Prof Eldrid Jordaan is a tech entrepreneur and author of the book, The Silicon Empire vs Social Impact. Image:Supplied

The University of the Western Cape (UWC) recently hosted a compelling fireside chat to mark the launch of The Silicon Empire vs Social Impact, a new book by Prof Eldrid Jordaan.

The event, hosted by the Centre for African Fintech, Innovation and Law, featured a conversation between Prof Jordaan and the Centre’s Acting-Director, Prof Vivienne Lawack, and drew a diverse audience of students, academics, legal experts and civic tech entrepreneurs.

Prof Jordaan, a well-known South African civic tech pioneer and founder of GovChat, shared the deeply personal and political journey behind the book. 

From his early days at Mxit as an Advisory Board Member, to building GovChat into South Africa’s largest citizen-government engagement platform, Prof Jordaan’s story is one of resilience, innovation and purpose. At Mxit, he pioneered the use of civic technology to support government-led efforts focused on youth education and online safety. 

He recounted how GovChat was born out of a desire to connect citizens, especially young people, with government services, starting with local issues like housing, healthcare and employment.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, GovChat became the official platform for distributing social relief grants, helping over 15 million South Africans access more than R66 billion in social assistance. He is also a Professor of Practice at the Johannesburg Business School at the University of Johannesburg.

Prof Eldrid Jordaan in conversation with Prof Vivienne Lawack. Image: Supplied

The book also details Prof Jordaan’s legal battle with Meta (parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram), which attempted to offboard GovChat from the WhatsApp Business API (Application Programming Interfaces) in 2020. He described the moment he received the legal notice from Meta in Silicon Valley, accusing GovChat of violating WhatsApp’s terms of service, despite having launched the platform in partnership with WhatsApp representatives. The Competition Tribunal ultimately ruled in GovChat’s favour, citing public interest and digital inclusion. The tribunal also concluded that the behaviour of offboarding GovChat from the WhatsApp API was an abuse of market dominance and that it was in the public interest for GovChat to operate on WhatsApp.

Prof Jordaan emphasised that the case was not just about his platform, but about protecting access to essential services for millions of South Africans.

Throughout the conversation, he stressed the importance of digital sovereignty and the dangers of digital colonialism. “The new oil is data,” he said. “It cannot be in the hands of foreign companies; it must be protected within our borders.” He warned against the unchecked power of Big Tech and called for stronger legal frameworks to ensure fair access to digital infrastructure, especially for public interest technologies.

Prof Jordaan also spoke candidly about the personal cost of building GovChat. He shared how he lost everything, his savings, his home, and had to move back in with his mother while trying to keep the platform alive. A turning point came when a stranger, moved by Prof Jordaan’s vision, invested R10 million into the project. That investor later took his own life, a moment Prof Jordaan described with deep emotion and gratitude. “He said he invests in people, not products,” Prof Jordaan recalled. “It takes people to follow through and make things work.”

The conversation also touched on Prof Jordaan’s current business, Suppple, an AI-powered civic tech company now listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. Suppple focuses on public health tools for the African Union, government interoperability, and ethical data governance. Prof Jordaan is now on a mission to make AI more inclusive, particularly by addressing the language gap in African innovation. “We must be able to engage with one another in our own languages first, and AI can help us do that,” he said.

Prof Lawack said: “This book is not just a legal case study, it’s a blueprint for building socially impactful technology in Africa….Digital sovereignty is not optional. It’s essential for protecting national interests and citizen rights.”

She added: “African entrepreneurs are changing the narrative by building platforms that speak to African realities…“We need a regional framework for digital markets, why not something better than the European Union’s Digital Markets Act?”

For aspiring entrepreneurs, Prof Jordaan offered three key lessons: be purpose-driven, embrace failure, and choose the right life partner. “Entrepreneurship will break you,” he said. “But if you’re led by purpose, you’ll find your way through.”