Afro-European Dynamism

(post)American dynamism x longitudinal arbitrage x digital fabrication

Nigeria and Norway are very close to each other actually - in terms of time (zone), not space (distance). And with remote work after Covid, we saw the digital flippening - when the online became primary and the physical became secondary or an optional luxury.

I follow the trend of American Dynamism in the venture capital community, a recent shift away from software and SaaS startups towards hardware and hard tech startups. This is related to on-shoring and friend-shoring trends that will increase demand for technical and vocational education and training (TVET).

I have written about what I call fractal dynamism and post-American dynamism. In short it means a shift from great power competition into smart power competition. Less global harmonization and more places like Singapore, Dubai or El Salvador - embracing decentralized AI, Crypto and Social tech.

If we combine the memes of American Dynamism, rising India & Asia, special innovation zones, fractal localism by Nassim Taleb and network states by Balaji Srinivasan we get something like post-American dynamism or fractal dynamism.

Since the EU shares similar time zones with Africa, we can contemplate something like Afro-European Dynamism, benefiting from Balaji Srinivasan’s idea of longitudinal arbitrage, as remote work becomes more mainstream and digital fabrication becomes more feasible and competitive - due to growing supply chain disruptions in our current polycrisis or metacrisis.

We in Europe are behind the US in AI and social networking, but we could lead with digital fabrication, robotics, and related technical assistance in TVET for our partner countries in Africa.

This would mean a major focus within initiatives like the EU’s Global Gateway on supporting African and European startup founders and related mainstreaming of TVET in partner countries through an ecosystem approach and scalable flagship projects.

As I wrote before, we are entering a world where global harmonization of regulation is waning, with American hard/soft/smart power in decline, and we can contemplate an alternative in local harmonization of communities.

This retribalization goes beyond cloud communities and is enabled by many emerging trends, like remote work, Starlink in rural areas, crypto and new social networks, like Farcaster or Nostr, with an ambition to provide decentralized protocols and serve specific communities.

Afro-European dynamism as an idea unifies future pro-tech special innovation zones along similar time zones, and the current fast AI revolution with the slow digital fabrication and VR evolution.

Morocco is an important car manufacturer, and in 2022, Rwanda was first to run drone delivery of medicines and blood. Kenyan M-Pesa started the mobile banking revolution in 2007. In 2010, Kenya’s iHub was the first startup incubator on the continent, while now there are Nigerian unicorn startup founders.

Afro-European dynamism means leaning into these trends while embracing decentralized AI, Crypto and Social tech.

To summarize and make it more practical:

1. Pursue fractal localism and special innovation zones, not global harmonization

2. Support friendshoring to Africa and invest with India in Africa

3. Embrace pro-tech policy - stop being against decentralized AI, Crypto & Social tech

4. Less US & EU aid, more US & EU VC - less DEI equity and more VC equity