Mpho Matsilele

A South African tech entrepreneur who pioneered inclusive technology solutions to empower women and marginalized communities.

Mpho Matsilele, born in 1975 in Soweto, South Africa, is a visionary entrepreneur and founder of Mpho Maseru, a tech company that bridges the digital divide by creating affordable, culturally relevant tools for underserved populations. Her work focuses on leveraging technology to address systemic inequalities, particularly for women and rural communities. In the early 2000s, she recognized the potential of mobile technology to transform access to education and healthcare in Africa. Her flagship product, the Mobile Learning Hub, provides offline educational content in local languages, reaching over 500,000 users across 12 African countries. Matsilele’s approach integrates community feedback into product design, ensuring solutions are sustainable and contextually appropriate. She has also co-founded the Africa EdTech Collective, a network supporting over 200 startups in education technology. Her advocacy led to partnerships with UNICEF and the World Bank, scaling impact across the continent. In 2018, she launched the Women in Tech Accelerator, mentoring 300+ female entrepreneurs to build scalable tech ventures. Matsilele’s TED Talk Tech for the People: Building Solutions That Truly Belong has been viewed over 2 million times, highlighting her belief that technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. Her work has been featured in Forbes Africa and MIT Technology Review, cementing her as a leader in ethical tech innovation.