Conditions of Membership

1. Who this is for

The AfricanSTN community is for people working in, building, buying, funding, governing or researching sports technology in Africa. Membership is free, personal to you rather than to your organisation, and you must be 18 or over.

The community is currently in a founding phase: membership is by invitation, the group is deliberately small, and its purpose is to decide what the wider community becomes. These conditions are a first draft written to be argued with, and founding members are asked to do exactly that. Anyone who is a member during this phase keeps the status of founding member, and is credited as one, when the community opens more widely.

2. Who runs it

The community is operated jointly by Sports Tech Africa Limited T/A STZA®, registered in England & Wales, Company Number 16850337, and African Sports Technology Network (Pty) Ltd, registered in South Africa, Company Number 2026/020895/07. You can raise anything about the community with either of us.

For completeness: the South African company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the UK company, which owns the AfricanSTN register, name and research and carries the costs, and the South African company operates under licence from it. Where we jointly decide how and why your personal information is processed, we act as joint controllers and joint responsible parties, as set out in our Privacy Policy.

3. What membership buys you

Nothing, and that is deliberate. Being a member of this community gives you no coverage in AfricanSTN research, no listing, position or ranking in the register, no referral, and no introduction made on your behalf to anyone outside the community.

Meeting other members is of course the point of a community, and we hope you do. What membership does not buy is anything from us. The register's value depends on it being a record of what exists rather than a record of who asked, and the moment membership could buy a place in it, it would be worth less to everyone, including you.

4. What we sell, said plainly

African Sports Technology Network (Pty) Ltd offers paid services, currently POPIA representation for organisations outside South Africa and support for companies entering African markets. Sports Tech Africa Limited T/A STZA provides financial and commercial advisory work separately. We would rather you knew that from us than worked it out later.

The rule that makes this safe is simple and we will hold to it: buying a service buys a service. It does not buy coverage in the research, a position in the register, or an introduction to anyone here. Where a client of either company appears in anything AfricanSTN publishes, we will say so in that publication, by name.

5. What else this is not

• Not professional advice. Members include lawyers, accountants and clinicians. Anything any member says in the community is a general view offered informally, is not advice to you, and creates no professional relationship or duty of care.
• Not a place to sell. No pitching, no cold direct messages to members you met here, no recruitment spam, no affiliate links. This applies to us as much as to you.

6. Confidentiality

The Chatham House Rule applies: you may use what you learn in the community, but you may not identify who said it or which organisation they are from, without their express permission. Anything marked as embargoed stays embargoed until the stated date.

Please be aware that we cannot technically enforce this. Any member is able to screenshot or export a conversation. Post accordingly, and tell us if you see it happen.

7. What you share stays yours

You keep ownership of whatever you post. We will not quote you, publish your material or name you in AfricanSTN research without asking you first and receiving your agreement. If you give permission and later change your mind, tell us and we will remove it from anything we control going forward.

8. Other members' personal information

Where the community is hosted on a messaging platform, you will see other members' telephone numbers and profile details. You may use them to contact that person directly. You may not add them to other groups, export or scrape the membership, add them to a mailing list, or pass their details to anyone else. A breach of this condition results in removal without discussion.

9. Conduct

Be courteous. No harassment, discrimination or abuse. Disagree with the argument rather than the person. Administrators may remove a message or a member where these conditions are breached, and will say why. Serious or repeated breaches are permanent.

10. Joining and leaving

We will never add you to a community group without asking you first. Membership follows an invitation or application, you join by following a link yourself, and your agreement to join is recorded.

You can leave any group at any time without explanation, and you can ask us to remove you from the community entirely by emailing hello@stza.io. What happens to your personal information when you leave, including one limitation we cannot engineer around, is set out in section 13.1 of our Privacy Policy.

11. Changes to these conditions

We will post any change to these conditions in the community at least seven days before it takes effect. Continuing to participate after that date means you accept them.

12. Contact

Community matters, including joining and leaving: hello@stza.io
Data protection requests: privacy@stza.io

Version 0.1 — October 2026. This is a first draft, open to challenge by founding members.