DAWN by Africa Business Association

DAW

"Yennenga, Warrior Princess of Burkina Faso" page 109

CONTENTS September-October 2021 4

Publisher's Message

Business 8 11 12 13 14 16

Commercial Pilot 25

21 25 26 28 30

Betting on a Future 'Made in Cameroon' Kenyans Lead the World in Peer to Peer Crypto Trade Linktree Partners with PayPal to Allow Users Globally to Accept Direct Payments Amazon Inaugurates its First Logistics Centre in Egypt The World of Fashion is Getting Wider 7 Easy Ways to Use PowerPoint Templates to Power Your Content Marketing Campaign A Bank at Every Corner Store 21-Year Old Becomes Ghana’s Youngest Female Commercial Pilot 7 Business Models that will Rule the Next Decade Why You Want to be Market-Driven Rather Than Marketing-Driven The Skin Lightening Business is Booming in Kenya—Though No One will Admit it

Development 33 34 36

World of Fashion 14

36 44

Agriculture 48 50 52

Madacasgar Famime 50

September-October 2021

Economist Magazine calls for Georgieva to Quit IMF over World Bank Data Scandal Empowering African Women Entrepreneurs Space Manufacturing Startup Plans to Build First Off-world Factory Blood, Brains and Burgers: The Future is Labgrown Everything This Wildly Reinvented Wind Turbine Generates Five Times More Energy than its Competitors Elon Musk’s new Satellites Could Sneak Internet Past the Taliban IPCC Scientists Still Haven’t Cracked Africa’s Biggest Climate Mystery Madagascar is Suffering from a Climate Change Famine Lab-grown Coffee Cuts Out the Beans and Deforestation (and the farmers)

Pandemic-Health 54

Novavax’s Eﬀort to Vaccinate the World, From

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Iba Mar Diop Stadium 106 56

57 58

Zero to Not Quite Warp Speed Pfizer and BioNTech in Agreement to Manufacture COVID Vaccine for Distribution in Africa Kenyans on Twitter (#KOT) Fill Vaccine Information Gaps Moderna’s mRNA Vaccine for HIV is Starting Human Trials

Governance 60 63 66 67 68 70

Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema visits VP Kamala Harris at the White House Ghana, Hub for Doing Business The UK has Committed to Making Africa’s Landmark Trade Agreement Successful West African Regional Bloc Adopts New Plan to Launch Eco Single Currency in 2027 Remittance to Africa Projected to Decrease Conferment of Sierra Leonea Citizenship

Investment 72 74 76 77 80

African Stock Exchange/Bourse Kenya Hasn’t Figured Out How to Put its Local Founders First A Nigerian Oil Palm Startup Raised $4 Million to Build a “Smart” Factory IMF OKs Big Increase in Funds to Alleviate Pandemic Impact 3 Takeaways from Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott Teaming up to Fund Women’s and Girls’ Causes A $2 Billion Fintech Startup has Become Africa’s Fastest Unicorn

Technology/Science 83 84 85 86 3

Alphabet’s Project Taara Laser Tech Beamed 700TB of Data Across Nearly 5km Ethiopia to Build Local Rival to Facebook Meet Silas Adekunle; Nigerian Born Tech Genius African Languages to get More Bespoke September-October 2021

Scientific Terms Welcome to the Age of Wireless Electricity Covid-19 is Changing the way African Countries are Collaborating with Each Other The Promise of the African Genome Project

Lifestyle/Culture 96 97 98 100 101 102 106 108 109 110 112

Presidential Visiti 60

Gaming Robot Inventor 85

Barack Obama to Join NBA Africa as Strategic Partner Undefeated: First Black Girl Duo Wins International Debate Competition at Harvard Tracking the Future of Tennis World-Famous Ghanaian Artist Will Be First to Have Artwork Featured in Outer Space Meet the Book-Obsessed Entrepreneur How Digital Beauty Filters Perpetuate Colorism Africa's First Youth Games Bring Hopes for Continent's First Olympics Netflix and Disney Have a Major Disadvantage in Africa’s Streaming Wars LIN CROWLEY FINE ART Agoodjie Warriors: The Black Women Amazons that once Protected Benin The History of Congo's Leopard Men Society that Inspired Marvel's Black Panther

Columns 115

Events Around the African Continent and the World

Awakening the African Giant Within DAWN

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Publisher's Message

Ricky Muloweni Publisher's Message THANKS FOR TAKING TIME to read this October edition of the "DAWN." In this publication, we are sending a shout out to "Bally", the newly elected President of the Republic of Zambia. We wish him and his team success in their mission to transform the economy of Zambia. We are also thrilled to feature the work of Lin Crowley on our cover-page. Her painting of Princess Yenenga of Bukina Faso gives an absolute aesthetic pleasure. Make it a must to read page 109 to learn more about Lin Crowley Fine Art and her outstanding renderings of historic Africans. The Dawn will continue to play it's roll in encouraging Art in our society, particularly to future generations.

November-December 2021

As we all transition through this pandemic our societies are facing many challenges in business processes as you can read beginning on page 54. North America is having supply chain challenges as they turn the corner on vaccinations, while in Africa more people need to get the vaccinations. As such, we implore all developed nations to make available their excess vaccines to the underserved nations and for the pharmaceutical companies to ramp up production. Africa should learn from this pandemic. We need to have more on-continent production facilities of pharmaceutical products and more robust medical service systems. The IMF article on page 33 regarding favors in world rankings for doing business is of serious concern. These rankings have, overtime, positioned African countries at the bottom of the list DAWN

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AFRICAN TIGRESS interviews Dr. Wilmot Allen to share his experience starting a business in Kenya - Venture Lift Africa: https://vlafrica.com; http://www.indygeneus.ai (35 minutes) - not good for business by merely being in Africa. It is time for the IMF to apologize to all African nations because actions like those their leaders have taken will continue to have generational consequences and impacts on the African people. The program of the Tony Elumelu Foundation to mentor young Africans (page 34) should be supported. Africa Business Association is calling upon all Diaspora Africans to participate in this noble program. We also bring to your attention the issue of Africa warming faster than the global average during this period of climate change as discussed on page 48. If the trend continues the continent will face unsurmountable challenges including farming, mining, immigration and more. A note to all our North American audience. The Africa Business Association will be conducting 5

November-December 2021

education programs on AGOA (Africa Growth and Opportunity Act) beginning in Spring 2022. AGOA is a United States Trade Act, enacted on 18 May 2000 as Public Law 106 of the 200th Congress. AGOA provides eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the U.S. market for over 1,800 products, in addition to the more than 5,000 products that are eligible for duty-free access under the Generalized System of Preferences program. American small businesses have a huge opportunity to tap into the wide range of imports of raw materials from Africa. Its ORGANIC time baby…… Ricky Muloweni Publisher/President dawn@africabusinessassociation.org aba@africabisinessassociation.org www.africabusinessassociation.org DAWN

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About the

Africa Business Association The Africa Business Association is an independent international business development organization. We oﬀer access to the latest resources, information, and best practices in advocacy and communications for the African Diaspora and the African entrepreneurs in Africa. We work to help you have access to news and events as starting points for constructive conversations and calls to action. We seek to cut through the froth of the political spin cycle to underlying truths and values. We want to be so focused on progress that together we can provide a credible and constructive generation of Africans that take seriously our previous generations and act upon all their wishes, our hopes and aspirations to make lasting change for all future generations. 6

September-October 2021

Africa Business Association

"DAWN"

PUBLISHER/PRESIDENT Ricky Muloweni

ADVISORY BOARD

Earl 'Skip' Cooper, II, CEO, Black Business Association H.E. Sheila Siwela, Ambassador H.E. Kone L. Tanou, Ambassador

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ricky Muloweni

LAYOUT/TYPESETTING Lion Communications

AFRICA BUSINESS ASSOCIATION NEWS 6564 LOISDALE COURT, SUITE 600 Springfield, VA 22150 USA 1-972-908-9312 aba@africabisinessassociation.org dawn@africabusinessassociation.org www.africabusinessassociation.org

Copyright © 2020 by Africa Business Association News All Rights Reserved. The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

Image credits: Cover-http://creativafrica.blogspot.com, United States Department of Commerce

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Agriculture - Business - Commentary - Development - Education - Governance History - Investment - Lifestyle/Culture - Technology/Science

Business

Betting on a Future 'Made in Cameroon'

Folon © Da

Gaelle Laura Zambou Kenfack poses at her Zenka Market Shop in Yaounde © Daniel Beloumou Olomo

SHE THOUGHT IT WAS a "crazy gamble" at the time, but four years on, Gaelle Laura Zambou Kenfack has never looked back since creating a firm to produce and sell "Made in Cameroon" items. Zambou returned to Cameroon at the end of 2016 after 10 years working as a consultant for BMW in Germany, the one-time colonial power in the central African country of some 25 million people, highly dependent on imports. Other business leaders like her are betting on the "Made in Cameroon" (MIC) mark -- a concept

September-October 2021

formally launched by the private sector five years ago to promote local production, processing and consumption. The goal is to overcome a long-standing weakness in Cameroon's economy: the lack of "value-added" activities that create jobs and generate money beyond the business of selling primary resources such as minerals, oil and timber. Stores labelled "Made in Cameroon" have already opened in several cities across the country. "Five years ago, there was only one store dedicated to the MIC mark. We are now at 33,"

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ng, zom, okok and mango bark -- traditional Cameroonian cuisine and medicine products -- line the shelves aniel Beloumou Olomo

says Carine Andela, president of a group calling itself the Association of Ingenious Entrepreneurs of Africa (Asenia). Andela has taken up fish farming. Aquaculturists have until now imported a lot of their fry — juvenile fish — from neighbouring Nigeria, but "what is interesting is that some young people have started growing them themselves," she says.

salt", a mixture of salt and several local spices. "Our concept is to promote MIC by highlighting local products because that is what makes the economy grow," said Zambou. To ensure regular supplies for her shop, Zambou is in contact with a dozen local producers from whom she buys raw materials before processing them. She has another store in Douala, the main port and economic capital of Cameroon, and wants to open more shops quickly. Samuel Safo Tchoﬀo, a former oil industry engineer, has also taken the plunge in creating his Not rocket science own company. Its pilot pumpkin seed-shelling In Biyem-Assi, a popular district of the capital plant is located in Montee Jouvence, another Yaounde, Zambou's company Kenza Market was working-class district of Yaounde. one of the first MIC businesses to open. Spices, "It took 27 years of research to get to this factory," dried fruits and vegetables, vegetable oils for the Safo says with a broad smile. The production line skin, or marinades, line the shelves. is made up of a chain of 11 machines assembled One of the flagship products of the store is "spicy see page 10

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Business Made In Cameroon

from page 9

A trainee produces fish paste sausages from African bonytongue fish at a small processing plant in Douala © Daniel Beloumou Olomo

"I am interested in the virtues of this oil," customer Juliette Mbango says during a local fair. "I've often heard about it. I came to buy some to discover it for myself."

Challenges For all the public interest in MIC, management consultant Edith Laure Pokam argues that the label suﬀers from major handicaps. "Many consumers are willing to buy what is made locally, but they have doubts about the quality," she says. Price is another obstacle. "The promoters of MIC products are not yet able to compete with imported goods because the latter are cheaper."

Entrepreneurs are aware of the diﬃculties. For Andela, the "Made in Cameroon" movement definitely has a future, but also has some basic problems, especially for funding to buy machinery and raw materials. "Political force is what can change things," Andela believes. "Some people have not yet understood the stakes of what we are doing."

An employee packs a box at cereal manufacturer and MIC business Blesolac in Douala © Daniel Beloumou Olomo to convey, shell and sort the pumpkin seeds, then press the kernel to extract oil. "The machines are totally made in Cameroon, and we made it a point of honour not only to process product locally, but also to show young people that it can be done — and that it is not rocket science," explains Safo, whose plant also produces soap and low-fat flour.

September-October 2021

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ betting-on-a-future-made-in-cameroon/arAANbg6A?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=W069 Image credit: AFP DAWN

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Business

Kenyans Lead the World in Peer to Peer Crypto Trade

KENYANS ARE TRADING cryptocurrencies directly with each other (“peer to peer transactions” or P2P) more than elsewhere in the world. Residents of other African countries are also jumping at the opportunity to cushion remittances and cross-border businesses from costly transfer fees and the risks of weakening currencies. Internet-savvy Kenyans are leading the world when it comes to using digital currency platforms where individuals trade amongst themselves, a new report shows. Chainalysis, Global Crypto adoption Index 2021 has ranked Kenya the top country in the world in terms of peer to peer exchange trade, well ahead of the other 154 countries surveyed. The index makes adjustments for purchasing power parity per capita and the internet-using population. Also ranked highly in this segment are Togo (2), Tanzania (4) and Ghana (10). A widespread person to person crypto trade has also been recorded in Nigeria (18), with South Africa, ranked 62nd. The trend is believed to have been partly influenced by the danger of weakening African currencies due to a resurgence of the deadly virus in the form of the Delta variant, which has jolted eﬀorts to re-open economies. “Many emerging markets face significant currency devaluation, driving residents to buy cryptocurrency on P2P platforms in order to preserve their savings,” according to the report. Kenya’s currency has depreciated by 6.3% against the US dollar since January, according to Central Bank of Kenya data. However, there has been no 11

September-October 2021

major selloﬀ amongst Africa currencies in 2021, with the South African rand relatively unchanged between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1, after strengthening in June. That suggests that where Africa is concerned, users might be turning to P2P platforms to more easily and cheaply make international transactions. International money transfer costs are notoriously high in Africa, while trades are often limited. “Cryptocurrency gives those residents a way to circumvent those limits so that they can meet their financial needs,” say the report’s authors. The index shows residents in emerging economies moving smaller, retail-sized payments under $10,000 worth of cryptocurrency for international transactions to facilitate individual remittances and purchase of goods to import and sell. The ranking did not share the absolute trade volumes per country but based its listing on transaction data supplied by two of the largest and most popular P2P platforms, LocalBitcoins and Paxful. “While this means that we aren’t capturing all P2P value, we believe these two exchanges are popular enough for their metrics to act as an overall approximation” says Chainalysis. When it comes to overall adoption of cryptocurrencies by country, Kenya and Nigeria are also at positions 1 and 2 in Africa respectively and are ranked 5th and 6th globally. The latest data from Chainalysis shows usage of cryptocurrencies globally rose by over 880% in 2020, largely driven by transactions on peer to peer platforms in emerging markets. www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/kenyanslead-the-world-in-peer-to-peer-crypto-trade/arAANCYEj?ocid=msedgntp Image credit: Dreamstime DAWN

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Business

Linktree Partners with PayPal to Allow Users Globally to Accept Direct Payments By Aisha Malik

LINKTREE, THE POPULAR “LINK IN BIO” service with more than 16 million users, is partnering with PayPal to expand its recently launched “Commerce Links” tools for direct payment on Linktree globally. The Melbournebased startup says creators in over 200 countries where PayPal operates can now accept payments through the transaction tools. Launched in March, Commerce Links allow users to take payments directly on their Linktree profile without opening a new browser or tab. The new integration lets Linktree customers connect their PayPal account and receive payments from their followers or customers via PayPal, a debit card or a credit card. Linktree notes users can also access information regarding their transactions, payment conversion rate and more. The company says the available relevant data is meant to help creators manage their digital presence. “As the creator economy grows, creators want new ways to collect payments and support from their audience with as little friction as possible,” said Linktree co-founder and CEO Alex Zaccaria in a statement. “We are excited to be collaborating with PayPal to further expand our solutions to our users globally and enable them to further manage and monetize their digital presence.” There are two types of Commerce Links that creators can use to take payments from their 12

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followers and customers: A “Support Me Link” allows Linktree users to collect payments and donations from their visitors, while “Request Links” lets customers and followers request goods and services from creators directly from their Linktree profile. Linktree says its collaboration with PayPal is the latest in a series of creator-focused eﬀorts. The partnership announcement comes days after Linktree announced its acquisition of automated music link aggregation platform Songlink/Odesli. Linktree is integrating Songlink/Odesli into its newly launched “Music Link” feature, which automatically displays the same song or album across all music streaming services to let users listen to content on their preferred platform. Founded in 2016, Linktree now competes with several “link in bio” platforms, including Shorby, Linkin.bio and Beacons. In March, Linktree announced it raised $45 million in Series B funding. The funding round was co-led by Index Ventures and Coatue, with participation from returning investors AirTree Ventures and Insight Partners. https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/24/linktree-partnerswith-paypal-to-allow-users-globally-to-accept-directpayments Image credit: creativehowl.com

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Amazon Inaugurates its First Logistics Centre in Egypt RENOWNED MULTINATIONAL COMPANY Amazon is preparing to officially launch in Egypt this year, as it inaugurated on Tuesday, 31 August, the largest logistics centre in Africa. The inauguration was attended by Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Telecommunications Minister Amr Talaat, and Minister of Trade and Industry Nevine Gamea. Located in 10th of Ramadan city in the Sharqia governorate, the logistics centre aims to provide more efficient shopping and delivery to meet the demands of online shopping customers in Egypt, said Ronaldo Mashhour, vice president of Amazon for the Middle East and North Africa. To help local businesses increase their sales, Amazon offers a range of tools, such as the ability to create campaigns to drive exposure for their products and run promotions in the form of coupons any time of the year. Amazon has been operating in Egypt since 2017 through Souq.com. The company operates a widespread local logistics and operations network across Egypt, including its main fulfillment centre supported by 15 delivery stations across the country. Amazon has also established corporate and customer services offices, and a total local workforce of over 3,000 across corporate, customer service, and operations in Egypt. https://egyptianstreets. com/2021/09/01/amazoninaugurates-its-firstlogistics-centre-in-egypt Image: Africa Facts Zone 13

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Business

The World of Fashion is Getting Wider By Kelsye Marie

Loza Maleombho. Photo: via @loza_maleombho

Loza Maleombho. Photo: via @ loza_maleombho

A new platform leverages technology to connect independent designers with luxury style lovers around the world. WHEN TANZANIAN CURATOR and storyteller Nisha Kanabar founded Industrie Africa, her mission was to challenge misconceptions about 14

September-Octobert 2021

her homeland and introduce consumers to African high fashion. Since 2018, the online store has made it possible to shop the best designs from across the continent, such as sculptural swimsuits from Nigerian label Andrea Iyamah, artful resort wear from Tanzania designer Doreen Mashika, and head-turning hats from South African milliner Crystal Birch. But beyond creating an e-commerce stie, Kanabar also wanted to provide education for shoppers and exposure for designers. That's why Industrie Africa recently launched IA Connect - a DAWN

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Christie Brown SS‘20. Photo: Courtesy of Christie Brown

Yeba Freedom Collection. Photo: via @ yeba.oﬃcial

platform that includes a comprehensive designer index with in-depth spotlights on more than 80 emerging and established fashion figures. These include Nigerian textile artist Lisa Folawiyo, South African designer Lukhanyo Mdingi, and kenyan jeweler and silversmith Ami Doshi Shah, each page has a detailed overview of the creator and their brand, along with look books, contact info, accolades and press coverage. In addition, IA Connect features the first ever African Fashion Calendar, a lineup of the most important industry events on the continent and 15

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beyond, including South African Menswear Week (July) and African Fashion Week London (August). "IA Connect will be an authoritative resource, taking what we're already doing and going a step further, digging a little deeper," Kanabar says. "Industry insiders are finally able to navigate the African Fashion landscape in an intuitive, professionalized way. And locally, we're able to support the next generation of talent." www.travelandleisure.com (July 2021) Image credit: Industrie Africa DAWN

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Business - Marketinhg

7 Easy Ways to Use PowerPoint Templates to Power Your Content Marketing Campaign By Moss Clement www.mossmedia.biz

HOW CAN YOU USE professional PowerPoint templates in content marketing to optimize ROIs? Are you wondering how your startup business can produce better results using presentation templates? You’re at the right place. This article covers: 1. The meaning of PowerPoint 2. PowerPoint template definition 3. Objectives of PowerPoint Presentation templates 4. The importance of PowerPoint templates as a marketing content tool, and 5. How to use PowerPoint templates to boost content marketing results This process involves delivering presentations to consumers to entice them to switch products or services. It also means demonstrating your products or service values and new features to existing customers to help retain them. This marketing method works for all industries, including content marketing. Since content is the driving force of digital marketing, it makes more sense to use PowerPoint to give life to your campaigns. Even if you’re a startup proposing a new marketing initiative, displaying your marketing results, or creating informative content pieces, PowerPoint templates can help you meet your goals. It lets you collaborate on projects and achieve your targets. But if you’re new to digital marketing, you may be thinking, “what is the meaning of PowerPoint, and what are PowerPoint templates?” Let us tackle that before going forward;

• • •

Visuals/videos Infographics Statistical data and more Marketers use PowerPoint to create these marketing materials and deliver them as presentations in slides. This method enables consumers to understand the concept of the information you present quickly. In other words, PowerPoint is a software program that oﬀers users the privilege to develop any slides and presentations for business and educational purposes.

What is a PowerPoint Template? Professional PowerPoint templates are blueprints of presentation slides containing themes and content for various purposes. These include a startup marketing proposal, business plan, sales presentation, and more. A productive template has design components, such as a custom color scheme, fonts, and other What is PowerPoint? vital elements for creating well-defined presentation PowerPoint is a software app designed to slides. As a result, the templates will aid you in produce digital content in various formats, such presenting your brand story more eﬀectively. Note as: that you can develop custom templates and save • Text materials them for use as desired. • Animation 16

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What is the Objective of PowerPoint Presentation Templates? The primary objective of PowerPoint templates is to enable you to produce educational or instructive slides using text, animation, graphics, and other content formats (multimedia) to convey your brand message clearly and concisely. Otherwise stated, the goal is to use pre-defined templates to inform or educate prospects to buy into your marketing idea. For this, your presentation should be well written or prepared with defined goals for a better return on your investments (ROIs). That way, you will succeed in stimulating users’ interests in your presentations. Why are PowerPoint Templates Important in Content Marketing? Using PowerPoint templates is essential because it involves using pre-designed slides that support multimedia content to convey your message. This marketing method is ideal since it saves you a considerable amount of time. Moreover, templates ensure that all team members are consistent with your branding. Furthermore, templates make your content more interactive and can significantly enhance audience focus. For this, almost 90% (89%) of marketers still use professional PowerPoint templates to create presentations. A further survey states that 90% of survey respondents say compelling stories in presentations are crucial in maintaining audience focus and engagement. Besides, 70% of consumers point out that presentations with animated visuals are eﬀective in improving engagement. Therefore, PowerPoint as a content marketing tool is vital because it allows you to use multimedia to boost audience concentration with compelling brand stories. Thus, you can make a boring marketing content or business report more appealing to your audience with PowerPoint templates. Furthermore, this 17

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software oﬀers security to users. How? Its digital signature helps prevent others from altering the content of PowerPoint presentations. How to Use PowerPoint Templates to Boost Your Marketing Content Results As you can see, professional PowerPoint templates are valuable content marketing tools for communicating your brand message to the right people with various targets. While some marketers may not realize it yet, PowerPoint templates can do much more than presentation slides. These include: • Marketing and advertising your products or services • Measuring content and marketing performance • Conduct market and audience research • Content planning and creation processes Given this, you can use templates to boost productivity and produce marketing content pieces that convert. Given this, let us examine how you can leverage this marketing tool for growth in your content marketing campaign. 1. Use templates to plan your content marketing campaign While PowerPoint is known for presentation slides, it is also a resourceful component for planning your content marketing undertakings. How? This software can help strengthen your content campaigns in ways that connect with your buyer persona. Remember that your content planning process also includes identifying the best content promotion and distribution channels for your campaign. Hence, you can use your desired presentation template to address this point. As you may already know, there are several content distribution/ promotion channels. But you can find them classified into three primary groups: • Earned media • Owned media, and • Paid media. If done right, your audience will quickly get your marketing messages and understand the graphic representations of what you want to convey. It see page 18

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Business - Marketing Marketing

from page 17

reinforces the essence of your brand message so that consumers will take vital points and remember them afterward. However, the best way to get optimal results for your content marketing campaign while improving productivity is to use pre-designed PowerPoint templates. Starting your content campaign from scratch using PowerPoint can be challenging. But it is a lot easier and quicker when working with a done-for-you template. Hence, you will find well-designed (free and premium) PowerPoint slide templates that meet your needs. These include templates for presenting your marketing approach to stakeholders and potential clients. You can use your desired template to plan your content campaign and take your online business to the next height.

the project, and what to expect. Whether you’re assigning tasks for your company needs or clients’ business, it helps you secure your position as an authority in your industry. This approach is practical, mainly where a task requires multiple undertakings to complete. It displays the quality of each member assigned to the job. Therefore, a designed blueprint will help assure that your projects succeed. Remember, you can create diﬀerent patterns for multiple projects–giving you various blueprints or models for successful content marketing campaigns.

2. Use Professional PowerPoint Templates for Audience Research To make the best of content marketing, you must research your target market to understand their needs and what they’re saying about your business. Using a PowerPoint template for audience research allows you to outline valuable pointers in prearranged blueprints for better marketing decisions. 4. Use Presentation Templates to Set Measurable Goals Why is audience research essential? Running a business without a defined goal is like Conducting audience research is crucial as it provides answers to pressing queries, such as driving to an unfamiliar area without a roadmap. what your target market is thinking about your You will get lost on the way. Similarly, a content products or services. As a result, you will know marketing campaign without a defined objective what marketing messages excite them and be will fail. For this, you need to pinpoint your marketing better equipped to serve them well. In other words, audience research lets you goals and set key performance indicators (KPIs) define your ideal buyers and help you produce to monitor. These could be any of the following measurables: personalized content that appeals to them. • Brand awareness 3. Use the Software to Assign Tasks to Team • Targeted leads Members • Email newsletter signups In the above section, I mentioned that PowerPoint • Organic search traﬃc templates allow team members to maintain brand • Product sales, and more. consistency. When you assign tasks, this tool Consequently, establishing your content guarantees that all those working on the project marketing goal gives you something to evaluate maintain your branding. and measure your successes and failures. It helps The template ensures that you determine you understand what is working–what pattern or who is responsible, what is needed to actualize blueprint drives the best results (and what is not 18

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working). Accordingly, setting measurable goals impacts what content to produce often and what marketing channels to make your focus. The KPIs you establish will give you valuable data to grow your business faster.

well researched, written persuasively, and comply with the spatial arrangement in writing. That way, you guarantee to provide your audience with the most informative content. The software lets you create posts for different social media networking sites. For instance, more 5. Use Professional PowerPoint Templates for consumers prefer to search for visuals. That may be why 65% of B2B marketers use different visual Content Creation What do you think? Do marketers use content types to drive results. Tons of templates professional PowerPoint templates only for allow you to create various visuals materials presentation slides? On the contrary, earlier in this to publish on your blog and share across social article, I answered that question. But to stress this media platforms. You can create: point further, you can use these tools for content • Case study creation purposes. You may want to create a case study or infographics; these tools let you meet • Infographics • Videos various content creation projects. You can use it to creatively describe your business • Business report, and more. Such visual content helps you engage your goals and explain your company’s business audience, drive organic traffic, and improve your approach. What you do is, choose a template to work with, edit the content (texts and images), add search engine ranking. your content, and customize it according to your 6. Use The Software to Display Content audience persona and marketing channel. Marketing Results PowerPoint presentation templates are One of the best ways to figure out how your outstanding for content creation because it is highly content marketing effort is stacking up is to add multipurpose and intuitive. The programs are easy up the numbers. It means measuring the KPIs to use with drag and drop features, allowing you to you set earlier in the planning stage to see what’s create content with a few clicks. winning for you. For this, you can use the template Note: If you’re developing text content, it must be to display your content marketing result. After analyzing your campaign, you only need to choose the appropriate template and edit the content. It’s that simple! But you may ask, why is this process necessary? Because you may always have factors of uncertainty. So, gauging your content strategy helps define the impact and effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Also, it is vital to measure campaign progress and track your activities since your endeavors may lead to higher ROIs or lower gains. see page 20

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from page 19

That way, you know where to make adjustments and improve for maximum results. After quantifying your marketing campaign, you can use PowerPoint slide templates to create a report of your performance. You can reference it in your blog articles and also use it as case study material. It helps illustrate the eﬀectiveness of your content strategy and the value of marketing content as a valuable digital asset. Besides, you can learn from the report and improve your next campaign. 7. Define Your Audience Persona Using

As a result, you will understand where to direct your focus and prioritize changes to your offerings based on consumer behavior. It gives you a framework to build an effective content marketing plan. Consequently, using designed blueprints will help you organize vital details about your target audience, such as their: • Interests • Demographics • Desires • Social media • Purchasing behavior This information is essential to help you reach your target market with the right message and convert them into leads and customers. Wrap Up Using professional PowerPoint templates can have a significant effect on your content marketing campaign. These content marketing tools can quickly change the way you create and distribute content. With visual content being the best performer on social media sites, producing more content will power your marketing activities beyond our imagination. You can use different templates to make your content more appealing and increase

PowerPoint Presentation Templates Knowing your audience persona (marketing persona or buyer persona) allows you to visualize your idea buyer/reader as you develop content. And when you publish the final draft, each reader will feel as though you wrote the article for him/her. They feel more like you’re speaking to them directly. Additionally, determining your buyer persona lets you know your customers and what they find valuable. It helps you understand how to convey your message and sell your products or services better. 20

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ROIs. Consequently, select your choice of templates to plan, execute, and produce marketing content that will take your business to the next height. Did we miss something of value? Please use the section below for your remarks. https://readwrite.com/2021/07/22/7-easy-ways-touse-powerpoint-templates-to-power-your-contentmarketing-campaign Image credit: digitaloﬃcepro.com, digitaloﬃcepro. com, LayoutReady, pptstar.com DAWN

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Business

A Bank at Every Corner Store: Agency Banking is Transforming Nigerian Business By ABUBAKAR IDRIS

IN NOVEMBER 2019, Taiwo Iredeji Adedotun had a difficult decision to make. After a few months of working as an auditor at a microfinance bank in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, he wanted a change. Just 23 years old at the time and earning a net salary of $85 (35,000 naira) per month, Adedotun wanted to increase his income. “I started asking contacts about business ideas,” he told Rest of World. One of his older colleagues introduced him to the world of agency banking. Agency banking, also called agent banking, delivers essential financial services to customers through a network of third-party agents on behalf of a licenced financial institution or a mobile money operator. So instead of traveling to far-off metropolitan areas to withdraw money, users can reach out to an agent banker, deputized by a large financial institution or phone company, to provide access to cash withdrawals, deposits, and transfer funds. Adedotun raised $340 (140,000 naira) in startup capital to launch his own agent banking business. He registered and paid around $50 for point-ofsale (POS) devices and started his first shop — a tiny 1 meter by 2.1 meter kiosk. Location is key to being an agent, said Adedotun. He located his first shop off the busy IdirokoSango highway in Ota, a commuter town less than 20 kilometres from the outskirts of Lagos. A few minutes down the road is the Faith Tabernacle, headquarters of Living Faith Church Worldwide, a 21

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megachurch with a sitting capacity for over 50,000 people, promising regular foot traﬃc past his shop. Everything was set. In the first few months in operation, his business grew gradually, he said. His younger sister worked at the shop in the morning and afternoon, while Adedotun split his time working his day job and spending the evening at the shop. His small shop helps people send and receive money while he earns a commission between 25 cents (about 100 naira) and $2.50 (about 1,000 naira) as an operator. On average, before the pandemic, the shop completed around 25 customer transactions per day, worth collectively over $120 (50,000 naira). At the end of December 2019, his first month in business, he was making slightly more money just from commission revenue than he was from his day job’s salary. By March 2020, an excited Adedotun quit his banking job, opened a second shop, and started working full time as an agent. Then the pandemic hit. By the start of April 2020, Nigeria’s confirmed Covid-19 cases spiked to 139 cases with two fatalities, prompting new health measures and an extension of the initial two-week long lockdown that crippled formal businesses in three Nigerian states, including Ogun, home to Adedotun’s agent banking operation. The new health measures limited bank opening hours and capped the number of customers. This led to longer queues see page 22 DAWN

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Business Agency Banking

from page 21

at banks, including at the ATM, where some banks included new machines to accept deposits from customers. These restrictions forced customers into the realm of agency banking. Taiwo Iredeji Adedotun at one of his bank agency kiosks in his community in Ota, Nigeria. Adedotun said his business has seen significant growth over the last year. He currently has five shops just outside Lagos and employs four people, each earning a fixed salary of $60 (25,000 naira) per month — slightly below Nigeria’s minimum wage of just over $70 (30,000 naira), but still more than half his previous salary. Combined, his shops process hundreds of customer transactions monthly, with revenue from commissions frequently topping $1,200 (500,000 naira) . “Business has been good,” he said. Since the mid-2000s, agent banking has emerged as a strategy to improve financial inclusion in many Global South countries. The Brazillian government first pioneered it to provide banking and other financial services to millions without bank accounts. Agency banking is one arm of mobile payments. “Agency banking is really a distribution channel for last-mile delivery,” said Raliat Sunmonu, vice president of the Middle East and Africa Program Management at Accion, a global fintech impact investor. According to data analyzed by Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) in an August 2018 report, an estimated 140 million or 87% of Brazil’s adult population was banked at the time, up from 60.8% a decade ago, partly thanks to banking agents. The model caught on famously in Kenya. In 2007, Safaricom, the country’s biggest telecoms company, introduced M-Pesa, its mobile money service, a combination of mobile wallets that serve as bank accounts for customers and agent services. Thanks to M-Pesa and other financial initiatives, 82.9% of Kenyans now have formal financial services, compared to just 26.7% in 2006, according to a 2019 report by the Central Bank of Kenya. Since 2009, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and some local fintech startups have been aiming 22

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to replicate the success of agent banking and mobile money models in Nigeria. “When we started, our goal was to bank the unbanked and bring financial services to the mass market,” said Jay Alabraba, co-founder and director of Business Development at Paga, the Nigerian mobile payments company." In 2011, two years after its founding, Paga launched its mobile payments platform in the West African country at a time when a license didn’t exist and when fewer than 21% of Nigerian adults had a bank account. Agency banking has risen to become part of a broader conversation about the “sachetization of the Nigerian economy” — which essentially means cutting down products and services to smaller, aﬀordable sizes for a predominantly poor mass market. In a 2018 survey by Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA), 65% of Nigerians said aﬀordability barriers, such as irregular income and the cost of maintaining a banking account, have discouraged them from formal banking institutions. A quarter of respondents said “banks are too far” which is unsurprising given there are fewer than 8,000 bank branches in a country of 200 million people, and most branches are concentrated in the big cities. Between 2010 and 2018, a flurry of regulatory activity brought in new regulations for agent banking and opened it up to dozens of companies. But despite these changes, agent banking grew slowly. In early 2019, Iniabasi Akpan, country manager at Chinese-backed OPay, one of Nigeria’s biggest agency banking companies by transaction value, shared that very few people in the financial sector believed in the model’s viability. “You have to get the commercials right,” Accion’s Sunmonu explained, noting that agency banking is a “high-volume, low-margin business.” Companies — banks and fintechs — looking to make inroads to this industry with third-party agents need to do so in a profitable way. But over the last three years, the industry has entered new growth territory, picking up significant interest from customers, agents, companies, and even investors. As a distribution channel, the model is forcing banks to rethink their retail strategies, and it has also spurred the rise of a new crop of DAWN

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fintechs that moved quickly to dominate the agent banking landscape. OPay, TeamApt, Paga, and MTN, Nigeria’s telecoms behemoth, have emerged as four of the biggest agency banking fintechs in the country. Last December, OPay claimed its transaction volume jumped to $2 billion monthly, up from about $300 million in November 2019. And TeamApt, a newcomer to the industry in 2019, Taiwo Iredeji Adedotun at one of his bank agency kiosks in his community gained traction. in Ota, Nigeria. It claimed it had 50,000 agents and processed $3.9 billion in transactions by the end is the relative ease of becoming an agent. While agents are typically depicted as dedicated of 2020. And the revenue of these fintechs — particularly financial services outlets within communities, MTN and OPay — is on track to match and today, anybody with a shop can serve as an agent possibly overtake the digital banking revenues at for a bank or a mobile payments company. Many many Nigerian banks, recent research showed. mom-and-pop shops and informal traders, Now banks are doubling down on agency banking. among others, are doubling as agent outlets, In 2020, two of Nigeria’s biggest banks, Access with a POS device in their possession. A June Bank and FirstBank, reported explosive growth in 2020 study by EFInA showed 30% of Nigerian their agent banking units with around 59,000 and agent outlets are dedicated shops, while over 60% 100,000 agents, respectively. Access Bank has operated it alongside their regular business. The absence of exclusive arrangements said it added 4.46 million new bank customers through its agents within the last two years. — an agent can serve multiple companies FirstBank, the commercial bank with the largest simultaneously — has introduced incentives to agent footprint, reported a 167% growth in annual attract and retain agents. However, competitive agency banking transaction value to $16.2 billion pricing and a reliable platform are two things that in 2020, compared to the previous year. Both keep agents around, said Tosin Eniolorunda, CEO banks plan to recruit and increase support to of TeamApt. Pricing is tricky: while companies have fixed fees agents across the country. on transactions, agents frequently take advantage What is fueling the growth of agency of the industry’s flexible fee structure to adopt higher banking in Nigeria? pricing on customers, creating an inconsistent One major enabler of agency banking in Nigeria see page 24 23

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Business Agency Banking

from page 23

pricing regime across the country. This isn’t often a problem in urban locations where fierce competition among agents limits such practices; however, in rural areas or remote neighbourhoods — the areas with the highest rate of financial exclusion — this lack of consistent pricing could lead to exploitation, undercutting the value of agency banking for the unbanked. And agency banking does have some challenges. For one, agents have to contend with unstable internet connectivity, particularly A customer validating his pin for a cash withdrawal at a bank agency in rural neighborhoods where kiosk owned by Adedotun. broadband access is limited. And in many locations, agents also struggle with country’s unreliable power supply, estimated one new levies by regional governments hell-bent on industry source. In recent years, banks and other collecting taxes, which many agents believe is financial services providers have started to realize unlawful and unfair. “If you don’t pay, they’ll harass they don’t need to make these hefty outlays, said Henry Chukwu, a program specialist for Agent you,” Adedotun said. But that low barrier to entry and Nigeria’s rising Networks at EFInA. “It is clear that there is a significant portion of unemployment rate — which stood at 33% in March 2021 — is pushing even more people to agent the population that is underbanked, and there banking. In 2018, the Central Bank of Nigeria set is a ton of services that can be brought to these up the Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility people,” Paga’s Alabraba said. His company is (SANEF) to recruit, train, and support more now broadening its attention beyond the unbanked people to become agents. SANEF also provides after seeing a steady growth in its digital wallet some funding to companies, incentivizing them adoption in 2020. Today, agency banking companies have lessto expand agent networks in underserved cities stringent terms for getting a POS device but across the country. But crucially, the diminishing importance of bank require agents to meet a transaction threshold branches to both customers and the banking every month, Adedotun explained. “When I fell industry is also driving interest in agent banking. below the threshold last year, the company asked While the financial industry has been lowering the me to return the device,” he said. “But I reapplied access barriers customers have long complained and got it back.” Like gig workers, these rules about, opening new branches to reach more incentivize agents to remain productive or risk people in small towns and rural areas is not a losing the essential tool they need to operate. popular option. https://restofworld.org/2021/a-bank-at-everyBanks are expensive to operate, said financial corner-store-agency-banking-is-transformingindustry insiders. Building a new bank branch nigerian-business in Nigeria could cost more than $600,000 (250 Related story: Page 68 million naira) to start up and possibly more in monthly operating expenses related to staff, ATMs, security, and off-grid electricity fees to offset the 24

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Business - Young Entrepreneur

21-Year Old Becomes Ghana’s Youngest Female Commercial Pilot From blacknews.com

Audrey Maame Esi Swatson AUDREY MAAME ESI SWATSON is the youngest female commercial pilot in the country of Ghana, having obtained her commercial license at the age of 21. She is currently a First Oﬃcer with Passion Air in Ghana, operating the Dash 8 Q-400 aircraft. Audrey started pursuing her passion in aviation when she was 18-years old. She attended the Mach1 Aviation Academy in South Africa for flight training where she also had her first solo flight just 1 year after. She eventually obtained her Commercial Pilot License after completing a total of 210 hours that she has flown at age 21. She credits her education for her success. “Apart from God and my parents, I owe everything I am and everything I hope to be to school. Without the education I have received during my lifetime, to “inspire other children that whatever they dream the friends I have met and have networked with, of, they can actually be. Education has fulfilled me the great teachers that have been there for me and I am a more positive person because of it.” Follow her on Instagram @DreySwatson. since day one, I would not be able to move on to a more positive place in my life. I would not be able www.blacknews.com/news/audrey-swatson-21to have a chance to even become a pilot,” Audrey years-old-ghana-youngest-female-commercialsaid in a media interview. pilot Moreover, Audrey founded her own aviation Image credit: https://www.tripadvisor.com, company called Excel Aviation, where she facebook.com serves as the CEO. She is glad to be given a chance 25

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Business - Commentary

7 Business Models that will Rule the Next Decade By Peter Diamandis www.diamandis.com

WITH THE INTERNET’S ARRIVAL in the 1990s, business model reinvention entered a period of radical growth. In less than two decades, we’ve seen network eﬀects birth new platforms in record time, Bitcoin and blockchain undercut existing “trusted third party” financial models, and crowdfunding upend the traditional ways capital is raised. We are now seeing 7 emerging models slated to redefine business over the next few decades. Each is a revolutionary new way of creating value—each is a force for acceleration. Let’s dive in…

7 BUSINESS MODELS

to a cool service and then making money oﬀ the data gathered about that customer. It also includes all the developments spurred by the big data revolution, which is allowing us to exploit micro-demographics like never before. Example: Facebook, Google, Twitter—there’s a reason this model has transformed dorm room startups into global superpowers. Google’s search queries per day have risen from 500,000 in 1999, to 200 million in 2004, to 3 billion in 2011, to 5.6 billion today. While more users are becoming aware of the valuable data they exchange in return for Google’s “free” search service, this tried-andtrue model will likely continue to succeed in the 2020s. (3) The Smartness Economy: In the late 1800s, if you wanted a good idea for a new business, all you needed was to take an existing tool, say a drill or a washboard, and add electricity to it—thus creating a power drill or a washing machine. In the 2020s, AI will be the electricity. In other words, take any existing tool, and add a layer of smartness. So, cell phones became smartphones and stereo speakers became smart speakers and cars become autonomous vehicles. Example: We all know the big names incorporating AI into their business models—from Amazon to Salesforce. But more AI startups arise each day: 1,000 AI-related companies in the US raised over $27B in venture capital in 2020, according to Pitchbook. One of the most highly valued of those companies is Scale AI, a data-labeling company that supports machine learning teams, currently valued at $7.3B. Expect AI to continue transforming most businesses in the 2020s.

(1) The Crowd Economy: Crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, leveraged assets, and staﬀ-ondemand—essentially, all the developments that leverage the billions of people already online and the billions coming online. All have revolutionized the way we do business. Just consider leveraged assets, like Uber’s vehicles and Airbnb’s rooms, which have allowed companies to scale at speed. These crowd economy models also lean on staﬀ-on-demand, which provide a company with the agility needed to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. And it’s everything from micro-task laborers behind Amazon’s Mechanical Turk on the low end, to Kaggle’s data scientist-on-demand services on the high end. Example: Airbnb has become the largest “hotel chain” in the world, yet it doesn’t own a single hotel room. Instead, it leverages (that is, rents out) the assets (spare bedrooms) of the crowd, with more (4) Closed-Loop Economies: In nature, nothing than 7 million rooms, flats, and houses in over is ever wasted. The detritus of one species always becomes the foundation for the survival of 100,000 cities across the globe. another species. Human attempts to mimic these (2) The Free / Data Economy: This is the entirely waste-free systems have been dubbed platform version of the “bait and hook” model, “biomimicry” (if you’re talking about designing a essentially baiting the customer with free access 26

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new kind of product) or “cradle-to-cradle” (if you’re talking about designing a new kind of city) or, more simply, “closed-loop economies.” These models will grow increasingly prevalent with the rise of environmentally-conscious consumers and the cost benefits of closed-loop systems. Example: The Plastic Bank, founded in 2013, allows anyone to pick up waste plastic and drop it oﬀ at a “plastic bank.” The collector is then paid for the “trash” in anything from cash to WiFi time, while the plastic bank sorts the material and sells it to the appropriate recycler—thus closing an open loop in the life cycle of plastic.

be diving deep in the SpatialWeb, moving back and forth between multiple virtual worlds and our physical reality using technologies like Vatoms and Spatialweb.net to navigate the Metaverse.

(6) Multiple World Models: We no longer live in only one place. We have real-world personae and online personae, and this delocalized existence is only going to expand. With the rise of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, we’re introducing more layers to this equation. You’ll have avatars for work and avatars for play, and all of these versions of ourselves are opportunities for new businesses. Example: Second Life, the very first virtual world created in 2003, gave rise to a multimillion-dollar economy. People were paying other people to design digital clothes and digital houses for their digital avatars. Every time we add a new layer to the digital strata, we’re also adding an entire economy built upon that layer, meaning we are now conducting our business in multiple worlds at once. Today we have all mastered Zoom, tomorrow we’ll

wave of growth, companies must embed these innovations in their business model(s). Customer experience will be better, cheaper, faster. Better meaning new business models do what all business models do—solve problems for people in the real world better than anyone else. Cheaper is obvious. With demonetization running rampant, customers—and that means all of us—are expecting more for less. But the real shift is the final shift: faster. New business models are no longer forces for stability and security. To compete in today’s accelerated climate, these models are designed for speed and agility. Most importantly, none of this is in any danger of slowing down.

(7) Transformation Economy: The Experience Economy was about the sharing of experiences— so Starbucks went from being a coffee franchise to a “third place.” That is, neither home nor work, but a “third place” in which to live your life. Buying a cup of coffee became an experience, a caffeinated theme park of sorts. The next iteration of this idea is the Transformation Economy, where you’re not just paying for an experience, you’re paying to have (5) Decentralized Autonomous Organizations your life transformed by this experience. Example: Early versions of this model can be (DAOs): At the convergence of blockchain and AI sits a radically new kind of company—one with no seen in the rise of “transformational festivals” like employees, no bosses, and nonstop production. A Burning Man, or fitness companies like CrossFit, set of preprogrammed rules determines how the where the experience is generally bad (you work company operates, and computers do the rest. out in old warehouses), but the transformation is A fleet of autonomous taxis, for instance, with a great (the person you become after three months blockchain-backed smart contracts layer, could of working out in those warehouses). Consumers run itself 24-7, including driving to the repair shop are no longer searching for merely pleasurable for maintenance, without any human involvement. experiences—they are looking for challenges Example: While DAOs are just beginning to that transform. This is also where technologies emerge, the platform DAOstack is working to like Spatialweb.net and Dreamscape will help provide these businesses with tools for success, to digitize, dematerialize, and democratize such including reliable crypto-economic incentives and experiences everywhere on the planet. decentralized governance protocols. DAOstack FINAL THOUGHTS aims to create businesses where the only external What all this tells us is that business as usual influence is the customer. is becoming business unusual. To unlock the next

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Business

Why You Want to be Market-Driven Rather Than Marketing-Driven By Isabelle Perreault

PRODUCT-MARKET FIT (PMF) is the outcome of an excellent go-to-market strategy. For most businesses, understanding PMF is essential to building what your customers want and creating a company with staying power. If you're a marketer, you are responsible for the go-to-market strategy. If you're a business owner, your primary responsibility is go-to-market. And if you're a startup pitching for funding, you will most certainly be asked “what’s your go-tomarket strategy?" What they really want to know is whether or not you have achieved, or are on your way to achieve, PMF. Dan Olsen, the author of "The Lean Product Playbook," defines this as the outcome of creating significant customer value. In other words, “your product meets real customer needs and does so in a way that is better than the alternatives,” Olsen 28

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explains. Conversely, if this fit has not yet been achieved, it might feel like you're pushing sand uphill. There’s no momentum, customers aren’t talking about it, and buyers aren’t excited about it. The term product-market fit originated with Andy Rachleﬀ, president and CEO of Wealthfront, a lecturer at Stanford Business School, and the co-founder of Benchmark Capital, who said: “The #1 company-killer is lack of market. When a great team meets a lousy market, the market wins. When a lousy team meets a great market, the market wins. When a great team meets a great market, something special happens.”

3 Questions to Clarify Your Go-toMarket Strategy 1. What’s it for? DAWN

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Markets (who are made of people) don’t care about your products as much as they care about the problem it will solve for them. What is the outcome you are promising? What needs are you meeting? What is at risk if they don’t solve this problem and how much might it cost them to do nothing about it? A common mistake is to talk about features and product benefits rather than outcomes for your target customers. All purchases are emotional ones. As buyers, we think about how a product or service will make us feel first and foremost. 2. Who’s it for? Who will this benefit, specifically? Seth Godin, author of "This is Marketing," creates a compelling case for appealing to “the smallest viable market.” These are the people who have the exact problem you’re trying to solve. Win there first. Listen to feedback and continue to make it better. Many startups make the mistake of tackling huge markets or big accounts akin to being a tiny fish in a large pond. Instead, aim to be a big fish in a small pond by targeting niche audiences. To Godin, “Mass means average.” If you appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. 3. Why you? Who is your competition, and what makes you different? What do you offer that the others don’t? Think of direct competition — companies offering something very similar to your offering. Think of the alternatives — those offering a different solution to a similar problem. The most underestimated type of competition is the status quo: this is when the problem you solve isn’t big enough or causing enough pain for people to seek your solution. Conducting a competitive analysis has never been easier with an online search. Knowing where you “fit” and where you can win is critical for positioning yourself and finding your smallest viable market.

Failure Leads to Iteration, Which Leads to Fit In a recent blog post, Godin explains that “it’s possible but unlikely that the first product or service you develop will be exactly what potential customers were already hoping for.” Iteration with a small audience is critical. “Failure is a way of 29

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discovering one more thing that customers didn’t want, and perhaps, learning a bit about what they might want.” When thinking of the most successful businesses globally, it is often those that have found a way to solve a unique problem, or conversely, solve a problem in a unique way. Being clear on what it’s for and who it's for is the hard work of building an enduring company. Many start-ups fail because they waste money on solutions or products that no one wants to buy, but they keep at it, hoping for diﬀerent results. As Rachleﬀ says, “If you address a market that really wants your product — if the dogs are eating the dog food — then you can screw up almost everything in the company and you will succeed.” www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/why-you-want-tobe-market-driven-rather-than-marketing-driven Image credit: SlideShare

International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) T The International Decade aims to celebrate tthe important contributions of people of African descent worldwide, advance social justice d and inclusion policies, eradicate racism and a iintolerance, promote human rights, and assist in ccreating better, more prosperous communities, iin line with the Sustainable Development Goals sspearheaded by the United Nations. DAWN

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Business

The Skin Lightening Business is Booming in Kenya—Though No One will Admit it By Kang-Chun Cheng

DEEP WITHIN NAIROBI’S Central Business District (CBD) on River Road, countless stalls hawking wigs and beauty products overwhelm the senses. “Mafuta, mafuta,” the shopkeepers call out to you, which means “oil” in Kiswahili. Upon entering the maze of shops, a staggering assortment of facial creams and serums with labels ranging from French to Arabic emerges. The models on the boxes and bottles are all light-skinned, many with blue eyes and blonde hair. Despite governmental bans on skin lightening products and a growing global movement to embrace one’s natural beauty—from nappy hair (natural and chemical free) to dark skin—the covert business of lightening skin color thrives all the same. Few people are willing to admit or speak openly about this aspect of their skin care regimen, as it is generally frowned upon by society even as the lighter skin that one is born with or comes as a result of skin lightening is elevated in society. The message is clear: We want our women lighter, but we want it to appear natural. There is the desire for beauty to seem eﬀortless, an unwillingness to divulge such secrets. But the implications for lightening skin color extends beyond intimate bodily care or self-perception, but into the realm of social constructs and accessibility to opportunities that manifest themselves in tangible ways, from landing certain jobs to even impacting the person one marries. The complex topic of skin tone matters prevails in the context of professional opportunities and social hierarchy and has further complicated issues stemming from neocolonialism. It is an issue that aﬀects non-white populations worldwide as ideas of racial superiority have transported the ideal of white skin as being the epitome

September-October 2021

of beauty. Furthermore, preference for lighter skin exists in many communities, with some ethnic groups reportedly preferring light skin over dark skin. “I’ve lightened my skin for 10 years,” says Irene Kahoti, the shop owner of a stall called Babyface. Beyond needing to personally advocate for the products she sells, she likes how it makes her look. “They’re brought in mostly from Kampala, some from Congo,” Kahoti says. “Wherever we can get them from. My connections from working in this business for a long time means my buyers know what products I want to sell, and I don’t have to worry too much about the source.” The lack of regulation underpins how dangerous and untraceable these products are. The formulas generally contain hydroquinone, steroids, mercury, and hydrogen peroxide elements, the most popular active ingredients required to slow down melanin production. Many sellers recommend swapping products after a few months’ use, not only because that particular brand may no longer be available, but also because the harshness of the ingredients requires the user to take a break and switch to diﬀerent formulas periodically to replicate similar eﬀects.

The science behind skin lightening For skin lightening to work, melanogenesis— the process to synthesize melanin—must be inhibited. Injections or tablets of hydroquinone are most eﬀective in this case, but the health ramifications are severe. Glutathione, a popular melanin inhibitor, is an active ingredient found in soaps, but can now also be obtained in the form of intravenous treatments and antioxidant supplement tablets. Patchiness may be bad enough, but they are overshadowed by much more serious health DAWN

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risks. The World Health Organization warns that users of banned products may suffer from liver and kidney damage, psychosis, brain damage in fetuses, or cancer. Since these products are officially banned, they are most easily purchased in seedy shops. The lack of professional medical guidance accompanying the application of such damaging products raises further concerns. Clients may not be interested in or aware of the severity of such products, let alone comprehend their long-term effects. “It’s not bleaching, it’s brightening,” insisted the shop-keeper of one of the many ubiquitous stalls who introduced herself as Carol. “I personally like using serums because they ‘brighten’ your complexion.” She showed us one called Cocokind, which she has used for nearly two years. The pairing of incredibly harsh and damaging ingredients with natural, soothing ones such as rose, aloe, or coconut and marketing them as targeting hyper pigmentation or anti-aging is another strategy that distracts users from the sheer brutality of what they 31

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are administering to their bodies. The target audience of skin whitening products are generally middle-class Kenyan women – those with the budget to spend a minimum of 300 KES (~$3) on such products every few months, but perhaps lacking opportunities to travel or work abroad and personally understand diverse beauty standards elsewhere. There is however a product for every price point, meaning that even lower-income Kenyans can find products to lighten their skin with – albeit with even harsher ingredients. Kenyans with greater exposure may see beyond their conditioned environment and better understand how foreign men may be attracted to dark skin for reasons of exoticism. Or they might also be adherents of larger regional and global pan-african movements that encourage darker skinned people to love the skin they are in. Their friend groups may likely be more diversified, where pressures surrounding skin tones do not exist in see page 32 DAWN

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Business Skin Lightening

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the same way as they would in their grandparents’ village. “I really had no idea that people in Europe want tan skin,” Kahoti said. “We’re just after the type of glow that comes with brown skin.” This sentiment is echoed by influencers who post advice about how long it will take for glutathione treatments to work without any sort of medical licensing. The messaging remains mixed. It took 2020’s Black Lives Matters movement for some of the largest Western brands catering to global audiences such as Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal, and Chanel to finally reconsider using words like “white,” “fair,” and “light” in their marketing. “Changing names won’t change the poison they have built in people’s minds,” one comment retorts in response to a video announcing how Unilever is dropping ‘fair’ from their universal ‘Fair & Lovely’ skin lightening cream. Only time will show whether slight, strategic changes in marketing tone may percolate down to tangible changes in beauty standards. Yet the pressure comes from all sides – not only from the desire to be physically lighter to match Western looks – but also internally from Kenyan communities in both their tribal dynamics and interactions with foreigners. “Brown skin can also indicate a preference for [women from certain tribes],” says a man who works at Black Fly Design, a tailoring shop on the edge of Kibera in

September-October 2021

Nairobi. “It could be both attraction for something diﬀerent or preference for those of a certain tribe [who are generally lighter skinned].” Cultural context is imperative when examining the implications of skin color. Ruth Abade, the Kenyan owner of Black Fly Design, has studied design in Milan and regularly attends fashion festivals in New York City. She says that there is also the assumption that white skin equates certain western standards – one being financial independence. Those with lighter, brown skin may be associated more with assumptions of privileges of mzungus (white people). “Advertising creates flawed images,” she explains. “The color of one’s skin is marketable, monetizable. Connotations of lighter skin include higher visibility, being more ‘seen.’ And of course this marketing depends on the target audience.” In Kenya, the African man is one of the most important vectors behind such marketing. Back on River Road, Kahoti explained that while both men and women come for her products, the majority of her clients are female. The youngest are in their early 20s, but some are in their 60s or 70s, “Everyone wants to look beautiful,” she says. “It’s never too late.” https://qz.com/africa/2045986/social-media-covertsales-behind-kenyas-skin-lightening-growth/?utm_ source=email&utm_medium=daily-brief&utm_ content=bcc4b721-fb3d-11eb-8ee2-daf67791c60c

Image credit: www.walmart.com/Moisturizers, www.amazon.com/beauty

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Development

Economist Magazine calls for Georgieva to Quit IMF over World Bank Data Scandal By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Will Dunham

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE recently called for International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva to resign over her role in a China-related data-rigging scandal while at the World Bank, saying it has undermined the IMF's credibility. The influential London-based publication said in a scathing editorial that an external investigation's findings that Georgieva pressured staﬀ for changes to the World Bank's "Doing Business" rankings in 2017 to favor China compromises the IMF's ability to act as the custodian of data for the world's macroeconomic statistics. "The head of the IMF must hold the ring while two of its biggest shareholders, America and China, confront each other in a new era of geopolitical 33

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rivalry," the Economist said, adding that critics of multilateralism are already citing the findings as evidence that international bodies cannot stand up to China. "The next time the IMF tries to referee a currency dispute, or helps reschedule the debt of a country that has borrowed from China, the fund's critics are sure to cite this investigation to undermine the institution's credibility. That is why Ms Georgieva, an esteemed servant of several international institutions, should resign," the editorial said. It cited the allegation in the WilmerHale law firm's report that Georgieva, who at the time was the World Bank's CEO, thanked a senior bank researcher for "doing his bit for multilateralism" in altering the China data. "Now she too should do her bit for multilateralism by falling on her sword," the Economist said. The World Bank's "Doing Business" reports, now canceled, ranked countries based on their regulatory and legal environments, ease of business startups, financing, infrastructure and other business climate measures. Georgieva, a Bulgarian who is a longtime former World Bank economist and European Commission oﬃcial, has denied the accusations in the WilmerHale report, saying last week they are "not true" and she has never pressured staﬀ to manipulate data. The IMF's executive board is conducting its own review of the allegations and has emphasized "the importance it attached to conducting a thorough, objective and timely review." An IMF spokesman declined comment on the Economist's editorial. A U.S. Treasury spokeswoman also declined comment beyond the Treasury's earlier statement that is analyzing "serious findings" in the WilmerHale report. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/economistmagazine-calls-georgieva-quit-172717843.html DAWN

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Development

Empowering Additional African Women Entrepreneurs From TEF EVEN BEFORE THERE WAS a pandemic, women-led MSMEs faced more challenges in comparison to their male counterparts. According to the United Nations, 27% of female entrepreneurship rate in Africa is the highest in the world; Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where there are more women than men who become entrepreneurs. Still, most female-led enterprises on the continent are small businesses with few growth opportunities. Female entrepreneurship in Africa is especially hindered by a lack of access to funding, womenowned small businesses find it more diﬃcult to secure financing and investment than their male counterparts. Since inception, The Tony Elumelu Foundation has directly empowered over 3,000 female entrepreneurs. TEF Alumni have gone to directly create an additional 35,000 jobs for women. Our position is clear and actionable: create an ecosystem where everyone, regardless of their gender benefits from equal opportunity to scale and thrive. Google.org, shares a similar vision. In June, we announced a $3Million grant from Google.org to complement the 2021 TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. 500 additional rural-based aspiring women entrepreneurs will receive seed capital of $5,000. These 500 aspiring African women entrepreneurs will come from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and select Francophone countries. The objective is to increase economic inclusion, improve economies and further empower these rural-based women to lift them from poverty, strengthen their livelihoods and incomes, while creating more decent jobs in the African economy. Addressing this announcement, our CEO, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu commented, “As Africa’s leading philanthropy empowering young African 34

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entrepreneurs, this grant support will provide financial and technical support for additional women-owned businesses and marginalized groups in the informal sector through the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. There is no better time to invest in women’s economic participation on the continent than now. Through this support, women will drive growth for local economies and enable better living conditions for their communities. We are delighted to disburse the Google.org grant to scale our ongoing work to empower young African entrepreneurs as we believe this will be instrumental in building much-needed businesses and resilient economies”. This announcement directly correlates with our mission to catalyze economic growth, drive poverty eradication, and ensure job creation in Africa. Selection would prioritise informal businesses, further equipping them with digital skills through TEFConnect, our proprietary digital platform supporting millions of African entrepreneurs with access to free resources for professional development, knowledge sharing opportunities DAWN

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and quality market linkages. Nitin Gajria, Managing Director of Google SubSaharan Africa echoed a dedication to building a world where all women can thrive. Looking at data collected by the World Bank across 10 African countries, he revealed that maleowned enterprises have six times more capital than female owned enterprises. For him, “The huge capital gap is not stopping the rise of female entrepreneurs, but it slows them down and makes their journeys that much more challenging. We hope that the support to The Tony Elumelu Foundation will help accelerate the growth of women techmakers and entrepreneurs in Africa”. Today, women-led businesses are disproportionately at risk as a result of the pandemic that has led to economic strife. This is unsurprising, given that they had very limited support to begin with. Female African Entrepreneurs require access to knowledge, skills, tools, and funding in order to navigate the changing operational landscape. Rowan Barnett, Head of Google.org EMEA, agrees to this. He says, “we support organizations that oﬀer financial and training resources to underserved small business owners to improve their economic livelihoods and create opportunity for themselves, their employees, and their communities. As one of the leading pan-African philanthropies empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, we are delighted to support the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme created to empower, invest in and create opportunities for African entrepreneurs”. www.tonyelumelufoundation.org/news/ empowering-additional-african-womenentrepreneurs 35

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TEF Opens Call For Mentors

THE TONY ELUMELU FOUNDATION (TEF), the leading philanthropy empowering African entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries, is calling on exceptional individuals with a minimum of five years of business or professional experience to apply for a chance to mentor young Africans through its US$100M TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. This call-to-action feeds into the Foundation’s mission to empower a new generation of African entrepreneurs, catalyse economic growth, drive poverty eradication and ensure job creation across all 54 African countries. Programme mentors are volunteers who meet set criteria and are willing to commit to mentoring assigned entrepreneurs for 2 hours monthly, over a 12-month period. TEF Mentors are assigned to no more than 3 mentees in a task-based learning forum and are rewarded with certificates of achievements and value-add opportunities. Following review and acceptance of mentorship application, access to the mentorship and learning platform will be given and administrative matching will occur between mentees and mentors to ensure appropriate pairing that keys into the business interests of mentees. To apply to be a TEF mentor, the individual is required to speak either English, French, Portuguese or Arabic fluently, possess quality interpersonal and listening skills, be entrepreneurial and business savvy, committed to own learning, and passionate about developing others. According to the Director of Operations of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Titi Akinola, “Mentorship is a cornerstone of an entrepreneur’s journey, and augments existing technical and financial support that the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme oﬀers.” Prospective mentors are encouraged to Apply Now. www.tonyelumelufoundation.org/press-releases/ tef-opens-call-for-mentors

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Development

Space Manufacturing Startup Plans to Build First Oﬀ-world Factory By Kristin Houser IN JUST EIGHT MONTHS, space manufacturing startup Varda Space Industries has raised more than $50 million — enough to bring its dream of building the first space factory to fruition. Why space? Certain products would be easier to make if gravity was eliminated from the equation. Fiber optic cables, for example, can develop tiny crystals during the manufacturing process due to gravity, and those crystals impair the cables’ ability to transmit signals. The only way to recreate microgravity on Earth, though, is to fly a plane in a high arc and then essentially freefall back down — but the eﬀect is only temporary, and it’s impractical for

manufacturing. Space manufacturing: Rather than trying to bring the conditions of space down to Earth, space manufacturing propopents think we should put factories in Earth’s orbit. We could then use those factories to manufacture

Blood, Brains and Burgers: The Future is La By Rich Haridy SCIENCE FICTION HAS LONG FLOATED the idea of a device that can produce any kind of object one can imagine. Star Trek called it a replicator, while other writers have referred to it as a Santa Claus Machine. We may be centuries away from a single machine that can conjure up whatever we demand at a moment’s notice, but we are not far oﬀ from creating a variety of things we desire in laboratory conditions. We currently rear animals for meat and dairy, cut down forests for wood, harvest organs from the deceased and mine the earth for diamonds. But what if all these things, and more, could be grown in a lab?

taken up by meat production. Lab-grown meat alternatives have been a focus of researchers for decades and over the last few years these innovative technologies have come closer and closer to supermarket shelves. Creating something akin to ground beef mince was first cracked over a decade ago, but several issues slowed the development of the technology. Growing mince from cells in a lab may be one thing, but creating Meat complex structures Over half of the planet’s agricultural land is like steaks has

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fiber optic cables, bioprinted organs, metal alloys, and other products that would be easier to make without pesky gravity in the way. Of course, manufacturing is complicated on Earth, so while many startups want to build factories in space, no one’s actually done so — yet. How it works: In 2020, former SpaceX engineer Will Bruey co-founded Varda with the goal of building the first space factory. On July 28, 2021, he and his partners announced that they’d raised enough money to launch that factory. “I think that what investors…really see as exciting about our approach is that in comparison to everyone else that’s ever discussed ‘space manufacturing,’ we’re by far the most near-term, pragmatic, commercially viable approach,” cofounder Delian Asparouhov told TechCrunch. “[We’ll be] launching and producing materials less than 18 months from now, as opposed to plans that are typically five years, 10 years, decades away from being viable,” he added. The plan: Varda’s factory, which will launch in early 2023, will consist of three parts: a

ab-grown Everything proved challenging until quite recently. In 2018 Israel company Aleph Farms presented the world’s first lab-grown steak and then earlier this year it revealed that its novel 3D bioprinting technology could now create any type of steak. A thick-cut rib-eye steak produced entirely in a lab was shown as proof of the new technology. The other big problem slowing down progress in the lab-grown meat industry has been cost-eﬀective scaling. When the first lab-grown burger was revealed in 2011 it came with an eye-watering

◄This rib-eye steak was produced using a new 3D bioprinting technology Aleph Farms 37

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commercially available satellite platform, a module where the manufacturing will take place autonomously, and a reentry vehicle that will bring the finished goods back to Earth. “The way that we judge our success is the frequency of reentry, because that’s the frequency of us bringing value back down to Earth,” Asparouhov told CNBC. Looking ahead: It’s not clear what Varda plans to make yet, but the goal for the first mission is to create 220 pounds of product. After producing its own goods on 10 or so launches, the startup then plans to transition to providing space manufacturing as a service, producing whatever customers want made in orbit. First, though, it needs to do what no one else has managed: get that first factory into space. www.freethink.com/space/spacemanufacturing?utm_medium=flipdigest. ad.20210805.carousel&utm_source=email&utm_ content=&utm_campaign=campaign Image credit: SpaceX

price tag of US$345,000. By 2021 those costs had been substantially driven down. Chicken is looking likely to be first type of lab-grown meat to hit commercial shelves, with the world’s first industrial-scale cultured meat facility recently opening in Israel. The company behind the factory says it can currently produce over 1,000 pounds of lab-grown chicken per day.

Dairy Ice cream, butter and cheese all start with milk, often cow's milk. Alongside certain fats, vitamins, minerals and water, a couple of key proteins are needed to make milk: whey and casein. To create an animal-free milk virtually identical to cow's milk, several biotech companies have come up novel ways to produce these key milk proteins. Perfect Day is at the front of the pack, using engineered fungi to produce them. Imagindairy is another company working to produce animal-free dairy, this time from bioengineered yeast. Perfect Day has started joining forces with food see page 38 DAWN

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Development Lab-Grown

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companies to produce animal-free dairy products using their novel lab-grown milk proteins. The first target is ice cream, and several products are already on supermarket shelves in the United States.

Diamonds Diamonds are made of pure carbon. They are the result of millions of years of high pressure and high temperatures deep within the Earth. But for well over half a century scientists have been able to eﬀectively create diamonds in laboratory conditions.

it said it would never do. It started an entire labgrown diamond jewelry line. In 2021 the world’s largest jewelry manufacturer and retailer Pandora went even further, announcing it would no longer sell mined diamonds at all.

Wood From paper to construction to heating, wood is still a vital resource for most day to day activities. But can it be grown in a lab? A recent project led by a PhD student at MIT suggests it is possible. Beginning with live plant cells that were cultivated in a growth medium, the scientists developed a way to coax those cells into wood-like structures. Two specific plant hormones were used to trigger the cells into producing lignin, an organic polymer that gives wood its firm nature. Agel matrix was then used to guide the shape of the cellular growth. And the structural characteristics of the wood-like material could be controlled by varying the levels of plant hormones that regulate the production of lignin. It is still very early days for this technology but the proof-ofconcept is sound. It is possible this technique could, in the future, be used to “grow” wood-like structures into whatever shape

Lab-grown diamonds - indistinguishable from the real thingLightbox Jewelry For much of the 20th century a public relations battle soiled the reputation of lab-grown diamonds, despite them being chemically and physically identical to naturally found diamonds. Technological and manufacturing advances have made labgrown diamonds cheaper, while environmental and ethical concerns have led many to shun the problematic diamond mining industry. In 2018 jewelry giant De Beers did something ►Blood-producing stem cells have been generated in a lab for the first time ktsdesign/Depositphotos

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one would want – tables, chairs, doors, etc.

Blood Advances over the past few decades have helped scientists coax stem cells into a variety of mature cells. But making blood cells in a lab has proved a little more challenging. However, a couple of recent advances have changed the game. In 2017 two separate research teams presented studies oﬀering new techniques turning human pluripotent stem cells into blood stem cells. We are certainly still a way oﬀ producing whole blood products in a lab, but there is now a clear path forward. Unlimited supplies of lab-grown blood for transfusions is not science fiction anymore.

Organs Researchers have passed the first step toward growing full-sized human organs in a lab. A number of innovations in recent years have led to development of fully functional mini-organs, known as organoids. Hearts, lungs and even brains have all been coaxed out of stem cells in lab dishes. So far these organoids are simply a tool for studying human diseases but taking the technology to the next level and growing large human organs in a lab is not impossible. UK researchers last year showed oﬀ a cutting edge bioengineered scaﬀold system that could grow an entire full-sized functioning human thymus just from stem cells. There is cautious optimism in the field 39

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Front view of the Mercedes-Benz BIOME suggesting that while there may be a long way to go before we get to lab-grown human organs, we are on the right track.

Cars Ok, this one is outlandish and entirely in the realm of crazy concepts but Mercedes Benz’s ambitious BIOME idea from 2010 shows just how far you can run with this idea. We may not be growing supercars anytime soon, but fantastic sci-fi ideas are nonetheless becoming increasingly plausible. “The interior of the BIOME grows from the DNA in the Mercedes star on the front of the vehicle, while the exterior grows from the star on the rear,” Mercedes-Benz explained when launching the concept. “To accommodate specific customer requirements, the Mercedes star is genetically engineered in each case, and the vehicle grows when the genetic code is combined with the seed capsule. The wheels are grown from four separate seeds.” And this short list of potential lab-grown things is just the tip of the iceberg. Silk, chocolate, leather and a huge array of other foods and materials are under the scientific microscope. https://newatlas.com/technology/lab-grown-meatwood-dairy-human-organs-future

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Development

IPCC Climate Report: Profound Changes are Underway in Earth’s Oceans and Ice – a Lead Author Explains what the Warnings Mean By Robert Koﬀ and Conversation Africa Staﬀ

THE IPCC RELEASED the first part of its much anticipated Sixth Assessment Report on Aug. 9, 2021. In it, 234 scientists from around the globe summarized the current climate research on how the Earth is changing as temperatures rise and what those changes will mean for the future. We asked climate scientist Robert Kopp, a lead author of the chapter on Earth’s oceans, ice and sea level rise, about the profound changes underway.

What are the IPCC report’s most important overall messages in your view? At the most basic level, the facts about climate change have been clear for a long time, with the evidence just continuing to grow. As a result of human activities, the planet is changing at a rate unprecedented for at least thousands of years. These changes are aﬀecting every area of the planet. Line chart showing influence over time of diﬀerent sources of warming. Only human-caused emissions are on the same trajectory as the actual temperature rise. Humans produce large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, primarily through fossil fuel burning, agriculture, deforestation and decomposing waste. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report While some of the changes will be irreversible for millennia, some can be slowed and others reversed through strong, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. 40

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But time is running out to meet the ambitious goal laid out in the 2015 international Paris Agreement to limit warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels (2 C equals 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Doing so requires getting global carbon dioxide emissions on a downward course that reaches net zero around or before 2050.

What are scientists most concerned about right now when it comes to the oceans and polar regions? Global sea level has been rising at an accelerating rate since about 1970, and over the last century, it

has risen more than in any century in at least 3,000 years. In the years since the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report in 2013 and the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate in 2018, the evidence for accelerating ice sheet loss has become clearer. Over the last decade, global average sea level has risen at a rate of about 4 millimeters per year (1.5 inches per decade). This increase is due to DAWN

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two main factors: the melting of ice in mountain glaciers and at the poles, and the expansion of water in the ocean as it takes up heat. Ice sheets in particular are primarily responsible for the increase in the rate of sea level rise since the 1990s. There is clear evidence tying the melting of glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet, as well as ocean warming, to human influence. Sea level rise is leading to substantial impacts on coastal communities, including a near-doubling in the frequency of coastal flooding since the 1960s in many sites around the world. Since the previous reports, scientists have made substantial advances in modeling the behavior of ice sheets. At the same time, we’ve been learning more about ice sheet physics, including recognizing the potential ways ice sheets can become destabilized. We don’t well understand the potential speed of these changes, but they have the potential to lead to much more rapid ice sheet loss if greenhouse gas emissions grow unchecked. These advances confirm that sea level is going to continue to rise for many centuries to come, creating an escalating threat for coastal communities. Sea level change through 2050 is largely locked in: Regardless of how quickly nations are able to lower emissions, the world is likely looking at about 15 to 30 centimeters (6 to 12 inches) of global average sea level rise through the middle of the century. But beyond 2050, sea level projections become increasingly sensitive to the world’s emissions choices. If countries continue on their current paths, with greenhouse gas emissions likely to bring 3-4 C of warming (5.4-7.2 F) by 2100, the planet will be looking at a most likely sea level rise of about 0.7 meters (a bit over 2 feet). A 2 C (3.6 F) warmer world, consistent with the Paris Agreement, would see lower sea level rise, most likely about half a meter (about 1.6 feet) by 2100. What’s more, the more the world limits its greenhouse gas emissions, the lower the chance of triggering instabilities in the polar ice sheets that 41

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are challenging to model but could substantially increase sea level rise. Under the most extreme emissions scenario we considered, we could not rule out rapid ice sheet loss leading to sea level rise approaching 2 meters (7 feet) by the end of this century. Fortunately, if the world limits warming to well below 2 C, it should take many centuries for sea level rise to exceed 2 meters – a far more manageable situation.

Are the oceans or ice nearing any tipping points? “Tipping point” is a vague term used in many diﬀerent ways by diﬀerent people. The IPCC

defines tipping points as “critical thresholds beyond which a system reorganizes, in a way that is very fast or irreversible” – for example, a temperature rise beyond which climate dynamics commit an ice sheet to massive loss. Because the term is so vague, the IPCC generally focuses on characteristics of changes in a system – for example, whether a system might change abruptly or irreversibly – rather than whether it fits the strict dynamic definition of a “tipping point.” One example of a system that might undergo abrupt changes is the large-scale pattern of ocean circulation known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, of which the Gulf Stream is part. Paleoclimate evidence tells us that AMOC has changed rapidly in the past, and we expect that AMOC will weaken over this see page 42

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Development IPCC Report

from page 41

century. If AMOC were to collapse, it would make Europe warm more slowly, increase sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast, and shift storm tracks and monsoons. However, most evidence indicates that such a collapse will not happen in this century. There is mixed evidence for abrupt changes in the polar ice sheets, but clear evidence that changes in the ice sheets can be locked in for centuries and millennia. If the world succeeds in limiting warming to 1.5 C (2.7 F), we expect to see about 2-3 meters (7-10 feet) of sea level rise over the next 2,000 years; if the planet continues to warm and reaches a 5 C (9 F) increase, we expect to see about 20 meters (70 feet) over the next 2,000 years. Some people also discuss summer Arctic sea ice – which has undergone substantial declines over the last 40 years and is now smaller than at any time in the past millennium – as a system with a “tipping point.” However, the science is pretty clear that there is no critical threshold in this system. Rather, summer Arctic sea ice area decreases roughly in proportion to the increase in global temperature, and if temperature were stabilized, we would expect sea ice area to stabilize also.

What do scientists know now about hurricanes that they didn’t realize when the last report was written? Since the last IPCC assessment report in 2013, there has been increasing evidence that hurricanes have grown more intense, and intensified more rapidly, than they did 40 years ago. There’s also evidence that hurricanes in the U.S. are moving more slowly, leading to increased rainfall. However, it’s not clear that this is due to the effects of greenhouse gases – reductions in particulate pollution have also had important effects. The clearest effect of global warming is that a warmer atmosphere holds more water, leading to more extreme rainfall, like that seen during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Looking forward, we expect to see hurricane winds and hurricane rains continue to increase. It’s still unclear how the overall number of hurricanes will change.

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The report involved 234 scientists, and then 195 governments had to agree on the summary for policymakers. Does that broad range of views aﬀect the outcome?

When you’re writing a report like this, a key goal for the scientists is to accurately capture points of both scientific agreement and scientific disagreement. For example, with respect to ice sheet changes, there are certain processes on which there is broad agreement and other processes where the science is still emerging and there are strong, discordant views. Yet knowing about these processes may be crucially important for decision-makers trying to manage risk. That’s why, for example, we talk not only about most likely outcomes, but also about outcomes where the likelihood is low or as-yet unknown, but the potential impacts are large. The IPCC uses a transparent process to produce its report – the authors have had to respond to over 50,000 review The Gulf Stream is part of comments over the three and sea level rise along th years we’ve spent writing it. The governments also weigh in, having to approve every line of a concise Summary for Policy Makers that accurately reflects the underlying assessment – oftentimes making it clearer in the process. I’m very pleased that, as with past reports, every DAWN

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f the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. A slowdown would affect temperature in Europe he U.S. East coast. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report participating government has signed oﬀ on a summary that accurately reports the current state of climate science.

profound-changes-are-underway-in-earthsoceans-and-ice-a-lead-author-explains-what-thewarnings-mean-165588

https://theconversation.com/ipcc-climate-report-

Image credits: Unoﬃcial Networks

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Development

This Wildly Reinvented Wind Turbine Generates Five Times More Energy than its Competitors By Elissaveta M. Brandon

RENEWABLE ENERGY COULD POWER the world within the next 30 years, and wind power is one of the cheapest, most efficient ways to get there. Except 80% of the world’s offshore wind blows in deep waters, where it’s difficult to build wind farms. A new design for a radically different kind of wind turbine could begin to change that. Norwegian company Wind Catching Systems is developing a floating, multi-turbine technology for wind farms that could generate five times the annual energy of the world’s largest, single wind turbine. This increased efficiency is due to an innovative design that reinvents the way wind farms look and perform. Unlike traditional wind turbines, which consist 44

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of one pole and three gargantuan blades, the so-called Wind Catcher is articulated in a square grid with over 100 small blades. At 1,000 feet high, the system is over three times as ttall a as an average wind turbine, and it stands on a floating platform that’s anchored to the ocean floor. The company is planning to build a prototype next year. If it succeeds, the Wind Catcher could revolutionize the way we harness wind power. “Traditional wind farms are based on the old Dutch windmills,” says Ole Heggheim, CEO of Wind Catching Systems. These wind farms work well on land, but “why is it that when you have something that works on land, you should do the same thing on water?” Oﬀshore wind farms have been in vogue; 162 of them are already up and running, with 26 more to come, mostly in China and the U.K. The problem is that each turbine has to be driven into the seabed, so it can’t be installed in waters deeper than 200 DAWN

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feet. As a result, wind farms can’t be built farther than about 20 miles away from shore, which limits their performance potential since the winds are stronger farther out into the ocean. This is where floating wind farms come into world s first floating wind farm, Hywind, H play. The world’s

opened in 2017, almost 25 miles oﬀ the coast of Aberdeen in Scotland. The wind farm counts six floating wind turbines that are slotted in a buoyant cylinder filled with heavy ballast to make it float vertically. Because they’re only tethered to the seabed with thick mooring lines, they can operate in waters more than 3,000 feet deep. Hywind is powering around 36,000 British homes, and it has already broken U.K. records for energy output. Wind Catching Systems launched the same year Hywind opened. It claims that one unit could power up between 80,000 and 100,000 European households. In ideal conditions, where the wind is at its strongest, one wind catcher unit could produce up to 400 gigawatt-hours of energy. By comparison, the largest, most powerful wind turbine on the market right now produces up to 80 gigawatt-hours. There are several reasons for this substantial diﬀerence. First, the Wind Catcher is taller— 45

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approaching the height of the Eiffel Tower—which exposes the rotor blades to higher wind speeds. Second, smaller blades perform better. Heggheim explains that traditional turbines are 120 feet long and usually max out at a certain wind speed. By comparison, the Wind Catcher’s blades are 50 feet long and can perform more rotations per minute, therefore generating more energy. And because the blades are smaller, the whole system is easier to manufacture, build, and maintain. Heggheim says it has a design lifespan of 50 years, which is twice as much as traditional wind turbines, and when some parts need to be replaced (or during annual inspections), an integrated elevator system will offer easy maintenance. “If you have one single turbine and you need to change the blade, you have to stop the whole operation,” says Ronny Karlsen, the company’s CFO. “We have 126 individual turbines, so if we need to change the blade, we can stop one turbine.” When the system reaches the end of its life, much of it can be recycled. After the first significant wave of wind power in the 1990s, many traditional wind turbines have reached their design lifespan; blades the size of a Boeing 747 wing are piling up in landfills. Not only are the Wind Catcher blades smaller, but they’re also made of aluminum, which, unlike the fiberglass used for larger turbines, is entirely recyclable. “You melt it down and produce new ones,” says Heggheim. A prototype will likely be built in the North Sea (in Norway or the U.K.). After that, the company is looking at California and Japan. “Those have good wind resources near the shore,” says Karlsen, “and the governments are supportive and already starting to award acreage for developments.” And for those wondering about the dangers this might pose to birds, Heggheim says the structure will be kitted out with bird radars that send out short pulses of signal to help prevent collisions with migrating birds. “These units will be so far offshore,” he says, “so birdlife along the coast should not be endangered.” www.fastcompany.com/90672135/this-wildlyreinvented-wind-turbine-generates-five-timesmore-energy-than-its-competitors Image credit: Wind Catching Systems

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Development

Elon Musk’s new Satellites Could Sneak Internet Past the Taliban Edited by Ana Campoy NOTE: Your DAWN Team is presenting this article as written by Quartz via Techio. However, we ask that you turn your attention to the broader benefits of the technology advancement discussed. Connecting B2B, B2C and C2C across the African continent with less interference can contribute to great economic advancement for Africa's businesses (economy) and for consumer access to education, information and financial services. General use of the updated satellite internet service pose challenges to be sure, but the Africa-based tech and financial communities are up to the task.

TODAY, SPACEX AND OTHER SATELLITE internet providers can’t easily sneak internet access into repressive countries with their permission—the technical and legal challenges are too diﬃcult. But a new generation of laser-equipped spacecraft being developed by Elon Musk’s space company may solve some of those problems, allowing the internet to slip past iron curtains. SpaceX’s Starlink network is an unprecedented approach to delivering internet from space—with 1,740 satellites launched about 500 miles above the planet, it is the biggest constellation out there. Currently in beta testing, it provides broadband connectivity to users below (when trees aren’t in the way.) Starlink is now available in fourteen countries. But what if someone wanted to use Starlink in a country without permission from that government? One key challenge to eluding censorship is technical: Starlink users need to be within several hundred miles of a ground station that is plugged into the internet, so the satellites can relay data back and forth between them. SpaceX is not going to be able to set up these stations in authoritarian countries, or likely many of their neighbors. Enter the Lasers SpaceX is rolling out new satellites that may alleviate this technical challenge. The company

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halted Starlink launches in May to wait for new spacecraft that are equipped with optical laser communications, which have higher throughput than radio transmissions. If it works, the satellites will be able to link directly to each other more eﬃciently. That, in turn, means that instead of needing a ground station a few hundred miles away, a user could have their data sent back and forth through the Starlink network to a ground station anywhere. “Lasers [sic] links alleviate ground station constraints, so data can go from say Sydney to London through space, which is ~40% faster speed of light than fiber & shorter path,” Musk tweeted. If the system is up in 4 to 6 months, as Musk promises (and you should probably add some significant margin to that), dissidents could potentially be able to log into the global communications network to share their stories, report human rights violations, organize resistance, and undermine oﬃcial narratives. There are still some very practical obstacles. DAWN

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A Starlink t e r m i n a l costs $500 and internet access is $99 a month, so any users will need a decent amount of cash in US dollars that they can transfer to SpaceX (it’s not clear if the company is plugged into the hawala system) or foreign backers to cover the costs. And Starlink’s pizza box-sized, motorized satellite dish won’t be easy to hide, so don’t expect them springing up on buildings in downtown Kabul. There’s Always Politics, Even in Space The other major challenge to delivering internet without permission are the legal rules for transmitting radio signals inside a given country. At least superficially, eliminating ground stations eliminates these countries’ political leverage. Asked what governments in these countries could do to cut oﬀ Starlink access, Musk says “they can shake their fist at the sky.” And that will be true—in failed states like Afghanistan or Venezuela, or international pariahs like North Korea. But the reality is that the more powerful autocrats will be able to do much more 47

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than shake their fists at the sky. SpaceX is unlikely, for example, to skirt regulatory rules in China, a country putting millions of its citizens into reeducation camps, while Musk’s company Tesla builds and sells electric cars there. Nor is it likely that SpaceX would try to skirt the borders of authoritarian countries like Iran that maintain international relationships with powerful countries. China imports significant amounts of oil from Iran, and might look unkindly on eﬀorts to destabilize its government. And satellite communication is no guarantee of secrecy. Sophisticated autocrats, or those with sophisticated allies, can attempt to track satellite transmissions. In 2012, the journalist Marie Colvin was killed in the Syrian civil war after the country’s armed forces tracked her satellite phone and targeted her. If Starlink becomes a common way to try to elude digital censorship, it won’t be long before repressive regimes (or mercenary technologists) develop the tools to hunt the network’s users. https://techio.co/elon-musks-new-satellites-couldsneak-internet-past-the-taliban https://qz.com/2054920/elon-musks-newsatellites-could-sneak-internet-past-the-taliban Image credit: investors.com, East Bay Times

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Agriculture

IPCC Scientists Still Haven’t Cracked A Cl

IN THE LATEST REPORT from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released Aug. 9, scientists are unequivocal that climate change is bad, that many impacts are already being felt, and that human greenhouse gas emissions are to blame. As more data accumulates from ancient and contemporary sources, and as computer climate models become more refined, scientists’ certainty is rapidly increasing about how different levels of greenhouse gas emissions will shape the future. For Africa, scientists have high confidence that the continent is already warming faster than the global average, and will see an increase in extreme heatwaves and coastal sea level rise. But one key weather pattern with major economic implications—monsoon rains in the Sahel, the semi-arid band that stretches across the continent and divides the tropics from the Sahara desert— remain an area where the future remains relatively uncertain. “Monsoons are an area of significant disagreement among climate models,” says Richard Seager, a climate scientist specializing in drought at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who was not an IPCC author. “And even if they agree, they may not be right. So that’s still a big concern.” Why monsoon rain patterns are hard to predict Monsoons are a seasonal rain pattern produced when shifting wind patterns cause a collision between moist air blowing in from an ocean and air coming over land. In the Sahel, there are two monsoons, one in the east that produces rain in the spring (March to May) and autumn (October to December), and another in the west that produces 48

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rain in the summer (June to September). Because they are the chief source of rain in the Sahel, they are vital to the economy: Agriculture accounts for more than one-third of West Africa’s GDP, and across the continent as a whole 95% of farmland is rainfed. The IPCC reports that in general, in a warming world there should be an overall increase in rainfall across the Sahel. A key driver of that trend is the difference between ocean and land temperatures. The ocean warms more slowly than the land, and the greater that gap, the stronger the monsoons are likely to be, said Francois Engelbrecht, a climate scientist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and IPCC author. But the total volume of annual rainfall matters less to farmers and livestock herders than the seasonal distribution: A few catastrophic downpours are far less useful than predictable, periodic rain. Climate models suggest that the timing of monsoon rains will likely shift, Engelbrecht said, but why, and by how much, remains uncertain. One problem is that local rain patterns, compared to other forms of weather, can be highly random, and are subject to a complex tangle of climate influences. Another is that they tend to occur on scales smaller than the resolution of most climate models (typically around 10 square kilometers), which makes them hard to reproduce.

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Africa’s Biggest limate Mystery By Tim McDonnell

“No one understands exactly how the monsoon functions,” Engelbrecht said. “It’s natural to expect that the west and east

said, more rain may not do much good if temperatures are also much higher. “I would caution against seeing a rainfall increase as a benefit to agricultural economies in the Sahel,” he said. “Even when it rains more, if it becomes warmer the soil becomes drier. The potential benefits may to a very large extent be offset.”. https://techio.co/ipccscientists-still-haventcracked-africas-biggestclimate-mystery/

African monsoons will become generally stronger, but there’s less information about seasonality than there is about annual rainfall totals.” And no matter how it’s distributed, Engelbrecht

September-October 2021

SOURE: IPCC scientists still haven’t cracked Africa’s biggest climate mystery Image credit: www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/africa, www. ipcc.ch

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Agriculture

Madagascar is Suffering from a Climate Change Famine By Samanth Subramanian

MADAGASCAR IS BEING HIT by one of the modern world’s first climate change-induced famines—a disaster that underscores the profound unfairness of a planet heated up by carbon emissions. The famine, caused by a devastating, fouryear drought, is placing at least 30,000 people in the most extreme stage of food insecurity: a level five famine, as defined by the World Food Programme (WFP). At least 1.1 million are in some kind of severe food insecurity, the United Nations has said. “People have had to resort to desperate survival measures, such as eating locusts, raw red cactus fruits, or wild leaves,” Amer Daoudi, a senior director at WFP, told the UN earlier this year.

The browned parts of this map of southern Madagascar show how rainfall between June 2020 and July 2021 was as much as 25% below the 2000-2015 average.

How climate change can cause a famine Madagascar produces a little more than 0.01% of the world’s annual carbon dioxide emissions every year, according to data drawn from the Global Carbon Project. Cumulatively, between 1933 and 2019, the country produced less than 0.01% of all the carbon dioxide generated—the carbon dioxide that is now triggering severe alterations to global climate. One such eﬀect of these alterations has been Madagascar’s drought, the worst in 40 years. The drought, and therefore the famine, can be directly attributed to the eﬀects of climate change, David Beasley the WFP’s executive director, has said. It has also compounded by unexpected sandstorms that have “buried fields, undermining any possibility of farming,” said Frances Kennedy, a WFP spokesperson, in an email to Quartz. More 50

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than 60% of the people in Madagascar’s south, she said, “are subsistence farmers who have lost their livelihoods as well as their only source of food to erratic weather.” Scientists have been analyzing climate patterns for years now to predict these kinds of consequences for southern Africa. But that hasn’t necessarily made it easier to forestall such calamities. “Going by the statistics, over the past 20 years, there’s been a 500% increase in the number of countries exposed to multiple types of climate extremes,” Kennedy said. “We are seeing the eﬀects of climate all over southern Africa.” Angola is another example of a country witnessing food shortages as a result of climate change, Kennedy said. “Nearly seven million people have DAWN

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Drought has ravaged farms across southern Madagascar, like this cassava plantation.

little food and thousands have become migrants fleeing into Namibia in search of food. Frequent cyclones forming in the Indian ocean and hitting the southeastern coast of the continent (Mozambique) are now becoming more frequent and impacting food security.” As with Madagascar, Angola and Mozambique have contributed minimally to global emissions. In being able to trace the famine directly to

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climate change and not to conflict—the more familiar reason—Madagascar’s situation is “unprecedented,” Shelley Thakral, a WFP spokesperson, said to the BBC. “These people have done nothing to contribute to climate change,” Thakral said. “They don’t burn fossil fuels…and yet they are bearing the brunt of climate change.” https://qz.com/africa/2054501/the-worlds-onlyclimate-change-famine-has-hit-madagascar DAWN

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Agriculture - Technology

Lab-grown Coffee Cuts Out the Beans and Deforestation (and the farmers) By Nick Lavars

AS THE WORLD'S POPULATION CONTINUES to grow, so does the strain we place on the environment in our efforts to feed all those hungry mouths, and part of the solution may lie in the lab. We've seen how lab-grown meats like ribeye steaks, burgers or chicken tenders could help address the massive environmental costs associated with livestock production, and we're now seeing some interesting possibilities emerge around one of the world's most popular drinks – coffee. Almost 10 billion kg (22 billion lb) of coffee is produced globally each year, and demand is only expected to increase in the coming decades. And keeping up with that demand will involve creating more space to raise coffee plants, which involves deforesting vast areas so they can thrive in the direct sunlight. Making matters worse, studies have shown coffee to be highly susceptible to climate change, with much of the land suitable for its production expected to be significantly reduced in a warmer world. Rising temperatures also make disease and pests more common. So there are serious sustainability issues facing the global coffee industry, but an alternative means of production may be in the works. The technology mirrors other forms of "cellular agriculture," where products are created using cell cultures rather than actual animals or plants, and therefore involve just a fraction of the energy, water and carbon emissions. "The idea is to use biotechnology rather than conventional farming for the production of food and therefore provide alternative routes which are less dependent on unsustainable practices," Dr. Heiko Rischer, Head of Plant Biotechnology at Finland's VTT research institute, explains to New Atlas. "For example, these solutions have a lower water footprint and less transport is needed

September-October 2021

due to local production. There isn’t any seasonal dependency or the need for pesticides either." Rischer has been heading up a research project at VTT aimed at producing lab-grown coffee, using cells harvested from real plants. Last week, these efforts began to bear fruit, with the team producing its very first cup, which Rischer says smelled and tasted similar to ordinary coffee. "The process uses real coffee plant cells," he tells us. "Initially a cell culture is started from a plant part eg. a leaf. The formed cells are propagated and multiplied on a specific nutrient medium. Ultimately, the cells are transferred to a bioreactor from which the biomass is then harvested. The cells are dried and roasted and then coffee can be brewed." As is the case with lab-grown meats, both research groups and ambitious companies are working towards more sustainable coffee production in the lab. Compound Foods is a US startup that recently announced US$4.5 million in seed funding to develop coffee without beans by extracting molecules through "synthetic biology," according to TechCrunch. Atomo is another US-based startup with aspirations in the space. It is a little further along in its journey, having raised $11.6 million across two seed rounds in the past couple of years, and claims to have reverse-engineered the coffee bean to produce a molecular blend that is less bitter than conventional coffee. This process, it says, uses 94% less water and generates 93%less carbon emissions that conventional coffee production. So how long until these sustainable cups of joe find their way into the hands of coffee lovers around the world? Lab-grown coffee would first need to undergo regulatory approval by the relevant authorities in different markets, although Atomo has previously outlined its plans to launch in 2021,

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so it may not be that far away. Rischer, meanwhile, most optimistic scenario a commercial product is working to a much more conservative time could be ready in four years." frame. https://newatlas.com/science/lab-grown-coﬀee"We aim to team up with industrial partners in beans-deforestation order to develop a real product," he says. "In the Image credit: Business Insider, blogspot.com 53

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Pandemic

Nova Gaith TRIB

Novavax’s Eﬀort to Vaccinate the World, From Zero to Not Quite Warp Speed By Sarah Jane Tribble and Rachana Pradhan

ON A SWELTERING June morning, Novavax CEO and covid vaccine maker Stanley Erck stood on a stage unmasked and did something that would have been unthinkable six months ago: He shook hands with Maryland’s governor. Erck was with Gov. Larry Hogan to announce Novavax’s global vaccine headquarters ― a campus expected to house laboratories and more than 800 employees. Hogan called Novavax’s future “bright” and marveled that more than 71% of the state’s adults had received at least one shot. Novavax’s quest to scale up operations underscores how diﬃcult it can be to launch a vaccine ― even with the formula and technology in hand. So what happened? It has had the financial backing of the U.S. government and full faith of international agencies. Everything took longer than expected: hiring necessary researchers and scientists, getting supplies and transferring its vaccine technology. It didn’t move at warp speed. “We’re not making aspirin,” Trizzino said. “We’re making a very complicated biological.”

A Moonshot Goal

Equipped with its recombinant nanoparticle vaccine mixed with Matrix-M, Novavax deployed a core team of employees, dubbed “SuperNOVAs,” to crisscross the globe. They assembled a manufacturing network and shared vaccine technology in India, South Korea, Spain, Japan and the Czech Republic as well as in the United States ― about 20 contract manufacturing and test sites in all. “This takes time and expertise,” Trizzino said. “You just simply can’t hand over the recipe and then walk away from it and expect you’re going to have a high-quality product.” Novavax is contracted to form the backbone of the COVAX initiative, having promised 1.1 billion doses starting this year for developing countries. And while President Joe Biden announced the U.S. would donate 500 million doses of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine abroad, Novavax is still seen as vital to urgent eﬀorts worldwide to battle the virus and its variants. Novavax’s moonshot goal of producing 2 billion shots a year increasingly looks like a pipe dream for 2021. “It is very hard to accept that they will make 2 billion doses as they had originally committed. I’m very skeptical,” said Prashant Yadav, a health care supply chain expert and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. One of Novavax’s biggest challenges, Yadav said, is relying on “so many sites” that aren’t fully under its control, while other manufacturers own their plants. The more places Novavax produces the vaccine, the more challenging it is to make sure the vaccine and its elements are comparable in every place.

A year before the covid pandemic hit, Novavax had a failed late-stage trial on a potential respiratory virus vaccine, after which it cut its workforce and sold oﬀ all its manufacturing capabilities. So, when more than $2 billion in federal and international funding landed at its doorstep, Novavax found itself developing both “a vaccine and a company” in 12 months, said Dr. Gregory Glenn, president of research and development. Novavax’s proprietary secret ingredient is Matrix-M, an immune booster. Executives say the additive ― derived from Chilean soapbark trees ― works so well that less of an antibody-producing ‘Hadn’t Heard of Covid-19’ antigen would be needed with it in a vaccine. One John Kutney, Novavax’s senior director of financial filing said Matrix-M “has the potential to manufacturing, joined a BioBuzz video in be of immense value.” December, in an eﬀort to recruit urgently needed 54

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vax’s global headquarters in hersburg, Maryland. (SARAH JANE BLE / KHN)

talent. Kutney described the technology transfer as taking a recipe and teaching it to others. With that mission, he has traveled to the Czech Republic, Spain and the United Kingdom as well as Texas, North Carolina and New England. When Novavax began work on its vaccine in January 2020, “most of us hadn’t heard of Covid-19 and we were only beginning to become aware of what was happening in China,” Kutney said. Novavax adapted its established vaccine platform to the new virus and then had to scale and transfer it to larger manufacturing sites, build a global supply chain and develop a regulatory strategy for emergency use. “These steps would normally take years,” he said. The key step of transferring Novavax’s vaccine technology can take three to six months, depending on the quality of the partner’s team. Once equipment and raw materials are secured, the teams start with small batches ― first with a 50-liter bioreactor, then a 200-liter and eventually a 2,000-liter bioreactor, checking to make sure the partner operators know the process every step of the way. “What we’re trying to do here is not easy,” said Fred Shemer, Novavax’s vice president of quality systems and compliance, in the video: “It’s a challenging situation.” In March 2020, Novavax received the first $4 million of nearly $400 million pledged by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. CEPI is a global alliance backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which previously supported Novavax with $89 million for 55

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a vaccine for a common respiratory virus CEPI’s investment jump-started Novavax’s technology transfer to plants across Europe and Asia. It helped Novavax partner with SK bioscience in South Korea and paid for ramping up production at Praha Vaccines, which Novavax eventually bought, in the Czech Republic. It also supported scaling up production of Matrix-M at facilities in Sweden and Denmark. Operation Warp Speed awarded $1.6 billion in July 2020 to Novavax so it would produce 100 million doses ― one of the largest awards from the Trump administration’s vaccine incubator. It was “kind of a stunning number for us,” Trizzino said. In December, oﬃcials bumped the total to $1.74 billion with no changes to the previous contract. Novavax also has a $60 million contract with the Department of Defense for 10 million doses.

Too Late? At the headquarters event, Glenn acknowledged that Novavax is late to the game. But the global demand is still enormous, he stressed. “We know that 2 billion people worldwide have received at least one shot,” he said, “but there are 6 billion people that need to be inoculated.” First, though, “the world has to collectively, as one, really stymie this global pandemic,” said Dr. Dawd Siraj, a University of Wisconsin professor specializing in infectious diseases. Siraj said Novavax’s delays shouldn’t cast doubt on the quality of the vaccine itself, given the positive trial results it has reported globally. The shot is a “very good vaccine,” he said, that could help turn the tide in developing countries unable to support their own vaccine development. “Let us never miss the most important point here,” Siraj added. “Anyone who is getting a vaccine that is approved, the chances of dying, the chances of requiring ICU care, the chances of requiring a ventilator and high-flow oxygen, they almost disappear.” https://khn.org/news/article/covid-vaccinenovavax-vaccination-eﬀort-from-zero-to-not-quitewarp-speed/ DAWN

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Pandemic

Pfizer and BioNTech in Agreement to Manufacture COVID Vaccine for Distribution in Africa By Benjamin Muriuki For Citizen Digital

PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES Pfizer and BioNTech have signed an agreement to manufacture the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in South Africa for distribution in Africa. The partnership was made in collaboration with The Biovac Institute (Biovac) — a South African biopharmaceutical company based in Cape Town. All the doses will exclusively be distributed within the 55 member states that make up the African Union. In a statement issued recently, the companies indicated that Biovac will perform manufacturing and distribution activities within Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s global COVID19 vaccine supply chain and manufacturing network, which will now span three continents and include more than 20 manufacturing facilities. “From day one, our goal has been to provide fair and equitable access of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to everyone, everywhere,” said Albert Bourla, Chairman and Chief Executive Oﬃcer, Pfizer. “Our latest collaboration with Biovac is a shining example of the tireless work being done, in this

September-October 2021

instance to benefit Africa. We will continue to explore and pursue opportunities to bring new partners into our supply chain network, including in Latin America, to further accelerate access of COVID-19 vaccines.” On his part, Ugur Sahin, M.D., CEO and Cofounder of BioNTech said: “We aim to enable people on all continents to manufacture and distribute our vaccine while ensuring the quality of the manufacturing process and the doses. We believe that our mRNA technology can be used to develop vaccine candidates addressing other diseases as well. This is why we will continue to evaluate sustainable approaches that will support the development and production of mRNA vaccines on the African continent.” Dr. Morena Makhoana, CEO of Biovac, termed the agreement as a critical step forward in strengthening sustainable access to a vaccine in the fight against the pandemic. “This is a critical step forward in strengthening sustainable access to a vaccine in the fight against this tragic, worldwide pandemic. We believe this collaboration will create opportunity to more broadly distribute vaccine doses to people in harder-to-reach communities, especially those on the African continent,” said Dr. Makhoana. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Pfizer and BioNTech have shipped more than 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to more than 100 countries or territories in every region of the world. https://citizentv.co.ke/news/pfizer-and-biontechin-agreement-to-manufacture-covid-vaccine-fordistribution-in-africa-12752884 https://qz.com/africa/2036736/what-pfizer-andbiontechs-partnership-in-africa-means-for-africa Image credit: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

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Pandemic

Kenyans on Twitter (#KOT) Fill Vaccine Information Gaps

WHILE THE ARRIVAL OF VACCINE SHIPMENTS to Kenya are almost always highly publicized events, with photo ops of Kenyan officials and donors welcoming them at an airport. The efforts to publicize the locations where the public can access the doses rarely receive as much attention. The country’s health ministry hosts a list of approved Covid-19 vaccination centers on its website. But there are barely updates, and this has created confusion, with people unaware of which centers have the vaccines in stock, how to sign up for doses, what the waiting times are. Now Kenyans on Twitter are addressing this challenge (So effectual is this group at creating change that they have their own hashtag: #KOT.). They’re posting information about medical facilities that have Covid-19 vaccines, sharing their experiences of getting the jabs, and trying to motivate others to get jabbed. The vaccine information gap is a big challenge in addressing the pandemic in Kenya, says Anand Madhvani, co-founder of Covid Kenya, a group of volunteers that runs a similarly named Twitter page to create awareness about Covid-19 issues, 57

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including vaccine availability. “It’s that extra straw in the camel’s back, where people say ‘Okay, then, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do,’” he says. https://techio.co/kenyans-are-sharing-vaccineinformation-their-government-wont-provide/ Source: https://qz.com/africa/2050779/kenyansare-sharing-covid-19-vaccine-information-on-socialmedia/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=dailybrief&utm_content=47a3be48-0589-11ec-9c6116fe4f9330d Image credit: diasporamessenger.com f

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Pandemic -Health

Moderna’s mRNA Vaccine for HIV is Starting Human Tria By Vanessa Bates Ramirez

BEFORE 2020, MANY OF US had never heard of mRNA. With the development of Covid-19 vaccines dependent on this molecule, though, it was all over the news. Covid was the first disease mRNA therapeutics tackled, and given the success of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines at preventing severe cases of the virus, it won’t be the last. New candidates are lining up, with scientists saying mRNA could make it possible to develop vaccines against diseases that, until now, haven’t had solutions in sight. One of these is HIV; Moderna (whose name, by the way, comes from “modified RNA”) launched trials of its experimental mRNA-based HIV vaccine, called mRNA-1644, in August.

Phase 1 The Phase 1 trial will consist of giving the vaccine to 56 adults who don’t have HIV, with the primary goals being to evaluate its safety and monitor the development of an immune response in participants. In addition to the initial version of the vaccine, Moderna also developed a variant called mRNA1644-v2-Core (catchy, isn’t it?). As detailed in Moderna’s August 11 submission to the to the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Trials registry, participants in the trial will be split into four different groups, with one group getting mRNA-1644, a second group getting mRNA1644-v2, and the remaining two groups getting a mix of both versions. Rather than a blind trial, where people don’t know which injection they’re receiving, participants will be informed of what they’re getting. The Phase 1 trial is scheduled to take around 10 months. Later-stage trials will likely take much longer than Covid-19 trials did; as Covid spread like wildfire in 2019 and 2020, getting hundreds of thousands sick, it was much easier to give people 58

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a vaccine and quickly see who became infected and who didn’t. HIV is, thankfully, far less prevalent, and you can go a lifetime without ever coming into contact with the virus.

mRNA 101 As you’ve probably heard by now through reading up on the Covid vaccines, mRNA-based versions work a little differently than traditional vaccines, which used a weakened piece of virus to expose our bodies to it. As detailed in an excellent, very-worthlistening-to ‘Gamechangers’ podcast from The Economist, mRNA vaccines are intended to train our cells to create proteins to fight viruses. mRNA is the intermediary between DNA and proteins, and proteins control pretty much everything that happens in our cells. DNA makes mRNA, which in turn acts as a “messenger” and instructs our cells to make proteins. The “workshop” where the proteins get made is the cell’s ribosome. “This is fundamentally the idea behind RNA therapeutics,” said Natasha Loder, health policy editor at The Economist. “It’s about taking control of that workshop…by essentially manipulating these messengers.” One of the biggest obstacles scientists had to solve was getting modified RNA into cells without it triggering an immune response. “Part of the mRNA molecule was alerting the immune system, and just by tweaking the structure of one of those molecules, it…was easier for the molecule to sneak in without being recognized,” said Loder. Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania were able to create mRNA that could get past cells’ defenses, but still be recognized by the ribosome. For the Covid vaccine, this entailed getting the ribosome to start cranking out that spike protein. DAWN

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ls A computer image of HIV’s outermost layer, densely coated with sugar molecules (purple) that do not trigger an immune response. Most of the surface not covered in sugars (in red and yellow) is highly variable, making it difficult for the immune system to generate antibodies capable of neutralizing the virus. (Credit: Sergey Menis, IAVI)

24 to 48 hours after getting a shot of the vaccine, the recipient’s cells start to manufacture the spike protein. The body tags it as an invader and launches an immune response. Then, when the person comes in contact with the real virus, their cells are already prepared to fight the infection before it takes over. The HIV virus is a bit more complicated. It creates new strains at a rapid rate, meaning that a vaccine targeting a single surface protein wouldn’t work. Instead, this vaccine’s aim will be to generate broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) that are effective against many variants.

A New Frontier Much of the vaccine hesitancy we’re seeing is due to worries that the vaccines were developed too quickly, and are too new to be proven safe. However, as the podcast explains in excellent detail, mRNA therapeutics aren’t a brand-new technology; research in the field began as early as the 1970s. Now that we have a working “platform technology” in mRNA, it should be applicable to many other diseases. 59

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Whether the HIV vaccine will work as well as the Covid vaccine remains to be seen—and it will take far longer to know—but initial indications are promising. Earlier this year, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and Scripps Research tested a piece of the vaccine, and saw 97 percent of study participants developing the intended immune response. If it’s ultimately successful, an HIV vaccine could be particularly helpful in countries or areas where people don’t have easy access to antiretroviral and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drugs. mRNA is now being touted as a potential tool for vaccines against everything from malaria to cancer. In the wake of so much catastrophe, we can see this technology as one good thing the Covid-19 pandemic left in its destructive wake; it truly seems we’ve approached a new frontier in medicine. https://singularityhub.com/2021/08/20/modernasmrna-vaccine-for-hiv-is-starting-human-trials-thisweek DAWN

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Governance

Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema V VP Kamala Harris at the White H

By Larry M

ZAMBIAN LEADER HAKAINDE HICHILEMA is basking in the glow of his historic win in last month's election during his first visit to the United States as president. On Thursday, he became the first Zambian president to visit the White House since 1992, a rare honor that world leaders covet. His defeat of President Edgar Lungu was "democracy in action," his host Vice President Kamala Harris said, while sharing memories of her visit to Lusaka when she was 5 years old. The two leaders swapped victory stories and congratulated each other for their respective elections. "We too were delivered by the people of Zambia in a substantial way under very difficult circumstances with the democratic space not being available," he said to nods from Harris.

Tackling corruption and human rights reforms Hichilema's trip in Washington has also included a meeting with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund leaders as he tries to ride the wave of international attention to pull his country out of a debt crisis and secure funding for an economic revival. Zambian historian Sishuwa Sishuwa told CNN that there was likely to be increased Western support following August's election that saw an opposition candidate triumph. "There are huge challenges he's inherited," the University of Zambia lecturer says. "Corruption was intensive under Lungu, human rights were violated, and democracy was seriously eroded. So he has to not just tackle the economy but embark on political reform." Hichilema is capping off a week of firsts after 60

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delivering his maiden speech at the UN General Assembly in New York as the Southern African country's seventh president. "The outcome of our election was determined by those who vote, and not those who count the votes," he told a socially distanced hall of listeners in the early evening Tuesday, referring to his massive victory over Lungu. It was close to 2 a.m. back in Lusaka but some at home stayed up to watch and many congratulated him as soon as the text of the speech was posted on his Facebook page. Last month's peaceful political transition was an inspiration to the rest of African continent, Hichilema said, echoing the US President's recognition of democracy in Zambia in his own speech earlier in the day. "It lives in the young people of Zambia -- who harnessed the power of their vote for the first time -- turning out in record numbers to denounce corruption and chart a new path for their country," President Joe Biden had said in his own first address to the Assembly. President Hichilema was creating a buzz even before he got to New York. Instead of the luxurious presidential jets and large entourages preferred by many African delegations, he flew commercial on Qatar Airways and brought with him just two ministers. A statement said he kept the team "lean and functional to be more productive and cost-effective." Bally, as his supporters call him, styles himself as the CEO of Zambia Limited. At the UN, he said his government's priority was to "restore macroeconomic stability, attain fiscal and debt sustainability and promote economic growth."

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Visits House

Madowo

He has created a new Ministry of Green Economy and Environment to tackle climate change and is reviewing the country's cash-rich mining sector. Hichilema ran for president five times before he won and says he has been arrested 15 times since he joined politics. "Things can be done better, and we intend to do things better for the people that put us in office," he told CNN's One World show before he left for the US. "It's a leadership question, making sure that we respect constitutionalism, democracy and its attendant instructions; and to make Zambia a beacon of hope for democracy in Africa." As opposition leader, Hichilema was even jailed for 100 days for treason for allegedly endangering Lungu's life by refusing to give way for his entourage. He lost two elections to Lungu that he believes he won but is moving forward. He smiles when the question comes up. "We have a lot of energy, but it will not be wasted on revenge, retribution or indeed, any negative vices," the president told CNN. "We know what was 61

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done wrong against us and who did what but we're not here to avenge. If we did that, it means that we don't occupy any higher ground than those who did that to us."

Zambia's economic woes Zambia became the first African country to default on its debt during the pandemic and President Hichilema now says he's in talks with its lenders for a possible bailout. "Our message to the global financial community is that we're here to do business. We respect the debts that are there and we'll work together to come out of this debt crisis that Zambia has found itself in," he said in the CNN interview. Hichilema defeated outgoing President Edgar Lungu in a landslide by almost 1 million votes in his sixth attempt at becoming leader of Zambia. www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zambia-shakainde-hichilema-visits-kamala-harris-at-whitehouse/ar-AAOOhs1?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=W069 Image credit: PATRICK MEINHARDT/AFP via Getty Images

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Governance

By N

President Akufo-Addo and US Vice President Kamala Harris at a press conference at the White House, Washington DC

THE VICE-PRESIDENT of the United States of America (USA), Ms. Kamala Harris, has described Ghana as conducive for doing business in Africa. She said not only had the Ghanaian government created an enabling environment; it had also built confidence by upholding the rule of law and respect for human rights, ingredients for growth. Ms Harris, who gave the commendation during a visit by President Nana Addo Dankwa AkufoAddo to the White House for bilateral talks, added: “We are confident in the Government of Ghana, Mr President.” The visit, which was aimed at strengthening existing ties of co-operation and friendship between the two countries, formed part of President AkufoAddo’s engagements in the US, where he is attending the 76th General Assembly of the UN. Reaﬃrmation 62

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Addressing a press conference before the two leaders went into a closed-door meeting, VicePresident Harris said the meeting was also “a reaﬃrmation of the strength of the relationship between the US and Ghana, and of course we have had deep historical ties or oﬃcial bilateral relationship since 1957”. She said the atmosphere created by the government under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo had attracted interest in Ghana, as evidenced by the number of American companies which were ramping up to Ghana to seek investment opportunities. Ms. Harris said as an expression of its shared commitment to Ghana and global health, in line with the fight against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the US would donate 1.3 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to Ghana. DAWN

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hana, Hub for Doing Business — Vice-President Harris

News Desk Report

Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo met with US Vice President Kamala Harris That was in addition to some 1.2 million doses of the Moderna vaccine Ghana received from the US on September 4, 2021. “The US is proud to be a member of COVAX. We have already donated more than 1.2 million doses of the Moderna vaccine to Ghana. “I am proud to announce that, shortly, we will be sending an additional 1.3 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. None of us is immune to the ravages of the pandemic,” she added. Appreciation While expressing appreciation to the US for its support over the years, particularly in the fight against the pandemic, President Akufo-Addo appealed for assistance to help deal with jihadist insurgency in the Sahel, saying: “The other main preoccupation for us is to collaborate eﬀectively to defeat the Jihadist insurgency in the Sahel.” He said the support could be in the form of retooling and building the capacity of the country’s Armed Forces and intelligence agencies to be able 63

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to deal with the threats and challenges the jihadists posed in the sub-region. “Many of those leading the jihadist insurrections in West Africa are people who came from Iraq after they were driven out of that country, so I think if there is any information that can assist us to track down and deal with these people, it would be welcome,” he added. On Ghana-US relations, President AkufoAddo expressed the hope that the collaboration would continue to “advance our mutual causes and strengthen the relations between our two countries”. “We want to develop our nation as a democracy where freedom and respect for human rights and the rule of law are paramount to our governance system,” he said. www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/ghanahub-for-doing-business-vice-president-harris.html Image credit: thediplomaticinsight.com DAWN

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Governance

By Salim Kikeke - BBC Africa, Dar es Salaam

TANZANIA'S PRESIDENT HAS SAID there were people who doubted she was qualified to lead when she first became head of state because she was a woman. Some "don't believe that women can be better presidents and we are here to show them," Samia Suluhu Hassan told the BBC. In March, the 61-year-old was sworn in after her predecessor died in oﬃce. She is currently Africa's only female political head of state. The Ethiopian presidency is a ceremonial role. "Even some of my government workers dismissed me at first as just another woman, but they soon accepted my leadership," Ms. Samia said. "But this is not just in Africa, even in America, [Hillary] Clinton reached a place where we thought she was going to be the president but she couldn't," she added. Ms. Samia, who was promoted from the the vicepresidency, advised that focusing on implementing development plans and prioritising people's needs was the best way to deal with critics. She added that despite challenges, other countries could learn from Liberia and Central African Republic who have had female leaders. President Samia replaced John Magufuli who died from heart complications, she announced at the time. Magufuli was accused of cracking down on dissent and curtailing certain freedoms. His replacement was seen as someone who would bring a diﬀerent tone to leadership. But the recent arrest of main opposition leader Freeman Mbowe on terrorism-related charges, has led some to wonder if President Samia is continuing

September-October 2021

the policies of her predecessor. However, the Tanzanian leader defended the move saying Mr. Mbowe's charges were "not political" because he had been under investigation since September last year. "He was out of the country for a long time. I don't know why he fled but when he returned he started creating trouble with calls for a new constitution. "I suspect that, knowing the charges he was facing, he calculated that if he

President Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in five months ago was arrested he could claim that it was because he was pushing for a new constitution," the president said. Mr. Mbowe was detained after he had said the last election was fraudulent. President Samia said she would "leave to the courts to decide if he's guilty or not guilty. . The Tanzanian leader also said she was ready

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President Samia changed Tanzania's Covid-sceptic policy

to meet with opposition members and other stakeholders to discuss changes to the constitution "when the time is right" but she did not commit to when that would happen. Critics say the country's independence constitution favours the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi. The president has taken a diﬀerent approach to the pandemic than Magufuli, who was a wellknown Covid sceptic. Ms. Samia said that there was an ongoing public campaign to increase vaccination uptake. The president said that she decided to get the jab publicly to reassure those who were worried about its safety. "But my main worry now is not vaccine hesitancy but availability of vaccines, we have received donations from the US and acquired some from Covax facilities, but they will soon run out," Ms

September-October 2021

Samia told the BBC. The change in policy has been widely welcomed, because her predecessor sowed doubt about the existence of the pandemic and rejected measures such as social distancing and mask wearing. Instead he asked people to pray and use steam inhalation. President Samia also defended her government on claims that she has continued to enforce laws that limit media freedom. She said journalists "were free to work as long as they followed the country's laws". She also said that she listens to criticism on social media by opposition members and activists adding that she has got used to it, but "it helps us know what people are thinking, if we ban it we won't have that platform". https://news.yahoo.com/tanzania-presidentsamia-were-show-144334629.html DAWN

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Governance

The UK has Committed to Making Africa’s Landmark Trade Agreement Successful By Alexander Onukwue

Wamkele Mene, the Secretary-General of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) Secretariat. AFRICAN COUNTRIES are the ones who must make their historic free trade agreement work, but having allies from other parts of the world doesn’t hurt. On Sept. 13 in Ghana, James Duddridge, the UK’s Minister for Africa, signed a Memorandum Of Understanding with Wamkele Mene, the Secretary-General of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) Secretariat. It makes Britain’s commitment to the success of the trade bloc, which includes several former colonies, oﬃcial. Duddridge said the UK was “the first non-African nation to recognize the opportunities for trade and investment” proposed by the AfCFTA. Ranil Jayawardena, the UK’s Minister for International Trade said the MOU “shows our commitment to boosting bilateral trade and investment, leading to sustainable economic growth across the continent.”

The UK is remaking its Africa trade relations European Union rules governed trade between the UK and Africa until the end of the Brexit transition

September-October 2021

period on the last day of 2020. But the UK started planning for its future with Africa 12 months earlier by inaugurating an investment summit in London that 21 African leaders attended. Since Jan. 1 this year, the UK has fully ratified trade agreements with 14 African countries including Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, and Tunisia. It also has agreements with the Eastern and Southern Africa trade bloc which includes Mauritius, Seychelles, and Zimbabwe, and with the Southern Africa Customs Union and Mozambique which includes Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, and South Africa. With Ghana, Kenya, and Morocco, agreements are on the road to ratification but that hasn’t prevented bilateral trade. In 2020, total trade between the UK and African countries with which it had agreements was £17.3 billion. It’s not a large total when compared to the UK’s trade with Japan (£24.7 billion), Canada (£17.7 billion), Singapore (£14.1 billion), and South Korea (£11.2 billion). Africa constitutes only 2.5% of the UK’s trade, with France and the US doing more business with the continent, according to a former member of a UK foreign aﬀairs committee. Perhaps the signed commitment in Ghana will herald more action towards UK trade with Africa. Indeed, a lot more substance is needed to back the talks and commitments of the last 20 months. https://qz.com/africa/2058965/the-uk-formally-commitsto-the-afcftas-success/?utm_source=email&utm_ medium=daily-brief&utm_content=035a8b53-1601-11ec8896-d2e0769c3de3&utm_campaign=HQ0921 Image credit: ghanaweb.com

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Governance

West African Regional Bloc Adopts New Plan to Launch Eco Single Currency in 2027 By NEWS WIRES

ECOWAS Commissioner Jean-Claude Brou at an ECOWAS G5 security summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 2019. © Issouf Sanogo, AFP

A group of fifteen West African countries have adopted a new road map to launch a single currency in 2027 after its previous plans were derailed by the coronavirus pandemic. THE NEW ROAD MAP was agreed by heads of state of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, president of the ECOWAS Commission, told a news conference after a summit of the leaders in Ghana on Saturday The countries hope a single currency will help to boost trade and economic growth "Due to the shock of the pandemic, the heads of 67

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state had decided to suspend the implementation of the convergence pact in 2020-2021" Brou said. "We have a new road map and a new convergence pact that will cover the period between 2022-2026, and 2027 being the launch of the Eco," he said, referring to the name of the new currency. Nigeria, the largest economy in West Africa, currently operates a managed float for its currency, while eight others including top cocoa producer Ivory Coast, use the France-backed CFA, pegged to the euro. https://amp-france24-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ v/s/amp.france24.com/en/africa/20210619-westafrican-regional-bloc-adopts-new-plan-to-launcheco-single-currency-in-20277

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Governance

Remittance to Africa Projected to Decrease in 2021 Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

R A are expected to decrease by 5.4% from $44 billion in 2020 to a projected total of $41 billion in 2021, due to the effects of Covid 19 pandemic, according to findings of Continental Migration Report 2021. The report titled, “African regional review of implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration,” was produced by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in partnership with the African Union Commission (AUC). It builds from four subregional reports compiled by AUC and a summary from stakeholder consultations at the just concluded 2021 African regional review meeting on the Global Compact for Migration (August 26 to September 1, Morocco ). 68

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Although the COVID-19 pandemic was expected to lead to a decrease in remittances to Africa in 2020, findings of the reports show that by October 2020 remittances to Africa had reached approximately $78.4 billion, constituting 11.7% of global remittances. Remittances have therefore demonstrated greater resilience and reliability as a source of capital in Africa than foreign direct investment flows. It recommends that governments across the world should take effective action to facilitate and boost remittances in view of supporting the fight against COVID-19 and ultimately building a more sustainable post-pandemic world According to the report, the costs associated with sending remittances to Africa are some DAWN

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of the highest in the world. Until very recently, average transaction costs were equivalent to 8.9% of the amount being sent for a remittance payment of $200, With respect to the cost of sending money, the report says Africa is still far from achieving the 3% target set out in Sustainable Development Goal 10. The Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development and Sustainable Development Goal indicator 10© provides that countries should, by 2030, reduce to less than 3% the transaction costs of migrant remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5%. Remittances are estimated to constitute approximately 65% of the income of some receiving countries and senders spend an estimated 15% of their income on remittances. For 25 African countries, all of which have large diaspora populations, remittances are the primary source of national income. In response, a number of African countries have taken action to lower the costs of remittance transfers. Some countries also offer diaspora bonds to investors and have relaxed foreign exchange controls to allow for electronic and mobile money transfers at reduced costs. “It should be noted, in that regard, that the use of digital money transfer platforms reduces transfer fees in Africa by an average of 7%,” says the report. “Private financial institutions also offer incentives to encourage members of diaspora communities to use their services, including low transaction fees for remittances, and facilitate diaspora-initiated projects, especially in the real estate sector. These

measures all promote the financial inclusion of migrants and their families.” The report recommends that member States should support migrants and their families through the adoption of laws and regulations to facilitate the sending and receiving of remittances, including by fostering competition among banks and other remittance handling agencies with a view to establishing low-cost transfer mechanisms. African countries should also make every effort to reduce the transfer costs associated with remittance payments, inter alia, by making more extensive use of digital transfer solutions, such as MPESA, and by streamlining the regulatory constraints associated with international money transfers. African States should also engage with destination countries to identify ways to enhance the provision of basic services to migrants in those countries. To achieve Global Compact objectives 1, 3, 7, 17 and 23, member States should implement steps proposed in the context of regional economic community-led dialogues on migration; and consider the increasingly important role played by diaspora communities in fostering development, including through remittance payments, skills development initiatives and the adoption of emerging technologies. ECA projects that remittance inflows to Africa could decline by 21% in 2020, implying $18 billion less will go to the people who rely on that money. It is therefore critical to preserve this essential lifeline. As the world enters an economic downturn, remittance flows will be more important than ever for the poorest and most vulnerable people, espcially those without access to economic and social safety nets.

Words of Encouragement from Daymond John, Founder of FUBU

the OPM platform.

Keep these definitions in mind as you navigate the path toward success in your business, project, program or whatever. Multiply your capabilities and expand your possibilities by taking advantage of the mutual strengths and abilities to be found in

September-October 2021

Image credit: medafricatimes.com

OPM may be defined as: Other People's Money Other People's Mindpower Other People's Manpower Other People's Marketing Other People's Manufacturing Other People's M… Stay the course.

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Governance

Conferment of Sierra Leonea Citizenship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Next Conferment of Sierra Leonean Citizenship on African Diasporas who traced their ancestry to Sierra Leone takes place in November/December 2021

Freetown, Sierra Leone: Wednesday, September 22, 2021-The Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Affairs and Monuments and Relics Commission of Sierra Leone wish to inform African Americans and the wider African Diaspora who traced their ancestry to Sierra Leone through DNA that the next Conferment ceremony will hold between November 20, 2021 – December 4, 2021 in Freetown, Sierra Leone. His Excellency the President, Rtd. Brig Dr Julius Maada Bio will confer citizenship on all those who meet the requirements as contained in the Guidelines and Documents required for African Diaspora Accession of Passport/Citizenship from the Government of Sierra Leone. This document is on the website of Certified Tour Operators in Sierra Leone and the Monuments and Relics Commission. https://mrcsl.org/wpcontent/uploads/2021/02/GUIDELINES-forCitizenship.pdf African Americans and the African Diaspora who traced their DNA to Sierra Leone and intend claiming citizenship should contact the Monuments and Relics Commission or Tour Operators operating in Sierra Leone. The list of Certified Tour Operators in Sierra Leone can be accessed on the following link https://mrcsl.org/list-of-certified-tour-operators-in-sierra-leone/

The Monuments and Relics Commission (MRC) was established in 1948 following the passing by Parliament of the Monuments and Relics Ordinance in 1946. The mandate of the Commission, spelt out in the Public Ordinance No 12 of 1946, is to provide for the preservation of Ancient, historical, and natural monuments, relics and other objects of archaeological, ethnographical, historical or other scientific interest.

Press Contact Mohamed Faray Kargbo Monuments and Relics Commission 96 Campbell Street, Freetown +232 76 387711/+232 76642401 info@mrcsl.org www.mrccsl.org Facebook: Monuments and Relics Commission

Investment

African Stock Exchange/Bourse • Algeria • Angola • Botswana • Cameroon • Cape Verde Islands • Cote de Ivoire • Egypt • Ethiopia • Ghana • Kenya • Libya • Malawi • Mauritius • Morocco • Mozambique • Namibia • Nigeria

Algiers Stock Market Angola Stock Exchange and Derivatives Botswana Stock Exchange Douala Stock Exchange Bolsa de Valores of Cape Verde Bourse Regionale des Valeurs Mobilieres UEMOA (Abidjan) The Egyptian Exchange Ethiopia Commodity Exchange Ghana Stock Exchange Nairobi Stock Exchange Libyan Stock Market Malawi Stock Exchange Stock Exchange of Mauritius Casablanca Stock Exchange Bolsa Valores de Mocambique Namibian Stock Exchange Nigerian Stock Exchange

• Rwanda • Seychelles • Somalia • South Africa

Rwanda Stock Exchange Seychelles Securities Exchange Somali Stock Exchange Bond Exchange of South Africa Johannesburg Stock Exchange

• South Sudan • Swaziland • Tanzania • Tunisia • Uganda • Zambia • Zimbabwe • Zimbabwe

Khartoum Stock Exchange Swaziland Stock Exchange Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange Tunisia Stock Exchange Uganda Securities Exchange Lusaka Stock Exchange Victoria Falls Stock Exchange Zimbabwe Stock Exchange

September-October 2021

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www.sgbv.dz www.bodiva.ao www.bse.co.bw www.douala-stock-exc www.bvc.cv (in Portug

www.brvm.org www.egx.com.eg www.ecx.com.et www.gse.com.gh www.luse.co.zm www.lsm.gov.ly www.mse.co.mw www.stockexchangeof www.casablanca-bours www.bolsadevalores.co www.nsx.com.na www.nse.com.ng/Page www.abujacomex.com www.rse.rw https://merj.exchange www.somalistockexcha www.bondexchange.co www.jse.co.za/Home.a www.a2x.co.za www.kse.com.sd www.ssx.org.sz www.dse.co.tz www.bvmt.com.tn www.use.or.ug www.luse.co.zm www.vfex.exchange www.zse.co.zw

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change.com guese)

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fmauritius.com se.com o.mz

es/default.aspx

ange.so o.za aspx

Stocks Mirror the Economy Africa has around 29 stock exchanges representing 38 countries including two regional exchanges. Africa has become the newest destination for emerging markets investors. From 2000, according to the World Economic Forum, "half of the world's fastest-growing economies have been in Africa." By 2030 one in five people will be African. Combine the continent’s soaring population with technology, economic growth, increasing demand from its growing middle class, improvements in infrastructure, political stability, health and education, and Africa could be the next century’s economic growth powerhouse. Nobody can predict the growth trajectory with accuracy, but Africa is poised for growth. Profile: The Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM) is the regional stock exchange of the member states of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, namely, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. The Exchange is located in Abidjan but maintains market offices in each of the affiliated countries. Being both an economic and political institution, the BRVM is governed by the provisions of the OHADA Uniform Act relating to Commercial Companies and Economic Interest Groups. The operations of the Exchange are entirely digital making it a technical success story on the continent. Dealing members therefore need not be present on the premises of the central office but can engage from their own offices which the bourse guarantees equal access regardless of the economic operator's location. https://afx.kwayisi.org/

September-October 2021

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Investment

Kenya Hasn’t Figured Out How to Put its Local Founders First By YINKA ADEGOKE

Startups that raised more than $1 million in Africa's largest tech ecosystems (2019) Only one Kenyan founder raised more than $1 million in 2019

Country Local founders Foreign founders Nigeria 12 5 Kenya 1 11 South Africa 14 4

Mixed 2 4 7

Corporate venture 3 1 0

Table: Yinka Adegoke / Rest of World Source: Maxime Bayen, Africa Startups $1M+ Deals Database -2019 Get the data

RECENTLY, a furor broke out on Kenyan social media when a French startup founder, who had only spent a few months in the East African country, seemingly had no trouble raising $1 million in pre-seed funding for his new food delivery app. Meanwhile, local and regional founders say they still have diﬃculty pulling together capital after years of attempts. While talking to a Kenyan tech founder about this, I was reminded of a line from Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s memoir, Dreams in a Time of War: “Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you.” Ngũgĩ was recalling a moment of realization from his childhood in colonial-era Kenya, but the quote feels apt today. In the early 2010s, Kenya’s fledgling tech ecosystem was used as a shorthand for a wider “Africa Rising” narrative. It was promptly dubbed “Silicon Savannah” as startups sprouted and tech talent flocked to Nairobi. But by 2016, there were mutterings in local circles about how the funding seemed to be disproportionately favoring North American and European founders who were launching companies in the country. Things came to a 74

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head in 2017, when a Village Capital report titled “Breaking the Pattern” appeared to confirm what many local founders and journalists had been saying: In East Africa, 90% of disclosed startup investments in 2015 and 2016 went to companies with one or more European or North American founders. It’s an issue that hasn’t gone away in the last five years, Adedana Ashebir, regional director for Africa and the Middle East for Village Capital, told me. Analysis of 2019 data showed that only one of the Kenyan startups that raised more than $1 million that year had a local founder. Four startups had a mix of foreign and local founders, while 11 had expat founders. It’s worth noting that this trend doesn’t apply elsewhere on the continent: In Lagos’ booming tech hub, 55% (12) of the founders identified in the same analysis were Nigerian, while in South Africa, 56% (14) of the founders were locals. This comparison with other African markets only serves to deepen the frustration of many of Kenya’s long-term tech watchers. So last month when Robin Reecht, a young French founder on a visitor visa, raised $1 million in pre-seed funding for a Kenyan food delivery app called Kune, a collective DAWN

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eyebrow was raised. But it was a subsequent interview with TechCrunch that really triggered a loud backlash with #KOT (Kenyans on Twitter) and Kenyan social media users. In it, Reecht is quoted as saying that after just three days in Kenya, he noticed it was “impossible” to get “great food at a cheap price” and that his new app would fix this. Many commentators again raised the specter of “white privilege” in the local ecosystem and what seems to be a clear preference for expat founders. Reecht has since apologized for his comments. The social media outrage sparked by Kune inspired Stefan Kremer, a 56-year-old German WordPress trainer, to set up the satirical website “Hire A Mzungu.” Mzungu is the Kiswahili word for foreigner, but often used in common parlance to refer to a white person. As Kremer’s site has it, “If the main restriction to the access of money is a mzungu within a viable project: Here’s your white nose for hire.” Kremer, 56, who’s from a small northern Germany town near the Danish border, has been working on and oﬀ in Nairobi with local developers

who is on his third startup, said there's nuance in why non-local founders get funded, in addition to structural racism.“In the past, I focused purely on the racism, but once you start going up the layers and start looking at the local problems, you start to accept there are a confluence of factors, not a single story,” he told Rest of World. Those factors include what he describes as a weak corporate legal system in Kenya and a large community of expatriates who stay over after working at major international organizations including the UN agencies in Nairobi. But one obvious issue is that once African startups get past the very earliest stage of angel investing, almost all significant venture capital funds originate outside the continent. In Nairobi in particular, most of those funds are managed by foreigners. Kariuki and other founders say that oftentimes, investors don’t fully understand the local context. Or even recognize founders’ local experience or credentials. That, in turn, creates a similar bias phenomenon that we see in Silicon Valley, where VCs back

Total startup funding for Africa's largest tech ecosystems (US $ millions)

Nigeria Kenya South Africa Egypt

$661 $140 $113 $101

Chart: Yinka Adegoke / Rest of World Source: Maxime Bayen, Africa Startups $1M+ Deals Database -2019

for two years. He told Rest of World that while the website was indeed meant to poke fun, there was definitely a serious point to it. “I see people show up in Nairobi as digital nomads and they get funded for ideas that might not even fit the local context,” he said. “Whenever I speak to my guys in Nairobi, they have brilliant ideas that solve a problem and sometimes they just need a small [amount of] leverage to get things up and running.” Kremer’s site shows that there’s a growing selfawareness among expats, founders, and some investors, and that there are now more nuanced conversations going on around the topic. Phares Kariuki, a veteran tech founder in Nairobi 75

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founders from a similar background and life experience — except it’s happening thousands of miles away in East Africa. June Odongo, founder of Senga Technologies, a Nairobi-based logistics startup, spent the bulk of her career in the United States before moving back to Kenya in 2016. She describes it as a “looks-like-me-sounds-likeme investing method which, I think, derides Africanism and ignores local expertise required to succeed here.” This, Odongo said, leads to “investors who aren’t investing in the local entrepreneurs, but instead are often investing in hype.” see page 76

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The only way to address this is to have more angel and venture capital that’s rooted in the local economy, said several interviewees. “Ultimately you need to strengthen a local investor class that cares about the market,” said Ashebir. “Foreign founders are not going to stop coming to the continent.” Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, founder of Future Africa, who has focused on building a venture fund with a mix of local and foreign capital to back local founders, argued that foreign investors in Kenya need to show more accountability for how they’re using funds. “You’ve come to Nigeria or Kenya, and want to invest in local businesses, but you barely live in the country, or live in an exclusive enclave of the country. Who’s holding these investors accountable when they claim there’s no pipeline of [entrepreneurial] talent, but they’re barely engaged with the ecosystem?” said Aboyeji, a Nigerian who co-founded Andela and Flutterwave. “If it’s not our capital, we can’t argue, even if we see it’s not

being well-allocated.” Indeed, Lagos has now eclipsed Nairobi’s early tech boom, benefiting from not just a larger national economy and talent pool, but also the rise of homegrown tech entrepreneurs like Aboyeji who, alongside local angel networks, have given back to the next generation of founders by investing in their ideas. Which brings us back to that Ngũgĩ line on selfbelief. The second half of that quote perhaps captures what’s at stake for Kenyan tech leaders who want to rebalance the local ecosystem both in terms of founders taking chances and local capital flowing to venture funding. “Value yourself and others will value you. Validation is best that comes from within.” https://restofworld.org/2021/kenya-hasnt-figuredout-how-to-put-its-local-founders-first Image credit: restofworld.org

A Nigerian Oil Palm Startup Raised $4 Million to Build a “Smart” Factory By Alexander Onukwue BESIDES BEING A KEY INGREDIENT for cooking jollof rice, vegetable oil is used industrially in paints, soaps, biofuels, and lubricants. But getting the oil from palm nuts can be a hassle for manufacturers if they have to engage smallholder farmers directly. In most cases, the Nigerian farmer cracks palm nuts with large stones, an inefficient process that makes eventual finished goods more expensive. Nigeria-based startup Releaf intends to solve this problem by processing produce from farmers, and also delivering the oil to food manufacturers. The startup has raised $2.7 million from a number of investors including Samurai Incubate, a Japanese venture capital firm, and Nigeriabased firms Future Africa, and Consonance Investment Managers. Stephen Pagliuca, chairman of Bain Capital, and Twitch co-founder 76

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Justin Kan are also on board. Releaf also won a $1.5 million grant from the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE), a program by the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Why is it difficult to turn palm nuts into processed oil? “A big challenge in the food processing industry in Africa today is that factories are too far from farmers,” Ikenna Nzewi, CEO and co-founder of Releaf, tells Quartz. “A lot of the money a farmer should receive for crops ends up being eaten up by logistics costs.” Releaf’s operation begins after farmers harvest palm fruits from trees and remove the flesh for red oil. The company buys nuts from about 2,000 farmers, and crushes the kernel to produce vegetable oil at DAWN

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Investment

IMF OKs Big Increase in Funds to Alleviate Pandemic Impact By MARTIN CRUTSINGER THE GOVERNING BODY of the International Monetary Fund has approved a $650 billion expansion in the agency’s resources to support economically vulnerable countries battling the coronavirus pandemic and the economic downturn it has caused. The 190-nation lending institution said Monday that its board of governors approved the expansion of its reserves known as Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the largest increase in the institution’s history. “This is a historic decision ... and a shot in the arm for the global economy at a time of unprecedented crisis,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said. “It will particularly help our most vulnerable countries struggling to cope with the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.” its factory in Uyo, a town in southern Nigeria. Nzewi says the factory, which uses proprietary nut de-shelling technology whose patent is pending, cost $150,000 to set up and processes 500 tons of palm nuts per month. The money Releaf has just raised partly went into building and deploying the facility. We’re working with the world’s most efficient crop at producing vegetable oil in a market that is starving for vegetable oil. It’s a domestic market for the taking. The big picture is to put a factory closer to smallholder farmers who produce 80% of Nigeria’s oil palm. Most production happens in the Niger Delta (42%), southwest (27%), and southeast (25%) regions, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). “We believe the firm’s thesis on decentralizing food processing would have a strong match with Africa’s economic development landscape for the next few decades,” says Rena Yoneyama, managing partner at Samurai Incubate Africa. 77

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The general allocation of SDRs will become effective on Aug. 23. The IMF said that the new reserves will be credited to IMF member countries in proportion to their existing quotas with the agency. About $275 billion of the new allocation will go to the world’s poorer countries. The agency is also looking into ways richer countries could voluntarily channel SDRs to poorer countries, the agency said. The big boost in IMF resources had been rejected by the Trump administration. But after President Joe Biden took office in January, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen threw her support behind the proposal. Many Republican members of Congress objected to the SDR increase, saying that the expanded IMF resources would benefit U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran. However, the increase in resources was strongly supported by international relief agencies. https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-businesshealth-coronavirus-pandemic-7d5ca23b17bde063 a4d599b44f686e77

Releaf co-founders Uzoma Ayogu (CTO), and Ikenna Nzewi (CEO) Releaf is targeting a gap in supply A major motivation for Releaf is that Nigeria barely produces enough oil palm to meet local demand. Current USDA data show Nigeria produces 1.4 million metric tons, but at least 1.34 million of that is consumed within the country. Refined vegetable see page 78 DAWN

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Investment Oil Palm

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oils and fat are on Nigeria’s list of prohibited imports, ostensibly to aid local production. “We’re working with the world’s most efficient crop at producing vegetable oil in a market that is starving for vegetable oil. It’s a domestic market for the taking,” Nzewi says. But taking this market will not be easy. Nigeria’s major oil palm processing companies, mainly Okomu and Presco, have a far larger asset base of plantations and factories, capital, and market connections with consumer goods companies. Releaf will need partnerships to get a foothold in the industry, which is why they have got help from investors who promise connections. Endeavor Nigeria inducts startups on a fastgrowing path into a global network that helps such companies grow even faster. This month, it chose Releaf and three other startups for a 10week program to “provide them with access to mentorship, capital, partnerships and a strong peer network of high impact entrepreneurs who have scaled their businesses,” says Tosin Faniro-Dada, managing director and CEO of Endeavor Nigeria. Bundling other services is part of the plan Releaf is a food processing company at heart. It

has similar needs—electricity, talent, equipment— as a large-scale corn, rice, or cassava-processing company. But in competing with incumbents in the oil palm industry, Releaf hopes its advantage will be direct relationships with farmers. Offering them better technology for harvesting palm heads and extracting fruits, and services like insurance is part of the long-term plan. “We’re using our position with food processing as a wedge to become a trusted member of rural economies,” Nzewi says. A former private equity consultant at Bain, Nzewi is of Nigerian origin, but was born and raised in the US. He first visited Nigeria in 2015 was intrigued by research activities at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture. Releaf started as a marketplace for agriculture commodities, but that didn’t look sustainable in a sector with low margins. The company switched to taking an active role in the oil palm value chain in 2017, bringing the 26 year-old closer to a family goal. “My grandfather actually had a vision to start a big oil palm plantation. My mum feels like I am fulfilling his ambition,” he says. https://qz.com/africa/2059350/releaf-raises-4million-to-boost-oil-palm-processing-in-nigeria

"A Great Use of Palm Oil"

Michael Twitty’s Jollof Rice The culinary historian’s take on the beloved West African dish, from his new cookbook, Rice THIS FAMOUS WEST AFRICAN RICE is named after the Wolof people of Senegal and Gambia, who themselves call it benachin. Maggi, a popular imported bouillon cube ubiquitous in West Africa, has become part of the flavor profile of everything there. If you have access to an international market, it will have Maggi cubes, and you can use them to make a Maggi broth to replace the stock here—just follow the instructions on the package. Be careful—it tends to be salty, so go lightly at first to find your bearings. Kitchen pepper is an old-school spice mixture 78

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that was very popular in early American cooking, especially in the coastal South. While it takes its main cues from quatre épices, a spice mix of pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and ground ginger common in French cooking, it also helped to preserve both medieval and Silk Road flavors in Southern foodways, as well as the flavors of West Africa, where indigenous and Middle Eastern spices had long influenced the cuisine. This is my take on this classic. It has the complexity of garam masala without quite the punch and heat. —Michael Twitty INGREDIENTS

BASIC JOLLOF RICE (YIELD: 4 SERVINGS) • • • • • • • • •

2 tbsp. vegetable oil 1 large yellow onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed 2 tbsp. tomato paste 1½ cups long-grain white rice, washed and drained 1 habanero pepper, seeded and chopped ½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper or kitchen pepper (ingredients below) ½ tsp. seasoned salt or jollof rice seasoning 2½ cups vegetable or chicken stock, homemade or store-bought, or Maggi broth

FOR THE KITCHEN PEPPER (YIELD: ABOUT ½ CUP) • 2 tbsp. coarsely ground black pepper • 1 tbsp. freshly grated nutmeg • 1 tbsp. ground allspice • 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon • 1 tbsp. ground ginger • 1 tbsp. ground mace • 1 tbsp. ground white pepper • 1 tbsp. red pepper flakes PREPARATION Make the kitchen pepper if using: Combine the black pepper, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, mace, white pepper, and red pepper flakes in a small bowl. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place for up to six months. Make the jollof: 79

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• Heat the oil in a medium saucepan with a tightfitting lid over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for 4–5 minutes, until soft. • Add the tomato paste, turn the heat down to medium-low, and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly. • Stir in the rice, chili pepper, black pepper or kitchen pepper, and seasoned salt. Cook for 2–3 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan. • Add the stock, cover, turn the heat down to low, and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the liquid is nearly but not completely absorbed. • Remove the lid, place a piece of aluminum foil over the pan, return the lid to the pan over the foil, and steam for another 20 minutes. From RICE: a SAVOR THE SOUTH® cookbook by Michael W. Twitty uncpress.org Image credit: Photo: Dacey Sivewright https://gardenandgun.com/recipe/michael-twittysjollof-rice DAWN

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Investment

3 Takeaways from Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott Teaming up to Fund Women’s and Girls’ Causes By Tessa Skidmore, Jacqueline Ackerman MELINDA FRENCH GATES AND MACKENZIE SCOTT, two of the biggest U.S. donors, have joined forces by funding the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge. The contest, intended to expand the power and influence of women in the United States by 2030, garnered more than 550 proposals. On July 29, 2021, French Gates and Scott announced the winners: Four initiatives will each receive US$10 million, and two more will get $4 million apiece. In addition to the women formerly married to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies is providing some of these funds. It marks the first official donor collaboration between French Gates and Scott. The money will help boost support for caregivers, get more women and girls to embark on technology careers, support entrepreneurship among Indigenous women, counter intimate-partner violence and train more women to become political leaders. As experts in women’s giving and giving to women’s and girls’ causes at the Women’s Philanthropy Institute, we believe that this new partnership is significant for three reasons.

1. There is a worldwide effort to increase gender equity

operate in low-income countries. This is, to be clear, an international effort that also includes foreign aid. A United Nations conference held in Paris in June 2021 drew pledges from countries, individuals and foundations totaling more than $40 billion for causes such as ending forced marriage and bringing about greater parity in pay for women. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which French Gates continues to cochair following her divorce, said it would contribute $2.1 billion from its coffers toward that global goal.

2. US donors are underfunding these causes While the $48 million being donated through this contest is a tiny sliver of the $40 billion pledged for these causes, it could send a strong signal to other U.S. donors. Just 1.6% of philanthropic dollars in America support women’s and girls’ organizations, according to research we have done with our colleagues. This percentage didn’t budge from 2012 to 2017 – the most recent year for which data is available – even though overall charitable giving has grown substantially, reaching $471.44 billion in 2020. We have also found that organizations serving women and girls tend to be smaller than other charities, both in terms of the money they spend and the number of people they employ.

Both donors have previously made causes tied to women and girls a priority in their giving. For example, they signed on as the initial contributors to a Gender Fund, announced on June 28, 2021, that aims to raise $1 billion over the next decade to 3. They can boost enthusiasm for support organizations, mostly led by women, that 80

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giving to causes serving women and girls French Gates and Scott have the potential to give far more than $48 million to causes like these in the future. Scott has disclosed having donated at least $8.5 billion since 2020, an amount that represents an estimated 14% of her present net worth. But her wealth continues to grow at an even faster rate – leaving her with more funds to distribute. The value of the assets French Gates has remains unclear, even now that her divorce is final. As of July 2021, she and her ex-husband had put $65 billion into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. French Gates also engages separately in philanthropy, venture capitalism and policy-related activities through her own firm, Pivotal Ventures Together with our colleagues we have found that women and men alike pay attention when women give to women’s and girls’ causes. That is, French Gates and Scott can do more to increase philanthropy for women and girls than by

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giving away large portions of their own fortunes. By drawing attention to these donations, they can encourage others – both those with great wealth at their disposal and those of more modest means – to support these causes. https://theconversation.com/3-takeawaysfrom-melinda-french-gates-and-mackenziescott-teaming-up-to-fund-womens-and-girlscauses-165449 Image credit: equalitycantwaitchallenge.org, carrot.net

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A $2 Billion Fintech Startup has Become Africa’s Fastest Unicorn By Alexander Onukwue

IN LESS THAN THREE YEARS, OPay has gone from a curious startup known for its motorcycles in Lagos, Nigeria, to a financial services company worth $2 billion. The latest valuation comes after it raised $400 million from a round led by SoftBank, the Japanese investment firm, with Sequoia Capital China, and five other large firms participating. No other startup whose operations are based in Africa has raised as much in one round. Flutterwave achieved a value of $1 billion in March this year, after raising $170 million. OPay’s new valuation makes it the fastest African startup to cross $1 billion in value, even if there’s often a debate about whether it is appropriate to even define it as an African startup, because it is owned by Chinese billionaire Yahui Zhou through Opera, the software company based in Norway. Blitzscaling on a different level Zhou says OPay wants to be “the power that helps emerging markets reach a faster economic development.” In Nigeria, where the company started in August 2018 and still the base for its main operations, agent banking is a recent source of growth. OPay provides individuals with a point-of-sale machine and underlying software, so they can act as banks and ATMs (except they can’t open 24/7). These agents are able to open bank accounts, receive deposits, and fulfill withdrawals. The company says it processes $3 billion in transactions every month, and, in May 2020, reported having over 300,000 agents across the country. Apart from agent banking, payments 82

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processing for businesses is at OPay’s core; one format for this is the use of QR codes. Venture capital has driven the company’s rapid growth. Within a six-month period in 2019, OPay raised $50 million and then $120 million, setting down an early marker for its ambition to dominate African fintech. The plan was to be a super app for peer-to-peer payments, transportation, food, asset management, and even instant messaging. After last year’s ban on motorcycles in Lagos, and the effects of the pandemic, OPay decided to focus on payments, which it offers in Egypt as well as Nigeria. SoftBank now has eyes for Africa Mega rounds by African fintechs have attracted big-name investors like Jeff Bezos (whose company invested in Chipper Cash) and Tiger Global (Flutterwave). OPay has followed suit by making itself the first investment by SoftBank in Africa. SoftBank’s Vision 2 Fund has a $40 billion purse. It opens the possibility for more African startup investments by SoftBank, though the size of this round indicates that potential startups will have to be on a fast-track growth trajectory similar to OPay’s. That could come with its own kind of pressure, and SoftBank’s adventure with WeWork remains fresh on most minds. However, SoftBank’s entry all but confirms that African fintech is mature and has the world interested, if further confirmation was ever necessary. www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/opay-fintechstartup-africa-fastest-unicorn Original source: Quartz Related story: Page 21Image credit: fabpulse. com

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Technology/Science

Alphabet’s Project Taara Laser Tech Beamed 700TB of Data Across Nearly 5km By Richard Lawler

IN JANUARY, GOOGLE’S parent company, Alphabet, shut down Project Loon, an initiative exploring using stratospheric helium balloons to distribute wireless internet (an attempt to use solar-powered drones folded in 2017). However, some technology developed as a part of the Loon project remained in development, specifically the Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC) links that were originally meant to connect the high flying balloons — and now that technology is actively in use providing a high-speed broadband link for people in Africa. Sort of like fiber optic cables without the cable, FSOC can create a 20Gbps+ broadband link from two points that have a clear line of sight, and Alphabet’s moonshot lab X has built up Project Taara to give it a shot. They started by setting up links in India a few years ago as well as a few pilots in Kenya, and today X revealed what it has achieved by using its wireless optical link to connect service across the Congo River from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 20 days, Project Taara lead Baris Erkmen says the link transmitted nearly 700TB of data, augmenting fiber connections used by local telecom partner Econet and its subsidiaries. The reason for testing the technology in this location is not only the climate, which the team admits is better suited to wireless optical communications than a foggy city like San Francisco but the obstacle created by the deep and fast-flowing river. The cities are only

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a few miles apart as the crow flies, but Taara says a fiber link to Kinshasa has to run nearly 250 miles (400 kilometers), making it five times as expensive to get online. Despite sending its communications without the protection of a physical fiber, Taara says that during the test period, its link had 99.9% availability. The team tells The Verge that end users don’t know when their communications are using FSOC instead of fiber and that it aims to provide an indistinguishable experience. They also said that they hadn’t experienced any weather conditions in the Congo that affected the connection on this link so far. They credit its resilience in the face of haze, light rain, birds, and other obstacles to the ability to adjust laser power on the fly, as well as improved pointing and tracking. Project Taara links are placed high up, naturally, since they need to be able to see each other, and they’re capable of automatically adjusting their mirrors to connect “a light beam the width of a chopstick accurately enough to hit a 5-centimeter target that’s 10 kilometers away.” The system can adjust itself within +/-5 degree cone, and the team says that if that fails for some reason, they can attempt to remote control them into a connection before sending technicians out. www.theverge.com/2021/9/16/22677015/projecttaara-fsoc-wireless-internet-kinshasa-congo-fiber Image credit: https://x.company/blog/posts/taarabeaming-broadband-across-congo

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Technology/Science

Ethiopia to Build Local Rival to Facebook, Other Platforms Via Reuters

ETHIOPIA HAS BEGUN DEVELOPING its own social media platform to rival Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, though it does not plan to block the global services, the state communications security agency said recently. Ethiopia has been engulfed since last year in an armed conflict pitting the federal government against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the Tigray region in the country's north. Supporters of both sides have waged a parallel war of words on social media. The government wants its local platform to "replace" Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and Zoom, the director general of the Information Network Security Agency (INSA), Shumete Gizaw, said. Shumete accused Facebook of deleting posts and user accounts which he said were "disseminating the true reality about Ethiopia". International human rights groups have criticized the Ethiopian government for unexplained shutdowns to social media services including Facebook and WhatsApp in the past year. The government has not commented on those shutdowns. Facebook's Africa spokesperson, Kezia AnimAddo, declined to comment on Ethiopia's plans and did not respond immediately to a query about Shumete's accusations. But in June, days before national elections, Facebook said it had removed a network of fake accounts in Ethiopia targeting domestic users which 84

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it linked to individuals associated with INSA, which is responsible for monitoring telecommunications and the internet. Twitter declined to comment. Zoom did not immediately reply to a comment request. Shumete declined to specify a timeline, budget and other details, but told Reuters: "The rationale behind developing technology with local capacity is clear ... Why do you think China is using WeChat?" He said Ethiopia had the local expertise to develop the platforms and would not hire outsiders to help. Social messaging app WeChat is owned by China-headquartered Tencent Holdings, is widely used in the country, and is considered to be a strong tool by Chinese authorities for monitoring its population. Shumete also referred Reuters to comments he made to a local media outlet in which he accused Facebook of blocking users who were "preaching national unity and peace". He also told Al-Ain Amharic that authorities were working on the platform to replace Facebook and Twitter, while a trial has already been completed of a platform to replace WhatsApp and Zoom and that platform will soon be operational. www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/ethiopiato-build-local-rival-to-facebook-other-platforms/ ar-AAND4kv?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=W069 Image credit: ethio12.com

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Technology/Science

Meet Silas Adekunle; Nigerian Born Tech Genius who Built the World’s First Intelligent Gaming Robot! By Yvonne

ALL AROUND THE WORLD, young innovators are pushing boundaries and reshaping the future and Nigerians are not left out, proudly waving the flag high in the diaspora. He’s constantly wearing his innovative hat and right now, this creative genius has got his lens on revolutionizing the future of robotics in Africa as well as introducing cheap, aﬀordable technology which can compete on the global scale. British-Nigerian robotics engineer, Silas Adekunle was previously Co-founder and CEO of Reach Robotics, an augmented reality gaming company that creates robots for gaming and for STEM education, the startup is behind MekaMon – a four-legged spiderlike robot controlled with just a smartphone app, reputed as the world’s first gaming robot which landed on the Apple store. Following the launch of MekaMon with Apple, the company generated millions in revenue and raised millions in venture capital. Although Reach Robotics, founded by Adekunle together with John Rees (COO) and Chris Beck (CTO), shut down in 2019 after a six year journey due to “inherent challenges in the consumer robotics sector”, he still got his mind busy and now turns his expertise to using MekaMon to develop the Robotics education ecosystem across Africa and cloud infrastructure for industrial automation 85

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in the UK. Adekunle Silas is Co-founder and CEO of Awarri, an education project for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths (STEAM) which aims to enable the development and adaptation of advanced AI & Robotics technology in Africa as well as co-founder and CEO of (R.I) founded in January 2020. His contributions and accomplishments in the world of tech hasn’t gone unnoticed, in November 2018, Adekunle was named to the Financial Times’ list of the ‘Top 100 minority ethnic leaders in technology’, same year, he was selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2018: Technology list. Adekunle was born in Nigeria but moved to the UK when he was 12. He studied at UWE Bristol, graduated with First Class Honors (BSc) Robotics Technology and has an Honorary Doctor of Technology. www.duchessinternationalmagazine.com/meetsilas-adekunle-nigerian-born-tech-genius-whobuilt-the-worlds-first-intelligent-gaming-robot/ Image credit: khybernews.tv

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Technology/Science

African Languages to get More Bespoke Scientific Term By Sarah Wild

Researchers want to expand scientific terms in African languages including Luganda, which is spoken in East Africa. Pictured: student-teachers in Kampala. Credit: Eye Ubiquitous/Alamy

THERE’S NO ORIGINAL ISIZULU word for dinosaur. Germs are called amagciwane, but there are no separate words for viruses or bacteria. A quark is ikhwakhi (pronounced kwa-ki); there is no term for red shift. And researchers and science communicators using the language, which is spoken by more than 14 million people in southern Africa, struggle to agree on words for evolution. IsiZulu is one of approximately 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. Modern science has ignored the overwhelming majority of these languages, but now a team of researchers from Africa wants to change that. A research project called Decolonise Science plans to translate 180 scientific papers from the AfricArXiv preprint server into 6 African 86

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languages: isiZulu and Northern Sotho from southern Africa; Hausa and Yoruba from West Africa; and Luganda and Amharic from East Africa. These languages are collectively spoken by around 98 million people. Earlier this month, AfricArXiv called for submissions from authors interested in having their papers considered for translation. The deadline was 20 August. The translated papers will span many disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The project is being supported by the Lacuna Fund, a data-science funder for researchers in low- and middle-income countries. It was launched a year ago by philanthropic and government funders from Europe and North DAWN

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America, and Google.

Languages Left Behind The lack of scientific terms in African languages has real-world consequences, particularly in education. In South Africa, for example, less than 10% of citizens speak English as their home language, but it is the main teaching language in schools — something that scholars say is an obstacle to learning science and mathematics. African languages are being left behind in the online revolution, says Kathleen Siminyu, a specialist in machine learning and natural language processing for African languages based in Kenya. “African languages are seen as something you speak at home, not in the classroom, not showing up in the business setting. It is the same thing for science,” she says. Siminyu is part of Masakhane, a grass-roots organization of researchers interested in natural language processing in African languages. Masakhane, which means ‘we build together’ in isiZulu, has more than 400 members from about 30 countries on the continent. They have been working together for three years. The Decolonise Science project is one of many initiatives that the group is undertaking; others include detecting hate speech in Nigeria and teaching machine-learning algorithms to recognize African names and places. Eventually, Decolonise Science aims to create freely available online glossaries of scientific terms in the six languages, and use them to train machine-learning algorithms for translation. The researchers hope to complete this project by the beginning of 2022. But there’s a wider ambition: to reduce the risk of these languages becoming obsolete by giving them a stronger foothold online.

Terminology Creation Decolonise Science will employ translators to work on papers from AfricArXiv for which the first author is African, says principal investigator Jade Abbott, a machine-learning specialist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Words that do not have an equivalent in the target language will be flagged so that terminology specialists and 87

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science communicators can develop new terms. “It is not like translating a book, where the words might exist,” Abbott says. “This is a terminologycreating exercise.” But “we don’t want to come up with a new word completely”, adds Sibusiso Biyela, a writer at ScienceLink, a science-communication company based in Johannesburg that is a partner in the project. “We want the person who reads that article or term to understand what it means the first time they see it.” Biyela, who writes about science in isiZulu, often derives new terms by looking at the Greek or Latin roots of existing scientific words in English. Planet, for example, comes from the ancient Greek planētēs, meaning ‘wanderer’, because planets were perceived to move through the night sky. In isiZulu, this becomes umhambi, which also means wanderer. Another word for planet, used in school dictionaries, is umhlaba, which means ‘Earth’ or ‘world’. Other terms are descriptive: for ‘fossil’, for example, Biyela coined the phrase amathambo amadala atholakala emhlabathini, or ‘old bones found in the ground’. In some scientific fields, such as biodiversity research, researchers trying to find the right terms will need to tap into spoken sources. Lolie Makhubu-Badenhorst, acting director of the Language Planning and Development Oﬃce at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, says that the absence of a scientific word from written data sets does not mean that it does not exist. “You’re written-centred, I’m oral centred. The knowledge is there, but it is not well-documented,” says Makhubu-Badenhorst, who is not part of the Decolonise Science project. Decolonise Science’s terminology specialists will come up with a framework for developing isiZulu scientific terms, says Biyela. Once that’s complete, they will apply it to the other languages. The team will oﬀer its glossaries as free tools for journalists and science communicators, as well as national language boards, universities and technology companies, which are increasingly providing automated translation. “If you create a see page 88

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Google is calling for help to improve the quality of its African language translations. Credit: Cristina Aldehuela/ AFP via Getty

African Languages

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term and it isn’t being used by others, it isn’t going to permeate into the language,” says Biyela.

Big Tech: 'we need your help' Masakhane’s researchers say that global technology companies have historically ignored African languages, but in recent years, they have begun funding research in the field. “We’re aware that the many thousands of African languages are currently under-represented in translation software,” a Google spokesperson told Nature. The tech giant wants to expand Google Translate to include more African languages, including Twi, Ewe, Baoulé, Bambara, Fula, Kanuri, Krio, Isoko, Luganda, Sango, Tiv and Urhobo, they added. However, it needs “speakers of those languages to help us improve the quality of our translations” so they can be integrated into the service. “The big idea is cultural ownership of science,” Biyela explains. Both he and Abbott say it is crucial to decolonize science by allowing people to do research and speak about science in their

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own languages. At the moment, it is possible to use African languages to talk about politics and sport, but not science, says Biyela. Similarly, English is the dominant language of environmental stewardship and conservation — but unless people understand the meaning of specific terms and concepts and can talk about them in their home languages, they can feel disconnected from government eﬀorts to preserve ecosystems and species, says Bheka Nxele, a programme manager for restoration ecology, environmental planning and climate protection in the eThekwini municipality of South Africa. The researchers are concerned that if African languages are not included in online algorithms, they could, eventually, become obsolete and forgotten. “These are languages [people] speak. These are languages they use every day, and they live with and see the reality that in x number of years, their language might be dead because there is no digital footprint,” says Siminyu. www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02218-x Related story: www.nature.com/articles/d41586021-02264-5

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Welcome to the Age of Wireless Electricity By Rupendra Brahambhatt

Joonas kääriäinen/pexels WIRELESS ELECTRICITY IS A 100-year-old dream that just might turn into reality in the coming years. The advent of wireless charging, electric vehicles, 5G, and the need for greater sustainability have led to a push for the development of fully operational wireless transmission technology in different parts of the world. From America's Wave Inc. to Japan-based Space Power Technologies and New Zealand’s energy startup Emrod, there are a number of companies that are currently working on wireless power transmission technology. Field tests have also begun for some systems, and it will be interesting to see who comes first in this race to offer an efficient, economical, and viable wireless electricity solution.

makes it a reliable choice for future power needs. In the year 1891, Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla designed the Tesla coil, a unique device that worked on the principle of electrical resonance, and was able to transmit electricity without wires. However, the coil could conduct electricity wirelessly over short distances only, and due to its limited potential, it didn’t turn out to be a practical application for wireless electricity transfer. Tesla was still obsessed with his idea of wireless power, so in the years that followed he worked on building an energy station that could conduct high-voltage wireless power transmission (WPT). Through this experimentation, Tesla aimed to transmit messages wirelessly at long distances, using either a series of strategically positioned The history and science behind towers or a system of suspended balloons. wireless power transmission (WPT) He constructed a wireless transmission station Before we get into the diﬀerent revolutionary in Long Island (called the Tesla or Wardenclyﬀe initiatives concerning wireless electricity, it Tower) which he believed could demonstrate that is important to understand its origin and the underlying concept behind this technology that see page 90

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long-range wireless electricity transmission was possible. Unfortunately, investor J.P. Morgan refused to provide more funds for his experiments, and the project was shut down in 1906 and later demolished. Nikola Tesla may have died in 1943 with his dream of wireless electricity unfinished, but in the past 100 years, a number of experiments and studies prove that the genius inventor may have been on the right track in his approach of using the earth instead of wires as a medium for transmitting wireless power. Today, various methods of wireless power transmission are being developed, and research is going on to implement these on a large scale:

►Solar Satellite Transmission This is a promising method that involves the use of solar power satellites placed in high earth orbit. The satellite would convert the sunlight into energy; this energy is composed of microwaves. These microwave signals would then be transmitted to an antenna on the ground or to a main grid station. From there, the signals would be transferred to a base grid station, which would convert the microwaves into DC electricity. At the grid station, the electricity would also be converted into energy packets, similar to internet data packets, which would be transmitted to individual homes and stored in an energy receiver. Recently, Caltech has announced that board member Donald Bren, who is also the owner of real estate investment firm Irvine Company, will donate $100 million for Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project (SSPP). This ambitious project aims to establish a satellite and microwave-based wireless energy network that could consistently supply power anywhere on earth.

achieve high-eﬃciency energy transfer over long distances. Research published in August 2021 at the University of Tsukuba, Japan reveals that highenergy microwave radiation can act as an eﬃcient wireless source of power for launching rockets into space. When a rocket is sent to space, fuel accounts for about 90% of its weight, this load can be eliminated by the use of this microwave-based wireless energy technology.

►Laser transmission The most eﬃcient DC-to-laser converters have been shown to be solid-state laser diodes like those used commercially in fiber optic and freespace laser communication. Laser transmission allows a photovoltaic receiver to receive laser beams and generate electric power from the same. The merit of laser-based power transmission is that laser beams can be controlled more easily for long-range wireless electrical transmission.

Wireless power is no longer a dream for New Zealand

Energy startup Emrod will soon test a prototype wireless energy infrastructure setup in New Zealand. If the test is successful, this would be a great push to the New Zealand government’s plans for setting up wireless energy transmission throughout the country. Emrod has designed a unique tele-energy technology that uses a wireless network of antennas and rectennas (rectifying antennas) carrying energy in the form of long-range electromagnetic waves from one point to the other. At first, electricity is conducted via antennas in the form of a non-ionizing beam, having a frequency equivalent to radio waves. According to the company, a "low power laser safety curtain ensures that the transmission beam immediately shuts down before any transient ►Microwave power transmission object (such as a bird or helicopter) can reach the In this method, microwave radiation is turned into main beam ensuring it never touches anything DC electric power with the help of a microwave except clean air." receiver and DC rectifier. The highest eﬃciency Emrod claims that this technology is well-suited achieved with microwave power transmission was to the mountainous terrain of New Zealand and 84%, which was recorded in 1975, by a team in can withstand the varying weather conditions Japan, but systems with higher power output have of the region. The rectenna-based wireless had lower eﬃciencies. The next goal would be to electricity transfer technology is also considered 90

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a boon for areas where traditional power grids cannot be installed due to financial or geographical restrictions. While the project is backed by the New Zealand government, Emrod CEO, Greg Kushnir anticipates that people might oppose wireless electricity in the same way they Donald Giannatti/Unsplash are skeptical about 5G technology. He believes that the real challenge associated with this project is to assure people that wireless electricity from Emrod does not lead to any harmful radiation. Emrod also has an oﬃce in Boston, and there is a strong possibility that the company’s next wireless electricity project could take place in the US.

a fully functional solar satellite power transmission system. The institute claims that the proposed wireless system could power industrial applications on earth as well as human operations on the moon. The proposed energy system would have two major units; a space solar satellite that would receive energy from the sun and process the same through its photovoltaics, concentrators, and WPT sub-units, and a rectenna receiver which would transmit energy to earth or moon as per the requirement. The institute recommends the completion of the proposed solar satellite-based wireless power system by the year 2030. •

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) has joined hands with Purdue University and German cement company Magment to test magnetic cement roads that could charge electric vehicles while they move on them. In the first phase, Purdue will conduct laboratory tests to confirm the viability of the proposed magnetized roads. Once approved by the university, a 1312feet (400-meter) test highway would be constructed using the magnetic cement from Magment and then on-road tests will be conducted with 200kW powered trucks. If the tests turn out to be successful, the state will use the technology further to develop public roads. This earth-based wireless charging project is a part of the ASPIRE Initiative (Advancing Sustainability through Power Infrastructure for Road Electrification) backed by the National Science Foundation and many other public and private institutes.

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WiTricity, a US-based company is also working on a park-and-charge technology that aims to charge electric vehicles via magnetic resonators while the vehicles are parked.

Some other groundbreaking initiatives for wireless power transmission The new decade of the 21st-century demand for clean and limitless energy solutions. Wireless electricity that stands as a great alternative to traditional power sources has the potential to revolutionize the clean energy sector. This is also the reason there are so many interesting developments taking place in the WPT segment: •

Wireless Advanced Vehicle Electrification (WAVE) is an American technology company that manufactures wireless energy solutions for medium and high-powered electric vehicles. The charging systems provided by Wave can be installed underground, beneath roads or in parking areas, and are able to deliver wireless power up to 1 Mega Watts. Recent reports suggest that Tesla’s upcoming electric truck Semi might use the inductive wireless charging technology from Wave to meet its power demands.

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Beyond Earth is a non-profit research institute that has proposed the vision for establishing

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Along with IoT and AI, wireless power transmission is also an inevitable technological development that humanity would experience on a whole new level in the coming years. https://interestingengineering.com/welcome-tothe-age-of-wireless-electricity DAWN

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Covid-19 is Changing the way African Countries are Collaborating with Each Othe By Carlos Mureithi

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC presents opportunities for the economic transformation of Africa through innovation, digitalization, and regional collaboration, but countries need policies to enable this, a new think-tank report says. The pandemic could make businesses in Africa adopt digital-first operating models and make the continent’s manufacturing sector resume focus on innovation, local production, and self-reliance, says the report by the Accra-based African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), an economic policy institute. “These three areas we’ve identified are binding constraints that if tackled together and effectively across boarders could create a real opportunity for transforming the economy to generate the employment and income we desperately need

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and also to enable us to compete globally,” Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, the executive vice president of ACET, tells Quartz. This latest report by the institute looks at the need for African countries to pursue greater economic integration to transform the continent, focusing on creating jobs for young people, fostering digital innovation, and managing climate risks. ACET conducts research and analysis, advises policymakers, conducts advocacy, outreach, and convening with the aim of enhancing the ability of African governments and private sector to transform economies. Innovation is increasing in Africa Digitalization, innovation, and regional collaboration trends are increasing in the continent, and they could have the lasting impact of changing people’s mentality to using online and DAWN

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mobile banking tools, the report says. Already, it says, many governments have started speeding up digitization. For example, several governments and tech companies have made internet more affordable, new training pathways have been created for teaching skills such as coding and graphic design, and South Africa’s government is using an interactive WhatsApp chatbot to answer Covid-19 questions. On an organizational level, the African Union launched a Covid-19 pass tool to simplify passport verification of public health documentation for travelers. Innovation policies and programs need to be connected As the continent creates a plan to recover from the pandemic and increase resilience against future crises, people will have more expectations about government programs, which will increasingly rely on digital data to deliver programs and will provide data-driven communications, the report says. A recent example is Togo’s Novissi, a digital cash transfer program that sends funds to citizens through mobile money. The government program, which was launched in 2020 to support informal workers whose livelihoods had been affected by the pandemic, signed up more than 1 million citizens in its first week paying out $4.3 million in that week alone.

The African Union has a digital transformation strategy to guide countries in developing comprehensive policy on new technologies, new business models, and new digital economies. This strategy is more important now than ever as the region moves to implementing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and needs to harness technology to facilitate intra-africa trade. While Africa has many digital and innovation policies and programs to facilitate these, they need to be connected together “to grow into viable ecosystems”, the report says. Africa has an unexploited market of improving living standards, and this can be achieved by effecting innovation policy options through the partnership of governments, knowledge networks, and entrepreneurs, it adds. www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/who-isdoodle-for-google-2021-winner-milo-goldinggoogle-doodle-celebrates-11th-grader/arAAL3xd2?ocid=uxbndlbing Source: https://qz.com/africa/2036396/covid19-is-changing-the-way-africa-thinks-of-digitalinnovation/ Report: www.orfonline.org/research/africa-andcovid19-impact-response-and-challenges-torecovery-74209/

A Digitally Transformed Continent for Prosperity and Inclusivity Digital Content & Applications

Cross Cutting Themes

ritical Sectors o Drive Digital ansformation

Foundation Pillars

Digital Industry

Digital Trade & Financial Services

Enabling Environment, Policy & Regulation

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Emerging Technologies Digital Governance

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The Promise of the African Genome Project

WHEN THE MUTAMBARAS’ first son was a about 18 months old they began to worry about his hearing. The toddler did not respond when asked to “come to Mama”. He was soon diagnosed as deaf, though no doctor could tell the Zimbabwean couple the cause. Several years later their second son was also born deaf. This time a doctor referred them to Hearing Impairment Genetics Studies in Africa (HI-GENES), set up in 2018 by Ambroise Wonkam, a Cameroonian professor of genetics now at the University of Cape Town. The project is sequencing the genomes of Africans with hearing loss in seven countries to learn why six babies in every 1,000 are born deaf in Africa, a rate six times that in America. In Cape Town, where Mr and Mrs Mutambara (not their real names) live, a counsellor explained that the boys’ deafness is caused by genetic variants rarely found outside Africa. What is true of deafness is true of other conditions. The 3bn pairs of nucleotide bases that make up human DNA were first fully mapped in 2003 by the Human Genome Project. Since then scientists have made publicly available the sequencing of around 1m genomes as part of an eﬀort to refine the “reference genome”, a blueprint used by researchers. But less than 2% of all sequenced genomes are African, though Africans are 17% of the world’s population (see chart). “We must fill the gap,” argues Dr. Wonkam, who has proposed 94

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an initiative to do just that—Three Million African Genomes (3MAG). The evolutionary line leading to Homo sapiens diverged 5m-6m years ago from that leading to chimpanzees, and for almost all that time the ancestors of modern humans lived in Africa. Only about 60,000 years ago did Homo sapiens venture widely beyond the continent, in small bands of adventurers. Most of humanity’s genetic diversity, under-sampled though it is, is therefore found in Africa. Unfortunately, that diversity is also reflected in the greater variety of genetic illnesses found there. The bias in sequencing leads to under-diagnosis of diseases in people of (relatively recent) African descent. Genetic causes of heart failure, such as the one that caused the ultimately fatal collapse of Marc-Vivien Foé, a Cameroonian football player, during a game in 2003, are poorly understood. The variation present in most non-Africans with cystic fibrosis is responsible for only about 30% of cases in people of African origin. This is one reason, along with its relative rarity, that the illness DAWN

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is often missed in black children. Standard genetic tests for hearing loss would not have picked up the Mutambara boys’ variations. And such is the diversity within the continent that tests in some countries would be irrelevant in others. In Ghana HI-GENES found one mutation responsible for 40% of inherited deafness. The same variation has not been found in South Africa. Bias also means that little is known about how variations elsewhere in the genome modify conditions. With sickle-cell disease, red blood cells look like bananas rather than, as is normal, round cushions. About 75% of the 300,000 babies born every year with sickle-cell disease are African. The high share reflects a bittersweet twist in the evolutionary tale; sickle-cell genes can confer a degree of protection against malaria. Other mutations are known to lessen sickle-cell’s impact, but most knowledge of genetic modifiers is particular to Europeans. Quicker and more accurate diagnosis would mean better treatment. The sooner parents know their children are deaf, the sooner they can begin sign language. Algorithms that incorporate genetic information, such as one for measuring doses of warfarin, a blood-thinner, are often inappropriately calibrated for Africans. Knowing more about Africans’ genomes will benefit the whole world. The continent’s genetic diversity makes it easier to find rare causes of common diseases. Last year researchers investigating schizophrenia sequenced the genomes of about 900 Xhosas (a South African ethnic group) with the psychiatric disorder. They found some of the same mutations that a team had discovered in Swedes four years earlier. But those researchers had to analyse four times as many of the homogeneous Scandinavians to find it. Research by Olufunmilayo Olopade, a Nigerian-born oncologist, into why breast cancer is relatively common in Nigerian women, has revealed broad insights into tumour growth. Dr Wonkam’s vision for 3MAG, as outlined in 95

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Nature, a scientific journal, is for 300,000 African genomes to be sequenced per year over a decade. That is the minimum needed to capture the continent’s diversity. He notes that the UK biobank is sequencing 500,000 genomes, though Britain’s population is a twentieth the size of Africa’s. The plummeting cost of technology makes 3MAG possible. Sequencing the first genome cost $300m; today the cost of sequencing is around $1,000. If data from people of African descent in similar projects, like the UK biobank, were shared with 3MAG, that would help. So too would collaboration with genetics firms, such as 54Gene, a Nigerian start-up. The 3MAG project is building on firm foundations. Over the past decade the Human Heredity and Health in Africa consortium, sponsored by America’s National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust, a British charity, has supported research institutes in 30 African countries. It has funded local laboratories for world-class scientists such as Dr. Wonkam and Christian Happi, a Nigerian geneticist. There are practical issues to iron out. One is figuring out how to store the vast amounts of data. Another is rules around consent and data use, especially if 3MAG will involve firms understandably keen to commercialise the findings. Dr. Wonkam wants to see an ethics committee set up to review this and other matters. At times he has wondered whether his plan is “too big, too crazy and too expensive”. But similar things were said about the Human Genome Project. Its researchers used the Rosetta Stone as a metaphor for the initiative and its ambition. In a subtle nod, Dr. Wonkam has a miniature of the obelisk on a shelf in his oﬃce. It is also a reminder of how understanding African languages, whether spoken or genetic, can enlighten all of humanity. https://thearabtimes.com/the-promise-of-theafrican-genome-project Source: www.economist.com/middle-east-andafrica/2021/06/26/the-promise-of-the-africangenome-project Image credit: National Institutes of Health, Bigstock DAWN

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Barack Obama to Join NBA Africa as Strategic Partner By Olafimihan Oshin

THE NBA ANNOUNCED recently that former U.S. President Obama is joining NBA Africa as a strategic partner. In a statement, the NBA said Obama will help advance the league's social responsibility efforts in Africa, creating programs and partnerships that support gender equality and economic inclusion. Obama, who is of Kenyan descent, will have a minority equity stake in the partnership, using it to fund his Obama Foundation youth and leadership programs across Africa, according to the NBA. View President Obama's announcement at: https://twitter.com/NBA_Africa/ status/1420128995971158017. NBA Africa, which launched in May, was created to expand the league’s presence in African nations. It also includes several social responsibility initiatives on the awareness of “gender-based violence, supporting girls' education, and improving the livelihoods of African youth and families.” “The NBA has always been a great ambassador for the United States—using the game to create deeper connections around the world, and in Africa, basketball has the power to promote 96

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opportunity, wellness, equality, and empowerment across the continent,” Obama said in a statement. “By investing in communities, promoting gender equality, and cultivating the love of the game of basketball, I believe that NBA Africa can make a difference for so many of Africa’s young people.” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement that the league is honored to have the former president to be a strategic partner, adding that Obama’s “well-documented love for basketball” will be helpful for the league’s growth on the continent. Obama, who is a Chicago Bulls fan, appeared in the 2020 ESPN-Netflix documentary “The Last Dance,” which chronicled basketball legend Michael Jordan’s last championship run with the Bulls. As president, Obama would often share his annual brackets for the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. https://thehill.com/policy/international/africa/565138president-obama-to-join-nba-africa-as-a-strategicpartner Image credit: © getty: Former President Obama

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Undefeated: First Black Girl Duo Wins International Debate Competition at Harvard By BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors

FOR THE FIRST TIME in the history of the Harvard Debate Council, two Black girls from Atlanta have made history as the first Black female duo to win the annual summer debate competition at Harvard University according to an announcement. summer, Each the Harvard Debate Council hosts a summer residential program for hundreds of gifted youths from over 15 countries around the world who converge on campus for two weeks of intensive study, which culminates in a programwide debate tournament. This year’s residency and competition were held virtually due to COVID-19 protocols. Jayla Jackson, 16, is a rising junior at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School. Emani Stanton, 17, is a rising senior at North Atlanta High School. Both girls are current members of the Atlanta-based Harvard Diversity Project, an initiative founded by Harvard’s award-winning debate coach and author Brandon P. Fleming. In 2017, Harvard accepted Fleming’s proposal to establish the Diversity Project as a means to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus. Fleming recruits underserved Black youth in Atlanta with little to no prior debate experience. He trains them every weekend for one year in Atlanta leading up to the Harvard summer program, 97

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Jayla Jackson & Emani Stanton (Courtesy of Harvard Diversity Project)

exposing them to higher level academic disciplines. In four years, Fleming has raised over $1 million to enroll over 100 African-American students into the Harvard debate residency on full scholarship. All four cohorts trained by Fleming’s unique curriculum have gone on to win the international debate competition at Harvard. This year, Jackson and Stanton secured the fourth consecutive championship for the Atlantabased team with an undefeated 10-0 record. The Harvard Diversity Project has already accepted a new cohort who will begin training in preparation for the Harvard debate residency of 2022. You can read more about the story of the program and its founder in Brandon P. Fleming’s bestselling book, “MISEDUCATED: A Memoir.” For more information, visit www.HarvardDCDP. org or contact info@HarvardDCDP.org. www.blackenterprise.com/undefeated-first-black-girlduo-wins-international-debate-competition-at-harvard/ DAWN

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Lifestyle/Culture - Sponsored - Microsoft Teams

Tracking the Future of Tennis Rising tennis star Coco Gauﬀ is using revolutionary technology to take her game to the next level—and get a competitive edge on the court. COCO GAUFF MADE HISTORY as a 15-yearold player who took tennis by storm after defeating Venus Williams in straight sets at Wimbledon in 2019. Known for her incredible serve, the teenager’s career has now reached its own break point—a transition from watching her childhood idols to actually beating them on the court. Now, with the help of technology and data analytics, she’s taking her game to the next level as she grows into her role as one of the sport’s fastest rising stars. Elevating the game for everyone As a professional tennis player and full-time remote student, Coco saw firsthand the ways that technology could benefit education. While completing classes alongside her rigorous training schedule, she was inspired to provide some of the same tools to students in Delray Beach, where she and her parents grew up. “This community has given me a lot, so it’s definitely important to give back,” she says. Teaming up with Microsoft, Coco is helping to refresh the main computer lab and build two additional labs in Palm Beach County’s Achievement Centers for Children and Families (ACCF) with the donation of new devices— ensuring that their students will have updated technology available to pursue their own dreams. Due to COVID-19 limitations, Coco used Microsoft Teams to surprise the kids from ACCF with a special event. During the event, Coco helped students complete the new Space Jam: A New Legacy coding workshop, where they learned about game design. The kids were also able to ask Coco questions to learn more about the rising star from their community, including how she became a professional tennis player and what

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her favorite subject is in school. “Maybe this can give a kid the opportunity to find their own passions,” Coco said before oﬀering advice to the students. “Make your dreams as big as possible, because you never know how far they will go.” The hustle never stops It takes a team eﬀort from Coco’s entire family to help keep her on top of a demanding six-day-aweek schedule. Coco spends two sessions a day at the tennis courts with her father, who happens to be her coach, too. There, she practices her swing and works on repetitive hitting skills to keep an upper hand on her game. A woman playing tennis on a court with graphic overlays over the court. Her daily routine also includes strength and conditioning at the gym with her trainer. Balance, agility, and weight training are key components to DAWN

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Students in Delray Beach

keeping her body strong and preventing injury. To push her training even further, Coco has partnered with Microsoft to add something new to her daily routine: data analytics. Using Microsoft technology, Coco will have an advantage against the competition and continue to push herself to the edge. Serving up insights For even the greatest tennis players, there’s always room for improvement. When you’re competing at the top of your game and repeating the same movements thousands of times a year, the slightest adjustment can be the diﬀerence between hitting a winning shot or suﬀering an injury. Microsoft partnered with SIMI US Motion to tackle this challenge with a new suite of biometric tools that can track even Coco's subtlest movements. How exactly does this markerless tracking system work? 99

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It uses eight high-speed cameras to determine the silhouette of Coco’s body, carefully measuring her motion—from the way her hips rotate to the exact angle of her racquet during a swing. That produces millions of data points that are processed on Microsoft Azure, enabling Coco’s coaches to discover insights that would be nearly impossible to spot with the naked eye. Changing her game Working with the new technology, Coco is already seeing potential ways to improve her performance on the court. Knowing her tendency to have diﬀerent take backs on her forehand side, Coco can analyze the data to reveal which one works best. She’s also used the system to track her explosiveness on each side of the court, revealing new ways to improve her game. With the addition of Microsoft technology, Coco has another powerful tool to support her training. For one of tennis’ most promising players, it’s just one more step towards becoming an all-time great. https://inculture.microsoft.com/sports/coco-gauﬀtennis/?ocid=AID3020466_QSG_452472 Video Links: :https://youtu.be/wypvxaM2ur4, https://youtu.be/-IlsAC4KFnQ,

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World-Famous Ghanaian Artist Will Be First to Have Artwork Featured in Outer Space By Brunno Braga

AN AFRICAN PAINTER will soon shine in outer space. After featuring in art exhibitions and galleries in Europe and the US, world-famous Ghanaian artist, Amoako Boafo, was asked to commission three panels for a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket ship. The ship will be launching on a roundtrip mission to space this fall, according to The Art Newspaper. The artwork is part of a project called Suborbital Triptych established through a partnership between Jeﬀ Bezos and the new art program at Uplift Aerospace, curated by Jill Clark. “There are special paints. I can’t say more at this stage about the materials, but soon! I am drawn to the idea of my works going into a new orbit, literally. This will further push my vision for my practice. I am honored to be one of the first Black men to have my work sent to space. I’m very excited to be a part of this from a historical standpoint,” Ghanaian artist Boafo told The Art Newspaper. Boafo said that having an African artist in the outer space program shows the world the importance of African art globally, and he believes that it will be cemented in history. “This will be clear in the work I am creating, for future generations. Also, it means a lot to me that my message of Black joy and self-determination is a part of it,” he said. According to Uplift Aerospace, its seminal project, the Suborbital Triptych series, is emblematic of Uplift’s mission to further scientific discoveries and creative experimentation by granting artists access to the most advanced space technologies. “The profound strength of Amoako’s portraits for the first Suborbital Triptych will bring another dimension to the power that propels the New Shepard rocket,” Uplift Aerospace’s CEO Josh Hanes said in a statement.

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Born in Accra, Ghana, Boafo’s newly commissioned project is just the most recent development in the African artist’s professional meteoric rise. A graduate of Accra’s Ghanatta College of Art and Design in 2008, he was awarded with the Best Portrait Painter of the Year award. In 2014, he moved to Vienna, where he could further develop his artwork. After a few years of exhibitions in Europe, Boafo saw his work being highly demanded in the global market, receiving international recognition, and a steady stream of brand collaborations. The Ghanaian painter has become one of this generation’s most coveted contemporary artists. Now, this African artist will blast oﬀ into outer space. https://travelnoire.com/ghanaian-artist-artwork-outerspace Image credit: omenkaonline.com, autoevolution.com

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Lifestyle/Culture

Meet the Book-Obsessed Entrepreneur By Lily Herman IF YOU’VE SPENT any amount of time discussing books on the internet, c h a n c e s are you’ve done so on Goodreads. The Amazonowned platform remains the stalwart in the space, with over 90 million users. But a twoand-a-half-year-old upstart out of the United Kingdom called The StoryGraph is quickly gaining a cult following — and its founder Nadia Odunayo believes she’s created a platform that finally puts readers first. After studying at Oxford University, Odunayo dove headfirst into the world of software engineering. But when a startup job in the U.S. fell through in early 2019, she decided to take a break from the 9-to-5 grind and tinker with a few ideas she had put on the back-burner. Among them was an early version of The StoryGraph, a reading list app Odunayo had designed as a supplement to her Goodreads account. She knew firsthand about the issues with existing book cataloguing sites: their shoddy algorithms filled with advertiserdriven book recommendations, the lack of space to build communities, and the strange user experience quirks, like Goodreads’ refusal to allow half-stars in book ratings. She and the many readers she interviewed were still searching for a service that could provide two key things: quality personalized book recommendations, and the ability to filter books by mood (think “emotional,” “adventurous,” or “sad”). Odunayo believed she could build a platform that oﬀers both. “I finally felt alive as a developer,” she says of the early days working on The StoryGraph. Odunayo describes her platform as the best place for 101

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readers to find books based on their feelings, as well as any topics or themes that they’re interested in. She pitches it like this: “What if you could build the ultimate friend? They get you and your mood on any given day but also all of the books in the world.” With over 322,000 users and counting amassed over two and a half years, it seems Odunayo is onto something. It’s easy to see what draws readers to the platform. The StoryGraph oﬀers many features that bookworms have long requested of other sites — like an in-depth data panel with information about a user’s reading habits, the ability to check out a book’s mood or pacing, and customizable reading goals. Devotees also love the dedicated content warnings section, which helps people skip materials they may find triggering. The business model is also about putting users first. To avoid being beholden to advertisers, who are liable to request changes in book recommendations and product options, Odunayo opted for a subscriber model. She was nervous about adding a paid tier, but says that many readers like the idea of paying a monthly fee to support an up-and-coming business, particularly one working to upend the book recommendation space. “I still have doubts of, ‘Is it diﬀerent enough? Is it going to survive?’ You see companies all the time that come along and go big and disappear,” she says. Still, she believes her product has staying power — and The StoryGraph is definitely in growth mode. In addition to its subscription tier, the site also recently launched its app on the Google Play and Apple Stores. Odunayo, at least, is in it for the long haul. “I want to continue to be a customerdriven business,” she says ofher platform. “[I want] The StoryGraph to be everything.” www.bustle.com/entertainment/the-storygraphgoodreads-competitor-nadia-odunayo Image credit: videos.goruco.com, blog.tellwell.ca

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Lifestyle/Culture WHEN LISE WAS A YOUNG teenager in Georgia, her classmates bullied her relentlessly. She had moved with her family from Haiti a few years earlier, and she didn’t fit in with the other students. They teased her about her accent, claimed she “smelled weird,” and criticized the food she ate. But most often they would attack her with remarks about her dark complexion. Sometimes teachers would send her home from school because she couldn’t stop crying. “I remember going home and I would take those copper wire things that you scrub dishes with,” she says. “I would go to the bathroom and I would take my mom’s bleach cream and scrub my skin with it.” And it wasn’t just white classmates. Black students harassed her too—for being an outsider, for being too different. She remembers them asking, “Why is she so dark?” Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, the phone in her palm became an endless stream of pictures of beautiful, lighter-skinned women getting dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of likes and affirming comments. She slowly began to notice that the world wanted parts of her—like her curves and her lips—but not things like her dark skin or her hair. Not her whole self, all together. As she struggled to cope with the abuse, Lise convinced herself that the darkness of her skin was to blame. And social media platforms and the visual culture of the internet suggested the same thing. Even among those closest to her, the undesirability of her darkness was reinforced. She grew to realize that her mom, aunts, and friends all used the skin-lightening creams she’d borrowed after school, many of which contain toxins and even carcinogens. It was confusing: her community fought hard against racism, but some of the prejudice she experienced came from Black people themselves. And social media was just making it worse. The prejudice Lise experienced—colorism—has a long history, driven by European ideals of beauty that associate lighter skin with purity and wealth, darker tones with sin and poverty. Though related to racism, it’s distinct in that it can affect people regardless of their race, and can have different effects on people of the same background. 102

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How Digital Beauty Perpetuate Colo By Tate Ryan-Mosley Colorism exists in many countries. In India, people with darker skin were traditionally ranked lower in the caste system. In China, light skin is linked to beauty and nobility. In the US, people across many races experience colorism as it is prejudice rooted primarily in complexion rather race. Historically, when African-Americans were enslaved, those with lighter skin were often given more domestic tasks where those with darker skin were more likely to work in the fields. These prejudices have been part of the social and media landscape for a long time, but the advent of digital images and Photoshop created new ways for colorism to manifest. In June 1994, notoriously, Newsweek and Time both ran cover images of O.J. Simpson’s mug shot during his murder trial—but on Time’s cover, his skin was markedly darker. The diﬀerence sparked outrage: Time had darkened the image in what the magazine’s photo illustrator claimed was an attempt to evoke a more “dramatic tone”. But the editing reflected that the darker the man, the more criminal the American public assumes him to be. This association has very real consequences. A DAWN

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2011 study from Villanova University found a direct link between the severity of sentences for 12,000 incarcerated women and the darkness of their complexion. And today, thanks to the prevalence of selfies and face filters, digital colorism has spread. With Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook a part of billions of people’s everyday lives, many of us find that people see far more pictures of us than ever before. But there are biases built into these systems. At a basic level, the imaging chips found in most personal cameras have pre-set ranges for skin tones, making it technically impossible to accurately capture the real variety of complexions. And the images that do get taken are often subject to alteration. Snapchat reports that over 200 million people use its filter product, Lenses, every day. Some of them use it to lighten their skin tone; other filters and automatic enhancing features can do the same on Instagram and TikTok. Photo technologies and image filters can do this in ways that are almost imperceptible. Meanwhile, social media algorithms reinforce the popularity of people with lighter skin to the detriment of those with darker skin. Just this week, Twitter’s imagecropping algorithm was found to prefer faces that are lighter, thinner, and younger.

y Filters rism

Selfie-esteem We’ve reported before on the ways in which digital technologies are narrowing beauty standards. The phenomenon has led to the concept of the “Instagram face,” a particular look that’s easily accessible through the proliferation of editing tools. Photos reflecting this look, with a small nose, big eyes, and fuller lips, attract more comments and likes, leading recommendation algorithms to prioritize them. We also interviewed 103

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researchers who say beauty ideals are narrowing even more dramatically and quickly than they expected—with especially profound effects on the way young girls, in particular, see themselves and shape their identity. But it could be particularly catastrophic for women with darker complexions, says Ronald Hall, a professor at Michigan State University and an expert on colorism. As more European looks are increasingly held up as an ideal, “these young girls imitate these behaviors, and those who are super dark-complected see no way out,” he says. “Those are the ones who are most at risk for harming themselves.” That harm can involve bleaching or other risky body treatments: the skin-lightening industry has grown rapidly and is now worth more than $8 billion worldwide each year. But beyond physical risks, researchers and activists have also begun documenting troubling emotional and psychological effects of online colorism. Amy Niu researches selfie-editing behavior as part of her PhD in psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 2019, she conducted a study to determine the effect of beauty filters on self-image for American and Chinese women. She took pictures of 325 college-aged women and, without telling them, applied a filter to some photos. She then surveyed the women to measure their emotions and self-esteem when they saw edited or unedited photos. Her results, which have not yet been published, found that Chinese women viewing edited photos felt better about themselves, while American women (87% of whom were white) felt about the same whether their photos were edited or not. Niu believes that the results show there are huge differences between cultures when it comes to “beauty standards and how susceptible people are to those beauty filters.” She adds, “Technology companies are realizing it, and they are making different versions [of their filters] to tailor to the needs of different groups of people.” This has some very obvious manifestations. Niu, a Chinese woman living in America, uses both TikTok and Douyin, the Chinese version (both are made by the same company, and share many of see page 104

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Lifestyle/Culture Colorism

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the same features, although not the same content.) The two apps both have “beautify” modes, but they are different: Chinese users are given more extreme smoothing and complexion lightening effects. She says the differences don’t just reflect cultural beauty standards—they perpetuate them. White Americans tend to prefer filters that make their skin tanner, teeth whiter, and eyelashes longer, while Chinese women prefer filters that make their skin lighter. Niu worries that the vast proliferation of filtered images is making beauty standards more uniform over time, especially for Chinese women. “In China, the beauty standard is more homogeneous,” she says, adding that the filters “erase lots of differences to our faces” and reinforce one particular look. “It’s really bad” Amira Adawe has observed the same dynamic in the way young girls of color use filters on social media. Adawe is the founder and executive director of Beautywell, a Minnesota-based nonprofit aimed at combating colorism and skin-lightening practices. The organization runs programs to educate young girls of color about online safety, healthy digital behaviors, and the dangers of physical skin lightening. Adawe says she often has to inform the girls in her workshops that their skin is being lightened by social media filters. “They think it’s normal. They’re like, ‘Oh, this is not skin lightening, Amira. This is just a filter,’” she says. “A lot of these young girls use these filters and think, ‘Oh my God, I look beautiful.’” It’s so easy to do—with a few clicks, users can make their appearance more similar to everyone else’s ideal—that many young women end up assuming a lighter-skinned identity online. This makes it easier to find acceptance in the digital world, but it can also make it harder for them to identify with their real complexion. When Adawe explains how using a face filter can be part of a cycle of colorism, she is often met with resistance. The filters have become essential to the way some girls see themselves. “It’s really bad.” she says. “And it’s contributing 104

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to this notion that you’re not beautiful enough.” And it’s complicated regardless of your skin tone. Halle, a single biracial woman in her mid-20s, thinks a lot about her own racial identity. She says most people would use the term “ambiguous” to describe her appearance. “I have whiter features,” she says. “My skin complexion is lighter than some other mixed-race girls’, and my hair is less curly.” She also used to be a regular user of dating apps. And from conversations with her friends who have darker complexions, she realized that her experience on dating apps was very diﬀerent from theirs. “Quite candidly, we compare matches and number of matches,” she says. “That is where I started to realize: wait a minute, there’s something going on here. My friends who identify as Black or Afro-Latina don’t get as many matches.” It’s already known that beauty-scoring algorithms, which rank the attractiveness of images, give higher scores to whiter women. In March, we reported on how the world’s largest face recognition company, Face++, sells a racially biased beauty scoring algorithm that it markets to digital platforms, and online dating sites in particular. Halle says her experience on these apps reflects the wider world, too. “This is deeply rooted in racism, colorism, and everything that’s happening in our society,” she says. The experience became so frustrating for her that she deleted all her dating apps. MIT Technology Review has reached out to DAWN

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many dating sites to ask whether they use beautyscoring algorithms for matches, but none will confirm or deny. Even if they do not use systems like Face++, however, they do use recommendation algorithms to learn user preferences over time. And this is another way that colorism and bias can creep in and be perpetuated. Recommendations based on user preferences often reflect the biases of the world—in this case, the diversity problems that have long been apparent in media and modeling. Those biases have in turn shaped the world of online influencers, so that many of the most popular images are, by default, of people with lighter skin. An algorithm that interprets your behavior inside such a filter bubble might assume that you dislike people with darker skin. And it gets worse: recommendation algorithms are also known to have an anchoring eﬀect, in which their output reinforces users’ unconscious biases and can even change their preferences over time. Meanwhile, platforms including TikTok have been accused of intentionally “shadow-banning” content from some Black creators, especially those discussing the Black Lives Matter movement or racism in general. That diminishes their reach, and the cycle reinforces itself further. (In a statement, a TikTok spokesperson said "We unequivocally do not moderate content or accounts on the basis of race.") Michigan State’s Ronald Hall says he’s “extremely worried” about the impact on women of color in particular: “Women of color are constantly bombarded with these messages that you gotta be light in order to be attractive.” Adawe, meanwhile, thinks the only solution is an all-out ban on filters that lighten faces. She says she has emailed Snapchat asking for just that. “Social media companies keep [creating] filters 105

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because the demand is so high,” she says. “But to me, I think they’re promoting colorism, whether they realize it and whether it’s intentional or not.” A spokesperson for Snap told MIT Technology Review, “Our goal is to build products that are fully inclusive of all Snapchatters, and we’ve put in place a number of processes and initiatives to help us do that. Our guidelines for all Snapchatters— which also apply to Lens submissions—prohibit discrimination and the promotion of stereotypes, and we have an extensive review process in place for Lenses, which includes testing them on a wide range of skin tones.” The company says it is partnering with experts for advice, and earlier this year it launched an initiative to build an “inclusive camera”, which is meant to be better at capturing a broader range of skin tones. A completely different lens Lise, who now lives in Minnesota, struggled with the effects of colorism for a long time. She went to therapy, watched endless YouTube tutorials on photo editing, and even bought a $600 camera that she hoped would make her look less dark in photos. Eventually she came to realize how harmful it had been. “Now I just view everyone’s social media page with a completely different lens,” she says. Today, she’s a new mom: when we spoke via Zoom, I was greeted by her cooing and wiggling baby. I was delighted, but Lise apologized profusely while she adjusted the lens. She says she wants to see more raw photos online that show beautiful women who look like her. She no longer edits her skin color in photos, and she tries hard to stop the negative thoughts in her head, though it can be hard. “Oh, I’ll be darned if I see someone saying anything to a beautiful dark-skinned woman,” she says. “I don’t care if it’s online, I don’t care if it’s in person—I’m going to call you out. I just can’t be quiet about it anymore, but it’s taken years. I’m going to be more conscious about what I’m teaching my son.”. www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/15/1031804/digitalbeauty-filters-photoshop-photo-editing-colorism-racism Image credit: thyblackman.com, redefiningthefaceofbeauty.com

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Lifestyle/Culture

Africa's First Youth Games Bring Hopes for Continent's First Olympics By Mariama Diallo

▲Senegal's President Macky Sall poses, at the 133rd IOC Session in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after signing the contract for the Youth Olympic Games to be hosted in Senegal. FOR DECADES, AFRICAN ATHLETES have traveled all over the world to take part in the Olympic Games. At the recent Tokyo Games, they took home gold, silver and bronze medals. And yet Africa has never hosted the Games, and some people are asking what it would take for the Olympics to be held on African soil. In Kenya, thousands cheered on one of their favorite long-distance runners, Eliud Kipchoge, who won the gold medal in the men's marathon. One Kipchoge fan had a special request for the government: Develop the country's sports infrastructure. Having subpar sports facilities that don't meet 106

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international norms is one of the biggest challenges for countries that want to host the Olympic Games. For many of them, it's just too expensive, said Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist, who edited the book Rio ▲Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya wins 2016: Olympic Myths, gold in the men's marathon Hard Realities. at the Tokyo 2022 Olympics, "You might read, for August 8, 2021. DAWN

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instance, that in Tokyo they spent roughly $15 billion, or that in Brazil or Rio 2016 they spent $12 to $15 billion. But the real numbers in Tokyo are above $35 billion, and the real numbers in Rio are above $20 billion," Zimbalist told VOA. "They don't have the necessary transportation, communications, and security and hospitality infrastructure, so the amount of money they have to invest to do it is much, much larger," he said. "Sochi spent somewhere between $51 to $65 billion to host the Winter Olympics in 2014. … China — Beijing — spent somewhere north of $44 billion to host the Games in 2008. And the problem is that more often than not, you are constructing infrastructure for the purpose of hosting the Games, not for the purpose of solving development bottlenecks in your country."

Youth Olympic Games For now, Senegal is preparing to host its first Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in 2026. The YOG were added to the Olympics in 2010 to give athletes ages 14 to 18 the chance to compete. Experts say the YOG in Buenos Aires in 2018 had an Olympic Village with about 4,000 athletes from 260 countries. That contrasts with the estimated 12,000 athletes for the larger Olympics. Generally, experts say, the YOG will require about one-third of the investment needed for the Olympic Games. While Senegalese oﬃcials say they are excited and honored to make history as the first African country to host the YOG, they also understand the responsibility that comes with it. "There are expectations from the whole African

continent, and Senegal has to organize games that would live up to the standards of previous Youth Olympics. And because of that, Senegal is going to make sure it's a success and serves as a catalyst for mobilizing and engaging Senegalese youth in particular, and African youth in general," Babacar Makhtar Wade, president of the Senegal Judo Federation, told VOA. Wade, who is also treasurer of the Senegal National Olympic and Sports Committee, said renovation plans are well under way. "We are planning to first renovate three main venues — the Iba Mar Diop Stadium, which will host track, rugby and other sports. There's also our Olympic pool, which needs to be renovated. It has an adjacent park, which will host a few events such as the BMX freestyle, basketball 3-on-3 and hockey games. And there is also the Caserne Samba Diery Diallo, where the equestrian-related activities will take place," he said. There will also be venues in hubs outside Dakar including a popular seaside resort that will host beach volleyball, boating and other events, and Diamniadio, site of a new 50,000-seat multipurpose stadium and other facilities. President Macky Sall said at last year's groundbreaking ceremony that the stadium will be available for future local and international competitions. www.voanews.com/africa/africas-first-youthgames-bring-hopes-continents-first-olympics Image credits: Pinterest, YouTube>Emergence TV

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Lifestyle/Culture

Netϔlix and Disney Have a Major Disadvantage in Africa’s Streaming Wars By Quartz

THE NUMBER OF SUBSCRIPTION video-ondemand users in Africa is projected to reach more than 5 million by the end of this year, and triple to 15 million by 2026, according to a new projection by Digital TV Research, a London-based business intelligence company. Netflix is expected to have the highest number of subscribers both at the end of this year, at 2.61 million, and by 2026, when it is anticipated to have around 5.84 million. But its market share will decline, as it competes with international and domestic platforms fighting for eyeballs on the continent Disney+ is not expected to officially launch in the continent until 2022, and even then only in 12 countries. Digital TV Research expects it to attract around 2 million paying subscribers forecast by 2026. The trajectory of this growth signals an advantage for local players such as Showmax and MyCanal, the firm writes. “The selective launch plans from some global platforms works in favor of regional players,” Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said in the report. Local video streaming platforms like Showmax already have a head start, and they are gaining traction. In addition, local media companies are investing in new video streaming services, meaning the audience may be further distributed among more service providers. More African Consumers are Paying for Streaming Content Africa’s entertainment space, including video streaming services, is in a rapid growth phase.

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Spurred by a young population and increasing internet connectivity, it is gaining a larger audience and receiving record amounts of funding. One of the earliest entrants in video streaming in the continent in 2011 was irokotv, which shows Nollywood films. Today, Showmax, which has both local and foreign content, is a dominant local player. It was launched in 2016. Foreign entertainment companies have looked to tap into local markets, with Netflix arriving in 2016 and Amazon Prime Video last year. Netflix is customizing content for the region, with African originals such as King of Boys, Nigeria’s first original series for the streaming platform which debuts this month.

With a population of more than 1 billion people, Africa presents a potential significant audience for foreign video streaming services, although perhaps not at the rate of growth which other regions present. Globally, Netflix has about 208 million subscribers, while Disney+ has 116 million. https://tribunecontentagency.com/article/netflixand-disney-have-a-major-disadvantage-inafricas-streaming-wars/ Source: https://qz.com/africa/2052540/africanstreaming-platforms-have-an-edge-over-netflixand-disney Image credits: tech-ish.com, FreeNews

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"Yennenga, Warrior Princess of Burkina Faso"

LIN CROWLEY FINE ART I HAVE SPENT many years traveling t li with ith my husband during his military career. We have now retired in Georgia to begin a new chapter in our lives. Though we’re beginning this new endeavor, it still includes my love of painting. This passion for art began as a child when my father drew a simple square on a sheet of paper. After this, he put a few lines on it, and the square became something that had dimensions (of course, as a 6 or 7 year old, I didn’t know the word “dimension”). In my head I said, “it’s a real see-thru box”! And that began my journey to make things on paper look real. There are so many ordinary and beautiful things that inspire me to paint, as well as things that are not considered beautiful, but still make great paintings. So that gives me a wide variety of things to choose from. I love florals, wildlife, old buildings, landscapes, and I’ve now come to love painting children and the wizened faces of our exquisite and graceful elders. As an African American, I have always wanted to know from which country in Africa my ancestors were taken. With a little research, I was able to do just that. I have found out that I am mostly of Nigerian descent. It was very exciting to know from 109

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where I come because I’ve always known that my people didn’t just pop up on a slave plantation. Because I’m so excited about my origins, I B have been reading about lots of African historical figures. One such notable figure is the history of Princess Yennenga, the mother of the Mossi people of Burkina Faso. I was so moved by her story that it compelled me to do a painting of her. I had no idea as to how she looked, so I took a lot of artistic license in making my own image of her. I read that she was extremely brave and was an exceedingly beautiful young girl. Right away I knew I would use my daughter as the model for this painting, because I consider my daughter to be my little beauty. It is written that because Princess Yennenga was so proficient with spears and riding horses, she was widely known as a skilled warrior. Her father even gave her command of her own battalion. This is certainly someone I wanted to paint. There are more African historical figures I’d like to put on my drawing board, I just need to decide who is next. To view the Lin Crowley Gallery and to place an order, please visit www.lincrowley.com or send an email inquiry to: lin@lincrowley.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yennenga DAWN

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History

Agoodjie Warriors: The Black Women Amazons that once Protected Benin By Brunno Braga

THROUGHOUT MUCH OF THE nineteenth century, Dahomey (present-day Benin) was one of the richest and most powerful kingdoms in Africa. Its army at this time was estimated to number some twelve thousand soldiers. However, this African kingdom had a unique characteristic. Dahomey’s army was also constituted by four thousand female Agoodjie warriors also known as the Black Amazons of Africa. Originally named as Agoodjie in Fon language (meaning the last defense before the king) the Black Amazons of Dahomey represented one of the army’s elite corps, serving as the king’s palace guards and forming a special phalanx that accompanied the monarch into battle. Despite France conquering Dahomey in 1894, after two wars in a period of four years, the ferociousness of the Agoodjie batallion, who made up 1/3 of the African country’s troops throughout the 19th century, impressed visitors and foreign soldiers. After the release of Marvel’s Black Panther, which featured the Dora Milaje, many speculated about their inspiration. However, it seems clear that one of their main antecedents was the Agoodjie warriors, as Time Magazine reported. The Black Amazons of Africa were recruited and trained from early childhood. Their fierce training turned them into more efficient warriors than men. During warfare, they were merciless, to the point that they would behead anybody who resisted them. “The value of Dahomey’s Amazons is real. They were trained from their childhood with harsh physical exercises, and they were constantly encouraged to wage a war. The Amazons engaged in battles with a real fury and a bloodthirsty ardour, inspiring with their courage and their indomitable

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energy the troops that followed them,” wrote French Major Léonce Grandin, who released Le Dahomey: À l’Assaut du Pays des Noirs, in which he analyzes the war he fought against the Dahomey. “Remarkably brave”, “extraordinary for their courage and ferocity” and “savage tenacity” are some of the characteristics attributed to them by French fighters in diaries written in the heat of battle. The female soldiers and officers of Dahomey’s army owned slaves, lived in the king’s palace, and were so respected and powerful that when they walked the streets, ordinary men had to step back to clear a path and look the other way. They wore uniforms, carried flags and sang hymns. Women fighting in armies were nothing new in human history. Take Joanna D’Arc, for example. But an army of women was something that was never seen before and intrigued many. Some historians still debate the origin of the army of women. Researchers point Tassi Hangbé, the only stateswoman to rule the Kingdom of Dahomey (1708 to 1711), as the queen who created the Black female army. However, the first reports of female soldiers in Dahomey date back to the 1830s. The last time they entered a battlefield was in 1894, when France won the second FrancoDahomey War and subjugated the African kingdom. Dahomey was proclaimed a French protectorate, and by the end of 1897, the French controlled the

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entire territory of the present-day Republic of Benin, which they called the colony of Dahomey. They installed Behanzin’s half-brother, AgoliAgbo I, on the throne, only to depose and exile him and appoint a powerful French governor. In 1904 the colony of Dahomey was integrated into the federation of French West Africa. Ignored for more than 150 years, the Agoodjie Warriors are steadily becoming regarded as a symbol of female emancipation. After being neglected, they are now gradually being honored.

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https://travelnoire.com/agoodjie-warriors-protectedbenin Image credit: National Museum of World Cultures. irmamcclaurin.com

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History

The History of Congo's Leopard Men Society that Inspired Marvel's Black Panther By Brunno Braga THE ANYOTO, ALSO KNOWN as the leopard men society, were a secret society from eastern Congo. They are one of the most notable social organizations in Africa’s recent history. They were famous for killing their enemies with fake leopard claws and leaving fake footprints near corpses left in the forest, giving the impression of death by leopards. Anyoto means ‘to scratch’ in Kibali, a Bantu language spoken in Congo. It is also believed that they existed in the 1700s in ancient Ivory Coast, Gabon, Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone Once described by Western colonialists as barbarians, savages and other misrepresentations given to African people, the Anyoto’s image is starting due to recent approaches made by African scholars giving a fair depiction of this controversial secret association. Some sources state that the leopard men society

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used to practice cannibalism. However, most of those sources are from the colonial era. “Through the images of the leopard-men, the Congo and Africa were represented as uncivilized places, characterized by cannibalism and brutal murders. These stereotypes have stood in the way of understanding the real purposes of this society. In recent years, particularly in Belgium, the continued use of leopard-men in images of Africa has caused polemical reactions among academics and Congolese concerned with representation of Africa,” writes Vicky van Bockhaven in a scholar article entitled "Leopard-men of the Congo in Literature and Popular Imagination." According to the professor, images of the leopard men society contribute to stereotypical and racist representations of past African societies being overemphasized, similarly as contemporary war and violence. Such stereotypes suggest that there

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is a historical and cultural predestination for war and violence in Africa. During the colonization era (1908-1960), Congo’s local structure of power changed. The Belgians created a new system that made local leaders upset. In order to defy this New Order, those leaders and Anyoto members teamed up and carried out numerous murders of Belgian colonial authorities, using the same tactics that made the Belgians believe that the killings were committed by leopards. However, as the terror against the Belgians continued, the secret association was unveiled. The Anyotos were persecuted, convicted and totally dismantled in the 1930s. “Such cultural predispositions have stood in the way of understanding the real purposes of this society. Anyoto men’s activities were a way of maintaining local power relations, performing indigenous justice in secret and circumventing colonial government control,” writes Bockhaven. After its demise, Anyoto society’s image gained ground in popular culture. It was mentioned in the infamous Tintin in the Congo, and in the short story Tarzan and 113

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the Leopard Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1935) (1935). Both depicted An oto societ Anyoto society members as e evilil ad adversaries of the protagonist. In the novel Tarzan and the Leopard Men, Tarzan is confronted by the leopard men, and described as people who practice evil acts and cannibalism. “In the fictional writings, all of these anti-social aspects are ascribed to the Anyoto and their accomplices. They behave like animals, are promiscuous and unpredictable, eat human flesh, smell badly, get drunk to the point of passing out and so on. In reality, the Anyoto men were a threat to the societal colonial order, and they could not be controlled,” says Bockhaven. Recently, Anyoto influence was seen in the Black Panther movie, which shows African men wear leopard costumes to defend the interests of their society. Currently, the Anyoto costumes are in the collection of the Royal Museum for Central Africa, in Belgium. https://travelnoire.com/leopard-men-societyinspired-marvels-black-panther Image credit: Alexander Joe, www.tintin.com, Wikimedia Commons

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Trade Shows/Exhibitions/Conferences

Events Around the African Continent and the World 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference

www.intrafricantradefair.com

1-12 November 2021 Glasgow, United Kingdom https://ukcop26.org

Africities Summit 16-20 November 2021 Kisumu, Kenya https://africitieskisumu.co.ke

Afrochella 2021 December 26, through January 4, 2021 www.historicalafrica.org/events/ afrochella-2021 Accra, Ghana

Tropic Business Summit 13-16 October 2021 Hybrid Event Protea Hotel by Marriott Johannesburg Balalaika Sandton, Sandton, South Africa https://10times.com/tropics-businesssummit Youtube: https://lnkd.in/dirRSwc Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dpgFaxS

African Union ECHO Magazine DOWNLOAD Your Copy English: AU ECHO 2021 A French: A AU ECHO 2021

Intra-African Trade Fair 2021 15-21 November 2021 Durban International Convention Center

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Celebrations

African Diaspora Independence Days J 26, 1960 R DJIBOUTI - J 27, 1977 R CAMEROON - J . 1, 1960 R SEYCHELLES - J 29, 1976 R HAITI - J . 1, 1804 R CONGO D R SUDAN - J . 1, 1956 D (KINSHASA) - J 30, 1960 F MOROCCO (I ) - J 30, 1969 G GRENADA - F 07, 1974 J R T GAMBIA - F . 18, 1965 R BURUNDI - J 1, 1962 SAINT LUCIA - F 22, 1979 R RWANDA - J 1, 1962 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - F . 27, 1844 D R SOMALIA - J 1, A R EGYPT - F . 28, 1922 1960 WESTERN SAHARA - F . 28, 1976 D P R M ALGERIA - J 3, 1962 K MOROCCO - M 2, 1956 R CAPE VERDE - J 5, 1975 R GHANA - M 6, 1957 F I R COMOROS S MAURITIUS - M 12, 1968 -J 6, 1975 R TUNISIA - M 20, 1956 R MALAWI - J 6, 1964 R NAMIBIA - M 21, 1990 C THE BAHAMAS - J 10, A 1973 R SENEGAL - A 4, 1960 D R SÃO TOMÉ AND S N Z MOROCCO PRINCIPE - J 12, 1975 (M )-A 7, 1956 R LIBERIA - J 26, 1847 R ZIMBABWE - A 18, 1980 A MOROCCO (S S Z , R BENIN - A . 1, 1960 M )-A 27, 1958 R NIGER - A . 3, 1960 R SIERRA LEONE - A . 27, 1961 P D R BURKINA R TOGO - A 27, 1960 FASO - A . 5, 1960 M JAMAICA - A 06, 1962 P ' D R ETHIOPIA - G R CÔTE D'IVOIRE (I C )M 5, 1941 A . 7, 1960 R CUBA - M 20 ,1902 R CHAD - A . 11, 1960 S ERITREA - M 24, 1993 C R GUYANA - M 26, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC - A . 13, 1960 1966 R CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE) R SOUTH AFRICA - M 31, 1910 A . 15, 1960 J GABON - A . 16, 1960 NIGERIA (B C N )-J 1, R R TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - A 1961 31, 1962 A A ' R V S (J )-J 19, 1865 K SWAZILAND - S . 6, 1968 R MOZAMBIQUE - J 25. 1975 F S C ST. KITTS D R MADAGASCAR -

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AND NEVIS - S 19 1983 G BELIZE - S 21, 1981 R MALI - S . 22, 1960 R GUINEA-BISSAU - S . 24, 1973 R BOTSWANA - S . 30, 1966

O CAMEROON (B C S )O . 1, 1961 F R NIGERIA - O . 1, 1960 R GUINEA - O . 2, 1958 K LESOTHO - O . 4, 1966 R UGANDA - O . 9, 1962 R EQUATORIAL GUINEA - O . 12, 1968 R ZAMBIA - O . 24, 1964 G ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES - O 27, 1979 MOROCCO (I Z ,T )O . 29, 1956

N G ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA 01 N 01, 1981 C DOMINICA - N 03, 1978 P ' R ANGOLA - N . 11, 1975 R SURINAME - N 25, 1975 I R MAURITANIA - N . 28, 1960 BARBADOS - N 30, 1966

D U R TANZANIA - D . 9, 1961 R KENYA - D . 12, 1963 LIBYA (S P ' L A J ) - D . 24, 1951 www.thoughtco.com/chronological-list-of-africanindependence-4070467 www.caribbeanelections.com/education/ independence/default.asp

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Articles inside

The History of Congo's Leopard Men Society that Inspired Marvel's Black Panther

Netfl ix and Disney Have a Major Disadvantage in Africa’s Streaming Wars

Agoodjie Warriors: The Black Women Amazons that once Protected Benin

LIN CROWLEY FINE ART

Meet the Book-Obsessed Entrepreneur

How Digital Beauty Filters Perpetuate Colorism

World-Famous Ghanaian Artist Will Be First to Have Artwork Featured in Outer Space

Tracking the Future of Tennis

Undefeated: First Black Girl Duo Wins International Debate Competition at Harvard

Barack Obama to Join NBA Africa as Strategic Partner

African Languages to get More Bespoke

The Promise of the African Genome Project

A $2 Billion Fintech Startup has Become Africa’s Fastest Unicorn

Covid-19 is Changing the way African Countries are Collaborating with Each Other

Alphabet’s Project Taara Laser Tech Beamed 700TB of Data Across Nearly 5km

Welcome to the Age of Wireless Electricity

Ethiopia to Build Local Rival to Facebook

3 Takeaways from Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott Teaming up to Fund Women’s and Girls’ Causes

IMF OKs Big Increase in Funds to Alleviate Pandemic Impact

A Nigerian Oil Palm Startup Raised $4 Million to Build a “Smart” Factory

Kenya Hasn’t Figured Out How to Put its Local Founders First

African Stock Exchange/Bourse

Remittance to Africa Projected to Decrease

Conferment of Sierra Leonea Citizenship

West African Regional Bloc Adopts New Plan to Launch Eco Single Currency in 2027

Ghana, Hub for Doing Business

The UK has Committed to Making Africa’s Landmark Trade Agreement Successful

Lab-grown Coff ee Cuts Out the Beans and Deforestation (and the farmers)

Moderna’s mRNA Vaccine for HIV is Starting Human Trials

Pfi zer and BioNTech in Agreement to Manufacture COVID Vaccine for Distribution in Africa

Kenyans on Twitter (#KOT) Fill Vaccine Information Gaps

Novavax’s Eff ort to Vaccinate the World, From

Madagascar is Suff ering from a Climate Change Famine

This Wildly Reinvented Wind Turbine Generates Five Times More Energy than its Competitors

Economist Magazine calls for Georgieva to Quit IMF over World Bank Data Scandal

7 Business Models that will Rule the Next Decade

Why You Want to be Market-Driven Rather Than Marketing-Driven

Elon Musk’s new Satellites Could Sneak Internet Past the Taliban

IPCC Scientists Still Haven’t Cracked Africa’s Biggest Climate Mystery

Empowering African Women Entrepreneurs

The Skin Lightening Business is Booming in Kenya—Though No One will Admit it

7 Easy Ways to Use PowerPoint Templates to Power Your Content Marketing Campaign

A Bank at Every Corner Store

21-Year Old Becomes Ghana’s Youngest Female Commercial Pilot

Betting on a Future 'Made in Cameroon'

Linktree Partners with PayPal to Allow Users Globally to Accept Direct Payments

Amazon Inaugurates its First Logistics Centre in Egypt

Publisher's Message

Kenyans Lead the World in Peer to Peer Crypto Trade