As I head back to the Continent, I can’t help but to train my mind on what it takes to seed and sow solutions in Africa’s best interest. This week’s guest has been invested in these types of solutions for his entire career. A serial social entrepreneur, innovation consultant, service designer, learning scientist and startup coach, Femi Longe is passionate about helping individuals and organizations be and do their best to enable a better world. Born in the UK, raised in his Nigera and now based in Ireland, Femi currently works on the Financial Freedom team at the Human Rights Foundation as Global Bitcoin Lead, driving strategy and execution of the HRF’s Bitcoin Development Fund, This is a fund dedicated to growing adoption of Bitcoin and adjacent freedom technologies especially in countries under repressive regimes. Previously, he was the CEO of QALA Africa — acquired by Btrust and transformed into Btrust Builders, which is an engineering training programme helping African software developers transition to careers in Bitcoin & Lightning development.

Prior to joining the Bitcoin ecosystem, Femi co-founded and remains a non-executive Director at Co-Creation Hub (CcHub), Africa’s leading social innovation centre and tech hub. Earlier in his career, he gained experience at the UK's foremost social innovation centre, The Young Foundation, where he established the UpRising Leadership Programme.

As the transitions between the Stone Age to Bronze Age, and various different human technologies delivered us to the Industrial Age and presently the Information Age, all contributing the imprint that is humanity today, I am exstatic to be a storyteller with the ability to share perspectives like these - stories that support and inspire a borderless mindset and are indeed manifesting a new world.

Where to find Femi?
On LinkedIn
On YouTube

What’s Femi watching?
Wicked
Emilia Pérez

What’s Femi reading?
Start with Why by Simon Sinek

Other topics of interest:
Ilesa, Nigeria
Ijesha tribe
About AIESEC
Silk Road
Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin Vision
Meme Coin Spoils
Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of FTX
What happened to Silicon Valley Bank
About South Korean crypto currency entrepreneur Do Kwon
Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath
On Morning Pages

Special Guest: Femi Longe.

This week writing as activism is taking us to a land with a long history of activist thought ans action - Ireland. Born and raised in Nigeria, Dagogo Hart migrated to Ireland at an early age to complete his studies and now calls it home along with his young family. He is a poet, playwright, and spoken word artist whose words have wowed audiences from bar basements to electric picnic stages. He started performing in Dublin in 2016 in open mics and poetry slams, which saw him win the Slam Sunday grand slam and become an All Ireland poetry slam finalist. Since then he has performed for festivals like Electric Picnic, St. Patricks, Dublin Fringe, Drogheda literary festival, Cuirt International Poetry Festival, and First fortnight. He is one-third of the collective WeAreGriot - a poetry collective that curates art events around poetry. His personal works include, The Home Project (a series of poetry films), RedBeard Paddy (a poetry short film), Mmanwu (a play in the 2023 Dublin Fringe Festival), See True (a spoken word variety show) and Boy Child (a spoken-word play), the last two co-written with FeliSpeaks, Talkatives; a hip-hop and poetry slam as part of WeAreGriot. As you’ll learn in our conversation and glean from his works, his poetry is inspired by his hometown in Lagos, Nigeria, and his experience since moving to Ireland.
See Dagogo on stage at Pa Gya! 2024 performing his words here and in discussion about his works here.

Where else to find Dagogo?
WeAreGriot
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
On X

What’s Dagogo watching?
Fences (film)
Shōgun (series)

What’s Dagogo listenining to?
Alice Smith sings “I Put a Spell on You”

Other topics of interest:
Surulere, Nigeria
Tralee, Ireland
Cork, Ireland
Visit Dublin, Ireland and the Clondalkin Tower
The Abbey Theatre and The Gate Theatre
Port Harcourt Tourist Beach
More on Chucky Ar la Inshallah
Where are the Irish language speaking towns in Ireland?

Special Guest: Dagogo Hart.

Next up in our Writing as Activism series, this week’s episode, recorded at the 2024 Pa Gya! festival (in case you are wondering, this is the session taking place during our interview, features Nigerian poet and children’s book author, Aduke Gomez. Aduke embraced writing in the past decade after a career in law and finance. She now utilises her legal and advisory skills to assist in business and creative development. Commencing her career in legal practice with the law firm of Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie, she later worked for many years in various leadership roles within Ecobank Nigeria Ltd and Leadway Pensure PFA. She is regularly called to speak and moderate on topics related to her interest in history and culture and these have included sessions at Cornell University; The Institute of Africa and Diaspora Studies at the University of Lagos; the Lagos State Record and Archive Bureau; the annual conference of the Lagos Studies Association; the Ake Festival; and the Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) amongst others.

Her published collection of poems have featured as festival books for both the LABAF and the Ake Festival. And her children's books have also featured at previous editions of LABAF and Akada Children's Book Festival.
She is currently the Chair of the Steering Committee of Art4Life - an initiative of the Lagos State Ministry of Health established to introduce art and the practice of art into the entire healthcare process. She is a member of the Advisory Board of Open House Lagos as well as the Advisory Board of Lagos Biennial. She volunteers on the Board of Child Life Line - an NGO established for the welfare of street children.

In this conversation we not only get to know how Aduke pivoted into arts and public service, we also get to know more about her local in the context of her paternal ancestor's return from Brazil to Lagos. This speaks volume to the idea of activism as a way of being.

Where to find Aduke?
On LinkedIn
On Instagram
OnX

Who is on Aduke’s essential Pan-African reading list?
Mariama Bâ, in The Paris Review and more
Ama Atta Aidoo
Buchi Emecheta
Florence “Flora” Nwapa

Other topic of interest:
Return migration: Brazilians in Nigeria
The Nigerian Brazillian Project
About the Emanicapados of Brazil
Who are Tabom peoples?
Biola Alabi Media

Special Guest: Aduke Gomez.