The first South African Podcast Awards took place towards the end of 2024. Celebrating South Africa’s top podcasters with a focus on content quality versus just downloads, the awards hosted multiple categories including Arts, True Crime, Sport and Business. Tech Girl Talks is a podcast brand that hosts a series of different esports focused shows and was one of the finalists in the Sports category as well as in the “Best Content Quality” Category. Eventually taking home Silver in Sports on the night of the awards.
I started the Tech Girl Talks Podcast all the way back in 2022 – focusing in specifically on esports and some of the struggles faced by developing regions such as South Africa in entering the heavily European dominated competitive gaming market. In its first year the podcast was a finalist at the DSTV Content Creator Awards for Podcast of the Year. I’ve since expanded the offering to have a selection of niche series under my Podcasting banner. I’ve done a podcast series on jobs in Esports, another series focusing in on some of the very real problems faced by South African esports which was targeted specifically at Marketing and Brand Agencies – you can view that entire collection here:
In 2024 I partnered alongside Counter-Strike industry stalwart Thorin to start “Feed The Trolls”, a podcast series focused firmly on competitive Counter-Strike. It has steadily become a firm favourite with fans and I do believe is one of the reasons the Podcast channel as a whole was named one of the top video podcast channels in South Africa on Spotify Wrapped 2024.
For the South African Podcast Awards Tech Girl Talks was nominated in the Sports category which encompassed the esports industry focused content as well as fan focused content like Feed The Trolls and Sell Me This Pro – another series focused in on showcasing up and coming international Counter-Strike talent.
This was an incredible honour considering how niche the content being produced on the podcast is. To have recognition from a larger audience at the level of content, production and overall product being produced is a great motivator. In 2025 I’ll have a larger drive at producing meaningful and worthwhile conversations in the esports and Counter-Strike realm. I also think the general community is itching for this type of content and hope I can continue to innovate and create, alongside the incredible people who work with me already, to make podcasts which add value and encourage individual thought. Thank you to the South African Podcast Guild for the work they do to put on events such as the Awards and their efforts to continue to build Podcasting as a content creation medium in South Africa.
