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No. 282 – On Double-Mindedness
The United States has historically struggled with wisdom, wavering on addressing racial disparities. Seeking wisdom and addressing structural disparities is crucial for the country’s future success and unlocking its full potential for all. — read more
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No. 280 – Beyond Good Enough: A Tribute to My Father’s Guidance
My father is the most influential person in my life. If you have met him, you know that he is a force of nature. I grew up watching him make something from nothing. For example, he took raw peanuts and cashews and a 5AM newspaper route and turned them into 40-year friendships with his customers, — read more
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No. 279 – Changing the Field of Play: Cultivating Intuition and Rooting in Data
The article discusses the risks of playing the wrong game and the importance of cultivating intuition and rooting decisions in data. It emphasizes the danger of distraction and the need to stay focused on serving customers. It also presents a case study of changing the field of play for business success, highlighting the importance of… — read more
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No. 278 – On The Mining Industry’s Workforce Challenge
Over the past decade, the US mining industry has seen a significant decline in its talent pipeline. In particular, declining enrollments in mining schools signals waning interest in the industry. That is completely out of line with the Biden administration’s industrial policy to boost the US’ domestic supply chain of critical and strategic minerals like — read more
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No. 277 – On Patience and Racial Parity
Michael Norman, one of the most talented 400m sprinters in the world, has the potential to be one of the greats but struggles with patience. By patience, I mean disciplined inward focus, not. My Nigerian brothers and sisters would frame it as “facing your front.” Norman and his coach, Quincy Watts, have pointed to his — read more
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No. 275 – On Innovation, Zero-Sum Games and the Inner Ring
The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be — read more
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No. 274 – Black Unemployment and Helping Each Other
Last month, the unemployment rate for black folks hit 6%. This is well clear of the record low 4% that got a lot of coverage back in April on how the gap was closing between black and white folks. I have seen a headline floating around that 90% (267,000) of the 300,000 unemployment claims that — read more
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No. 273 – Notes on Abbreviated Potential, Energy, Institutions, and Seeds
John Coleman died the first day of May. He was a couple years younger than me – 34. John would come by the house asking to work on my yard from time to time, and I would decline. We never really engaged much beyond that. I would see him riding his bike around while holding — read more
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No. 272 – Notes
I will find my way back to writing regularly again. As I go things may get ugly. Here are notes on things I came across last week. There are pieces that require further research. I’ll come back to update this sometime later this week or next. AI Chip DesignThere is an analog chip design called — read more
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No. 271 – Time
Next Monday, I wrap up four months of paternity leave. It has been quite an interesting time. The first several weeks were too full of angst as I tried to figure out a routine. I had high expectations for myself. I wanted to spend quality time with my new baby daughter while also setting things — read more
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No. 270 – The FPG Factor: How Dine Diaspora Uses Focus, Proactivity, and Grace to Achieve Greatness
Maame Boakye and Nina Oduro, the cofounders of Dine Diaspora, hosted the Black Women in Food Summit this past weekend and it was a blast. Over 200 women packed out the Eaton Hotel in DC. The flow of the event was smooth. The content was substantive. The attendees’ energy was high. I’ve been processing the — read more
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No. 269 – The Well of Distrust: One Perspective on the Standoff in the Taiwan Strait
Trust is essential in a functioning society. We need it to hear each other, see each other, and work together. When trust leaves, the guards go up, caution enters, and forward progress slows down. What happens when trust is lacking in a society? This has been on my mind over the past few weeks after — read more
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No. 268 – Notes on Energy, New Cities, and Africa
George Mitchell and Floyd McKissick – New City Builders One of the books I recently finished reading was The New Map by Daniel Yergin. He does a fantastic job providing the historical context for where we are in the development of various renewable energy sources, where we are geopolitically in the competition for energy dominance, — read more
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No. 267 – Let’s Trade Keys
I couldn’t quite put the words together for a longer piece on this, but I think there’s significance to last Monday, May 25 being Memorial Day and Africa Day. Memorial Day On May 1, 1865, formerly enslaved folks in Charleston, SC gave a proper burial to well over 200 Union soldiers who died as prisoners — read more
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No. 266 – The Welfare of the City
I’ve been struggling to write this month, particularly this week. Figured I’d share my scripture reflection from this morning. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Jeremiah 29:7 It’s hard to — read more
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No. 265 – Nigeria’s Debt Situation Doesn’t Feel Good
Bond Investors Are Rushing to Nigeria – I wrote a bit about Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s 60 Minutes interview earlier this week. Another thing he mentioned in that conversation was that at some point, the US was going to have to deal with the rate at which its debt is growing relative to its — read more
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No. 264 – Building a World with a Broader Set of Defaults
Tristan Walker Wants Black Businessmen to Taste Financial Freedom – This is a great interview with Walker and Company Brands’ CEO. His statement about the power of defaults sat me down. In my house right now, there are no other products other than Bevel and Form Beauty, which is also one of our brands. I — read more
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No. 263 – The Federal Reserve Hasn’t Emptied Its Clip
Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s 60 Minutes interview on economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic – Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell gave an interview on 60 Minutes this past Sunday and the conversation was quite interesting. Early in the conversation, when the question of unemployment came up, Chair Powell talked about how heartbreaking it was and — read more
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No. 262 – Building the Future
Over the past several weeks, Robert Smith, the founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, has been making the media rounds. He’s been talking about his work ensuring that black small business owners get the funding they need in the next round of stimulus Congress passes. In the first wave of PPP loan funding that — read more
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No. 261 – 40% of People Earning Below $40K Lost Jobs
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell Remarks on Current Economic Issues – The Federal Reserve chair spoke at an event hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Affairs. Before I get into Jerome Powell’s remarks, it’s worth dwelling a bit on the Peterson Institute. The place is named after Pete G. Petersen, an investor who became — read more
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No. 260 – Entering a New World We Have No Idea About
We Are All Government-Sponsored Enterprises Now – This is interesting analysis by Guggenheim’s Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd where he basically says that we’re potentially heading to a situation where the government will be beholden to ensuring companies and markets have access to credit because of how it’s navigating this pandemic situation. A lot of companies — read more
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No. 259 – On Grief and Connection
My Grandmama passed on Saturday. I thought I got all my tears out Saturday, but I’ll be grieving and celebrating her until my spirit feels it’s enough. While showering last night, I saw her smiling face and heard her say, “I’m proud of you, son. It’s going to be alright.” There were some extra water — read more
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No. 258 – Psalms 137 and Bitcoin
What constantly comes to mind when I think about Ahmaud Arbery is Psalms 137:4. It’s how I feel right now. By the waters of Babylon,there we sat down and wept,when we remembered Zion.On the willows therewe hung up our lyres.For there our captorsrequired of us songs,and our tormentors, mirth, saying,“Sing us one of the songs — read more
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No. 257 – A Return to Normal Post-COVID Does Nothing for Black Folks
COVID-19 has connected the dots between all the disparities black people face in the U.S. A return to normal for black folks means a return to the conditions that left us vulnerable to death. That would be unacceptable. — read more
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No. 256 – It Hits Different When the Lion Tells It’s Own Story
Let Africa into the market for COVID-19 diagnostics – John Nkegasong, the head of Africa CDC, outlined a plan of action here for African countries increase their levels of coordination and production to get the diagnostics they need to the ramp-up testing to 10 million in the next four months. Earlier in the piece, he — read more
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No. 255 – Thursday Reads
Pittsburgh-Based Niche Secures $35M For School Search Platform After 100% ARR Growth In 2019 – niche is a platform that allows parents to search for schools ranging from kindergarten all the way up to college. what concerns me about this platform is just where we’re headed more broadly in education. A tool like this is — read more
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No. 254 – Wednesday Reads
When regulation presents a (rare) opportunity – Bradley Tusk, a political wizard, who secured Uber’s policy wins across the U.S. with masterful and aggressive campaigns has written a piece that’s quite disturbing. He calls for startups to take advantage of what I’ll call “pandemic capture.” Because of the current situation with COVID-19, he argues that — read more
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No. 253 – Tuesday Reads
Low Covid-19 death toll raises hopes Africa may be spared worst – So far, African countries have avoided the devastation the US and Europe have experienced from Covid-19. The nervousness in my chest won’t leave for some time, and I pray that Africa countries continue to navigate this virus as best they can. It’s been — read more
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No. 252 – Monday Reads
COVID-19 Edition: What is venture sentiment today? – First Republic Bank published interesting results from a survey they conducted of 427 venture capital firms. Over the past month or so, there have been a lot of VCs posting on Twitter that they’re open for business. The data here tell a different story. Internet Speech Will — read more
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No. 251 – On Legacy
Protect them from all hurt, harm, and danger. Gertrude Liverman Coming up as a young boy, my Grandmama would end her prayers over me and my younger brother with that line. Gertrude Liverman, my Grandmama is an amazing woman. She came up on the coast of North Carolina, worked picking crops before getting jobs cleaning — read more
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No. 250 – Saturday Reads
When Tailwinds Vanish – This is a very interesting piece by John Luttig. He argues that the opportunities for new internet startups to hit home runs is diminishing as the internet matures. As winning in the internet economy becomes a zero-sum game, he points to incumbents as the ones more likely to win what’s left — read more
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No. 249 – Thursday Reads
State of the Cloud 2020 – Watching the rollout of Zoom at the office was fascinating. One day, I get a an email that we were testing Zoom. A month later, leadership started communicating that they prefer it to Skype. It wasn’t that long ago when someone from the IT team would have to take — read more
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No. 248 – Wednesday Reads
WFP Chief warns of hunger pandemic as COVID-19 spreads – According to the head of the World Food Programme, well over 800 million people around the world are chronically hungry, dealing with starvation. He projects an additional 265 million people will face the same struggle by the end of the year. It’s hard to wrap — read more
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No. 246: Monday Reads
COVID-19 in Africa: Outcomes and Scenarios – Ronak Gopaldas of Signal Risk put together a nice analysis of the potential economic impact of COVID-19 on African markets. The central conclusion is that the path out of this situation is going to take years, something that is true for countries around the world. It’s frustrating to — read more
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No. 245 – Africa Can Build Too
I was so excited to see the announcement last week that 54gene had raised $15M in additional funding for their work sequencing the genome of African folks. That type of work – building technology, research, and infrastructure is what Africa’s going to need as soon as possible. The wave of nationalism that has continued to — read more
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No. 244: Timbaland and Swizz Beatz Should Build a Platform
The Verzuz battles Timbaland and Swizz Beatz have been organizing on Instagram have been a fresh breath of musical air the past several weeks. They’ve really done something special for the culture. While so many music greats are getting their flowers, I can’t help but remember that these battles are adding to Zuckerberg’s net worth. — read more
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No. 243 – Friday Reads
Ken Ofori-Atta: ‘What does an African finance minister do now?’ – A sobering diary entry by Ghana’s finance minister. In the entry, he lists the various calls he made that particular day. I couldn’t help but notice none were to titans of industry inside Ghana. Not sure what that means, but it doesn’t feel good. — read more
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No. 242 – Thursday Reads
The Great Lockdown: Worst Economic Downturn Since the Great Depression – “For the first time since the Great Depression both advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies are in recession.” Stacey Abrams on Voting Rights, COVID-19, and Being Vice President – “I feel beautiful when young black girls come up to me. They are — read more
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No. 241 – Wednesday Reads
For Black America, COVID-19 Is The Bullet. America Is The Gun – “This is how the coronavirus kills Black people. This is how half of the related deaths in Mississippi are Black. This is how 70 percent of the deaths in Louisiana are Black. Sixty-two percent in D.C. And so on. And so on. Not by Black — read more
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No. 240 – Tuesday Reads
Some Policy Lessons from COVID-19 “It is about time that African progressivism focused not just on criticizing those in power, but also on developing viable political programs that can win power. This will require organization, political education and communication that resonates with mass publics, genuine openness to knowing “the realities on the ground”, and a — read more
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No. 239 – Monday Reads
Black-Owned Businesses Could Face Hurdles in Federal Aid Program – “This roughly $68 billion will only begin to address the disparities within capitalism brought into relief by coronavirus…By prioritizing clients that already have existing lines of credit, black businesses and nonprofits find themselves yet again excluded from live-saving relief.” Earl G. Graves Sr., a Voice — read more
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No. 238 – A New Poor People’s Campaign
In typical fashion, Chamath Palihapitiya went on CNBC last week and shook things up by saying that corporations and hedge funds should be allowed to lose their shirts as this recession continues to set in: This is a lie that has been purported by Wall Street. When a company fails, it does not fire their — read more
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No. 237 – Saturday Audio
One of the points of discussion following the passage of the $2 trillion stimulus passage has been whether the government should take an equity stake in the corporations that take bailout money. David Calhoun, the CEO of Boeing, balked at the idea of the government taking a stake in the company. A couple years ago, — read more
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No. 236 – Friday Reads
How Rappers and Record Studios Are Coping With the Pandemic – “As devastating as this has been to recording studios, to think the coronavirus is the sole cause of Black artists leaving major recording studios is to ignore the past decade of Black music.” A Revolution of Values – “At Riverside, King assumed Malcolm’s previous — read more
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No. 235 – Thursday Reads
How Would You Decide to Restart the Economy? – “There are likely to be unknown unknowns and, with that, a high risk of collateral damage and unintended consequences — whatever decision you make.” A Reckoning for China’s Opaque Overseas Lending – “With a systemic debt crisis before us, the Chinese government’s willingness to report its data — read more
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No. 234 – Wednesday Reads
Calibrating – “All great investments begin in discomfort.” Issa Rae on the Return of “Insecure” and her Growing Empire – “That craving to tell the stories she’s not seeing anywhere is what’s getting her through this moment of uncertainty.” A Game Plan to Help the Most Vulnerable – “We share the need to look out — read more
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No. 233 – Tuesday Reads
Address To The Nation By President Akufo-Addo On Updates To Ghana’s Enhanced Response To The Coronavirus Pandemic – “The cynics question our capacity for the maintenance of discipline in this period, and in its aftermath; however, I am confident that we will prove them wrong.” Masayoshi Son Talks WeWork, Vision Fund And SoftBank Under Siege — read more
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No. 231 – On Resilience
It’s not fear that grips him. Only a heightened sense of things. Narrator from 300 In the scene embedded above, a young Leonidas is out surviving in the wilderness as part of his training to be a Spartan soldier. The scene above tells the story of him crossing paths with a wolf looking for a — read more
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No. 230 – Saturday Audio
Here are the five tracks that stood out to me from this week’s new album releases: I really enjoyed this interview with Ibrahim Mahama. His art makes you pay attention and I appreciated his perspective on the development of African countries. — read more
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No. 229 – Friday Reads
Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Report Banks Have Too Much Money Now – “But ideally what you want is for banks to have lots of capital in bad times, and then relax those requirements—let them lever up and buy stuff and take deposits and lend and trade Treasuries and generally support the financial system and the — read more
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No. 228 – Thursday Reads
Tackling COVID-19 in Africa – “If leaders across sectors translate their already proven resolve into more targeted, collaborative action in the coming weeks, we believe they can make significant progress in mitigating the economic impact of the pandemic—and safeguarding economies and livelihoods.” What If D.C.’s Black-Owned Restaurants Can’t Recover From the Effects of COVID-19? – — read more
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No. 227 – Wednesday Reads
So much for April Fool’s Day. Telemedicine is essential amid the covid-19 crisis and after it – “What about the features of a visit to a doctor that seemingly can’t be done at a distance, such as the physical exam? Today’s stethoscope is gradually being replaced—like everything else—by the smartphone.” FaintFlex Vol. 19 – Why — read more
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No. 226 – Tuesday Reads
How parking a wireless school bus can help all students get back to school – “South Carolina is planning to deploy 3,000 buses connected to the internet through a contract with Charter Communications so that students can receive home instruction.” Civil rights leaders oppose swift move off natural gas – “Whenever someone disagrees with what you say, — read more
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No. 225 – Monday Reads
A few folks have requested that I send what I’m reading and listening to. Here goes: Joseph Lowery, civil rights leader and MLK aide, dies at 98 – “I’ve never felt your ministry should be totally devoted to making a heavenly home. I thought it should also be devoted to making your home here heavenly” — read more
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No. 224 – On Confidence
In the West and East, when you talk about how things got the way they are, you’re able to go back pretty far to start to weave that story. When it comes to Africa, those stories tend to be shorter, starting around the time Europeans got to the shores of Southern and West Africa. We — read more
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No. 223: New Column!
I’ve got a weekly column I’m writing for Moguldom now where I will be writing about all things artificial intelligence and black people. I’m real grateful for the opportunity. Here are links to the first couple pieces: Reimagining Drug Discovery And Testing To Increase Genetic Data For Black People What Does Neuralink Mean for Intellectual — read more
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No. 222: Minerals, Electric Vehicles, and AI
Andreessen Horowitz posted this interesting conversation on cobalt – the mineral helping power our phones, electric vehicles, and more. The conversation got me thinking about a piece I wrote back in 2015 (time flies!) on Jean-Yves Ollivier, Marc Andreessen, and the common interests they share in minerals that power the global economy. There has been — read more
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No. 221: Preparing Our Kids for an AI World
My daughter is particular about manners. If you don’t say please or thank you when you’re supposed, it’s a serious problem. This is starting to extend to the Alexa device she uses to listen to audiobooks. She says please and thank you after the device follows her instructions. Numerous times she has corrected me for — read more
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No. 220: Convergence in Advancing AI Technology
Over 50 years ago, Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel observed that the number of transistors computer chip makers were able to fit on a chip doubled every two years. Moore’s Law held true until the past couple years as the amount of power these chips need to compute becomes unsustainable and their — read more
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No. 219: Podcast Interview – AI + Africa
Thanks to Kwabena Sarkodie for having me on his podcast, Insights from the Sahara, to discuss all things artificial intelligence and Africa. — read more
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No. 218: AWS AI Extraction | Social Welfare Programs and AI | Indian State Adoption of AI
AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon Textract (Amazon) Amazon is making widely available a text and data extraction tool that is going to make it real easy to search all kinds of information. My whole time reading this release all I could think about was how hard it is to search your own posts on — read more
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No. 217: Algorithmic Self-Hate
There’s been a lot of conversation around the importance of making sure there’s diversity among developers and researchers who are building artificial intelligence. One of the primary concerns is that this diversity imbalance will lead to bias being built into algorithms. The proposed remedy is for teams to hire more minorities on their teams. I’m — read more
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No. 216: Migration in Africa | International AI Principles | Cut Through the Hype
Op-Ed: The Future of Africa’s diaspora is in Africa (CNBC) 42 Countries Agree to International Principles for Artificial Intelligence (NextGov) Five questions you can use to cut through AI hype (MIT Technology Review) — read more
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No. 215: Congressional vs. Asia Pacific AI Investment | AI with a Memory
Heinrich, Portman, Schatz Propose National Strategy For Artificial Intelligence; Call For $2.2 Billion Investment In Education, Research & Development (Martin Heinrich) I wrote here about Congressional efforts to figure out the U.S. artificial intelligence direction. That effort plus this bill by a group of senators helps move us closer to the U.S. having an AI — read more
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No. 214: Monday/Tuesday Reads
Physics-based AI software company joins Cottonwood Venture Partners’ leading digital oilfield portfolio (Tachyus) Sam Altman’s leap of faith (TechCrunch) Sorenson Seeds $150 Million Fund to Invest in Overlooked America (Bloomberg) — read more
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No. 213: Is That the Whole Story?
I’m working through The Quest for Artificial Intelligence by the late Nils Nilsson, a pioneer in the development of the field. He charts out the foundation for artificial intelligence beginning with Aristotle’s syllogisms and makes his way through various European mathematicians who made various contributions to mechanizing logic. A couple of years ago, Chris Dixon, — read more
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No. 212: Track Saturday
The Shanghai Diamond League meet is this weekend, and the 100m dash was electric. Christian Coleman is an incredible sprinter. He holds the world record in the 60m dash. Over the first 50m of this race, you see how. He’s like a loaded spring out of the blocks. He loses this race in similar fashion — read more
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No. 211: Exposing disadvantaged folks to AI
One of the things that keeps me up at night is the thought of underrepresented minorities and poor people not being at the table as the latest AI developments emerge. So, I was through the moon when I listened to this interview with Tara Chklovski, founder of Iridescent, a nonprofit committed to exposing disadvantaged families — read more
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No. 210: Conversational AI | Number Sense | Walking
Speech and language: the crown jewel of AI with Dr. Xuedong Huang (Microsoft Research) This interview and the next one are examples of this shift picking up speed in the development of artificial intelligence where we’re not just feeding data to computers as part of training it for one task. The computers are drawing insights — read more
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No. 209: The Rihanna Force | Brain Imaging AI | Space AI
Why Rihanna Broke Barriers That Others Couldn’t (Trapital) I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of this joining of forces with LVMH. Dan Runcie, as usual, does a real nice job breaking things down. Brain imaging AI leader icometrix raises $18 million in new funding (icometrix) This is a very interesting company. My grandmother has — read more
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No. 208: AI Drives News and Music | Alibaba’s Global Ambitions | 2019 Fundraising Environment
TikTok Is the New Music Kingmaker, and Labels Want to Get Paid (Bloomberg) I wonder what it is about the music industry that has it looking at itself on the wrong side of a deal once again. Decades ago, Napster and file sharing put a massive dent in the industry, then Apple came along and — read more
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No. 206: Congressional AI Task Force | NYC AI Center | Microsoft Opens AI Playbook
Waters Announces Committee Task Forces on Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence (US House Committee on Financial Services) I’m glad to see Rep. Alma Adams on the artificial intelligence committee. My hope is that she asks those questions that get at the unintended consequences around the meshing of AI technology and financial services and those impacts — read more
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No. 205: Jumia a Fraud? | Black VCs Get That Princeton Bag | Uber Creator Secures $3.7B
Not All IPOs are Created Equal. Jumia is a Fraud. (Citron Research) This tea is hot, but I’m not sure there’s enough honey in this report. Jumia has earned most of the side-eyes it gets but I don’t think this report hits the bar for a fraud claim. Princeton Looks to Break Up the White — read more
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No. 204: Morning Reads
Creative Stock: Why Intellectual Property is Africa’s Most Valuable Resource (Medium) Losing $2m in Nigeria’s music industry (Medium) The failure of Reconstruction was a ruthless act of sabotage (Washington Post) Nipsey Hussle had a plan to beat gentrification — in South L.A. and across the U.S. (LA Times) Why Ramaphosa is probably not in a — read more
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No. 202: Rebecca Enonchong is a Rockstar | Nigeria Pushes Business Environment | Ghana’s Mobile Money Regulatory Environment Matures
Founder, Investor, Activist: Rebecca Enonchong’s Multi-Lane Road as a Tech Powerhouse (techcabal) Nigeria Extends 50% Discount For Business Name Registration (The Will) NCA drafts Mobile Money quality of service regulations for Ghana (Ghana Business News) — read more
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No. 201: Edouardo Jordan Remembers Black Food | Ghana at Venice Biennale | Satya Levels Up Microsoft
Showing Up at Your Dream Job Uninvited (Without Fail Podcast) Ghana arrives at the Venice Biennale, bringing new narratives with it (Financial Times) The Most Valuable Company (for Now) Is Having a Nadellaissance (Bloomberg) — read more
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No. 200: Ozwald Boateng x Harlem
Ozwald Boateng put on an incredible fashion show today at the Apollo Theatre. I loved that he called the show AI for artistic intelligence. Africa flows through his designs and the combination with the title struck me as a strong statement of the confidence with which black folks must carve out our role in shaping — read more
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No. 199: The Coming AI Upheaval
This is a fascinating conversation between Fei Fei Li, a computer science professor at Stanford and co-director of their new Human Centered AI Institute, and Yuval Noah Hariri, a historian and author of the widely popular book Sapiens. The two have a respectful go at one another on what the future looks in an AI — read more
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No. 198: 20 Year Exit | VC Selling Off a Fund? | Late Stage Venture
The Long Game (A VC) You don’t hear about venture-backed companies founded in 1999 that are still private or operating at all. Companies like Netscape and Amazon went public in short order. Others like Pets.com crashed out of the race. Return Path took the path less traveled, surviving as a private company and 20 years — read more
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No. 197: Force Majeure in Nigerian Oil | Softbank Leveling Up | UIPath Deposits $568M
Nigeria’s Bonny Light, Amenam crude under force majeure as disruptions resume (S&P Global Platts) If there is a global heat map showing the frequency of force majeure declarations in countries, I want to see it. It’s awful that Nigeria is still going through this waste of its lives and resources. SoftBank Vision Fund says its — read more
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No. 196: Safaricom CEO Search | Nigerian Fashion Designers | AI Upheaval
Kenya wants to replace Bob Collymore with a local at Safaricom (Daily Nation) Young Designers Dismantle Cultural Stereotypes At Nigeria’s Arise Fashion Week (British Vogue) Fei-Fei Li & Yuval Noah Harari in Conversation – The Coming AI Upheaval (YouTube) — read more
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No. 195: AI Breakthroughs | Ghana’s Economic Growth | Uganda’s Family Owned Businesses
5 AI Breakthroughs We’ll Likely See in the Next 5 Years (Singularity Hub) Is Ghana’s Economic Growth Failing to Reach The People? (Global Risk Insights) Uganda’s Leading Family Owned Businesses (Asoko Insight) — read more
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No. 194: Zoom | Sony Gets in the Ride-Share Game | Can’t Be a One-Trick Pony
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! The Exclusive Inside Story Of The New Billionaire Behind Tech’s Hottest IPO While reading this piece, all I could think about was how different Zoom was from other Silicon Valley unicorns-turned public companies that are more well-known. The company registered to go public with a profit after having already turned a profit. — read more
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No. 193: Childhood Obsession to Career Key
I spotted a 2019 Aston Martin DB11 this afternoon. That thing was gorgeous and the sighting brought to mind one of my favorite hobbies as a child. I was obsessed with cars and knowing as many details as possible about every car on the road. I would spend hours online studying their specifications. Then, I — read more
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No. 192: Interview with Mellody Hobson
Mellody Hobson and Jason Hirschhorn had a really nice conversation here covering a range of topics. Below are notes on things that stood out. On Board Participation Have a clear picture of who you have a fiduciary responsibility to Pay attention to the line between what is management’s responsibility to solve problems and your responsibility — read more
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No. 191: AI Bias + Data | Y-Combinates US + Nigeria | Russia + Africa Nuclear
Notes on AI Bias Machine learning is much better at doing certain things than people, just as a dog is much better at finding drugs than people, but you wouldn’t convict someone on a dog’s evidence. And dogs are much more intelligent than any machine learning. The problem with this statement is that we have — read more
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No. 190: Nigerian Investment | Twittanic | AI Workforce
Nigeria to Negotiate Future International Investment Agreements…. To Use New Model This is a strong quote from Yewande Sadiku, head of Nigeria’s Investment Promotion Commission, at a recent event honoring the late Professor Michael Ayo Ajomo: “it is true that Nigeria has challenges, but when we are going into a negotiation that is not the — read more
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No. 189: Frank Capitalism | India’s Elections | Amazon AI
Growing the Pie I’ve spent the past week crafting words about this memo. After a fantastic meeting earlier today, I’ll just speak plainly. For us to have the responsible capitalism Howard Marks calls for in this piece, we have got to get to the point where we have a frank conversation about how the U.S. — read more
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No. 188: W.E.B. Du Bois |5G Rollout |Oil’s Future
W.E.B. Du Bois and the American Soul This is a compilation of three beautiful set of conversations on W.E.B Du Bois’ life and impact on society during and after his life. I first understood that a black American living in Africa was an option when I learned that he finished his life in Ghana. I — read more
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No. 187: 3 Thoughts – Heartland Visa | GDP-B |Top VCs
From Managing Decline to Building the Future What would it look like for there to be a visa program that matched skilled immigrants with communities that are especially hard-hit by population decline in the U.S.? The Economic Innovation Group, a think tank founded by Sean Parker of Facebook fame, just published a report outlining this — read more
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No. 186: 3 Thoughts – Time | A16Z, a VC No More | Opportunity Zones
In his acceptance speech at the NAACP Image Awards this weekend, Jay-Z recited a quote that struck me: “It’s not the number of years in your life that count. It’s the amount of life in your years.” The quote echoed a question I had been pondering a couple days before I saw his acceptance speech — read more
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No. 185: Affordable Housing | Soulection Radio
The Urbanist: Affordable housing The struggle for regular folks to find a place to stay is global. This is an very interesting survey of housing situations in California, Finland, Egypt, and Portugal. The California situation is so interesting. For a state that prides itself on leading other parts of the country in pushing progressive policy, — read more
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No. 184: 2 Thoughts – Future Africa | Acquisitions
Welcome to the Future Whatever Flutterwave and Andela cofounder Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is building, its focus on building a shared vision for the future of Africa is something I can get behind. Excited to see where this goes. Ghanaian startup mPharma is buying Kenya’s second-largest pharmacy chain You don’t see too many deals where a startup — read more
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No. 183: 1 Thought: Historical Thinking
American Democracy: Conversation between Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Peter Thiel, and Cornel West This is a fascinating conversation that covers a range of topics that impact our form of government – technology, creativity, and economics to name a few. I’m not the biggest fan of Peter Thiel’s world view. I struggle with his mix of contrarianism — read more
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No. 182: 3 Thoughts: Shellye Archambeau | Africa’s 2018 VC Activity | Pollution Inequities
Take Bigger Risks: Shellye Archambeau, Former CEO, MetricStream I’ve seen Shellye Archambeau’s name around and have been intrigued to learn more about her story. Her appearance on Masters of Scale gives a great peak into how she’s navigated her way through Silicon Valley. What stood out in particular was her telling about a Bible her — read more
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No. 181: 3 Thoughts: Cashless| Amazon|Masayoshi Son
3 Thoughts: Cashless| Amazon|Masayoshi Son — read more
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No. 179: On Going Home to Ghana
Kwame Anthony Appiah’s excerpt on Amo Afer is fascinating. I had never heard of Amo Afer, a Nzema man, who became a philosopher in Germany in the 1700s. After gaining relative stature for his thinking, he decided to move back to his family’s village on the Gold Coast, a place he hadn’t been to since he — read more
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No. 178: What Happens When AI Meets Africa’s Demographic Boom?
Africa is projected to have more people at working age than the rest of the world’s population by 2035. By 2045, artificial intelligence is projected to reach the singularity, where it will be self-improving rapidly rather than being dependent on human inputs. On their own, these two developments are concerning. For years now, policymakers have — read more
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Top Podcasts of the Week – March 18-24
“Don’t ever tether your business to the benevolence of another company.” — read more
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Building a Diverse Newsroom
Building a newsroom is one of the things I’m most excited about in building CultureBanx. — read more
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No. 176: Advertising vs. Subscriptions
In a world where advertising rules everything around me, how do I keep CultureBanx’s subscribers front and center while growing this business? Financial news streaming startup, Cheddar, announced yesterday that they raised $22 million. As part of the announcement, they declared that they are doing away with paid subscriptions. My mind went back to their — read more
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No. 175: What’s Your Oath?
I initially rolled my eyes at this question during the latest KindredCast episode with Oath CEO Tim Armstrong, but Armstrong and KindredCast host Aryeh Bourkoff both had really interesting answers to the question. KindredCast is a podcast hosted by the CEO of Liontree, a boutique investment bank that does some of the biggest deals in — read more
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No. 174: What’s Your Company’s Belief System?
As I’ve spent the past year studying whatever I can get my hands on to get insights on the business of media the past year, I’ve come across some fantastic podcasts. The Adlandia podcast is one of them. Their latest episode with Ross Martin, CEO of Blackbird, had a lot of gems. The one that — read more
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No. 173: Thinking About Ads Differently. Indexing Diversity.
Thinking about Ads Differently https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/936323784155414529 One of the latent questions I’ve had about the tech industry is the seemingly unchecked dominance of advertising in tech company business models. Google. Facebook. Snap. Advertising is practically the sole driver of their businesses. Aren’t there more creative revenue streams for their businesses? Benedict Evans turned that question on — read more
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No. 172: Bob Johnson on Building BET
This is a fascinating conversation between Guy Raz and Bob Johnson. I had no idea he was a policy guy who then got into lobbying. His work at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association opened his eyes to the opportunity in cable TV, a nascent idea that hadn’t yet caught up with broadcast television. The — read more
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No. 171: Gratitude
There’s so many incredible things on my mind for which I’m grateful: 1. My daughter is this incredibly sweet, hardworking, funny, disciplined little person. Just incredible to watch. 2. Hosted friends at my place twice this past month and got so much joy out of it. Grateful for the people who have invited me into — read more
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No. 170: Guest Post: Rethinking Old Practices of Learning
This guest post is by my friend Ifunanya Nwokedi. I’m excited about her starting to put her point of view out in the public square. While Africa needs a well-educated and experienced graduate to drive change and development, these are not the experiences students receive at universities. In their Quartz article, Seth Traudeu and Keno Omu — read more
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No. 169: Facebook to Get an African-American Board Member…Soon?
Facebook has been on the hot seat as more information comes to light about the role it played in Russia’s meddling in the November 2016 election. The hot seat treatment brought the company’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, to DC for an exclusive interview with Axios co-founder Mike Allen to discuss the situation and what Facebook was — read more
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No. 168: Social Capital Hedosophia is Going to Change the VC Game, But Will It Really?
Several weeks ago, Chamath Palihapitiya did an interview with Kara Swisher on Recode/Decode that really got my attention. He was talking about how the venture capital industry was overdue for a shakeup to meet the needs of technology startups. He talked about using data science to identify investment opportunities and scale companies, similar to what — read more
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No. 166: 3AMReads: Mozambique and Ivory Persist and Attract Capital | African Development Bank Makes Case for Investing in Africa
Bloomberg: Traders Snap Up Assets of Nation Where Default Is New Normal I’m not really sure what to make of this article. I wrote a several weeks ago about how I was nervous about hedge funds investing in countries like Mozambique. While the independent audit of the country’s finances seems to have given investors increased confidence — read more
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No. 165: 3AMReads: Moody’s Downgrades Eskom | DRC Asks for Joint Bid | Ghana President Wants More Parliament
Moody’s downgrades South Africa’s power utility Eskom South Africa continues to face challenges as bad news continues to emerge from week to week. On Monday, Eskom’s chairman resigned. On Tuesday, Moody’s downgrades the power utility’s credit rating. The question in my mind is what is the path forward for South Africa. President Zuma, who has — read more
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No. 164: 3AMReads: Kenya Finds Trump Connect | Trump’s OPIC Pick… | Nigerian Oil Company Wins Oil Block
Politico: SPG Signs Kenya Trump-connected Stanton Park Group signed a $1.2M contract to represent the country’s interests in the US. I look forward to seeing what they accomplish. White House: Seventeen Nominations Sent to the Senate Today President Trump has nominated Texas real estate tycoon Ray Washburne to be President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. — read more
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No. 163: 3AMReads: $1B Cobalt project | South Africa’s Radical Economic Transformation | What is US-Africa Policy?
Bloomberg: Owner of $1 Billion Cobalt Project Says Rally Is Far From Over Eurasian Resources Group has a pretty massive cobalt mining project in the works in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company stands to realize a nice return on investment at the rate cobalt prices are skyrocketing. They jumped 71% last year and — read more
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No. 162: 3AMReads: Akon Going Public | Robots Mess Up Development Formula | Don’t Sleep on Halal Tourism
Bloomberg: Star Rapper Akon Mulls IPO of Chinese-Funded African Solar Unit I was surprised to see this news. Akon’s Lighting Africa project has gotten a good bit of media attention over the past several years. Perhaps, as time goes by, more information about the company’s financials will come out. I think a lot of people — read more
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No. 161: 3AMReads: MTN Shareholders Aren’t Happy With Exec Pay | Nigeria Has Its Own Data Centers | Cape Town Has Virtually No Water
All aboard #MadarakaExpress, May 31, 2017, 11:11 a.m. #SGRLaunch pic.twitter.com/0MQCS6A5U0 — Patrick Njoroge (@njorogep) May 31, 2017 Kudos to Kenya on launching its new passenger rail connecting Nairobi to Mombasa earlier today. Would be nice to have something like this connecting Atlanta and Savannah! Tech Central: MTN Slammed Over Bosses’ Millions A significant portion of — read more
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No. 160: 3AMReads: African Leaders Spend Time with Trump
Great meeting with @POTUS US President @realDonaldTrump during G7 summit. Time for new deal for Africa. Let's do it! pic.twitter.com/2MuCNM55ib — Akinwumi A. Adesina (@akin_adesina) May 27, 2017 US and Africa need each other. President @realDonaldTrump will do great things with Africa, with time @IvankaTrump pic.twitter.com/Yievy2p4ud — Akinwumi A. Adesina (@akin_adesina) May 29, 2017 Towards — read more
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No. 159: 3AMReads: Concerned about Cote d’Ivoire | US National Security Interests in Africa | Step Your Outfit Game Up
Cote d’Ivoire’s Military Situation Continues to Concern We continue to hear more and more about the cracks widening within Cote d’Ivoire’s Military. The military is a combination of trained career soldiers and rebel fighters who helped President Alassane Outtara oust Laurent Gbagbo when he refused to relinquish the presidency back in 2010/2011. Since that time — read more
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No. 158: 3AMReads: Tastemakers Africa 10-Year Plan | Safaricom Invests Nearly $2M in R&D Lab | Nigeria’s Petrol Corporation Moves Digital
Tastemakers Africa CEO Cherae Robinson Gives Us A Sneak Peak On Her 10-Year Plan and I’m Here For It Marketplaces are powerful and have a track record of disrupting industries and building. See eBay and Airbnb. Look out for what Safaricom could build on its Mpesa platform if regulators don’t make the two break up. — read more
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No. 157: 3AMReads: What Will Ford’s New CEO Do About Africa?
Apologies for missing yesterday’s post. My body is making it clear I need to sleep more. The big market news yesterday was Ford CEO Mark Fields retiring, making room for Jim Hackett to take over at the home of America’s best selling vehicle. The news was surprising because Fields had done a pretty good job — read more
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No. 156: 3AMReads: Azure in Africa |Facebook Invests in Fiber Optic | Volvo Takes to Kenya
Microsoft Announces First Public Cloud in Africa Microsoft announced today that it was going to stand up two data centers in South Africa, the first public data centers on the continent. Let that sit with you for a bit. Hopefully, this is the beginning of public clouds proliferating across the continent. The benefits of this — read more
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No. 155: 3AMReads: AFC Head Makes Case for Infrastructure | GM Sells South Africa Operation
Africa Finance Corporation CEO Makes Case for Infrastructure Investment Andrew Alli is one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter. He is witty and always provides forthright analysis. During the celebration of the Africa Finance Corporation’s 10 years in business, Alli shared some observations on the importance of infrastructure in Africa. His admonishment to — read more
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No. 154: 3AMReads: Yaba Looks to Remain Lagos’ Startup Epicenter | $100M for Fiber Optic Company | Giant Nigerian Oil Trader Tells Origin Story
CcHub Pushes to Keep Yaba’s Startups Clustered Together I struggled to parse out whether there’s really cause for concern for Yaba’s future as Lagos’ tech hub, or whether this piece was a veiled branding for CcHub. Perhaps, it was some of both. All the same, it’s cool to see CcHub making plans for the long-term — read more
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No. 152: 3AMReads: Upside in African Financial Services | Lonmin Moves Ops to Marikana | China Pledges $100B
Investor Highlights African Financial Services Opportunity Despite Headwinds Kurt Davis surveys the financial services industry across Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cote d’Ivoire as ones where investors will find an upside though the current state of the industry isn’t the prettiest to look at. His projection of Cote d’Ivoire becoming the centerpiece — read more
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No. 151: 3AMReads: Nigeria’s BOI Incentivizes Entrepreneurship | Cars45 CEO Speaks Out | China-Africa Trade Keeps Growing
Nigeria’s Bank of Industry Provides Interest-Free Loans to National Youth Service Members Nigeria’s Bank of Industry has developed a Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund in partnership with the country’s National Youth Service Corps. The program provides NYSC members with loans they can use to further establish their businesses, and it seems like a nice program. Nigeria requires — read more
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No. 150: 3AMReads: African Entrepreneurs and Failure | African Economies Operating at Two Speeds | Cameroon Hosting Digital Economy Conference
Author Calls For African Entrepreneurs to Talk About Failure Idril Abshir penned this interesting piece arguing that African entrepreneurs should talk about failure more, indicating that they will find resilience in discussing failure. She cites the culture among Western entrepreneurs of acknowledging failure. While the stories in the piece were compelling, I don’t know that — read more
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No. 149: 3AMReads: Cheap Black Market Naira | Kana TV’s Winning Ethiopia | Safaricom’s Not About That Breakup Life
Black Market Naira Trading Cheaper Than Official Naira Nigeria’s currency situation has been a mess of late, and I’m blaming it on Billions (read my thoughts in Issue No. 24). Sure enough, hedge funds are sniffing around for a deal. This week has felt like something of a perfect storm for Nigeria with telecoms having — read more
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No. 148: Three AM Reads: MTN Keeps Eye on Iran | Senegal’s Got Gas| Taxing Entertainers and Athletes
MTN Signs Non-Binding Agreement to Invest in Iranian Net South Africa-based MTN Group continues to set its sights on participating in Iran’s fast growing telecoms industry, with this preliminary move to place nearl $40M in Iranian Net for a 49.5% stake in the company. MTN has growing stakes in Iran, with its minority ownership of — read more
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No. 147: Three AM Reads: PE Can Support Entrepreneurs | Rough Q1 for AngloGold | President Buhari, Get Well
The Case for Private Equity to Play a Bigger Role in Supporting Africa’s Entrepreneurs Yemi Laludi, TPG Growth Africa’s Managing Director argues that private equity can tailor its approach to various markets in Africa in efforts to fill the financing vacuum that has stymied Africa’s entrepreneurs in their efforts to take their ideas to the — read more
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No. 145: Three AM Reads – Africa’s Women Innovators | 2U Acquires GetSmarter for $103M | China Beating the West in Africa
Short and sweet this morning! Africa’s Women Innovators Honored at World Economic Forum These 6 are just a sample of the millions out there. Also, shout out to Cherae Robinson for winning 20,000 CHF at the World Tourism Forum for what she’s building at Tastemakers Africa. 2U Acquires South Africa’s GetSmarter for $103M Maryland-based 2U — read more
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No. 144: Three AM Reads: Education in Africa Needs $16-$18B | Dangote Refinery Signs Equipment Deal with Honeywell | Egypt Tops List of Countries for Hotel Development
Report Touts Investment Opportunity for Private Education Across Africa DC-based Caerus Capital put together a report on the investment opportunity in private education across Africa. The authors project that 25% of school age children – 66 million children – across Africa will be in private education by 2021, up from the 21% who are currently — read more
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No. 143: Three AM Reads: Falling Commodity Prices | Kenyan Regulators Split over Bitcoin | IMF Making the Rounds
Coffee Prices Are Going to Drop 6% This Year, But My Americano Will Still Be $4 The World Bank put out its forecasts for global commodity prices last week, and it expects coffee, cocoa, and tea prices to fall 6%. Ivory Coast’s President Ouattara recently called on the country’s cocoa farmers to increase their output — read more
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No. 142: Three AM Reads: Cars45 gets $5m | Ethos Makes a Sugar Play | Ghana’s Illegal Mining Problem
Cars45 Gets $5M to Streamline Nigerian Used Auto Sales Jake Bright reports that Cars45 raised a nice Series A round from Frontier Car Group that has backing from some serious names in the venture capital space – Balderton Capital, EchoVC, TPG Growth, and Maryland-based NEA. Seeing that Cars45 raised its round from this one group — read more
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No. 141: Three AM Reads Late Edition: Kenya’s Geothermal Energy | Resilient Ivory Coast | Nigeria’s FX Reserves
Kenya Pushes Forward on Geothermal Plans It’s fantastic seeing Kenya continue to make progress on its Vision 2030 plan to be generating 5000MW of geothermal energy by 2030. I was rooting for these projects back in 2011, so I’m glad they’re not making me look bad. The groundbreaking for the 158MW Olkaria V geothermal site — read more
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No. 140: Three AM Reads: Egypt Reaps from Devaluation | Private Equity Gets it Done in Uganda | Africans in the MLB
No Pain. No Gain: Egypt Edition Yesterday, I bristled at the scenario of a group of hedge fund managers pushing for the devaluation of the Naira. A country going through a devaluation situation experiences lots of pain, but good can come from it. Egypt seems to be seeing early fruit from the devaluation it initiated — read more
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No. 139: Three AM Reads – Hedge Funds in Africa | Africa’s Cities are Big, but Isolated | Artificial Intelligence
A Case for More Hedge Funds Investing in Africa Kurt Davis makes an interesting case for why it makes sense for hedge funds to be more active in core sectors across African markets – financial services, metals and mining, oil and gas, and agriculture and land. I admit that I bristled a bit at the — read more
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No. 138: How Does Africa’s Innovation Economy Tap Into Africa’s Wealth?
Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend who is raising a fund for her Lagos-based startup. At one point in our conversation, she shared the effort she has had to go through to get people she has met with in Silicon Valley up to speed on what is happening in Nigeria’s tech space. This has — read more
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No. 136: Atlas Mara Still Trying to Gain Footing
Last year, I brought up Atlas Mara management getting dressed down in an investor conference call due to the lack of confidence the market had in the firm. Well, their Q1 2016 results can’t be too much more encouraging considering the $2M loss the bank posted. Apparently, management plans to implement some cost reductions and — read more
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No. 135: Queen of Katwe
Last year, I wrote about my frustration with the difficult time I was having finding a movie about a black princess that my daughter could watch. As you can imagine, when I saw that Disney was coming out with a movie called Queen of Katwe, I was thrilled. When I finally watched the trailer, I — read more
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No. 134: Soul City: A City for Black Folk
My head is still shaking after learning that a prison sits on the land where Floyd McKissick was trying to build a city for black people. White Flight, Urban Crisis, New Cities Soul City was a project McKissick began working on in the late 1960s as part of an initiative at the Department of Housing and — read more
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No. 133: Lumumba Was Here
Originally posted on KWAME: Yesterday was the 54th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, independent Congo’s first prime minister. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, one of the first blacks to attend my alma mater, wrote a nice piece on the importance of Lumumba and his death. He recently published a biography of Prime Minister Lumumba that I… — read more
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No. 131: Netflix Delivers on Promise
Netflix went live in 130 countries today. I wrote something on their shareholder letter from last summer. In the letter, Reed Hastings mentioned that the plan was to go completely global by the end of 2016. Delivering on that goal 12 months early is amazing, or at least a good move in managing expectations. — read more
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No. 130: Freedom Schools and Upward Bound Memories
I’ve watched this video of Ron Clark dancing with some of his students at least ten times over the past day. It reminds me of Harambee at Freedom Schools. Starting off the day with a thorough turn-up is good for the soul. I also think about the summers I worked at Upward Bound. Those were — read more
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No. 129: Enthusiasm
I spotted this plaque at my parent’s home before I headed back to DC from one of the best New Year’s holidays I can remember. I have been observing people around me who I admire for how they consistently show their gratitude. On New Year’s Day, I had a pretty good opportunity to work on — read more
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No. 128: Top Posts of 2015
I got this email earlier today from WordPress recapping the year, so I figured I would share the top posts from the year. 1. What Does a Black Princess Look Like? My daughter calls herself queen now, and me king. I’m not quite sure where she got that, but I smile wide every time I — read more
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No. 127: Where Can I Buy African High Fashion?
Africa’s fashion industry has the potential to be massive and you should pay attention to it. When I found out that Akin Adebowale, Kolade Adeyemo, Bobby Pittman, and the rest of the team were building Oxosi, I couldn’t wait to see what they would come up with. Oxosi is an e-commerce platform that brings African high fashion — read more
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No. 126: 3 Thursday AM Reads – Fashion Startups | Wizkid Hits New Levels | 3D Printing in Africa
The retail industry is so different from just a few years ago. I remember buying a shirt from Everlane when all the startup made were t-shirts. The kicker that got me to spend my money was that I could get better quality for cheaper because there were no retailers like Macy’s selling the product and — read more
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No. 125: Osiakwan: Africa’s Time is Now
Eric Osiakwan stated this at the Africa Technology Summit a couple weeks ago, and from what I hear the Summit was a great success. Something of a debate broke out on what sub-sector of the technology industry was the next big thing in Africa. Eric pointed out communication, content and commerce and their impact on health, — read more
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No. 124: 3 Tuesday PM Reads – Power Struggle | Renewables Rescue the Day |Startups for Demographics
Jacqueline Musiitwa shares personal anecdotes on the struggle of working in Lusaka when the power is out. Lights off is a situation Africans across the continent experience, and it impacts education, bottom lines, and general quality of life – for women, especially. Jacqueline points to initiatives like the Power Africa initiative as important in alleviating — read more
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No. 123: 3 Friday PM Reads – $50M to GetYourGuide | Race and Justice in America | Bitcoin, the Blockchain and Black People
Kudos to fellow Woodberry Forest Tigers Johannes, Tao Tao and the rest of the Get Your Guide team on the $50m they raised from KKR. More vim to them as they continue helping folks have enjoyable trips around the world. I would be remiss to give a shoutout to Cherae and the Tastemakers Africa team — read more
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No. 122: 3 Tuesday AM Reads/Views – Talib Kweli and Indie 500 | Kara Nortman Breaks Down E-Commerce | NJ Ayuk Takes Centurion to New Heights
Within five minutes of meeting NJ Ayuk a few years ago, his gravitas came through clearly. After hanging out with him a bit longer, I figured his law firm, Centurion Law Group, was going to be a force across Africa. Here’s a cool video the firm just released. Be sure to check out the rest — read more
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No. 121: Thursday AM Thoughts
Apologies for missing Tuesday’s post. I’m a bit jumbled on helpful content to post, but here’s some of what’s on my mind. Alassane Ouattara’s Second Term Alassane Ouattara stepped into his second and final term as President of Ivory Coast earlier this week. Five years ago, President Ouattara was barricaded in a hotel after Laurent — read more
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No. 120: 3 Thursday AM Reads – Netflix for Black Folks Mais En Francais | Atlanta Investors Building Tech Ecosystem | Always Be Closing
Francophone Africa and Europe can expect access to more African and African-American content through Afrostream. The two-year old startup led by Tonjé Bakang has been on a tear this year, finishing up at Y Combinator and landing funding from Troy Carter’s Cross Culture Ventures (have they finished raising their $50M fund?), Orange Digital Ventures, Ace — read more
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No. 119: $14 Trillion Credit Insurance | Banks Going Extinct | Music for the Soul
Why am I to believe that the market will take care of itself when I read about the conflicts present in a committee that drives much of what happens in the $14 trillion dollar credit insurance? Jalak Jobanputra put together an interesting piece on banks giving way to financial services technology if they do not — read more
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No. 118: 3 Thursday AM Reads – Kweku Adoboli Tells His Story | S2G Ventures Closes $125M Food and Agriculture Fund | Ace Harris Releases Solid African Vibes
I was embarrassed when Kweku Adoboli’s name went across the screen for losing $2.3B while trading ETFs at UBS. A Ghanaian brother had done something really bad. What impact would this have on the perception of Ghanaians? Here’s a fascinating piece on him now that he’s out of jail, but still not in the clear. — read more
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No. 117: 3 Tuesday AM Reads – Davidson Grad Gets a Promotion |JP Morgan Has Plans for Africa | Gabon’s Energy Sector at 30,000ft
I nearly clicked my heels when I saw the news of Amrote Abdella being named Regional Director of Microsoft’s 4Afrika Initiative, an effort for Microsoft to support economic development on the continent while finding new business opportunities. I’m a big fan of Amrote’s. Seeing Davidson alumnae killing it will never get old. What is getting — read more
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No. 116: Can You See the World Through My Eyes?
Niall Ferguson’s biography of Henry Kissinger continues to provoke thought. The following two quotes were delivered at Harvard’s Commencement in 1950. To see Asia through Asian eyes — that is the prime requisite for Western policy towards Asia…You cannot prepare a policy mold for Europe and … assume that it will do for Asia as — read more
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No. 115: Henry Kissinger Was an Idealist?
Niall Ferguson has put together a fascinating biography of Henry Kissinger. Well, at least the 17 chapters I have worked through have been extremely thought provoking. Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist covers the first half of Kissinger’s life (For those that don’t know, Kissinger is still quite alive at 92). Ferguson just took a fellowship position — read more
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No. 114: History Shapers
Folks I want to study more: Kwame Nkrumah Henry Kissinger Lee Kuan Yew Patrice Lumumba Edgar J. Hoover Zbigniew Brzezinski Bayard Rustin Send along book recommendations, if you have any. Who else should I consider? Who is on your list? — read more
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No. 113: Reach, Inc: Building a Cycle of Readers and Leaders
There’s nothing like being around a bunch of really sharp students. This summer, I got to hang out with the participants in Reach, Inc’s summer program and share lessons I have learned building Afara Global. Reach, Incorporated is a DC-based organization that trains teenagers to teach younger students. As a result of this training, the — read more
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No. 112: 3 Thursday AM Reads – Paga Raises $13m | Organic GMOs | Reid Hoffman is Networked
Tayo Oviosu and the Paga team are pushing their dominance in Nigeria’s mobile payment space to the next level with the $13 million Series B round of financing they announced earlier this week. A couple things I need to look into: Now that the Central Bank of Nigeria is implementing its cashless policy, how is — read more
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No. 111: 3 Wednesday AM Reads You Should Have Gotten Tuesday
This piece on Jack Dorsey being named as CEO of Twitter while keeping the CEO reins at Square is pretty poor. How do you give recent examples of folks successfully running multiple companies without discussing what is enabling them to get this done? Yet, you reach back to 1990 to pull out a worst case — read more
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No. 110: 3 Thursday Bedtime Reads – Google Links Ghana | Apple’s Newest Board Member is Black | PushBlack
It’s an advertising company! It’s an infrastructure company! It’s, it’s Google! What doesn’t this company, now a portfolio company of Alphabet, do? Google is trenching around 1,000km of fiber optic cables to connect Accra, Tema and Kumasi. Through Project Link, internet service providers will buy capacity from Google to offer to consumers, unlike Google Fiber — read more
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No. 109: 3 Tuesday AM Reads – US-China Relations and Africa | Africa’s Beer Market | Baltimore on the Rise
Aly-Khan Satchu, one of the most respected equity investors in Kenya, discusses briefly how US-China cooperation would be a benefit to African countries. This aligns with comments Bobby Pittman, managing director of Kupanda Capital made at a session discussing the Electrify Africa Act. More on that sometime later this week. There are rumors of Anheuser-Busch — read more
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No. 108: 3 Thursday AM Reads – VW Scandal | New African Development Bank Chief of Staff | Zero to One
You’ve probably seen the news of Martin Winterkorn’s resignation from his CEO post at the Volkswagen Group. Rough year for this guy. Earlier in the year, VW Group supervisory board chair Ferdinand Piech publicly stated that there was distance between him and Winterkorn. I wonder if anything related to this discovery of VW vehicles emitting — read more
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No. 107: 3 AM Reads – Okonjo-Iweala Joins Lazard | Bob Diamond Facing Criticism | Book on Antifragility
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance landed a senior advisory role with the asset management firm, Lazard, in their sovereign advisory practice. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala faced a good bit of criticism the last few years of her tenure, with the perception that she was quiet on corruption issues, — read more
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No. 106: Help Me With My Blind Spots
I couldn’t see oncoming traffic as I tried to make a left turn after picking up my daughter yesterday evening. A car slowed to a stop to give me space to pull out and the driver waved for me to come through. Typically, people wave at you to let you know that they are giving — read more
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No. 105: 3 Lunchtime Views/Reads
Take a look at the tweet below. If you follow economic development across Africa, you have seen the referenced charts. All I will say about the paternalism in this tweet is that the reasons for optimism about Africa go back further than 60 years. Moving on. Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU, said that the — read more
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No. 104: What Happens When the Software for Our Technology-Dependent Lives Breaks?
I opened up my Pocket to develop my latest “Reads” post a few minutes ago, and got the message you see in the image. For five seconds, I felt like my world had fallen apart. That’s not good. There are so many different ways I can access the news, but have built the majority of — read more
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No. 103: The African Development Bank Welcomes its New President Today
The African Development Bank (AfDB) will be receiving the swagger Dr. Akinwumi Adesina brought to Nigeria’s agriculture sector, as he begins his term as president today. He takes the helm in times that are significantly different from when his predecessor, Dr. Donald Kaberuka got his start, and present their own set of challenges and opportunities, — read more
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No. 102: Mrs. Jones
The woman pictured above changed my life. Mrs. Jones was my 7th grade social studies teacher. My class was slightly rowdy, yet she always remained in control of the room. I started off underperforming in her class, more concerned with my pursuit of coolness. She pulled me aside one day and told me she knew — read more
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No. 101: Christian Taylor Almost Set the Triple Jump World Record!
What a jump! That last phase looks like it hurt, but was so worth it! The world record in the triple jump is 60′. So close! That is the third time Taylor has jumped beyond 18m, equaling the number of times Jonathan Edwards – the world record holder – jumped beyond the 18m mark. He — read more
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No. 100: 5 Tuesday PM Reads and Views
Alice Walker wrote a beautiful poem about Julian Bond. Nas continues to make waves with the launch of the Opportunity Fund, a General Assembly scholarship program focused on getting more women, veterans, African-Americans, and Latinos into programming and engineering. Here’s an interview with Justin Gatlin after he won silver at this year’s World Track and Field Championships. — read more
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No. 99: 3 Tuesday AM Views
1. After highlighting how problematic it is being labeled the first black woman head of South Africa’s Insurance Institute, Delphine Maidu, CEO of Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty for Africa, discussed women leadership styles, what the insurance industry could do to better serve customers, and the low insured rates in South Africa. 2. Ushahidi executive director — read more
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No. 98: The Next Wave
Julian Bond died last night. I can’t shake this image of a wave of folks fighting for equal rights in this country. Every year, key fighters pass on. Every year, new fighters emerge. The photo above is of W.E.B DuBois on the left holding 2-year old Julian Bond’s hand. Bree Newsome Clint Smith Phillip Agnew — read more
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No. 97: 4 Lessons I Have Learned From 100 Blog Posts
Four lessons I have picked up from 100 blog posts. — read more
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No. 96: 5 Thursday AM Reads
1. Fascinating piece on Sam’s Cafe in Tehran. I look forward to reading more about life in Iran as business opens up with the rest of the world. 2. One of the benefits of the Internet is the transparency it enables. Here’s an interesting post from Zirtual CEO Maren Kate on why Zirtual failed and how — read more
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No. 95: Eric Osiakwan Pushing the Growth of Africa’s VC Space
I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing Eric Osiakwan about his experience building internet infrastructure in its early days in African countries, and the transition to investing in African startups. On top of that, he is pushing to get more Africans in the investing game to support the growth of the technology industry across the continent. Here’s the — read more
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No. 94: New VC Firm To Fund Women-Led Startups
I was glad to see the news about the launch of Valor Ventures, a VC firm led by women and focused on finding women founders. Another firm that excites me is the Impact America Fund. Here’s a good interview it’s founder, Kesha Cash, did with the Andreesen Horowitz team. Some time ago, I posted First — read more
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No. 92: Thursday Lunch Views and Reads
1. Clint Smith shares his experience teaching a creative writing course at a prison and coming to terms with his socialized view of people who are incarcerated. (via Clint Smith) 2. I wish I was in Ghana to check out this cool looking art exhibition. (via Bessie Akuba Winn-Afeku) 3. Sometimes, these assurances that we have nothing to — read more
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No. 91: Girls Killing the Technology Game
Andreessen Horowitz just posted a short interview with four high school girls who recently competed in Technovation 2015. (If you’re opening this in your email, click on the title so that you can see the podcast linked below.) The winner of the competition was a team from Nigeria! All of the teams are really impressive. — read more
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No. 90: Thursday AM Reads and Listens
No. A little over a year ago, Jehiel was telling me about this idea he had for smart tractors. A few days ago, he talked about what Hello Tractor is doing while moderating a panel with President Obama. Amazing. It is so frustrating to read story after story on America’s failing infrastructure. Great post by Mark — read more
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No. 89: Tuesday AM Reads
It’s looking like a $3B effort to put broadband in rural America hasn’t gone well. Good list of African multi-nationals with sights on other parts of the continent. Worth taking another look at a report BCG put out in 2010 on African multinationals pushing to compete in the global economy. Critique of a new documentary — read more
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No. 88: Thursday Morning Reads
Tidjane Thiam gets off to a nice start at Credit Suisse Silicon Valley’s Political End Game Rocket Internet’s portfolio value has grown $2.5 billion in nine months Wistia founder shares how not being fake helped them close an account with a big customer Not sure I buy the analysis that Eurobond issuances among African countries with — read more
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No. 87: Build Something From Nothing
Paul Judge has a mantra – build something from nothing. It’s amazing to watch folks I have met along the way live this out. Jehiel Oliver’s startup Hello Tractor was profiled in Fast Company today. It wasn’t too long ago when we sat down at Chinatown Coffee and he told me about this idea he was working — read more
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No. 86: Thoughts on David Brooks’ Letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates
David Brooks published a review of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest book, Between the World and Me this morning. A few points stood out to me: The last year has been an education for white people. There has been a depth, power and richness to the African-American conversation about Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston and the other killings that — read more
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No. 85: Netflix is Taking it Global
One more before bed. Netflix released its shareholder letter today and had some interesting results. Jake Bright mentioned in his comments during the book launch for The Next Africa, that Netflix is paying attention to what is happening in African markets in the internet TV streaming space. So, when I saw that Netflix released its — read more
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No. 84: I Can’t Wait to Read The Next Africa
When Aubrey Hruby and finance ministers from several African countries waited for the globe at Google headquarters to rotate to the African continent so that they could see how many hits the continent was getting at the time, they were stunned to see just a couple dots compared to completely outlined countries for the rest — read more
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No. 83: Growing Exports to Nigeria Can Be Atlanta’s Secret Sauce
Atlanta is a top-10 exporter amongst US cities to Nigeria. I hope the city puts more energy behind its connection to the country. The city recently completed its Metropolitan Export Plan with support from JP Morgan and the Brookings Institution. Currently, the only African countries an exporter in Atlanta can get information about exporting to — read more
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No. 82: Davidson Alums to Play a Big Role in 2016 NC Senatorial Race?
North Carolina Democrats are beginning to roll out plans for unseating Republican Richard Burr from the Senate. This is set to be an interesting election if rumors are correct that former UNC president Tom Ross and current US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx are eyeing a run for the seat. Both are Davidson grads and Tom — read more
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No. 81: There’s Not Enough Space in This Room for Both God and Fear
Be sure to subscribe to David D.’s The Freedom Ring. He’s calling up sung and unsung players in the Civil Rights movement and documenting their stories. His first conversation was with his dad, David Dennis, Sr. Amazing stories about how he got his start in the movement, people he met along the way, and some — read more
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No. 80: Can Tech and Government Work Together?
What does it look like for tech startups and governments to work together well? Andreessen Horowitz posted a new podcast with Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser today to discuss this, alongside former DC mayor Adrian Fenty. Pretty good conversation. Some of the topics covered in the conversation, included: 1. Catching up to the technology startup sector — read more
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No. 79: Mother Ghana is Struggling
My neck hurts after shaking my head while reading this Economist piece on Ghana’s economic woes. — read more
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No. 78: Shoutouts
There should be an app that tracks when you’re bragging about your friends and sends them updates when you do. One of my good friends and daughter’s godmother, Livi, is pursuing her PhD at the University College London and got upgraded from a Master’s candidate to a PhD candidate a few days ago after writing — read more
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No. 76: What Does a Potential Liberty Global-Vodacom Deal Mean for Safaricom?
Liberty Global and Vodacom are in talks for some sort of deal. Early rumors were that the two were considering a merger, which would be one of the biggest ever, but Vodacom denies a merger being part of deliberations. What’s interesting about this news, besides John Malone continuing to take over the media world, is — read more
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No. 75: Why Akinwumi Adesina Won the African Development Bank Presidency
Bobby Pittman, head of Kupanda Capital, did a nice interview with the Center for Global Development where he serves as a board member alongside the likes of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Lawrence Summers. He highlights the reasons Dr. Adesina won the AfDB presidency, and some things on which he will have to focus. Three points that — read more
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No. 74: Corruption: FIFA or Wall Street
A couple of weeks ago, several banks agreed to pay criminal fines close to $9 billion for currency rigging, a felony crime. Around the same time, the corruption deal with FIFA started heating up. I get that billions of people love the beautiful game and the corruption in the sport has been ongoing for decades. — read more
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No. 73: Why You Should Pay Attention to Africa’s Retail and Fashion
For us, today, Africa is more important than the U.S. In five to 10 years, Africa can become the new frontier for luxury. – Ermenegildo Zegna While reading this Quartz piece on Africa’s fashion opportunity, I came across this Global Retail Development Index put together by A.T Kearney. The Index ranks the top 30 developing — read more
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No. 72: International Company ABB Invests in Michigan
Every time I see announcements of foreign companies locating operations in the US, I dream about more African companies doing the same. Companies like United Bank for Africa have US operations, but I am talking about big announcements at the scale of Porsche’s $100 million investment in its North American headquarters near Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in — read more
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No. 71: Anthony Scaramucci and Henry Blodget on Failure
For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of adversity. Psalm 24:16 I discovered a new podcast earlier this week, Masters in Business, with Barry Ritholtz. Two of his recent interviews were with Anthony Scaramucci, head of Skybridge Capital, a hedge fund and host of the SALT Conference, probably — read more
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No. 69: George Magnus Goes Deep and Wide on China’s Ambition
Former UBS Chief Economist wrote this fantastic analysis of China’s ambitious One Belt, One Road plan – essentially a remix of the Silk Road we heard about in Disney movies… Magnus questions the likelihood of China realizing this plan due in large part to the difficulty of having the renminbi accepted globally as a reserve — read more
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No. 68: African Fashion’s $31 Billion Opportunity
What image comes to mind when you think African fashion? A dashiki worn by a person with an afro? A wax printed dress? A band of kente cloth thrown across a college graduates shoulders? I, for one, have a pretty limited knowledge of the diversity of Africa’s fashion aesthetics, and it has been exciting to — read more
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No. 67: Pay Attention to the Air Through Which You Walk
Chinedu Echeruo gave a talk at Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series on the value that creativity unleashes into the world. In it, he shared a parable David Foster told in a speech to Kenyon College’s 2005 graduating class. There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish — read more
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No. 66: Watch Halt and Catch Fire
The New Yorker profile on Marc Andreessen I wrote about earlier today mentioned an AMC show, Halt and Catch Fire. I had never heard of it, but just…You should watch the show. Messed up people (who isn’t?) build a PC from the ground up in the days when PCs weighed more than your one year — read more
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No. 65: Marc Andreessen and Jean-Yves Ollivier Could Have a Lot in Common
Marc Andreessen’s frenetic pace on Twitter has fascinated me for the past year. He seems to devour a ton of information and makes nice connections between the current technology landscape and the history and theory that got us to this point. The New Yorker did a helpful profile on him – the kind that makes — read more
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No. 64: What Does a Black Princess Look Like?
Imagine being able to pull up a film on Yaa Asantewaa for your daughter when she asks to watch TV. I am frustrated with the dearth of animated films with black princesses as the star characters. After my daughter’s 30th viewing of Frozen, I looked for other films with a black princess. So far, I — read more
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No. 63: What is Happening in Africa’s Cybersecurity Space?
Andreessen Horowitz just wrapped up a series on the current cyber security landscape. It got me thinking about what the cybersecurity landscape looks like in African countries. In particular, I’m interested in cybersecurity work going on at the intersection of telecommunications and banking. Nigeria has a policy of reducing the circulation of cash in the — read more
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No. 62: Africa’s Top Mayors
I am a huge fan of cities and their ability to create an environment in which people can thrive, so seeing the results of the African Mayor Awards last week was pretty cool. Awarded at the 2nd Africa Urban Infrastructure Investment Forum, the mayors of Praia, Cape Verde; Kinondoni, Tanzania; and Accra, Ghana were the — read more
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No. 61: Bridging “Trade not Aid”
I gave a presentation earlier this week on how investment was key to moving the needle on transforming economic engagement with African countries from development aid to infrastructure. Here is my brainstorm in preparation for that talk, with some edits. During the IMF Spring Meetings a couple weeks ago, I heard a theme of working — read more
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No. 60: 10 Reasons to Listen to Hugh & Crye’s The Protagonist Podcast
I binged on Pranav Vora’s podcast, The Protagonist, this week. Pranav is founder of Hugh & Crye, a really cool startup men’s clothier that targets lean and athletic men. The podcast contains interviews with the founders of nine DC-based startups. I finished the last episode yesterday and here are some thoughts on why you should give — read more
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No. 58: Do You Remember the T-Mobile Sidekick?
Do you remember the T-Mobile Sidekick? Did you ever ask how it was made? I sure did not. — read more
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No. 57: The Diaspora Connects Over Dinner
A couple weekends ago, I had a blast at a Dine Diaspora event that focused on connecting folks of African descent. We had a delicious meal prepared by Chef Dadisi Olutosin, and discussed Africa’s leadership challenges among other issues. The diversity of backgrounds among the participants was cool to see. There was a restaurateur, an investment — read more
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No. 56: Reflections from Yale’s 2014 Sankofa54 Conference
While doing research for another article, I ran across my talking points from a presentation I gave at Yale’s Sankofa54 conference. They were interesting to take a look at a year later. I figured it could not hurt to post them here. Reflections on role models for Anna Olivia Last night was incredible for me. — read more
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No. 55: World Economic Forum Panel on Africa’s Growth Agenda
The World Economic Forum is taking place this week. At 10:15am today, January 21, a panel will discuss Africa’s Growth Agenda. A link to the panel is below. Africa’s Growth Agenda — read more
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No. 54: Lumumba Was Here
Yesterday was the 54th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, independent Congo’s first prime minister. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, one of the first blacks to attend my alma mater, wrote a nice piece on the importance of Lumumba and his death. He recently published a biography of Prime Minister Lumumba that I look forward to reading. — read more
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No. 53: Nigerians Feel Good About Their Well Being?
So, personal well-being in Nigeria is trending upward, according to data compiled by NOIPolls. December produced the highest results for the year – a month when the naira stumbled significantly, the Nigerian Stock Exchange went for a wild ride, and Boko Haram deadliness persisted.More than anything, I think this displays the resiliency of this country’s — read more
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No. 52: Municipal Broadband Gets President Obama’s Attention
I was excited to read that President Obama has set his sights on ensuring that cities can develop their own broadband networks, should they choose to do so. While working with the Georgia Municipal Association, we had a couple of close calls that would have prevented Georgia cities from operating their own broadband networks. President Obama — read more
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No. 51: Private Equity in Africa Made One Big Little Step
I may have done a fist pump when I saw that Helios Investment Partners raised $1.1 billion for its latest Africa-focused fund – a new record besting the $908 million the firm raised about three years ago. The notion of investing on the African continent is not such a novelty any longer. Sixty percent of — read more
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No. 50: Three Podcasts That Will Make Your Daily Commute Amazing
Helpful resource podcasts to give a listen. — read more
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No. 49: EB-5 Visa and African Investment in the US
As the number of wealthy individuals in Africa grows, I wonder if the US will see more public investment from such individuals. For example, Tony Elumelu invested an undisclosed amount in a California-based satellite startup last year. Will we see more folks follow the lead of, say, the Qatari government which gave around $100 million — read more
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No. 48: LinkedIn Not Paying Attention to Africa Would Be a Huge Mistake
LinkedIn is missing an opportunity to capitalize on its reach into the top management talent around the world to capture the stories of Africa’s top business talent and their experience before and ruing the economic sea change taking place across the continent. The company’s Influencers program has been running for over two years now and it does — read more
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No. 47: Is AGOA Right For US Trade With Africa?
The African Growth and Opportunity Act is up for re-authorization on September 30, 2015. The Act essentially makes it easier for certain African countries to export some of their goods to the United States, by making them duty-free. The goal of the Act was to support development on the continent and increase US-Africa trade. Fifteen years — read more
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No. 46: Is A Tax Credit Going to Encourage US Investment in Africa?
Is the right next step for promoting American business investment in African markets a tax credit that encourage American companies to repatriate their investments on the continent? The Africa Report ran an interview in November with Rosa Whitaker, head of the Whitaker Group. She argues that this tax credit is the right investment response for US-Africa — read more
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No. 45: My Goals for 2015
Feel free to check in over the course of the year to see how I’m doing in making this stuff happen. Love God. Love People. Last year really tested my faith. I hit some really dark spots and had some real highs. I look forward to listening to God’s word daily and writing out my prayers — read more
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No. 44: My A-Listers For Africa – Business and Policy
List of my top people to follow for insights on Africa’s business and policy environments. — read more
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No. 43: Why I Do What I Do?
I was 10 or 11 years old when I started crying while watching a PBS show about something related to HIV/AIDS in Africa. It is a bit blurry now, but I believe there was a woman with a child on the screen. Something about the image shook me so deeply. I remember writing in my — read more
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No. 42: Nigerian Fashion Makes a Statement: This Week in African Markets
From LinkedIn. ECONOMIC PAIN CONTINUES – Moody’s downgraded South Africa’s five largest banks, nine of its municipalities, its two development finance institutions, following the firm’s downgrading of the government’s debt ratingand Eskom’s bond rating last week. While the outlook remains stable for the banks and one of the development institutions – the Industrial Development Corporation — read more
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No. 41: Three Things in African Markets You Need to Know This Week – October 28
President Zuma Skips Monday’s innovaBRICS & Beyond Conference – link South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma cancelled his scheduled Monday appearance in London at the innovaBRICS conference, hosted by Deloitte. South African publication City Press reported that President Zuma cancelled his appearance due to not being able to secure a meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron, — read more
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No. 40: Three Things in African Markets You Need to Know This Week – October 14
Oil Discovered Off Senegal’s Coast – link The wave of West African countries discovering oil continues with Cairn Energy, a Scottish Oil Company, striking oil about 100km off the coast of Senegal. The company is not yet sure about the size of the discovery – a first for Senegal. When Ghana discovered oil in 2010, — read more
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No. 39: Three Things in African Markets You Needed to Know Last Week – October 9
Here’s the rundown on last week’s episode of New Rules Africa. Check out the video for our deep dive into Africa’s stock exchanges: Link Marriott Plans to Build 50 Hotels in Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt by 2020 – Link Marriott is putting both feet in Africa, where it projects to have its highest revenue growth through — read more
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No. 38: Sovereign Wealth, IPOs, Cool Jobs, and Cities
Cherae and I had a great time on New Rules Africa this week, covering: Zimbabwe established sovereign wealth fund Rocket Internet filed for IPO in Germany African Development Bank opened Young Professionals Program Read the summary below to get up to speed on what we covered, and check out the show. Zimbabwe Establishes Sovereign Wealth — read more
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No. 37: Nigeria’s Inclusive Growth Prospects
Nigeria has tremendous growth potential and risks. My friends and I hopped on a Google Hangout to discuss. — read more
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No. 36: The Fight Continues for Governance and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Independence
Key Points 1. The saga around the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria governor continues; 2. The Central Bank governor is handily backing up his reputation; 3. President Jonathan could get a black eye from this fight; and 4. The independence of the Central Bank of Nigeria is in the balance. The Saga The February 20 — read more
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No. 35: What I’m Reading Today
Davidson profiled Muna Musiitwa on her work in Africa. Great nuggets on key questions for mapping the way forward on the continent – [http://buff.ly/1ojta8X] Jason Njoku does some nice analysis on property values in Lagos in parallel with tech investments – [http://buff.ly/1ojtfsY] Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has paid a good bit of attention — read more
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No. 34: Zendesk IPO Predicts Dropifi’s Future
The Dropifi team probably felt chills running through their bodies while watching Zendesk’s share price rise 49 percent on day one of its IPO on Thursday, and then reach a $1B market cap on its second day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Here’s why: 1. Big Sandbox – In its Form S-1 — read more
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No. 33: What’s Your Reputation?
Campbell Brown says @DanielLoeb is like a Marine— 'There is no better friend and no worse enemy' http://t.co/WUyoHkI067 @SuccessCharters — Julia La Roche (@JuliaLaRoche) April 29, 2014 Your reputation is powerful. I recently sat in on a workshop covering best practices for managing one’s reputation. The three prevailing themes were: 1. What do you perceive — read more
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No. 32: Reflections from NYU Africa Economic Forum
“I don’t feel pressure from being the President of the Toronto Raptors. I feel pressure from Africa.” The energy that entered the room when Masai Ujiri said that at yesterday’s NYU Africa Economic Forum is why I am still awake. Masai went on to say that his work would be a waste if he didn’t — read more
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No. 31: Here’s My Issue with the IMF/World Bank Africa Rising Seminar
When I first saw, the agenda for the Africa Rising seminar at this year’s IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings, I posted a tweet: There's a peculiarity in the agenda for IMF/World Bank Spring Meeting seminar on "Africa Rising." What is it? http://t.co/wiuvyow1We — KWAME (@KwameSomPimpong) April 7, 2014 Probably not the wisest thing to not provide any — read more
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No. 26: As a Third Grader, I Broke Up a Fight Between Two Fifth Graders
And thankfully, Mark Mobius aka Lex Luthor is breaking up the fight going on between emerging and developed markets on US Federal Reserve Bank guidance rumors. The dance has gone something like this: Emerging Markets: Sigh, the Fed is being pretty tight with it’s currency. Come on coach, let emerging markets spin! Ben Bernanke: Policy — read more
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No. 25: Infrastructure in Africa: Go Big
In 2009, The World Bank estimated that it would take $93B annually over the next 10 years to bring Africa’s infrastructure to a healthy level. Four years later, how much of the $372B needed has actually been invested on the continent? Watching Eddie Obeng give this TED Talk left me pondering on how we can — read more
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No. 23: Three Things Africa on My Mind This Week
1. Mining and Governance in Africa – Kudos to Ghana for ramping up its move against illegal mining in Ghana with the arrests of several Chinese miners two weeks ago, and several Nigeriens a few days ago. I look forward to seeing how the country and others continue to build their capacity around governance to — read more
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No. 22: Lunch with Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool
It usually does not take long to sense when certain people have wisdom, but when are you able to actually feel a person’s wisdom? One can feel Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool’s wisdom. During our conversation over lunch on Wednesday, Ambassador Rasool stressed the importance of South Africa exporting the principle of Ubuntu – I am because — read more
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No. 21: Lessons From a Zambian Poultry Entrepreneur
Never have I been so excited about chickens! Earlier this year in Uganda, I and Sydney Musonda developed a business model for a chicken farm he would run in Zambia. He spent the next five months pursuing financing for his venture and secured funding in November. To date, he has purchased 205 day-old chicks and — read more
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No. 20: African Countries Drive Geothermal Development Amid US-China Brinksmanship
United Nations climate talks end today in South Africa and the United States and China are playing chicken on who will take the lead in stewarding the environment well while also driving economic development. Quietly, Kenya has signed major deals just this year that will see the opening of at least three plants that will — read more
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No. 19: Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital: Brazil v. African Countries
Entrepreneurs across the African continent are developing highly innovative technologies that are meeting real needs and improving the ease of life for people from all walks of life. At this year’s MIT Venture Capital (VC) Conference, I sat in on a panel that covered Brazil’s VC space. Two things struck me as very different from — read more
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No. 18: Not a Protectionist, But David Cameron’s Interest in Africa Makes Me Nervous
While reading an article on David Cameron’s visit to Africa, I just couldn’t help but see an image of British ships exploring the new world, landing on the African continent and thinking – “we’ve got free labor”. The author follows Prime Minister Cameron on his trip to South Africa and Nigeria, highlighted by the fact — read more
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No. 17: Compartment Syndrome Reveals African Brain Drain
Why did there seem to be so many African health care professionals at DeKalb Medical Hospital? Over the course of my weeklong stay at the hospital, recovering from surgery, I could not help but ponder this. In the course of a week, nurses from Nigeria and Tanzania tended to me. My primary doctor was Nigerian. — read more
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No. 16: Uganda – Farming Challenges in Kayongo
Though back in the US, I am still in awe at how lush Uganda’s land is. I am also in awe to have seen so many children with malnutrition at the church I worshipped at on my last Sunday in the country. I and some friends travelled to a village called Kayongo that is located — read more
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No. 15: Incredible Uganda – Week 1
I have been eager to update you on my first week in Uganda. The past week that I have spent in Uganda has been a tremendous time of soaking in observations of Uganda’s business and governance environment. My first meeting of the week was with Dr. Yasin Ziraba, Chairman of the National Steering Committee for — read more
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No. 14: Rail and Tram Networks Establish Collaboration Space
I left a 10-day vacation in Switzerland last month in awe of the country’s rail infrastructure. One can live in a small village hours away from a major city like Zurich or Geneva, yet work in the city without a car. This would be tough to do in Atlanta. In Switzerland, trams are an indispensable — read more
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No. 13: Business Exchange Encourages Business Deals Between Swiss and African Businesses
Business people from African countries and Switzerland will gather for the Fourth Swiss-African Business Exchange in Geneva this week to dig in and find ways to do business with one another. Exchange sessions will cover several topics including manufacturing, East African trade and investment opportunities and renewable energy. The following manufacturers will make up part — read more
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No. 12: Partnerships Needed: Atlantan and African Entrepreneurs Ripe to Connect
While receiving an award for Excellence in Commercial Diplomacy at Howard University’s Africa Business Conference, Florizelle Liser, Assistant US Trade Representative for Africa expressed her desire to see entrepreneurs in the African-American community and in African countries seek out partnerships with each other. The city of Atlanta, Georgia has a mix of key ingredients to — read more
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No. 11: Africa’s Agricultural Potential – What’s the Cost?
At what cost will Africa realize the economic potential of its agricultural industry? According to McKinsey & Company, about 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land is on the African continent. A few months ago, NPR did a piece on how Brazil has leveraged science to establish the country as a breadbasket. While listening — read more
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No. 10: Good Governance Still Africa’s Achilles Heel
None of the three options are sustainable for the continent and I align with your critiques. A consistent stance on governance is the best policy move for the international community to take in engaging African countries. For example, the World Justice Project is working to bring a consistent definition to the rule of law around — read more
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