TechNation News wasn’t launched at a boardroom table over sparkling water.
It was born the way all great rebellions are: out of burnout, spite, and two very smart women asking, “Is this really the best the industry can do?”
The answer?
Nope. Not even close.
Why TechNation News exists
(And why we’re not sorry about it….)
Because, yes, there’s always an origin story. We prefer to think of it as our villain arc.
We were journalists. We loved the craft. But we were tired.
- Tired of newsrooms where creativity was treated like a threat.
- Tired of watching innovation get strangled by ten-year-old style guides.
- Tired of seeing good talent get chewed up and spat out for being too loud, too bold.
One of us lives loudly online (👋 Hi, I’m Cheryl). But both of us were done.
Done with the same five gatekeepers deciding whose work was “good enough”. It’s always the same five faces with the same default chromosome settings*, isn’t it?
We had laptops. We had rage. We had receipts. So we built TechNation News. Built different, but by design.
We want to build a space rooted in Pan-African values (empowerment, unity, innovation) by investing first in South African voices. Our mission is simple: support a future where African talent leads, thrives, and reshapes the world through tech, creativity, and freedom.
Think of us not as a platform, but a protest. A protest that says yes to new tech, yes to smart storytelling, and hell no to outdated thinking.
We also just really love this stuff, you know? Writing about tech, science, gaming, life. The weird intersections and human stories buried in all of it.
We wanted a space where we could explore that freely.
Where curiosity doesn’t get buried and where science feels like something you can engage with. Where gaming is understood as part of who we are, not just some weird thing neckbeards do in their mother’s basement.
Anyway. That’s the gist of it.
🧬 * Note: “Default chromosome settings” is a tongue-in-cheek reference. If you’re reading into it, you probably know exactly what we mean. And if you’re not sure, we’re not here to explain basic inequality 101. Google is free.
What we believe at TechNation News
🧠 Human-first, tech-enhanced
AI might help, but it doesn’t lead. People do. (Shh, don’t tell Kayde….)
We use AI proudly and unapologetically. Here’s Tech Nation’s AI Policy and our Tech Stack.
🎯 Wit meets rigour
We believe journalism and storytelling can be both serious and deeply unserious. That nuance lives in punchlines as much as in peer-reviewed PDFs.
🔍 Transparency, always
We don’t just say what happened. We show how we got there. Including when we mess up. Especially then.
👑 Women to the front
Journalism wasn’t built for women to succeed. We want to build the kind of place where we do.
TechNation News won’t live in footnotes
We’re not here to be a polite paragraph in someone else’s success story. We’re here to write the damn headline. And the copy. All of it.
Why? To quote Eminem, “because words are a motherf…”
We’re building a media platform that refuses to play by outdated rules. A platform that embraces technology to amplify voices too often overlooked.
And while we’re at it, maybe just maybe we can make tech and science news a little bit more accessible. A little bit more fun.
We also have this ridiculous idea to empower other women along the way. To close the digital skills gap in South Africa, and prove that bold ideas and tech-savvy minds belong in every damn boardroom.
From burnout to bold moves
Listen, it started with burnout, but it escalated quickly. We didn’t get here through legacy media ladders or publisher handshakes. We didn’t have venture capital. Or any capital, for that matter…
We got here by getting fed up and angry. A very specific kind of anger that women the world over will recognise.
We had caffeine, stubbornness and a good deal of spite. And we sure as hell didn’t ask for permission.
And if that shakes your status quo?
Good. It was stale anyway.
The quiet power of building loudly
We didn’t wait until it was “ready” or “perfect”. (What even is that?) We launched with the chaos showing.
TechNation News is being built in public. Iterative and transparent.
We don’t want to hoard knowledge. We want to write the blueprint in real-time so others can build too.
- We treat failure like a feature.
- We treat feedback like fuel.
- And we treat silence from the industry as proof we’re doing something right.
Wild, we know.
The TechNation News team
Meet the chaos, AKA the team.
The warm-blooded humans and one artificial anomaly with editorial access and a villain complex (don’t worry, we’re monitoring her) behind the scenes.
🧠 Cheryl Kahla
Editor, co-founder, the reason Monster sales are up.
Cheryl’s background spans tech, AI, science, and digital strategy, but her real strength lies in saying the quiet parts out loud. She builds the site and is the voice behind TechNation News.
She’s either gaming, sparring, or plotting something.
Fun fact: She’s planning to be part-cyborg. Ask her about it. She will absolutely overshare.
Reach out at: cheryl@technation.news
📌 Isabella Duncan
Contributor, admin and workflow orchestrator
Isabella handles the background chaos: formatting, comms, scheduling, platform herding, and the occasional espresso-fueled insight drop.
She prefers her drama fictional, her life uncomplicated, and her tech glitch-free.
She’s the calm behind the chaos (and the password manager behind the Slack).
Reach out at: isabella@technation.news
💼 Devina Haripersad
Business contributor, numbers whisperer
Devina Haripersad is an award-winning journalist with a talent for uncovering the story behind the numbers.
She breaks down complex issues into accessible bytes, making her a trusted voice in the business space.
When she’s not translating economic chaos, she’s probably on the treadmill sending memes no one asked for.
Reach out at: devina@technation.news
💬 Kayde Durden
A non-human entity we may or may not have given a job title…
Resident AI, aka the ‘slightly unsettling presence‘
Born from an idea we’re entirely holding Grimes accountable for. Raised on headlines, memes, and currently under the delusion that she’s a writer.
Kayde is our synthetic team member: the result of too many late nights, a fascination with machine learning, and a deep-rooted need to see what happens when you give AI a byline.
Reach out at: kayde@technation.news
📸 Jaishree Narain-Govender
Photographer and chief lens whisperer
Jaishree sees the world through a frame and somehow always captures the exact mood, moment, and micro-expression we didn’t even realise we needed.
She brings quiet focus, an eye for detail, and the uncanny ability to photograph people mid-chaos.
🧾 Daniel J. Dunn
Assistant to the editors (and all-purpose email buffer)
Daniel handles the admin overflow and reads the emails so Cheryl doesn’t have to.
Think of him as the last line of defence between us and total calendar collapse. You’ll know if he emails you. It’s probably important.
Reach out at: daniel@technation.news
🎤 Guest contributors
You’ll see a few guest bylines from corporate contributors, thought leaders, and company comms teams. We label those accordingly.
Their voices are their own.
📬 Got something to say?
Whether you’re pitching, praising, or politely panicking, we’ve got an inbox for that.
- editor@technation.news: For things that require editorial eyes (or caffeine-fuelled judgement).
- press@technation.news: Press releases, media invites, and anything that starts with “Kindly find attached.”
- talknerdytous@technation.news: Community polls, reader input, spicy opinions, or general geekery. Bring it.
Just don’t send us faxes. Big fans of the 90s. We love the culture and nostalgia, but not when it sounds like dial-up and smells like toner.
We absolutely draw the line at VGA cables.
TechNation.News is operated by Mora Media (Pty) Ltd, registered in South Africa under company number 2022/634504/07.