with other languages on the roadmap), but was turned away by most local manufacturers – 90%+ of assistive tech in sub-Saharan Africa is imported.

Then, he got the chance to fly to Hong Kong in July this year and exhibit his software, running off a laptop camera, at LEAP Startup East as one of 150 global startups, funded by about R163'000 in crowdfunding and a small top-up from Buffalo City Metro.

We caught up with Elihle in July, when he didn't have a website yet, and watched him over 3 months get the site up and submit manufacturing agreements for legal review before telling you about…

The Eastern Cape startup teaching AI to give directions in isiXhosa

Spectacles4TheBlind™ (Pty) Ltd is building AI smart glasses that describe a blind person's surroundings out loud, in their own language, via a camera feed running through a computer-vision model – all in open-ear audio, so traffic and voices stay audible.

Elihle's granny passed away before the glasses saw the light of day. Still, SA has just under a million visually impaired people, and one in 6 live in Africa. Spectacles4TheBlind is building the pilot for a small handful right now, but could make a real difference soon.

What we like is that he knows the software comes first (the glasses don't exist yet) and the language ability is the actual product.

We're watching this space…

Have your say…

SA connected-care platform Udok operates in a category that often goes wide, targeting "families," "patients" and "users." And you can imagine how using that formula would pit a growing SA scale-up against the biggest guns in the business (who'll outspend you 100-to-1 in a heartbeat).

So Udok connected with DoubleShift, who helped Udok do the one thing the big boys don't/can't do quite as well: zero in on the one person who can't afford to not use their service: the busy mom responsible for sorting the entire family's care, and built their whole system to be recognised by her, fast.

The impact was near-instant: the right mix of trust, warmth and the right visual identity helped Udok's sandwich-generation SA mom instantly recognise herself in their website, app, sales collateral, everything they put in front of her.

Precise brands get chosen by the user they obsess over.

The first is cheap: if your edge was doing it cheaper than the incumbent, AI just handed that to everyone. The second is structural, and it is the one founders miss. In May 2026, Anthropic shipped a legal product with 12 practice-area plugins and 20+ connectors, straight into the workflow its own customers were building on.

And it turns out, Harvey is both an integration partner in that launch and a competitor to it, which is the position most app-layer companies end up in.

🧬 Google Backs UCT. Google.org has given UCT R26.4m to build AfriPGx-AI, mapping how African genes change the way patients process medicines, starting with TB, HIV and malaria. The models and data will be released openly.

🕳️ Fix the Cause. Discovery Insure has filled 350'000 Joburg potholes at its own cost since 2021, and its pothole claims dropped 26%. Rival insurers get the benefit for free. Still cheaper than paying the claims forever.

📈 Moody's Warms Up. Moody's says SA is on track for its first upgrade since 2009, if the finances keep improving. We're still two notches below investment grade with all three agencies. Next test: the 21 October budget statement.

🏆 Engagement That Converts. Studio 88 used WhatsApp competitions to turn attention into action. Chat Inc drove 83% read rates, 23% button clicks and converted nearly 6% of clickers into competition entries. Want that kind of engagement?*

💸 Find the Leak. Every month the join stays broken is another month of thin clients you're treating as stars and revenue delivered but never billed. A discovery call with Finvoke finds both. For businesses with enough on the line to want the answer.*

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

AI is meant to free up time, but plenty of engineering teams feel more stretched than ever. People are now the AI's project manager, editor and QA, switching roles all day, and that constant switching is what wears them down.

That's why OfferZen asked Megan Tipps, lead developer and engineering leader at ParentSense, what this new kind of tired looks like. Her advice: watch for the small signs, like someone going quiet in meetings, and have the direct conversation before it becomes a resignation. Here's how to spot AI burnout early.

Yesterday, we showed you AirOffices' coffee shop boardrooms, asking where your team actually holds its meetings. Nearly half of you pay for a boardroom nobody sits in…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ ☕ Coffee shop, shouting over the grinder (27%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏠 Kitchen table, dog barking on cue (27%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🏢 A boardroom we pay for but never use (46%)

🔧 Senior C++ Engineer @ DuckDuckGo

☁️ Software Development Engineer @ Amazon Web Services

🤖 Senior Software Engineer, AI Infrastructure @ Kraken

📱 Senior Product Owner @ Vodacom

🖥️ System Administrator @ Mama Money

Biotech & Beers, 29 Oct, Johannesburg: OneBio brings its informal biotech networking night to Joburg, no panels or pitching, at The Frog in Illovo. Get tickets.

FinMaster Friday, 6 Nov, Stellenbosch: A money-themed board game night where you buy spaza shops and ride out property crashes. Get tickets.

What It Takes to Scale and Exit, 12 Nov, Cape Town: Our biggest gathering of the year, with a founder who built to a R1bn exit and a top SA VC. Early bird R250. Get tickets.

Powered by Radi. Want your business event in front of 36,000 The Open Letter readers? Host it on Radi, and it lands here.

🌿 Tool to Try: Landscape Design AI turns a photo of your outdoor space into a realistic, pro-grade landscape design in seconds.

🐭 That's Interesting: The longest-running voice of Mickey Mouse, Wayne Allwine, was married to the longest-running voice of Minnie Mouse, Russi Taylor.