Synopsis

When I launched Disrupting Africa: The Rise and Rise of Innovation in 2016, I included a manifesto on the inside cover of the book which I called the “Disrupting Africa” manifesto. The manifesto was simply a call to all Africans passionate about our continent to make a difference and act. 

2016 was a whirlwind of a year. Little did I know that in writing my book there would be so much attention and focus on it. Maybe it was my naivety in assuming that everyone was aware of the impressive African innovation on the continent. Having such feedback to my book from peers, investment houses and the media, made me realize that there was huge interest and thirst for African innovation. 

The Disrupting Africa Manifesto has matured significantly since then. Rather than just being a call it has developed into a strategy, one that I truly believe is needed on our beloved continent. Spending time with African Innovators and chronicling their journeys presented new insights that I hadn't previously thought of. There seemed to be consistent themes that emerged in speaking to innovators on my weekly radio show on Power FM, researching the various industries they were involved in and then presenting these themes at conferences and writing about them in various publications. The most fascinating industry that I didn’t know was being disrupted by technology was the health industry – with significant strides made in the space of biotechnology and early detection of malaria.

“Disrupting Africa” is a play on words that works two ways. 

One, Africa itself needs to be disrupted. We simply cannot go on doing the same things we’ve been doing for the last few hundred years – let alone the last decade. The world is changing and fast. We must not seek for change for the sake of change, but we need to see our future and grasp it ourselves, otherwise others will dictate to us (again) who we need to be and what our place in the world is. We can no longer afford to make the same mistakes we made in the past.

Two, Africa itself is poised to become a disruptor in this world. It is not the “Dark Continent” or whatever other label people want to put on it, but it has the potential to be the “Disrupting” continent. It is the “Disrupting [continent of] Africa” not “Disrupted Africa”. I hope you can see the subtlety here. This is my way of speaking about Africa Rising, that very popular (and yet also unpopular) narrative that some erroneously want to brush off as nothing but a lot of hot air; a bit of idealism to keep us thinking we’re making a difference; a nice phrase to throw around at corporate dinner parties. My own experience with young Africans in particular has led me to the firm conviction that Africa Rising explains what’s going on at grass-roots very poignantly. However, the current gatekeepers do need to make a bit of a move on… which gets back to the reason for why I’m doing what I’m doing in the first place. If we don’t move on, others will move us on, and the result could potentially be hazardous for us.

I love my people, I love my continent, I love where we are, and I love our massive potential. For this reason I’ve made Disrupting Africa something of my life’s work. 

Underpinning this is a bold vision statement: to leave a legacy of innovation for the generations to come. If we don’t shape and decorate our own home someone else is going to come and do it for us. History shows us that we have to take responsibility for the future and we must do that now, we can’t just let it happen to us. We’ve been there. I don’t want to go back there. I’m sure you don’t too. We can discuss the nuances and I definitely don’t blame the previous generations for all the hurt we’ve had to experience - I know there are socio-political reasons for why we ended up where we were, and a lot of it was out of our control. But despite this I also feel the weight of responsibility to build the right thing in the right way for the future generations of our continent. Who will build if we don’t? In 30, 40 years we need to be able to look back from a very different continent and be able to pinpoint those moments and those places where we fostered the right kind of change, where we triggered a shift in a positive direction, when we took down the giants that were rising against us in the land. That legacy is what I want to leave and I’m on a mission to invite others to join me. In the end, I’m not writing books and trying to do something for the sake of having another book in my name, but because the next generation deserves all my effort to build something for them that they can even take further. If you have the same mind and passion, we’re friends already. Let’s partner in moving African innovation forward.

The Legend of Africa continues.

Outline

This book is structured around themes I picked up when writing my first book "Disrupting Africa" and the intent is to provide concrete views on how Africa as a whole needs to be prepared to either collaborate with Silicon Valley or at the very least have a response for their impact on the continent.

1. Disrupting Africa Manifesto

2. Africa’s Working Population - An Asset or a Liability?

3. Is the Africa Rising narrative dead?

4. Why Africa is innovating more than you think - what we are actually doing

5. The Big Boys (Silicon Valley) are coming to town

6. African consumerism has arrived

7. What the African innovator looks like and how they would help us compete

8. The missing link for African Innovation

9. Borderless Africa

10. The African Girl Child

11. The Dark Side to Innovation

12. Africa at the Global Table

Audience

This book is for all Africans, both on the continent and the diaspora, as well as non-Africans, brave enough to contribute to leaving a legacy of African innovation for the next generation.

Of particular interest is the African diaspora desperate for an opportunity to participate in the booming African innovation landscape. The African Union defines the African diaspora as:

"[consisting] of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union." Its constitutive act declares that it shall "invite and encourage the full participation of the African diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union."

This definition in itself explains the passion I had in penning the Disrupting Africa manifesto. At a time where millions of Africans, who have emigrated from the continent now share a feeling of “Ubuntu”, - the South African term described as a specific kind of "African humanism", this book helps to present trends that both the African diaspora and Africans on the continent can do something about.

With over 60 million Africans in the diaspora*, it really is our responsibility as Africans to plug the ‘brain drain’ that’s plaguing our continent. It really is our responsibility as Africans to leave a genuine contribution for the next generation of Africans so that they can understand how impressive we were and how bold we were to disrupt Africa in our own generation.

I invite you to disrupt Africa.

*source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Promotion

Nnamdi’s speaking engagements, workshops, conference keynotes, previous radio show, and media contribution role (CNBC Africa, BBC, Carte Blanche, Mail & Guardian) are the main platforms through which new and existing potential readers would be able to access this book.

Larger orders have come from pre-existing relationships and new ventures, and would act as distribution points for the book during preorders.

CNBC Media Contribution:
Why Africa is innovating more than you think - CNBC Africa
Op-Ed: Africa is rising depending where you look - CNBC Africa
Op-Ed: Including the diaspora in African innovation
AIMS takes Africa on a quantum leap into science
OPINION: Are Nigeria's new money transfer policies good for the …
Op-Ed: Africa is rising depending where you look
Op-Ed: Should Africa's telecoms industry be wary of Facebook?
Op-Ed: Will Uber disrupt manufacturing?
Innovators need to think Pan-African from day one
What sort of remittance disruption can Amazon cause in Africa?

Previous Book: 
Disrupting Africa: The Rise and Rise of African Innovation 
https://www.amazon.com/Disrupt...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements/Conferences:
https://event-rsvp.com/Innovat...
http://nationalacademies.org/h...
http://www.afrobytes.com

Radio Podcasts:
https://soundcloud.com/nnamdi_...

Other Media Appearances
BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...
Carte Blanche - The Internet of Things and Shaping South Africa - Carte Blanche

Video: The rise of African innovation - CNBC Africa

Competition

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Published by St. Martin's Press; 1 edition (August 25, 2015)

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Published by Bibliomotion; 1 edition (September 10, 2013)

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