Youth, Tech & the Power to Build: Reflections from AakiTech x UCT Interview

How The Interview Went

The filmed studio interview where our co-founders - Brighton and Munashe represented AakiTech - both rocking our brand and our story, reflected on what it means to be a youth-led startup with purpose.

Brighton shared that the interview covered a lot of ground - from personal reflections to practical insights. He said that a few key themes stood out:

Youth are not just part of tech - we are shaping it.
At AakiTech, the team is almost entirely youth-led. That is not a side note - it is core to how we operate, think, and build.

Lessons from the journey.
From outreach emails to client delivery, Brighton and Munashe shared what it has been like to grow AakiTech from an idea into a functioning, pan-African product company. Learning in public, taking risks, and making things real.

Advice for young entrepreneurs at UCT (or anywhere)
The AakiTech co-founders advised not to wait for perfection, to build with people who sharpen you, to let clarity guide you more than hype and make decisions that match your context.

Tech as a vehicle.
Brighton said that this came up strongly: tech is not just about careers. He emphasised that it is a tool for shifting systems, building agency, and carving out space - especially for young people from underrepresented places.

Coming Full Circle
Brighton described the experience as more than just “another media feature” for us. He said it felt like a full circle moment. Being invited into that space - lights, cameras, professional crew - and getting to speak on behalf of something we built, was grounding. Three of AakiTech’s co-founders came through UCT. And now, they are building something that can serve institutions just like it.

Shoutout to the UCT team who helped make this happen - for recognising that youth stories are worth documenting, and that African startups deserve real platforms to speak from.

What Youth-Led Means to Us
Brighton says “youth-led” often sounds like a nice tagline but at AakiTech, it’s the architecture. Our pace, our curiosity, our resistance to default ways of doing things - all of it flows from being a team of young people thinking critically about tech, systems, and context.

At AakiTech, we do not just want to be part of innovation - We want to shape what counts as innovation and we want to do it in ways that reflect the communities we come from.

What’s Next?
We are still waiting to see where the final interview will be published. Brighton and Munashe held the conversation with so much presence, and once it’s live, we will definitely be sharing it across our channels. But even before it goes out - the reflection has already made its impact.

Youth Month reminds us that young people in Southern Africa have always been at the heart of resistance, creativity, and change. While we did not live through the 1976 Sowetan protest, we carry those stories - and we build with them in mind.

We are grateful to be doing that every day at AakiTech.