Does zero-sumness ultimately prevail on the human condition? This is the question I’ve been grappling with lately.
The famous ‘arc of the moral universe’ seems to have stalled, and the temptation to grow cynical about the prospects of human progress is ever-present. I find it necessary to continually remind myself of the significant strides made toward more equitable justice for a broader range of people in recent times.
Despite all the challenges, we must remember that this is still a relatively amazing time to be alive. However, we must also not take for granted the hard-earned progress, some of which was secured by people who gave their lives for it, as it can unravel right before our eyes.
As citizens of this improbable ball of mud hurtling through the cosmos, it is our shared responsibility to make it a better place, in whatever capacity we can.
To that end, I am happy to share with you this long-overdue progress report as evidence that progress is still happening!
— Mark Karake
At the beginning of the year, I shared that our annual mantra would be "Back to basics to move the world", a recommitment to our core mission of utilising venture building and entrepreneurship to develop the leaders who will transform our society.
Since launching in 2019, our big, hairy, audacious goal has been to develop 10 scale-ups, create 10,000 jobs, and reach a combined valuation of $10B.
From this, we believe will emerge a posse of transformational leaders well-suited to the task of driving our society forward. We refer to this as the “1,000 Lee Kuan Yews”, inspired by the founding father of Singapore, a singular statesman-entrepreneur of the 20th century. His memoir, From Third World to First, is a tour de force in late 20th-century geopolitics and comes highly recommended.
We are now six years into this odyssey, standing at a major inflection point that marks the start of Phase 2: Scaling Impact, Scaling Ventures, Attaining Sustainability.
How are we doing so far?
- Tangible traction: 400+ jobs created, 3 growth-stage startups, coworking hub
- Intangible traction: Capable core team, institutional know-how, trusted brand, global support network
Scaling Impact
One of our earliest challenges was the limited scope of our talent development impact. Our Innovation Fellowship could only absorb 15–20 college grads per year. Over 6 years, we’ve had just 150 fellows—clearly limited in scale, though never in quality.
This raised a persistent question: How do we scale our people-building impact?
It was clear we needed a robust learning and development program for our fellows, which we built successfully. These practices proved transformative and sparked the next question: Could we externalise and scale these programs?
As entrepreneurs do, we said: Let’s try.
This led to four capacity-building programs: The Bridge, Kinetic, Ignite, and our AI Hackathons. Together, they form our unified goal: Accelerate 15K, to accelerate 15,000 young careers by 2030.
Accelerate 15K Traction (2025 target: 1,000)
Current performance: 393 participants
- Innovation Fellowship (23): The largest intake so far, 2x any previous year. Evidence of growth across our portfolio as startups demand more talent. Meet Cohort XI here.
- The Bridge (81): Career accelerator with a target of 300 for the year. Soon launching a bespoke learning management system to automate and scale delivery. Meet Bridge students here.
- Ignite (10): Our latest experiment, combining mentorship and curated content from successful entrepreneurs. A pilot of 8 mentors and mentees validated the model. Two paying students are currently enrolled. Learn more here, or consider becoming a mentor here.
- AI Hackathons (261): Three held so far with a goal of six by year-end. Participation nearly doubled between Hackathons 1 and 3—clear evidence of demand. 50 projects have been developed. For just $1,500, you can sponsor five participants to this one-of-a-kind experience. Experience the hackathon energy here.
Power to Our Women (PTOW)
In 2019, I wrote a blog titled Power to Our Women, arguing that women would be central to our venture-building strategy. I observed they outperformed their male peers in knowledge work and exhibited qualities vital to venture building: trustworthiness, commitment, empathy, and intuition.
Today, women occupy 80% of key leadership roles across our portfolio, most of whom joined in the last six months. By year-end, no less than 15 top-tier female professionals will be driving core functions.
New Executive Director – Irene Muinde
After a two-year search, we welcomed Irene Muinde as Executive Director in March. She brings 18 years of experience in the social impact sector. At One Girl Can, she helped grow their scholarship program from 10 to 500 girls.
Growth > Profits = Sustainability
Two of our startups have reached Product-Market Fit and are growing fast. Both are on track to reach profitability by January 2026:
- Elevate HR recently landed one of the largest firms in the manufacturing sector. With this anchor client, it’s well-positioned to dominate a high-potential, underserved segment.
- Shukran, our digital tipping and payments platform for travel and leisure, is experiencing 40% month-on-month growth, driven primarily by word of mouth. It’s now active in Kenya, Tanzania, and Botswana. Check out one of their latest product release, which enables customers to manage tips and reviews in a single dashboard.
Launchpad Acquisition
We are in the final stages of acquiring Launchpad, our HQ, spiritual home, and a pillar of our sustainability strategy. Next time you hear about this, it will be a done deal!
Parting Thought
Watching global events unfold from Africa is a surreal experience. Often, the continent is excluded from “global” conversations, except when it’s about a race for her resources.
As the AI race accelerates among the powerful nations, one can’t help but feel that Elysium is being built, and soon, the gulf in power between the tech elite and the rest of us shall become cosmic. What happens then?
But we soldier on. Naval gazing and pontificating about probabilities would be ridiculous. There’s so much more I could share about the extraordinary opportunities before us, but I’ll leave that for next time, when they’re fully within our grasp.
Onward and upwards!
