Toby Shapshak

I write and speak about how technology has fundamentally changed the way we work and play, especially since the Covid-19 lockdown dramatically changed the world.
My day job is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Stuff magazine, but also a small business owner who has weathered the worse economic storm of this century.
I’m is a senior contributor to Forbes and write a weekly column for the Financial Mail and Daily Maverick.
My passion for the last decade has been how innovation is better in Africa.  My TED Global talk on how Africa is solving real problems has had over 1,5-million views; and I was featured in the New York Times.
I believe Africa is a mobile-driven continent, about which I’ve written for CNN, The Guardian in London, Quartz and for Forbes. I’m writing a book on innovation in Africa, looking at how the problems Africa is solving for itself will benefit the rest of the world.
I’ve been very lucky to have second career as a speaker.
I’ve spoken at numerous conferences about innovation in Africa, including TED Global in Edinburgh (2013). I’ve spoken four times at the South by South West (SxSW) conference in Austin, Texas, on South Africa's tech landscape (2011); on how mobile drives African innovation (2013): and how music is being consumed (2014); and how innovation is better in Africa (2017). 
 I’ve also spoken at Intel's IDF conference in San Francisco, The Guardian's Activate: Johannesburg on innovation out of necessity, Germany's Zukunftskongress (Future Congress), Sweden's The Conference, AfricaCom in Cape Town, TEDxGateway in Mumbai, the GSMA's Mobile 360 in Kigali, Pivot East in Nairobi, and Tech4Africa in Joburg.
I was named in GQ's top 30 men in media and the Mail & Guardian newspaper's 300 influential young South Africans list; and won the ICT Journalist of the Year. GQ said “he has become the most high-profile technology journalist in the country" while the M&G wrote: "Toby Shapshak is all things tech... he reigns supreme as the major talking head for everything and anything tech."
As a news and political journalist, I ran Mail & Guardian newspaper’s website when it was the first news site in Africa, shadowed Nelson Mandela when he was president, and covered the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
I’ve interviewed a range of tech industry luminaries, including Bill Gates and Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
Formerly a senior newspaper reporter covering everything from crime to politics, I’ve been writing about technology, innovation, telecoms and the internet and the impact it has on our lives for more than 20 years, including for the Sunday Times, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, Financial Mail, Daily Maverick, The Times, City Press, ThisDay, and The Weekender.