In Zambia's logistics industry, finding a truck can still begin with a WhatsApp message.
A cargo owner needs transport. A transporter is looking for the next load. A driver needs instructions. Someone starts making calls. Another person checks a spreadsheet. Updates are sent through several different chats.
It works — until it doesn't.
For Mary Kapikila Mumba, that fragmentation became a business problem worth solving.
A journalist, logistician and Co-Founder of South Load Logistics, Mary has worked close enough to the transport industry to see how much of freight coordination still depends on disconnected information.
Her response is LoadMasta, a digital logistics marketplace seeking to bring cargo owners, transporters and drivers onto a more connected platform.
The problem is bigger than finding a truck
LoadMasta starts with one of the most basic problems in freight: matching cargo with available transport.
The platform is designed to connect businesses that need to move goods with transporters and drivers who have capacity.
But the bigger proposition is what happens after the match.
LoadMasta is designed to provide visibility across the shipment journey, giving users a way to follow cargo from dispatch to delivery rather than relying entirely on calls and messages for updates.
That matters in a business where a delay on one route can quickly affect customers, vehicles, drivers and the next shipment.
The idea is to replace some of the uncertainty with information.
Turning logistics activity into data
There is another opportunity hiding underneath the logistics problem: data.
Transport companies generate enormous amounts of operational information — routes, vehicles, drivers, cargo, deliveries and customers.
But when that information lives in notebooks, spreadsheets and WhatsApp conversations, it is difficult to turn it into something useful.
Digital records change that.
As logistics activity moves onto platforms such as LoadMasta, businesses can potentially build a clearer picture of their operations and use that information to make decisions around shipments, capacity and performance.
It is a shift from simply asking “Where is the truck?” to having a system that can answer a much wider set of operational questions.
Zambia's geography makes the problem interesting
Zambia's position in regional trade makes logistics a particularly important technology opportunity.
The country sits at the intersection of several regional trade routes, connecting markets in Southern and Central Africa with ports and international markets.
As investment in regional trade corridors grows, the physical infrastructure will only be one part of the equation.
Goods still need to be matched with trucks. Shipments need to be tracked. Transporters need customers. Customers need visibility. And information needs to move alongside the cargo.
This is where LoadMasta is positioning itself — not simply as a trucking platform, but as part of the digital infrastructure supporting regional logistics.
From industry experience to technology
Mary's story is also an example of a growing pattern in Zambia's technology ecosystem: founders building around problems they have encountered themselves.
Rather than starting with a technology looking for a problem, LoadMasta has emerged from experience in an industry where inefficiencies are visible every day.
That industry knowledge can be particularly important in logistics.
A successful platform has to deal with more than software. It has to fit the realities of transport operators, cargo owners, drivers, routes, payments and cross-border trade.
The technology has to work in the industry that actually exists.
The next six months
LoadMasta is now entering another important stage of development.
Mary is among the Top 20 founders selected for the BongoHive IGNITE Digital Economy Incubator and Accelerator Programme, under GreenTech4CE, co-funded by the European Union and BongoHive.
The Top 20 are moving into a six-month Business Growth and Innovation phase focused on taking validated products towards more structured and scalable businesses.
The programme is putting greater emphasis on repeatable revenue, investment readiness, metrics, governance, team architecture and clean data rooms.
For LoadMasta, the next challenge therefore goes beyond building the platform.
It is about proving the business around it.
Can the platform consistently attract cargo owners and transporters? Can users be converted into repeat customers? Can the model generate predictable revenue? And can a logistics marketplace built in Zambia eventually operate across borders?
Those questions will determine how far the idea can travel.
Building the digital road alongside the physical one
Africa is investing heavily in the physical infrastructure needed to move goods.
But roads, railways and border posts are only part of a modern trade network.
The information connecting the different participants matters too.
That is the space Mary Kapikila and the LoadMasta team are exploring.
The ambition is straightforward: make it easier to find transport, easier to track freight and easier to turn logistics activity into useful information.
If Zambia's physical trade corridors are the roads through which goods move, platforms like LoadMasta are attempting to build some of the digital infrastructure running alongside them.
And in a region where trade is becoming increasingly interconnected, that infrastructure could matter just as much as the trucks travelling on the road.
