It is 11:26 PM during a hot evening somewhere in West Africa. There was a power cut in the entire neighborhood moments ago. I had a long day at work, so I was squeezing in some time to catch up on my personal projects. Suddenly, the room filled with a…

A couple of weeks ago, there was a significant shortage of fuel in the Southeast region of the United States. Colonial Pipeline, the most extensive refined oil pipeline system in the country, suffered a ransomware attack that disrupted its operations. I have been working remotely for a few months, and…

All else being equal, the average salaried worker from West Africa will not obtain pension benefits before passing away. Statistically, most salaried workers in the region will not live long enough to tap into their old age government retirement benefits. Why is this? Life expectancy in the region is low…

The Conversation Six years ago, during a hot summer afternoon, I played basketball with a long-time friend from my middle school days. We had only been playing for about half an hour, but the heat was unbearable, so we paused to chat. We sat on our basketballs within the grass at the…

Part 1: a personal story about enabling change A few years ago, I took a gap year after college and returned to the Togolese Republic, my home country. Among the multitude of things I missed, street food ranked high. The next morning after my arrival in Togo, I walked around the neighborhood and spotted a few street food…

If you search the phrase “how to save money” on Google, you will likely get well over 4 billion hits. That’s a lot of data to sift through; a whole lot of advice from everyone and their grandma; and similar tips packed differently and in different flavors. The truth is…

My first professional internship job offer was in my junior year of college. It happened during a fast-paced campus recruiting season. I wasn’t prepared for it. It went something like this I walked into the business school’s main building and plowed my way through a sea of figures in blue and gray attire. I confidently…

I truly believe that regret is such a wasted emotion. For this reason, I have very little of it. The way I see it, once an undesirable event occurs, the only thing I could do is minimize or eliminate — if possible — the chance of that event repeating itself…

Two years into moving back to the African continent, some things are becoming clear: Living in Africa and reading about it can be quite different. One of the discoveries I’ve made is the complexity of entrepreneurship. Don’t get me wrong: entrepreneurship has never been easy anywhere. In most countries on…