Tech entrepreneur & investor Melvyn Lubega is on a mission to create 100k sustainable jobs

South Africa's Melvyn Lubega has blazed a trail in the fintech world, becoming an international speaker and globally referenced thought leader.

His areas of expertise cover digital transformation, the future of work, venture capital, disruptive innovation, corporate governance and business strategy

Lubega is notably the co-founder of teaching platform Go1; now used by businesses, non-profit organisations, and governments in more than 60 countries.

Go1 became the first tech scale-up South African unicorn (valued at +$2 billion) attracting over $450 million in investment from tier-one international investors.

The entrepreneur cut his business teeth at a young age, running a boarding school tuck shop to supplement his pocket money at St John's College, which he attended on a scholarship for high school. Today, he is a council member on the St John's board of governors.

"I may have stolen my snackwich machine from home and I got the bread from the kitchen, so my inputs were cheaper than they should have been and my profit margins probably inflated!"

The experience taught him the importance of meeting a need, even a latent and not necessarily obvious one, he says.

Lubega went on to study actuarial science at the University of Cape Town and complete his postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford, receiving a distinction for his research into disruptive technologies in emerging markets.

His fintech journey eventually led him to co-found Go1 in 2015, where the team's mission was to help people to unlock their positive potential, which he says is ultimately through a love for learning.

Lubega highlights the importance of developing human capital in a business, and how he found that while small companies couldn't afford to get their upskilling right, similarly big companies could also 'not get it right with all the money in the world'.

As a result, during his postgraduate studies he focused on how one can think differently about learning in a professional setting.

Starting up Go1, their entry point was trying to transform a learning system rather than actual learning content, he says

Today the company is a world leader in online training, offering learning content from more than 250 providers (Harvard Edu, EdX...) under a single subscription in 60 countries.

Lubega sees great growth opportunities for the already highly successful company which he still thinks of as a startup.

"When you think about AI and the digitisation of certain businesses and economies, there's so much reskilling and upskilling that needs to take place. HOW you do do it is so front of mind right now."

He is also involved as an impact investor with Breega, a French-headquartered venture capital (VC) firm, which is set to invest big in African markets.

"Really, what we're trying to do at Breega is look at how we back ambitious entrepreneurs that are building category-defining businesses."

Lubega says his professional goal is to create a staggering 100,000 sustainable jobs.

"I've been incredibly blessed, had incredible opportunities... No one's ever created 100,000 jobs when they're poor, and I think that's the scale of impact I would like to have."

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to this wide-ranging interview