Buspreneur interview with Sarah Nahm

Sarah Nahm studied Comparative Literature at Stanford University before moving into the tech space; she is a designer who is learning to programme/develop. She is excited about the prospects that exist within the mobile payments space; specifically in Africa.

1. Who are you? Describe yourself in 3 sentences.
   I am a designer. I am learning to programme/develop. And I am specialising in data visualisation.
2. What do you expect from your participation on the bus?
   I expect to meet people outside of the Silicon Valley echo chamber.
3. Why Africa? Why now?
   Joe Mellin, another buspreneur, passed this opportunity onto me and it was simply too good to pass up.
4. What is your area of expertise — mobile development, healthcare, or the energy sector? Please talk a little bit about how you gained this experience.
   I am not experienced in any of these areas; rather, my area of expertise is design technology and strategy. I’ve gained through my time at Stanford, Google, and my current job.
5. Please share an idea for a technology (mobile, health, energy) that can solve a problem/s local to the South African region.
   The idea of mobile payments is really exciting. I think that mobile payments really just are more futuristic in Africa than anywhere else in the world. It would be cool to see what marketplaces you can create, bringing something totally new into the world instead of importing more of the old.
6. Everyone has a special story. What is yours?
   I had no intention of studying tech. I stubbornly studied comparative literature — specifically French structuralism. There are parallels between French Structuralism and tech… But then design happened and the chance to be creative and analytical at the same time. Everything is really just a happy accident — even my time at Google!
7. Are you sponsoring yourself or do you have sponsors? Please tell us about your sponsors.
   I am sponsoring myself.