Diaspora: The African Edge

26 min, weekly, 12 episodes

The Global Africans Shaping Markets, Innovation, and Culture

Diaspora: The African Edge is GA's weekly magazine on the diaspora minds reshaping the world, one portrait at a time. Africans abroad run funds in London, build companies in Silicon Valley, sit in the institutions of New York and Geneva, set trends in Paris and Milan; they are among the most active players in Africa's relations with the world, and the least reported. Each week, the magazine follows one of them — a person or a group — through their decisions, their projects and their partners, from their office to the ground where their work reaches Africa, and asks what they are building between the continent and the world: capital, markets, technology, influence. The portrait is the form, not the point: the programme is interested in how these players think, choose and act, so that the decision-makers who watch GA can read their methods and work with them. It is the Africa-Out lens at its most personal — Africa's players in the world — and a magazine about power and interests, of which the individual is the terrain. Its question never changes: what does this person bring from Africa to the world, and from the world back to Africa, and on whose terms?

01 — The Tech Visionary — An African entrepreneur in Silicon Valley who builds companies connecting Africa to global markets: how he spots an opportunity, structures a project, chooses a partner. Pilot.

02 — The Financier — An African venture capitalist in London: investment criteria, co-investment logic, and the regulatory bridges between the City and the continent's start-ups.

03 — The Cultural Ambassador — A producer in New York who runs African talent as a global business: brand strategy, licensing, transnational collaborations.

04 — The Innovator — An African scientist or engineer in Berlin or Singapore: how a technology is chosen, developed and brought back to the continent's markets.

05 — The Policy Connector — An African executive inside the United Nations or an international institution in Geneva, Washington or New York: negotiation, alignment, and the decisions that reach Africa.

06 — The Social Entrepreneur — An African founder in North America or Europe whose programmes in employment, education or health run on both sides of the Atlantic: social impact as a business model.

07 — The Fashion Connector — An African designer in Paris or Milan who runs a house, not a label: markets, networks, collaborations, and the branding of a continent.

08 — The Investor Collective — A group of African investors abroad who pool capital and expertise for projects at home: how they choose, how they decide, how they deal with governments.

09 — The Philanthropic Leader — An African entrepreneur in Dubai or London who finances social and environmental programmes: partnership strategy, selection criteria, social return.

10 — The Arbitrator — An African lawyer at the arbitration courts of London, Paris or The Hague: how contracts and disputes between African states and foreign companies are won and lost.

11 — The Multinational Executive — An African at the top of a global company, in Paris, Dubai or Shanghai: how the group's African strategy is decided, and by whom.

12 — The Global Connector — Season synthesis: a diaspora figure active in finance, technology and culture. The lessons of the season for African decision-makers, and the flows that link the continent to the world.

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