The Africa Centre Closed Its Doors. So I Looked At The Numbers

Dear Reader,

Since this is my personal newsletter, I wanted to share a few personal details about my life. I got married last month in Tanzania, where our friends and family came to spend a week with us. It was an experience of a lifetime. We truly enjoyed ourselves throughout. While it was fun, it was also exhausting. I needed a break, but I went from a busy year into festivities, and the two weeks post-wedding were deep recovery. I slept a lot, write a bit and read a lot. 

This year I’ve been spending a lot of time using AI. It’s hard to remember a day when I didn’t use any sort of AI tool. Over the past week, I’ve probably used more AI than ever, especially Claude Code. While I generally have an idea of what I’m doing most of the time, using AI makes me want to learn computer engineering. Many people will probably say it’s redundant, but there is so much more I want to do, and I believe learning coding can help. 

On the topic of AI, Stripe recently acquired OpenRouter for $7 billion. The investor letter “leaked” and for the first time publicly, the Collisons (aka Patrick and John) wrote about the singularity. As soon as I finished reading the letter, I ordered The Singularity Is Near, a book by Ray Kurzweil, who predicted where we are in the world of technology today. The book has been on my to-read list for a while. My father-in-law recommends it every time we talk about the evolution of AI and how fast technology is moving.

If you’ve read some of my previous essays, I’ve been vocal about how Africa needs its own Delaware, especially in the age of AI and stablecoins. Early this year, I wrote a proposal to flesh out the idea properly for the first time, and the idea is to get a whitepaper soon and test out the idea with one country. You can check out the first two posts I wrote below:

1 - Does Africa need its own Delaware?

2 - The Pan-African Stablecoin

On the stablecoins topic, this financial innovation has transformed how we run Borderless, and I’ve been going deeper into stablecoins, and I think it’s going to fundamentally change how money moves across the world.

As someone who builds for the diaspora, I’m paying attention to many trends, and African fashion has recently caught my attention. This year, I’ve been to 4 different pop-ups of African brands across London. Some collectives and some individual brands. My friends were dripped in African brands at my wedding, and they were very proud to wear them. I’ve seen pitch decks of collectives raising capital, and I’m seeing a lot of innovation in the space. This got me thinking: Is African fashion the next big thing?

Maybe I’m biased because my friend Vuyo talks about African brands on her channel (RetailbyVuyo), and maybe she's brainwashed me into believing this is a rising trend because we spent 3 weeks together in Tanzania. To be honest, the writing has been on the wall. Last year, while in Lagos, I was gifted an Obida shirt, and as I walked the streets of Lagos, everyone gasped when they saw me holding the gift bag. Clearly, Obida was an influential brand I had just discovered, but on the streets of Lagos, they are mainstream. I think African Fashion deserves its own post and I’ll be exploring this from the angle of a diaspora investor.

Last week, I learned that the Africa Centre's main building has closed due to financial difficulties. The news upset me, and I shared my thoughts about it on LinkedIn here. I didn't stop there; I also spent time with some trustees reviewing the financial statements. Without revealing confidential details, I want to highlight how honest and engaging the board has been, which I found very refreshing. I gained access to this information because I chose to engage directly. There has been much online discussion suggesting mismanagement of the centre, and while I remain optimistic, I believe this chatter stems from genuine concern. We all care deeply about the Africa Centre and want it to thrive long-term.

The immediate priority is to reopen the centre as quickly as possible, and an ongoing GoFundMe campaign is raising funds to make this happen. The centre needs £100,000 in the short term to reopen its doors to many of us. This amount, though, will not make the centre sustainable long-term, and that is where the hard work begins. The centre needs to make more than it spends every year, and this hasn’t been the case in the past couple of years. This is possible, and I’ve committed a couple of hours to helping the centre find a way to be cash flow positive in the next 12 months.

I’m grateful to Nzube and Kevin, who are working tirelessly to help reopen the centre as quickly as possible.

1 - Donate here

2 - Share the donation link if you cannot donate

3 - Spread the word about the Africa Centre

4 - Reply to this email to let me know how you can help

Thanks for reading…