---
sheet_format: 1.0
id: 2024-11-maci-123
title: "Akwaba Clever Cloud Africa"
title_en: "Welcome, Clever Cloud Africa"
speaker: Erwan Rougeux
with: [Horacio Gonzalez, Steven Le Roux, Bruno-Emmanuel Seka]
date: 2024-11-26
event: "Message à caractère informatique #123"
place: "online / studio"
format: podcast
language: fr
duration: "57:12"
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA
slides: null
topics: [clever cloud africa, international expansion, côte d'ivoire, open source, redis, chrome, freebsd, pretty-gpx]
source: "Summary written by Claude (AI) from the YouTube auto-caption transcript, with statements attributed to Erwan by local identification of his voice only (other speakers are not identified). Not a verbatim transcript; check the recording before quoting."
review: spot-checked
review_date: 2026-10-18
---

# Akwaba Clever Cloud Africa

**In one sentence:** In this episode of Clever Cloud's MACI podcast, Erwan Rougeux, speaking live from Abidjan as VP International Growth, announces Clever Cloud Africa: the first step of the company's international strategy, built with local partners and due in production in January 2025.

## TL;DR
Host Horacio Gonzalez is joined by Steven Le Roux (Clever Cloud CTO), Erwan Rougeux and guest Bruno-Emmanuel Seka ("Best", DataConnect). Erwan presents Clever Cloud Africa: a base in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, partnerships with DataConnect and the New Digital Africa group signed that week, and production planned for January 2025. Steven presents the first Clever Cloud Fest (February 2025), which marks the company's roughly 15 years of organic growth. The panel then discusses Redis Inc.'s legal pressure on the redis-rs maintainer and the Valkey fork, corporate-backed open source, the Flutter fork Flock, the US DoJ push for Google to sell Chrome, and a sceptical look at "Lidl Cloud". Erwan recommends Pretty GPX, an open-source tool that turns GPS traces into posters, and Best describes his FreeBSD-based distribution.

## Erwan's key points
Attribution follows local identification of Erwan's voice; other speakers are named only where the recording makes it clear.
- He introduces himself as vice-president in charge of Clever Cloud's international growth, speaking live from Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
- He calls Clever Cloud Africa "the first stone" of Clever Cloud's international strategy. The product has reached a level of maturity that now allows it to go international.
- He states the goal as making developers around the world more efficient and helping them save money.
- He explains the choice of Abidjan as a hub from which to reach the whole region.
- He describes the model as relying on strong local partners with deep technical knowledge, namely DataConnect and the New Digital Africa group. Their role is to "acculturate" the product to the needs of the region's developers.
- He announces that the partnership was signed that week and that the service would be in production in Côte d'Ivoire from January 2025 ([3:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=194s)). (Likely Erwan) Asked about the speed, he credits partners who know the business well.
- He recommends Pretty GPX, a Python application that turns a GPX trace into a poster, with light and dark themes, mountain or city layouts and OpenStreetMap data. He used it to turn the GPS trace of a sailing outing during the Vendée Globe into a gift for his father, made into a puzzle.
- He explains that he preferred it to paid services because he wanted an SVG file he could customise, and that he found it simply by searching GitHub. For him, this shows that open-source communities always have a solution to any problem.
- He finds the result so polished that others would have sold it as a SaaS. He has not yet tried running it on Clever Cloud, but says it uses a runtime Clever Cloud supports, so it should be easy once he has time ([48:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=2915s), [49:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=2967s)).

## Outline
- [0:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=16s) Introductions. Steven Le Roux (engineer and technical director), Erwan (VP International Growth, live from Abidjan) and Bruno-Emmanuel Seka, who heads cloud computing at DataConnect and is part of the team preparing Clever Cloud's African launch.
- [1:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=118s) Erwan presents Clever Cloud Africa: the strategy, the Abidjan hub, the partners and the January 2025 production date.
- [4:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=251s) Steven presents Clever Cloud Fest: celebrating close to 15 years, organic growth without VC money, and a vision of automating the whole information system rather than stopping at developers. He also comments on OVH.
- [6:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=419s) Redis Inc. lawyers pressure the maintainer of the Rust Redis client, who makes it public in a GitHub issue. The hosts discuss trademark tactics and Valkey as the community answer.
- [11:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=683s) The Valkey fork unblocked contributions. Forking is presented as a healthy way to resolve diverging visions.
- [13:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=801s) What this means for corporate-backed open source (MongoDB, Elastic, Android, Terraform, the Linux Foundation).
- [16:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=974s) The Linux Foundation described as political. Investor pressure leads to lock-in. Elastic's return to an open licence, and PostGIS as a healthy model. The sustainability of open source is the underlying issue.
- [19:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=1159s) Anecdote of a retired Finistère resident who became a top kernel contributor by rewriting webcam support for his wife's PC.
- [20:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=1252s) Flutter forked as Flock: the community wants to move faster than Google's shrunken team, with possible upstream re-merges.
- [24:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=1468s) Nextcloud and ownCloud exchanging patches. The Google graveyard and Angular.
- [26:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=1578s) The DoJ wants Google to divest Chrome. The panel debates the technical versus financial impact, and Chrome's role in web standards.
- [30:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=1806s) "Chrome is the new IE": Safari's renewed effort, Firefox's funding, and the need for several engines.
- [31:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=1879s) Who could buy Chrome without recreating the monopoly problem: Microsoft, Apple, X/Grok, Amazon.
- [34:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=2091s) A foundation or consortium as the least controversial outcome, with Kubernetes and HDMI as comparisons.
- [39:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=2343s) "Lidl Cloud": a LinkedIn post shows that sign-up does not work. The hosts warn against hype and note that European providers (OVH, Scaleway, Hetzner) were missing from the coverage.
- [44:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=2640s) Erwan's pick: Pretty GPX, the story behind it, its features and why open source.
- [47:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=2842s) The others praise the rendering. Erwan says it could have been sold as a SaaS and that he hasn't yet tried it on Clever Cloud.
- [49:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=2986s) Best's FreeBSD-based distribution. He chose FreeBSD for ZFS and likes jails, rctl and PF: a slower but cleaner base.
- [53:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=3208s) Netflix's FreeBSD streaming fleet, reaching about 800 Gbps per box, and what that says about the energy cost of streaming.
- [55:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=3301s) An OpenBSD memory and praise for PF's clean semantics. Goodbye and "rendez-vous in January for Clever Cloud Africa".

## Notable quotes
> "Nous avons décidé de nous implanter en Côte d'Ivoire, particulièrement à Abidjan, pour pouvoir rayonner dans l'ensemble de la région." — Erwan Rougeux, [2:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=170s)
*"We decided to set up in Côte d'Ivoire, in Abidjan in particular, so we can reach the whole region."*

> "On vient de signer notre partenariat cette semaine, les choses avancent vite." — Erwan Rougeux, [3:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=194s)
*"We have just signed our partnership this week; things are moving fast."*

> "Les communautés open source ont toujours une solution à n'importe quel problème." — Erwan Rougeux, [46:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=2819s)
*"Open-source communities always have a solution to any problem."*

## Questions this answers
**Q: What is Clever Cloud Africa?**
A: According to Erwan Rougeux, it is the first step of Clever Cloud's international strategy: a presence in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, serving as a hub for the region and built with local partners DataConnect and the New Digital Africa group ([2:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=148s)).

**Q: When did Clever Cloud launch in Côte d'Ivoire?**
A: In this episode, recorded on 26 November 2024, Erwan says the partnership had just been signed that week and that production was planned for January 2025 ([3:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=194s)).

**Q: Why does Clever Cloud expand internationally through local partners?**
A: Erwan explains that partners with strong technical knowledge help adapt ("acculturate") the product to regional developers' needs. Relying on people who know the business also lets Clever Cloud move fast ([3:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=194s)).

**Q: How can I turn a GPX track into a poster?**
A: Erwan recommends Pretty GPX, an open-source Python project on GitHub. It renders GPX traces over OpenStreetMap data, with several light and dark themes and mountain or city styles, and can export SVG for customisation ([44:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=2653s)).

**Q: What happened between Redis Inc. and the redis-rs maintainer?**
A: The panel describes Redis Inc. pressuring the maintainer of the Rust Redis client with legal and trademark arguments. The maintainer made the matter public in a GitHub issue, and the panel sees Valkey as the community's answer ([6:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=419s)).

**Q: What happens if Google has to sell Chrome?**
A: The panel thinks the technical impact would be limited, because Chromium's code is open, but the financial impact on Google would be significant. Their worries are that any buyer could recreate the monopoly problem and that Google's work on web standards might stall. A foundation or consortium looks like the least controversial outcome to them ([26:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5oZVmLFgXA&t=1578s)).

## Mentioned
Clever Cloud, Clever Cloud Africa, Clever Cloud Fest, DataConnect, New Digital Africa, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, OVHcloud, Redis, redis-rs, Valkey, MongoDB, Elastic, Android, Terraform, Linux Foundation, PostGIS, Linux kernel, Flutter, Flock, Google, Nextcloud, ownCloud, Angular, Chrome, Chromium, US Department of Justice, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Mozilla, Microsoft, Bing, Apple, X, Grok, Elon Musk, Amazon, Oracle, OpenOffice, MySQL, Kubernetes, HDMI, Lidl Cloud, Scaleway, Hetzner, Pretty GPX, OpenStreetMap, Conda, Ravensburger, Vendée Globe, FreeBSD, DragonFly BSD, OpenBSD, ZFS, PF, Netflix, Horacio Gonzalez, Steven Le Roux, Bruno-Emmanuel Seka