Conversations shaping Africa's deep tech frontier

Nicholas Brathwaite, a technology leader, deep-tech investor, and champion of higher education whose career has helped translate semiconductor innovation into global-scale technology businesses. Nic has worked for more than three decades at the leading edge of semiconductors, systems engineering, advanced manufacturing, and technology investing. Before Celesta, Nic co-founded Riverwood Capital, a growth-equity firm focused on helping high-potential technology companies scale. Prior to that, he spent more than a decade as Chief Technology Officer of Flex, helping shape technology strategy and global innovation as the company grew from roughly $150 million to annual revenues of $28 billion and became one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturing and supply-chain companies. Alongside his investment work at Riverwood, Nic served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aptina Imaging, a pioneer in CMOS image-sensor technology whose sensors went into mobile devices, automobiles, consumer electronics and industrial applications. At the outset of his career, Nic held senior engineering and technology-leadership roles at Intel and nCHIP.

Building an industrial edge platform that unlocks factory data for analytics, AI, and automation across manufacturing, oil & gas, and utilities and

Building IoT-enabled electric bikes with swappable batteries and a network of swap stations across the city.