Introducing The Flint
The Flint is a magazine for people building businesses and projects in Africa, who want simple answers about how technology can help them meet their goals.
Who is this for?
There’re millions of people from Cairo to Cape Town who understand instinctively that the internet can help them meet their objectives. They include:
- the owner of a chain of successful roadside eateries in Accra, who runs much of her business via WhatsApp
- the operations officer of a Lagos hospital who suspects he’d see multiple benefits if he could digitize all his patients’ health records
- the Member of Parliament in Nairobi who wants a way to discover the real priorities of her constituents, ideally before the next election…
Unfortunately for them, much of the writing about technology in Africa is either extremely technical, or geared primarily towards tech startups.
The Flint is for you if you find yourself building something in Africa — a business, a side hustle, a personal project — and you’re deeply curious about how technology can help you achieve more.
What will you get from The Flint?
The Flint provides simple, clear insights about technology in Africa, through things like:
- Deep dive interviews with people who know what they’re talking about
- Public notebooks about important technology-related patterns to be aware of in various industries in Africa
The two launch articles exemplify this:
A restaurant in Accra keeps 6,000 of their best customers coming back using WhatsApp — find out how: How this Accra Restaurant Uses WhatsApp Marketing to Keep 6,000 Customers Coming Back
If you work in African media, you need to be aware of these fascinating things that happened recently: Public Notebook: Digital Media in Africa
The Flint aims to complement existing Africa tech blogs by being less focused on Who, When, and What, and more obsessed with How and Why.
The Flint Believes:
- That there’re equally interesting things happening in tech in Africa beyond e-commerce. Beyond mPesa. There is more to technology in Africa than internet startups.
- That Africa has a lot of new knowledge to teach the world about how and why technology gets made, distributed, and used.
- That we as African makers can be doing so much more to deepen our understanding of our tools and our craft. Nobody is coming to save us. We need to learn to do hard(er) things.
- That there has never been a better time to be a curious, motivated African who is trying to build the future.
Why This? Why Now?
Something is happening in the world. You might not be able to articulate it, but you can almost certainly feel it. The rules are upended, and if we Africans are quick-witted and focused, we can expose the lie in old narratives, and craft lives of quiet dignity for ourselves and those we love.
It starts with you and I going back to basics to better understand our technology tools, and creating strong communities of shared learning and practice. Nobody is coming to save us. We need to learn to do hard things.
The Flint is inspired by First Round Review. Like First Round Review, The Flint aspires to tell operator-driven stories that distill experience into dense nuggets of useful information.
Get in Touch
If you’d like to get in touch for any reason, please feel free to reach out via Twitter at equartey and via email at equartey@gmail.com.
Nobody is coming to save us. We need to learn to do hard things.
Good luck — we will win.
Best wishes,
Emmanuel
