Shorter-form thinking on the forces shaping Africa's digital and energy landscape. These pieces move faster than research papers — closer to the ground, less formal, but held to the same standard of analytical rigour.
The standard narrative frames localisation as a capital problem. It isn't. It's a capability problem — and throwing foreign money at it without addressing institutional capacity, supply chain depth, and skills pipelines only delays the reckoning.
Most AI products are built for broadband environments. When they reach low-bandwidth, high-latency African markets, the performance degradation isn't a minor inconvenience — it's a structural failure mode that invalidates the core use case.
In markets where institutional trust is fragile and word-of-mouth operates at network scale, the conventional marketing funnel breaks down. The brands that win in East Africa are building trust architectures, not just campaigns.
All three pieces are currently in progress. Check back soon or follow the research at spek.world.