The Future Has Too Many Owners
Rivals increasingly depend on shared forecasts, standards, and infrastructures while competing to make their preferred tomorrow feel inevitable. What happens when the future becomes a commons?
Read the essayWriting and field notes
Ideas in motion
Essays on collective intelligence, knowledge systems, technology, agriculture, and the questions that remain unfinished.
12 essays
Someone in the Room Usually Knows
In almost every group I have watched make a bad decision, someone in the room knew better. The failure was rarely one of knowledge. The knowledge was present, and it never made it into the room. On the social cost of disagreeing, and why welcoming dissent is not the same as making it cheap.
Read the essayWhen Participation Becomes Performance
A community is gathered, invited to share views, carefully documented, thanked. Then the project proceeds exactly as it would have without them. The consultation happened. The participation did not. On the gap between having a voice and having influence.
Read the essayWhat I Got Wrong About Collective Intelligence
I started out believing groups aggregate wisdom, that diversity was a reliable good, and that collective intelligence was about intelligence. Study and fieldwork corrected most of this. Here is what I got wrong, and what replaced it.
Read the essayThe Myth of the Neutral Tool
Every tool comes with a story about itself: I'm just a tool, I don't have opinions. But tools frame problems, foreground certain information, and make some questions easy to ask while making others invisible. The neutrality claim doesn't survive contact with context.
Read the essayWhat Agricultural Extension Got Right That AI Hasn't Learned Yet
Agricultural extension was slow, inefficient, and underfunded. It also distributed knowledge through human networks in ways that preserved local variation. AI advisory platforms are faster and wider-reaching, but the architecture is different in ways that matter.
Read the essayWhy Collective Intelligence Matters: A Primer
An introduction to collective intelligence: how groups can become more capable than individuals, and why they sometimes fail.
Read the essayWhen the Map Fails: Navigating Academic Purpose
A reflective exploration of academic disorientation and finding deeper meaning in scholarly life. Originally published in Times of UM6P.
Read the essayRethinking Africa's Health Systems for Sustainable Resilience
Addressing systemic gaps, workforce challenges, and the need for local production in building stronger healthcare infrastructure across the continent.
Read the essayLetters Across Time
An honest conversation with myself across time, inspired by a book called Dear Me. Writing to the version of me who landed in Morocco in 2020, uncertain and far from home, and to the future self who would move beyond the crossroads where I then stood.
Read the essayAre You a Migrant or a Traveller?
In life's inevitable transitions, two approaches emerge: moving reactively as a migrant, or moving intentionally as a traveller. Which mindset guides yours?
Read the essayThe State of African Higher Education: Trends and Opportunities
A data-led review of access, research capacity, digital transformation, and regional cooperation in African higher education.
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