Make Africa Great Again*
The griot has been a staple in African culture for millennia.
From ancient orators to modern day disk jockeys, all hearkening back to a core reality of the human experience.
We each have a story to tell.
Individually, we craft these narratives to better understand self. Collectively, we tie together one grand narrative and call it — history.
More than a story, It’s also a resource. One from which we can draw potent lessons and celebrate grand achievements.
But, history hasn’t been very kind to Africa.
A continent rich in resources, peoples, and cultures; yet poor in virtually every other category that seems to matter in our increasingly modern world. A geographical catch 22.
Jared Diamond, author of “Guns, Germs, and Steel” really helped pioneer this idea of history being a function geography. Mountains and seas, shorelines, varied climate conditions all contribute to the flows of peoples, ideas, and information — which can in turn, make or break a developing country.
It is largely due to geography that American dominance was virtually inevitable.
Factors like multiple ocean access and fertile grounds from farming helped bolster that claim.
They say history is written by the winners, which is true.
But the winners more often than not, are determined by the geography. Position.
Or as they say in business — location, location, location.
Taking this view of history, it is easy to see how Africa, despite its mass and centrality, has taken a backseat in recent centuries especially with the rise of commercialism and industry.
Sub Saharan Africa was never in a position to take advantage of the high tide of economic prosperity sweeping most of the world.
In fact, the opposite happened.
A continent where vats of liquid gold line pockets of international players, while populations who live just above these oil wells suffer from economic disenfranchisement en masse.
This “third world” effect seems to keep us in a state of disunion.
We’ve forgotten, that we are all human.
Worse, we have forgotten that these communities have been systemically raped — and in many cases by the very governments we seem keen on legitimizing.
People are mad, sure.
But I feel like we’re mad about the wrong shit.
But, I get it. Straws are important.
But what about people?
Fortunately, history is still being written. And I believe we are about to embark upon a new chapter.
Today, advances in technology have rendered formally insurmountable natural barriers a moot point.
In the age of the internet, it’s about time we embark upon the opportunities afforded, and turn the page on what has been a dark opening to the story of modern man.
Africa would be a great place to start.
But, it will require all hands on deck.
Every creed, and color.
Because… you’re African too.
Even if you don’t share affiliation via pigmentation, our ancestors are still the same; which means that our stories have a common origin.
It makes sense then, that we collectively own the mistakes of our past, and begin working toward a future that reflects the values we claim to espouse. Again. We are human. One race.
And probably a few aliens too, but we’ll figure that out later.
I sense that this story is still rife with unresolved tension and abandoned character developments, the future is calling so… it’s time to answer.
If you weren’t aware, Africa is big. Like really really big.
Not just in size either, as some estimates have the continent accounting for over a third of the global population by mid to late century.
That’s just 30 years away people.
What are we going to do between now and then to help bridge the gap of humanity?
Or will apathy set in. Again.
If we proceed down the path of centralized authority, we risk more than a moral lapse –
We miss an opportunity for parabolic growth.
Systems break. Ideas don’t.
So today — on The Free Thought Project, I’ve decided to cover a few of the developments coming out of Africa in recent years, specifically around mass adoption of the internet, and what that could mean in the future for technologies such as blockchain.
And maybe in process, you can begin to see that Africa is just as deserving of your dollar as “The next Tesla”.
I believe, the best possible investment is one in the future of mankind.
In a market which experiences constant breakdowns, human errors, and monetary debasements — what happens when a more reliable and stable option is introduced?
Furthermore, what happens when crashing inflationary assets are simultaneously being measured against fixed assets — like Bitcoin?
You get what is happening in Nigeria.
A country that, on February 5th of this year, had 3x the trading volume on the BTC/NGN forex pair than was available in the entire stock market.
One currency pair.
Worth three times as much as the entire financial corporate structure of a nation with a top 20 GDP.
It seems to me that there is a shuffle occurring.
Who get’s a seat at the table in 2025? What about 2030?
Stakeholders in the near future may begin to skew much younger, and more technology savvy. The ones who could not only see the future but take advantage of the coming tides as well.
They will be well positioned in a world of debased fiat currencies.
(And you best believe, governments are taking notice.)
The modus operandi of these world governments have been to silence and subdue, but these tactics will no longer be effective when people have access to wealth, security, and direct transactions, with no third-party needed.
Crypto art? That’s just a canary in the coal mine.
Soon, I believe everything will be tokenized, measured, stored, and accessed — digitally.
What could this mean for a collection of nations with insane potential for growth?
I’m talking new infrastructure projects crowdfunded through secure blockchains, access to clean and trackable energy grid systems, water tracing, mapping, insurance, data solutions…
Crypto-currency is just a front.
The easy and trust less transactions like an added perk.
Though what really matters, is the material impact felt by real people in real situations.
But before we get to the future, let’s look back.
Because Africa’s apparent head start in birthing modern man hasn’t quite materialized into any meaningful gains.
At least, not economically.
One way to understand this again is through geography.
It’s interesting to take a look at Africa as a sort of half buried time capsule, with the top third being exposed to the elements, and the bottom half remaining largely cut off from world.
This means northern countries, largely dominated by Muslim and Arabic speaking populations, could remain more adept at digesting and incorporating the influx of European ideas, likely being a net exporter themselves.
Sub-Sahel regions of the continent would not be not as fortunate.
Some hypothesize that the reason for this apparent dichotomy was as simple as longitude and latitude.
Ideas tend to spread much easier latitudinally, from east to west.
Climates are more consistent, and waterways abundant. This leads to things like agricultural developments and trade networks that can be copied and pasted across large areas.
With bigger differences in climate spanning from the equator to the lower third of the globe, the mass production and manufacturing ethos never quite ran its course or even set foot in African locales.
Enter slavery.
Take a bad situation, and compound it with brain drain and forced servitude.
Only, Europe took it a step further by deciding to draw arbitrary lines, annexing regions for their growing empires.
These lines reflected the collective egos of a group who saw themselves as superior. And just like every colonialist everywhere, they failed to consider the realities of geography, or of demographic make-up, or of tribal differences.
Borders cut some tribes in two while fencing together others with virtually nothing in common, forcing dissimilar people to exist under newly centralized governments backed by their white saviors.
This “third world” version of Africa they pump on your TV screen is a direct result of our collective indifference to the real problems.
Instead of addressing the real problem, we’d rather send a buck or two and forget about it.
And that’s the real problem.
Maybe what we need to start spending more of, is attention.
Look — kids in Africa don’t need your old shoes.
They need the tools to be able to build for themselves.
Having endured riots, tensions, agitations, droughts, fires, and even massacres. All while the world watches on. From quarantine, no less.
These kids need cameras. They need WiFi and bandwidth. They need VCs. They need infrastructure. And of course, they need water too.
But understand that most Africans are not worse off than you. In many cases they’re actually happier. Money is no determinant of inherent value.
All they really need, are tools.
Incentives that drive real innovation.
Initiatives bringing financial backing to the countless unbanked faces across the region.
We live in abundance; nobody should have to resort to survival mode.
So, it is time we rose to the challenge of bringing all of Africa back into the first world.
Anyway, more history.
Because whatever bubbling potential was present during the days of great African civilizations, came screeching to a halt when the rest of the world decided that some people aren’t really people.
The land was rich, and the whole world knew it.
Unfortunately, it was the indigenous populations who paid for it. With blood sweat and tears. Never receiving much back in terms of ROI.
In his book ‘Prisoners of Geography’ the author Tim Marshall states;
“The European colonialist created an egg without a chicken, a logical absurdity repeated across the continent that continues to haunt it.”
Think about that.
An egg, without a chicken.
So, who laid the egg?
(Slaves.)
Slaves built Earth’s economy, and their ancestors are still living in poverty.
How?
No money, since ‘leaders’ have decided to enrich themselves at expense of their people.
No power, as sovereignty was stripped from entire nations who became dependent on foreign altruism.
No unity, because without a common language, most good ideas were doomed from the start.
So…
What could blockchain do?
Simple really.
Blockchain could measure.
Accurately accounting for inputs and outputs that reflect the reality of what is happening on the ground.
Facilitating markets that are maintained and controlled by individual nodes, and not centralized entities.
By measuring what is really happening, Africa can begin to unlock swaths of previously unmined data insights. Insights that can help the fastest growing population also become the most efficient.
By hopscotching older innovations due to lack of penetration, much of Africa remains fully primed for an influx of permissionless capital. And it seems like the folks behind many of these crypto projects aim to provide just that.
It’s not altruism.
It’s actually strategic selfishness.
The folks heading such projects realize something few others grasp.
You network determines your significance.
Not your networth. Your network.
Therefore, if these ambitious projects aim to grow past early adopters and techies with huge computer rigs… they will need to acquire more than just capital.
They will need to adopt real people, that’s what ‘adoption’ means.
Real people doing real things.
Not just folks pushing numbers, or running computer farms.
But creating actual value.
In episode one, we talked a bit about this idea of money being what we make it. (I highly suggest you go back and take a peek, if you haven’t yet.)
The point is, when we begin to make money serve people, and not the other way around, we become partakers of a new type of humanity.
One rooted in collaboration and cooperation.
It’s the ultimate long term play.
I wanted to also share a few examples of what is really going on in the space as it pertains to Africa. Not just ideas, but actual work being done right now.
Hint, there’s a lot.
One is Chainlink, who has partnered with ACRE Africa and another crypto organization called Etherisc, to provide low cost and highly effective insurance to small farmers in Kenya. By more closely monitoring things like weather changes, seed supplies, and other inputs previously untraceable, growers can begin to truly support themselves off the strength of a global network.
Another one is Cardano, a cryptocurrency project I am super bullish on, and it is in part because of their work with IOHK in Ethiopia to build what they call an “agri-tech” market, helping to sustain exports, bolster supply chain data, and secure the identities of relevant stakeholders.
A third takes the more corporate approach, with Jack Dorsey (CEO of Twitter) and Jay Z recently launched a 2.5 Billion dollar Bitcoin fund to help spur research and development in blockchain applications across Africa.
And that’s just the surface.
We’re still early in the game, maybe top of the 2nd inning.
A lot of what is going on right now, compares nicely to the early days of the internet. Right before the crash I might add.
So who will survive?
The one’s creating actual value for actual users.
There’s much to be done, yet it seems like the space is moving at a rate unmatched by any other era in human history.
It is becoming a perpetual feedback loop, with projects solving problems other projects can’t, building a web of interoperable protocols, laying the groundwork of web 3.0 infrastructure, all while bitcoin and Ethereum lead the way, acting as proxies for the entire space purely off the strength of market cap.
Once research and development season is complete, and tools are ready to use, mass adoption will be right around the corner.
Because it’s not like people enjoy banks, there’s just no other option.
Until now.
Financial structures, agricultures, clean water and energy systems, education, you name it.
It could all really be transformed within a few generations.
Check out this clip from the Cardano ringleader, Charles Hoskinson;
“You don’t look to where the value is today, you look at where the value will be in the next 10 years… the reality is, Africa as a whole will be one of the most promising economies in the entire world by 2030”
Nigeria is an example of an emerging economic powerhouse, though it still deals with government incompetence and issues ranging from unreliable electricity to hyper radicalized terrorist cells that roam the streets.
Though I suspect that’s about to change.
I also suspect that people will begin to notice that Naija has already ascended to global status in a myriad of ways. Not just in entertainment.
Economically, it is the 7th largest exporter of oil in the world and it also resides in the top-20 of world economies, with an annual GDP north of $500 billion.
All Nigeria really needs, is to flip the switch of power.
From institutions, to people.
To be fair, the power has always been with the people.
Only now, with inflating wallets and international backing to match, the people seem to be catching on as well.
Right now, human capital is at a tipping point for future valuations.
People are beginning to realize the value of Africa.
Not just Nigeria (which has a population of 2/3rds that of the entire United States) but of the whole continent, whose populace currently sits at 1.5 billion, with an additional $5.6 Billion in illiquid assets.
That means locked away, not creating value.
What happens when those funds, those people, and these technologies are unleashed into the free market?
New economies will provide new opportunities for globally aware entrepreneurs, and projects responsive to the needs of the people will capture much of this growth.
Riding the wave of what projects to be at least quarter of the worlds consumer base in the coming decades, it’s a good bet.
Especially considering 320 million of that ballooning populace will be between the ages of 14 and 24.
That’s huge.
Solar power, hydroelectricity, blockchain, AI, drones…
These are all being developed as we speak.
For the next generation, it will be native to their existence
We are talking about a full-scale revolution.
And all it needs, is a bit of a push.
Think of it, places like Dubai were barren deserts only decades ago, and now have become centers of world trade and travel, hosting huge events and A-list celebrities alike.
Why not Lagos? Or Nairobi? Or Addis Abba?
China cannot be the only nation who sees this chance to gain a foothold in what will become a major player on the world stage.
What is needed is for a new spirit of collaboration to be embraced — at scale.
This means, software will probably be involved, thus, the best solutions, will be used the most.
This frictionless world of DeFi (decentralized finance) will bring to the surface value that which been locked away by traditional systems for centuries.
As nations begin to sense that the economic tides are shifting, I suspect many will become more willing to open the check books.
Not because their being nice, but because it makes sense to become part of the story that will be told, about the African renaissance.
I’ll end with a question.
What will happen when decentralized markets become more efficient than centralized ones? Because a strong Africa is a net positive…
Not only for black people everywhere.
But for everybody, everywhere.
So let’s change the way we think about Africa.
Hey, thanks for stopping by.
My name is Toso, and I like big ideas.
Follow me on Twitter @Toso___ for hot takes and questionable insights, or @TimeToGrowDude for the opposite. I don’t bite.
I contain multitudes though..
Deal with it.
