Arbitraging China’s platform economy in the Silicon Savanna
Event Information
With Andrea Pollio, Assistant Professor of Political and Economic Geography, Polytechnic University of Turin
Offering a snapshot of Andrea Pollio’s recent book, Silicon Elsewhere, this talk explores the concept of arbitrage as a central logic shaping Digital China’s presence in Kenya’s Silicon Savannah.
Beyond geopolitical and geoeconomic narratives, Pollio demonstrate how discourses of arbitrage identify and capitalize on perceived temporal and developmental lags between these two geographies, producing opportunities for speculative investment in the platform economy. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research in Nairobi, he illustrates how both Chinese and Kenyan tech entrepreneurs and investors engage in the cloning and adaptation of successful Chinese business models. A powerful belief drives these experiments: that replicating China’s past successes can unlock future wealth and technological emancipation for Kenya.
Rather than asking whether or not these tales hold water as truths, Pollio will reflect on how they perform the value of technology in a world of connections and disconnections — a world where there is not just one Silicon Valley, but many Silicon Elsewheres.
Presented by BESI Technology Network. Co-sponsored by Berkeley Geography.
About the speaker
Andrea Pollio is an assistant professor of economic and political geography at the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, and a research associate at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is one of the founding editors of Platforms & Society and a co-curator of UTA-Do: Urban Theory Workshop-Africa, an annual summer school that this year will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Andrea‘s work focuses on the technopolitics of digital economies in African cities. His current project, Smartness as Wealth, is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and addresses the nexus of finance, technology and wealth in Kenya, from blockchain in land banking to micro-investment platforms for personal saving and currency-risk hedging. Andrea is the author of Silicon Elsewere: Nairobi, Global China and the Promise of Techno-capital (University of California Press, 2026).