04/04/2026
I have rarely felt more welcomed.
Twenty-nine entrepreneurs from seven African nations — Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo — opened their doors, their ideas, and their energy to me for a week in Accra. I left changed.
Outside on the highway, kids are counting money and licking lollipops. The hustle is already there, built right into the pavement. But inside that room at MEST Africa, we were talking about something bigger than hustle: leverage.
Every conversation was driven by the passion of founders half my age, fully embracing AI to attack the hardest problems their communities face. When you're building in an environment that forces resourcefulness, you don't build for easy money. You build for massive change. (And yes — the women were absolutely dominating the pitch competitions.)
So here is what I said to them — the Class of 2026: Use AI defensively. Do not use it to replace yourselves. Use it to multiply yourselves. Delegate to it so you can buy back your time. You already have your happiness — now go out there, create jobs, prove the world wrong, and make us proud.
The seeds are planted deeply. I am expecting great fruit from each of you.
Thank you to Emily, Arwa, Dr. Tim, Christine, Joseph for building the container for this energy. The future of agentic AI in Africa isn't a theory. It's these 29 founders.
MEST Power.
