South Africa has no shortage of aspiring Zuckerbergs, and potential financiers, if their ideas are original and viable, judging from the impressive queue at the Sandton Convention Centre on Tuesday morning. Though billed as an artificial intelligence (AI) gathering, the dominant theme of the AI Summit appeared to be tech start-up funding. I started the day attending a presentation by former FNB CEO turned venture capitalist Michael Jordaan in the JSE-sponsored'scale-ups' room. Jordaan ended his talk by begging the young, educated members of the audience not to emigrate, but to remain in South Africa and start businesses offering solutions to the country's many serious problems. "Entrepreneurs can do more for this country than politicians or anyone else," he says.