Tech in Africa Is Taking Off

From unicorns aiming for world domination to small township startups looking to make a difference in women’s lives, Africa is replete with innovators. It has the youngest population of any continent in the world, with about 60% of Africans under the age of 25. Add to that the fact that smartphone penetration is rising as countries become increasingly connected, and you have a surefire recipe for creativity.

Now, the big guns are moving in. Jack Dorsey, whose company, Twitter, is setting up shop in Ghana, believes “Africa will define the future.” Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma estimates that African entrepreneurs will drive the next digital revolution. In today’s Daily Dose, we’ll introduce you to some of the most fascinating movers and shakers the continent has to offer. Get ready for some Afri-nnovation!

african unicorns

Flutterwave

This fintech company is Africa’s latest breakthrough unicorn, having been valued at more than $1 billion in March. Based in Nigeria, it’s a digital payments service that was listed as one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies for 2021. When the pandemic hit and African governments imposed lockdowns, the app helped keep businesses afloat, according to Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agbool, an MIT graduate and former Google employee. There’s a dire need for companies such as Flutterwave, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where many people don’t have bank accounts. As of May, the company said it had processed more than 140 million transactions since its founding in 2016, amounting to $6 billion. And now the firm is eyeing intercontinental expansion, having recently appointed Silicon Valley veteran Jimmy Ku as head of the company’s U.S. growth department.

Gro Intelligence

This Kenyan artificial intelligence-solutions company was the only African firm to make TIME’s 2021 influential companies list besides Flutterwave. The platform was founded by 39-year-old Sara Menker, who was born in Ethiopia during the famine of the 1980s. That background inspired her to establish a startup that tackles both food insecurity and climate change. The firm, which now has offices in New York as well as Nairobi, works with governments, food companies like Unilever and Yum! and banks like BNP Paribas, providing analysis and forecasts. “At Gro Intelligence, we use data to enable our customers to resolve the tension between ecological preservation and economic growth,” Menker tells OZY. In January, Menker’s company raised $85 million, taking it close to unicorn status and making Menker, a former Wall Street commodities trader, one of the few Black women heading a startup of this magnitude.

Andela

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji has been involved in just about every major unicorn to come out of Africa after becoming “hooked on tech” having watched The Social Network. Before he founded Future Africa in 2015, which funds and mentors innovators across the continent, Nigerian entrepreneur Aboyeji was at Flutterwave. And before that? He co-founded his first startup, Andela. Now headquartered in the U.S., Andela has offices in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, where it works to combat America’s tech worker shortage by training African software developers and placing them with U.S. firms remotely. This effort to train more people in tech will also help bridge what the World Economic Forum says is a huge digital divide. Andela, which won early seed money from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, boasts a huge network of freelancers that serves about 200 firms.

the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers

Strive Masiyiwa

This Zimbabwean billionaire built the telecoms giant Econet and led Africa’s digital transformation. Not one to shy away from controversy and often characterized as a maverick, Masiyiwa is his country’s first billionaire and also one of the richest Black people in the world. A trustee of the National Geographic Society, he’s famed for ending Zimbabwe’s state monopoly on telecoms and for engaging in a prolonged court battle with the regime of then-President Robert Mugabe, after which Masiyiwa left the country. Econet telecoms subsidiary Liquid Intelligent Technologies stands as the continent’s largest fiber optics operator, running cables all the way from Cape Town to Cairo. Masiyiwa has recently turned his hand to philanthropy and serves as the African Union Special Envoy for COVID-19.

Kelly Chibale

This University of Cape Town professor grew up poor in a Zambian township. Despite living without electricity and studying by the light of a kerosene lamp at night, he made it to the University of Cambridge, where he studied chemistry. These days, Chibale is based in South Africa’s Cape Town, where he’s set up H3D, the first drug discovery platform of its kind in Africa. It’s “developing tools that will allow us to develop medicines that improve outcomes in African patients,” he tells OZY, adding that a broad lack of Black people taking part in clinical trials — not only on the continent but worldwide — can lead to the development of potentially toxic drugs for certain demographics and to subpar health care in general. Africa is home to over 15% of the world’s population, he notes, but only 2% of clinical trials happen on the continent. Chibale was the only Africa-based scientist recently included in the biotech publication Timmerman Report’s Juneteenth list of Black leaders in the industry and was also on Fortune’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders list in 2018.

Xaviera Nguefo Kowo

At only 18, this Cameroonian programmer is certainly one to watch. Kowo has already had considerable success despite her age, with her latest invention addressing an all-too-common problem in Cameroon’s major cities: trash. Her waste treatment robot won a top prize this year at the Margaret Junior Awards, which promotes digital skills for girls and women. The robot on wheels not only picks up trash on the street, but also transports it to a garbage can, recycling center or waste disposal site in record time. The money from the prize will allow the teen to continue to develop her work.

Temie Giwa-Tubosun

LifeBank is a blood and oxygen delivery company that was founded by Nigerian entrepreneur and proud mom Giwa-Tubosun. She started her business in 2016 after undergoing her own emergency C-section and learning that many pregnant women die of postpartum hemorrhage simply due to a lack of blood available for transfusions. Her home country has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. Now, LifeBank employs motorcyclists who use mapping apps to navigate Lagos’ notorious traffic to deliver life-saving transfusions to hospitals. LifeBank has even partnered with Google Nigeria, and thanks to its work, a blood delivery that once took three hours now can be completed in 45 minutes. Just last month, LifeBank launched AirCo, which produces medical oxygen, a lack of which has also posed a major challenge to Nigeria’s health care system due to COVID-19. Giwa-Tubosun is the recipient of numerous awards including an Africa Netpreneur Prize and the Global Citizen Prize.

from boda bodas to outer space

Super App

Much of the innovation coming out of Africa is a consequence of the need to fill gaps left by governments and states. It can take the form of fintech, drones that deliver life-saving medicines and blood to regions plagued by poor roads and infrastructure, or, in the case of Gozem, providing a way to get around rapidly growing cities that are suffering due to a shortage of reliable transport. Gozem was launched in the West African country of Togo by a group of entrepreneurs including co-founder Emeka Ajene. The app for hailing motorbikes, known in the region as boda bodas, soon hopes to become a “super app.” It’s already spread across francophone Africa and continues to expand, having added food delivery and other services to its repertoire, much like Uber.

Truck It All

Obi Ozor started young. At just 14, the Nigerian entrepreneur began his first pay-phone business at school, charging classmates a fee to borrow his Nokia 3310. This early foray into business and tech set the precedent for the rest of his life. In 2016, Ozor founded Kobo360, a logistics company that raised $37 million in its series A funding round, and which aspires to organize Nigeria’s chaotic trucking business more efficiently. The former banker left JPMorgan Chase in the U.S. to return to Africa, where he figured he could contribute to the growth of the continent — rather than the pockets of a bank’s shareholders. Ozor credits his ambitious mother with helping him on his path to helming a company that’s been dubbed the “Uber of trucking.” Kobo360 now has 260 enterprises and some 17,000 trucks on its platform, making it one of the continent’s largest supply-chain providers.

Boss Lady

Hailing from Cape Town’s Mitchells Plain, an area notorious for gangsters, drugs and violent crime, Joanie Fredericks is a feminist tour de force and a firm believer that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. “I’m a survivor of sexual violence, and one of these incidents took place on public transport,” she tells OZY. Twenty-five years on, South Africa’s minibuses and taxis remain dangerous places for women. Police recorded more than 42,000 rapes in the country from April 2019 to March 2020. Fredericks decided that “if somebody is going to do something about this, it has to be me,” so she set up Ladies Own Transport, an all-female taxi service. It’s proved so popular that this year it expanded to provide driving lessons for women. Fredericks is a rare kind of entrepreneur. “I couldn’t be damned about money,” she says. “My vision is to work toward the safe transportation of women.”

The Final Frontier

The new space race is heating up and spurring competition not seen since the Cold War. China, Russia and the U.S. are all major players, of course, as are private companies such as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. But they aren’t alone. Twelve African nations currently boast space programs, and the African Union is soon to launch its own continental space program. African countries have also launched more than 40 satellites and plan to launch another 80 by 2024. Even the honeymooners’ island of Mauritius recently put a satellite into orbit, joining bigger players like Egypt and Nigeria. The Foundation for Space Development in South Africa is developing a project called Africa2Moon. Still, with many other areas in dire need of government spending, most Africa-based investment in space programs is minor, totaling about $500 million last year compared to NASA’s $23 billion.

Butterfly Effect: Why Kabul Is Not Saigon

It’s the parallel no one in the Biden administration wants to acknowledge, yet it’s one that repeatedly makes its way to headlines, commentary and criticism of the U.S. government’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

As dramatic images of a helicopter taking off from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Kabul flashed on television screens across the world on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken went on TV shows, insisting that “this is manifestly not Saigon.”

In July, barely a month before the Taliban grabbed control of Kabul, Biden had been even more explicit in dismissing comparisons between his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and America’s rushed final exit from Vietnam in 1975. “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy … of the United States from Afghanistan,” he said in response to a question at a press briefing. “It is not at all comparable.”

Biden now has egg on his face, and his comment will provide fodder for attack ads from opponents for years. But look beyond the political theatrics, and Biden and Blinken are right. There’s much less in common between Afghanistan and Vietnam than you might imagine. The problem for Team Biden? The Afghanistan debacle is in many ways more embarrassing for the U.S. than its loss to North Vietnam and the Vietcong 46 years ago.

President Biden Delivers Remarks On Afghanistan

U.S. President Joe Biden gives remarks on the worsening crisis in Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House on August 16, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

Source Anna Moneymaker/Getty

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. and its South Vietnamese allies were up against a formal state — North Vietnam — and militant rebels of the Vietcong, which included both career soldiers and guerrilla warriors. The Vietcong wouldn’t target you based on your ethnicity, and women were central to its military strategy. Compare that to the predominantly Pashtun Taliban, which hasn’t had a recognized state throughout the war with the U.S., which is murderous toward minority ethnicities, and which treats women as lesser humans — effectively limiting its support base, unlike the Vietcong.

As Biden himself said in that July briefing, the Taliban and the North Vietnamese army are “not remotely comparable in terms of capability.”

America’s South Vietnamese friends were democratic only in name, and the government in Saigon was notoriously corrupt — just like Western-backed Afghan governments over the past two decades. But the South Vietnamese regime was also brutal in ways that Afghan governments since 2001 can’t be accused of, with torture rampant in Saigon’s jails. By the early 1970s, there were few redeeming qualities to the South Vietnamese government for people to support it over the Vietcong.

Then there’s the global context. North Vietnam and the Vietcong were supported by the Soviet Union and China, though at different points in the war, and the Sino-Soviet split complicated that equation. By contrast, the only nation that has steadfastly supported and armed the Taliban is Pakistan, until recently a close American ally.

And critically, the Vietnam War was massively unpopular internationally, with public sentiment across much of the world in favor of the Vietnamese resistance. Globally, the war became a symbol of American imperial intentions. Within America, protests against the war weren’t only about body bags; they were equally about the U.S. decision to fight against a people that hadn’t attacked American soil. After all, the Vietcong hadn’t killed 3,000 Americans in U.S. cities.

The war in Afghanistan — unlike in Vietnam — had the United Nations’ stamp of approval.

It was fought in the aftermath of 9/11 and had broad global buy-in. Like every war, it had its critics, but no one was protesting on U.S. college campuses in defense of the Taliban.

Still, just five days after U.S. officials were insisting the Taliban would need a minimum of 90 days to win Afghanistan, the hard-line Islamist group’s fighters rode into Kabul unopposed after all other major cities fell to them like dominoes. America was reduced to seeking guarantees from the Taliban that they wouldn’t attack the U.S. embassy.

Taliban fighters sit over a vehicle on a street in Laghman province on August 15, 2021.

Source Getty

To be sure, some of the lessons from Vietnam will be applicable here too. Like the North Vietnamese resistance, forged through decades of war against multiple colonial and invading powers, the Taliban’s fighters have been steeled in battle over more than three decades. Defeating such an entrenched force is never easy.

But it’s time to shred the lazy parallels with Vietnam and see Afghanistan for what it is: a one-of-its-kind debacle for which America and the world deserve answers. What was the U.S. doing spending trillions of dollars over two decades, sacrificing thousands of its citizens, if what it built collapsed like a pack of cards within days?

Sadly, in these politically divisive times, it’s far more tempting to engage in finger-pointing to score political points than to carry out a thorough review spanning four administrations to truly understand where America went wrong. Did former President Donald Trump hand the Taliban the advantage by signing a fairly unconditional peace deal with them in February 2020? Yes. Has the Biden administration mishandled the crisis so far? Undoubtedly. But the seeds of this disaster were likely sowed well before Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015. Unless America learns the right lessons from the fall of Kabul, it risks making the same mistakes again. The U.S. can’t afford another war that bleeds it for 20 years. And the world can’t afford to lose two decades to a conflict, only to press restart yet again.

Spot the Difference — August 12, 2021

Answers: Glasses on the doll, the woman missing a finger, $20 and $15 on the second shelves from the top, and gold and silver as bases of the object on the table.

Winners: Marilyn R., John D., S. Connelly, Edward I., Karen B.F., Joseph J., Jacqueline T., J. Dale S., Dario A., McKinley B., Bea G., Will82055, Richard K.H., David ‘Doc’ D., Kent P., L.C. Quinn., Julie R., Valerie L., Jim S., Leroy K., Joseph R., Tracie S., Shari O., Kathleen P., Bobby F., Vincent K., C.J. Phillips, Caroline C., Elizabeth W.J., Dave G., Sharon W., Richard R.S., Kathleen S., Yvonne J., Roger P., Gary G., Bunny V., Karen M., G. Henry, Millicent W., Steven C., Linda T. Louanne V., Ernie H., Arpenajr, Margaret H., Joanne H., Cathy L., Robert N., Phil F., Dottie R., Nancy C., Linda O., Joanna L. and Carolyn B. — congratulations!!

The Problem With Colorblind Clinical Trials

Professor Kelly Chibale has an easygoing manner and a big laugh that belies the fact that he’s one of Africa’s preeminent scientists, and among the world’s top Black leaders in biotech. Speaking over Zoom from Cape Town, South Africa, he’s quick to tease me that his home country, Zambia, is superior to mine, neighboring Zimbabwe. But Chibale’s start in life was anything but easy and is in fact perfectly captured by the name of the impoverished township he grew up in: Kabulanda, which literally translates as “sadness” in a local language.

Living with his entire family in a one-room home with no running water or electricity as a child, the young Chibale studied at night by the light of a kerosene lamp and against all odds made it into Cambridge, where he studied chemistry.

An illustrious career followed, with Chibale living in both the U.K. and U.S. doing academic fellowships and lecturing, but he always felt a pull to return to the continent of his birth. Then, 11 years ago, Chibale set up H3D, the only integrated drug research and development platform in Africa, at the University of Cape Town, where he’s made it his mission to develop drugs that improve treatment outcomes for Black patients, who, he says, are woefully underrepresented in clinical trials.

I spoke to Chibale about his work and learned why he’s passionate about combating what he calls “Afro-pessimism.” The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Why do you think it’s important that more drug trials enroll African patients?

Africa makes up about 15 to 20% of the world’s population. When it comes to clinical trials, less than 2% actually happen on the continent. This is the implication: The volunteers in clinical trials … are largely from the global north, and because the majority of the clinical trials happen outside of Africa, irrespective of the disease area, it means that the dosages and the dosing regimens, whether it’s a drug or a therapeutic or a vaccine … are then brought into Africa. What it then means is the African perspective in those clinical trials is not considered … our genetics. Africa as a continent is the most genetically diverse on planet Earth. African governments do not demand local clinical trial data. In other countries, like China or Japan, before [companies] can license a product, [those governments] will demand that you generate data, you do the clinical trial on Japanese people so you can understand what the data looks like on Japanese people. In Africa, governments don’t demand that. We’re desperate because we don’t innovate ourselves, so we’re at the mercy of those who innovate. COVID-19 has brought this to the fore.

What does the lack of data involving Africans and people of African descent mean for health care outcomes?

When you do a clinical trial, there are three categories you think about: normal and fast metabolizers and then slow metabolizers. One of these ARV drugs [antiretrovirals used to treat HIV/AIDS] is called Efavirenz. If you do a clinical trial on Caucasians, which is what happened, you identify normal metabolizers, but in people of African descent, including African Americans, you find that they are slow metabolizers because of genetic polymorphism. Guess what? If you give this to the slow metabolizers, it will be toxic, because it’s an overdose. So people can die from [drug] toxicity and not the HIV virus. If you do a clinical trial on Africans you can see this. … The reason for the health inequities is because we don’t have enough clinical trials; we need to test across Africa. There’s a direct correlation between the genetics of the population, the social or physical environment in which they live and treatment outcome.

Kelly Chibale

Source UCT Research

What are some of the barriers to drug and health care innovation in Africa?

Disinformation. People think clinical trials want to eliminate Black people … colonialism, apartheid, in the U.S. there was the Tuskegee incident — so people have a basis for fear.

[One of the reasons for establishing H3D] is what I call confronting “Afro-pessimism.” That term has got two sides to it. One side to Afro-pessimism is how — rightly or wrongly — people outside of the continent view Africa: corruption, civil wars. The second side of Afro-pessimism is that African people ourselves don’t think we can do something like this unless it first comes from Silicon Valley, then it’s good; if it comes from Zimbabwe, then you’ve got to be suspicious. African people need to have confidence that you can do something world-class.

You’re working on something you call “the Liver Project.” What is that about?

There’s a culture of organ donation in the Western world. These liver fractions that we use in studies come from Caucasians, because we buy them from companies in America, because that’s where the donors are. That means there are no African livers. Enzymes in the liver, some of them are different in people of African descent, including African Americans. [With this project] we want to create a repository of well-characterized human liver tissues derived from diverse African populations. Then the next stage is to take any drug, whether it’s already used in Africa or not, generate data to see how this drug is metabolized and how long it survives when it’s in the African liver. When we determine the rate of metabolism and compare with what is known, we can begin to see differences, and then we use that data to build mathematical models which help us to predict what the right dose will be in Africans.

What else are you working on?

Four infectious diseases: malaria, TB, antibiotic-resistant microbes and COVID-19. We are using artificial intelligence to fast-track the identification of COVID-19 therapeutics.

How did your difficult background drive you to excel?

That disadvantage to me was an advantage. You know why? Because then I have a drive to say these conditions are unacceptable. The point is, I moved from here and I went to Cambridge. I can inspire people that it’s possible [to grow up poor and succeed]; you don’t have to feel condemned. We need more role models whether it’s in politics or leadership. So when a Black kid from a township sees me, knowing that I also came from a township, there’s hope that if that can happen for me, it can happen for them as well.

Africa is ripe and ready for innovation. I’ll tell you why. This is untapped … Africa is the next growth market for the pharmaceutical industry, this is not in dispute. Secondly, Africa genetically is the most diverse continent. Thirdly, Africa is a continent of a billion people. This is the place to make incredible discoveries.

Why Was There So Little Resistance When Afghanistan Collapsed?

Among the many questions in the aftermath of the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, two stand out: How and why did the Afghan security forces collapse so quickly and will the U.S. withdrawal lead to a resurgence of terrorism there?

On the first question, many commentators have expressed astonishment that years of training by U.S. and allied forces, along with the provision of advanced and costly military equipment, did not create a force able to resist the Taliban resurgence. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamics of war. My views on this were forged in a very different conflict, Vietnam, where I served in the U.S. Army during 1968, the bloodiest year of that war.

I took away the view that in war, training, sophisticated equipment and personal courage are not enough to ensure effective combat performance. In the end, it is all very personal and is about whether you are ready to risk your life to defeat the enemy. You come to that readiness through some combination of four means: strong identification with a cause you support and respect (usually embodied in a government you trust), gifted military leadership you trust that shares those values and inspires you to overcome fear, a government that can compel you to serve with the threat of sanctions and a conviction that you must destroy the adversary to save yourself. When most of those are not present simultaneously, as they seldom were for many South Vietnamese soldiers, the level of bravery, fine training and equipment become close to irrelevant.

Without hard data, I suspect that this was also the situation for many Afghan soldiers, which I say with no intention of questioning their personal courage. To be sure, other factors were also at work. U.S. air support, on which they became vitally dependent, had begun to disappear. And not to be underestimated is these forces’ ability to simply change into civilian clothes and fade away, which is something nearly impossible in tightly structured western armies with long traditions of enforcing such violations of military commitments. I have not served with Afghan units, but I would not be surprised if there was weak identification with national leadership, limited trust in many military commanders and widespread awareness of corruption — always the breeding ground for cynicism in military units.

On the issue of whether terrorists will again take root in a Taliban-governed Afghanistan, it’s virtually certain that the threat from Afghan soil will increase beyond what it has been in the years of U.S. military presence. There has been much discussion of whether to believe or dismiss Taliban claims that they will not again ally with al-Qaida or like-minded groups. But whether there is some formal or informal agreement between the Taliban and al-Qaida or the Islamic State is almost irrelevant. The more important point is that many stretches of this mountainous country will be either ungoverned or un-monitored in the way they constantly were during the period of heavy U.S. presence. That, combined with the lengthy porous border with Pakistan’s least governed regions will give extremists a large field in which to train, plan and plot.

That situation adds to a broader problem conditioning the terrorist threat globally: the fact that there is now more ungoverned — or less tightly controlled — space in the region and in Africa than there was on 9/11. Back then, Afghanistan was wide open for al-Qaida, but there had not yet been a civil war in Syria, an insurgency and its still-unsettled aftermath in Iraq, a revolution in Libya followed by a civil war. All of these opened up space for terrorists that they still use. Egypt and Tunisia, for example, were still tightly controlled by dictators with horrible human rights records enforced by security services that, however despicable their policies, had firmer control of their streets and territory generally. And sub-Saharan Africa had not yet seen the rise of groups such as Boko Haram, al-Shabab, and various Islamic State affiliates.

Does this mean an increased threat to the U.S. homeland? Probably not in the short-term, because of the damage we’ve inflicted on many of these groups and because of the much more effective defenses we’ve erected against penetration of America since 9/11. But over the longer term, we must assume they will work hard to get through such defenses. Charting the surprises terrorists have sprung on us leaves me always humble in estimating the threat they pose. I’m thinking of plots that went awry or were disrupted, but just barely — the 2006 plot to blow up airliners heading over the Atlantic from the U.K., the 2009 “underwear bomber” who almost blew up a plane over Detroit, the 2010 Times Square bomber thwarted by a street seller, the detected plan to place bombs in printer cartridges on transport aircraft. For now, though, what’s most immediately called for is heightened security at U.S. and allied facilities in the region and in Europe.

At this point, Afghanistan is the most fluid situation facing U.S. national security. Our understanding of it and estimates of the future are certain to evolve rapidly. So, the best bottom line right now has to be simply: stay tuned.

There’s No Way to Spin Kabul’s Fall

As I write this, I’m hearing confirmation that the Taliban are cruising the streets of Kabul and that Afghanistan’s Western-backed President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country.

Like so many others who have worked in Afghanistan, for me it’s gut-wrenching news. Especially so when you know people who learned of these latest developments while frantically trying to leave the capital city. That panic is especially justified for women, and for those connected in any way to Western organizations. No less so for those belonging to ethnic groups and Islamic sects other than the Sunni and predominantly Pashtun Taliban.

Across continents, the prevailing reaction has been profound shock at the speed of the collapse of Kabul’s government after two decades of Western military intervention and support. While I’ve also been surprised, in hindsight I shouldn’t be. Nor should anyone who is familiar with Afghanistan’s recent and past history. I worked as an editor for the U.S.-led coalition’s biweekly magazine in Dari and Pashto between 2008 and 2012. As such, I was compelled to learn — as much as anyone could — how things worked in the country. Or didn’t work.

Afghan commando graduation ceremony in Kabul

Afghan special force commando unit officers and soldiers attend a graduation ceremony at the military academy in Kabul.

Source Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty

For every article we published for our small but influential readership, highlighting improved law enforcement training or newly-built medical clinics, there were mainstream media reports of endemic corruption in the Afghan National Police and unstaffed hospitals. For every editorial envisioning a future under the U.S.- and U.N.-backed government, there were stories featuring such damning evidence of corruption as cargo pallets of U.S. currency being flown from Kabul to Dubai. “Democracy” disappeared from the Voice of Freedom’s lexicon, after ballot counts no accountant would have been able to reconcile with local demographics.

One invader exits in ignominy, another force celebrates its triumph.

Not that democracy was the glue holding things together. I believe most Afghans would have settled for autocratic stability and an affordable system of official bribery. Army commanders could skim recruits’ paychecks, but they could at least pay them enough to feed their families. Then maybe they wouldn’t have felt compelled to sell their ammunition. The U.S. and its allies, meanwhile, fumbled through a nebulous mission. Well-meaning nations like Germany touted it back home as humanitarian. The Pentagon combined nation-building and antiterrorism with its counterinsurgency strategy (COIN) that labeled its key bases after its provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs). However it was defined, it meant funneling even more money into an unsustainable system while endangering the Western troops that propped it up.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan

Source Getty

The Taliban too has had foreign backers. After all, they emerged from the mujahedeen that the CIA bankrolled and Pakistan armed and facilitated in the 1980s — to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The constant feuding, back-and-forth shelling and rapacious corruption of the warring militias inspired a group of religious “students,” which is what Taliban means, to enforce order. Benazir Bhutto, who led Pakistan in the early 1990s, publicly supported the group, only to be assassinated in 2007 in an attack claimed by a Pakistani offshoot of the Taliban. The country’s relationship with the archconservative Islamist fighters became slightly murkier — or duplicitous, as U.S. officials have long lamented — after the prior Taliban regime became America’s avowed enemy. But it was always Pakistan that was the safe haven for Taliban leaders when they were driven into hiding by coalition forces. Though in the 1990s, Texas oil executives also courted the militant group, hoping to build a pipeline from Central Asia cutting through Afghanistan.

Last week, Imran Khan, Pakistan’s current prime minister, made a telling statement. After saying the U.S. was only interested in Pakistan for “settling this mess,” he complained that “the Americans have decided that India is their strategic partner now.”

And there you have it: Afghanistan has become the chessboard for yet another “Great Game.” That’s what it was called when Britain disastrously invaded in 1839 and twice returned to outmaneuver Russia in the region. The cycle continued in the 1980s after the Soviet invasion and America’s support of militias to repel Moscow. Then the U.S. entered more overtly, seeking to avenge 9/11 in the 2000s. Today Pakistan still sees Afghanistan as a pawn in its gambits against India. During my four years there, ending almost a decade ago, one of the most common bombing spots, after coalition bases, was the Indian embassy and guest houses identified with Islamabad’s chief rival.

Afghans Who Worked With U.S. Seek Help Through Special Visa Program

Afghan Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants crowd into the Herat Kabul internet cafe in Kabul, seeking help in applying for the SIV program.

Source Paula Bronstein/Getty

Luckily, my largely university-educated Afghan former colleagues have in recent years, some with my help, obtained interpreter visas and brought their families to the U.S. But Sunday’s drama is not about those fortunate refugees. It is about people who didn’t have such outs — those desperate for money as banks run out of it, for tickets on flights that may never leave, for recommendation letters from organizations that by themselves could get them arrested or worse.

They’re now at the mercy of other Afghans writing a new page in their nation’s tragic story. One invader exits in ignominy, another force celebrates its triumph. And as before, the ink flows from the veins of Afghans who dared hope that this time, things would be different.

What Does It Mean to Live Forever?

If 100 is already the new 80, what about living till you’re 150 years old? Growing up, my dad, a doctor obsessed with the idea of immortality, would tell how his grandparents back in Lebanon had lived well past the 100-year mark. How? They simply ate well, he used to say, as if their secret was no mystery at all. But back in the mid-19th century, they were the exception to the rule: People generally died much, much earlier.

Today, as humans continue to lust after any number of material and immaterial objects, scientists are researching radical life extension technology like never before. Amazing, right? Let’s see. Read on to learn about the great, the weird and the downright costly behind our quest for eternal existence.

Editor’s note: OZY’s all about bringing you the new and the next . . . in fresh ways. We’re trying a new look for your favorite newsletter to make your experience even more delicious. Please share your thoughts on the new look below.

DON’T STOP ME NOW

Is 150 the New 100?

Probably. Think about it: 200 years ago, there was no such thing as an active 90-year-old. Fast forward 20 decades, and photos of people breaching the 100-year barrier have become almost routine. Vaccines, antibiotics and a better understanding of what is good for our bodies and minds have taken us far. By 2050, the U.N. estimates there will be 3.7 million centenarians around the world, a major bump from the nearly 600,000 today. How can we push our biological clocks even more, keeping our minds sharp and bodies healthy for longer? One departure is to treat aging as an illness. That’s right. A tribe of scientists, including Steven Austad, a biologist at the University of Alabama, says the key to drastically longer life lies in altering the processes that prevent our very molecules from growing old.

Magic in the Lab

Scientific progress looks promising. Experts have already successfully applied an antifungal used during organ transplants to extend the lives of mice. Just think what that might mean for a human. That’s not all. A string of revolutionary health treatments on the horizon is poised to change how our bodies deal with aging. Heard of a pill that mimics the benefits of exercise? Or drugs that trick our internal clock into thinking it’s younger? How about nano-robots that find and destroy disease inside our bodies and cell reprogramming? The future of anti-aging medicine is mind-blowing. But don’t rush to your doctor’s office just yet. Despite such theoretical advances, some experts believe our bodies have a built-in expiration date. Not to mention there’s a host of issues preventing humans from living longer that must be tackled, starting with poverty, violence, pollution, climate change and traffic accidents.

New Life Trajectory

Can you imagine what you would do if you could live your peak years — your 20s and 30s, say — over and over? “Maybe we use the [extra] years to reimagine the trajectory of life, just like we did 100 years ago, when we invented childhood and retirement,” Austad said in a TED Talk. John Davis, a philosophy professor at California State University, Fullerton, brings a similarly philosophical lens to the question. “I think people get wiser as they get older,” he tells OZY. “Given time and life experience, people become more patient, more aware of what a wise choice and a foolish choice looks like, and less violent. So we might find that a society that lives longer is a better society.”

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

Now for the bad news. Increased pressure on already overstretched global health care systems and an inadequate supply of jobs, food and housing are just some of the challenges we face if we were to live for as long as we’d like. Longer, healthier lives translate to expanding populations worldwide, a change the planet might not be able to withstand. “We are already facing the consequences of overpopulation,” Davis says. “It’s called climate change.” The solution there remains controversial and might require something more radical than eternal life.

FOREVER YOUNG, OR OLD?

So, When Do We Start?

Outside the lab, futurologists have been putting forth their own takes on life extension. But be warned: you would need deep pockets to access them. Ray Kurzweil, a resident futurist at Google — a company currently investing in the study of aging — claims that by 2029, medical advances could start adding an additional year, every year, to people’s life expectancy, at least to those who can afford it. Researcher Aubrey de Grey posits that by 2036, many people with access to the right therapies (e.g., working to make our molecules younger) could avoid aging-related diseases or maladies entirely. Is there a catch? Unfortunately, yes. To reach the 150-year-old mark, you might need to live in an environment free of stressors — and a wad of cash to cover what will be costly treatments. Tempted by what’s being offered by Libella Gene Therapeutics, which claims to reverse aging by up to 20 years? Be prepared to fork over a whopping $1 million.

Mind the Gap

The price tag may be shocking, and it points to another disturbing truth: Longevity is set to become the new standard-bearer of inequality. And it’s not strictly a rich-country-versus-poor-country distinction, or even race, which is a major determinant of life expectancy in the U.S. A study by Northwestern University in Illinois found that Americans with a higher net worth at midlife live longer than their poorer counterparts. Even among brothers and sisters, those with greater wealth tend to outlive their siblings. That’s even taking into account identical genetic profiles, meaning the only factor that separates them is money.

Get in the Zone

Unless, that is, you happen to live in one of the world’s blue zones: a select group of countries in which people have been living longer for reasons unrelated to their bank account. Take Nicoya, for example. Centenarians in this lush Costa Rican peninsula say their secret to a long life is robust social networks and strong family ties. On the other side of the world, Japan’s super-senior citizens claim that healthy diets and exercise have paved the way to a lengthy and happy existence. Even if Kane Tanaka, the world’s oldest person at 118, admits she loves chocolate and soda. Money, however, can play a role. Just look at Monaco, the uber-wealthy principality where residents live on average to nearly 90 years old.

Upload You

Don’t live in any of those places? Don’t despair. Someday there may be another option for those who want to live a lot, lot longer: Upload your consciousness, Black Mirror style. While we are still far from transferring our minds onto a chip, Artificial Intelligence advances could make this sci-fi-sounding proposition a reality. Some people have already signed on to a program to freeze their brains and bodies in liquid nitrogen coffins to preserve the essential parts of their personalities. Cryonics preserves the body until science has progressed to a point where a person could be reanimated and cured of whatever diseases they suffered from. In 2016, a 14-year-old girl with a rare form of cancer won the right to be cryogenically frozen after she died, in the hopes she’ll be brought back to life once a cure for her disease is discovered.

THE SECRET SAUCE

Ditch the Red Meat

Yeah, we all know this one. Harvard researchers have found that increasing the amount of red meat you consume may, in some cases, raise the risk of early death. Participants in the experiment who increased their meat consumption by just half a serving per day (around 1.7 ounces) over eight years had a 10% higher risk of dying over the subsequent eight-year period. The study’s authors also claim a significant benefit to replacing a portion of your weekly meals with non-meat options. It’s not just good for you, it’s good for the planet. But Jeralean Talley, who lived to 116, might prove the authors wrong. This American super senior told Time in 2013 that one of the secrets to her longevity is a pork-rich diet, especially pigs’ ears and feet.

Every Step Counts

Walking an extra 1,000 steps a day could increase your chances of living a long life, according to the American Heart Association. The benefits of incorporating walking into your daily routine were consistent across people who took one long stroll and those who opted for shorter bursts throughout the day. That included going shopping or walking to your car. Heading out for a walk should be a priority for everyone, especially now that remote work is forcing many to park their butts for long stretches. Each increase of 1,000 steps was linked to a 28% decrease in the risk of early death.

Fruits and Veggies Are Your Friends

When American Loreen Dinwiddie died in 2012 at age 109, she was the world’s oldest vegan. She credited her diet for helping her reach that milestone and for giving her a pep in her step. It’s well-known that eating greens keeps you healthy day to day, but it also helps you live longer. Consuming five servings of fruits and veg every day translates to a 13% lower risk of early death. But don’t despair, some fun is also allowed. Misao Okawa, the oldest person on the planet before she passed away in 2015 at age 117, said the secret to her long life was simple: “eating delicious things” including sushi and noodles.

Are Kids the Holy Grail?

“You keep me young” isn’t just a sweet phrase. A study by researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine in 2014 found that late motherhood can lead to a longer life for women who delivered their last child after 33. In fact, they are twice as likely to live to 95 than those who had their last kid by 29. Furthermore, the New England Centenarian Study, published in 2014, concluded that women who bore children after turning 40 were four times more likely than younger mothers to reach 100 years old. There’s a caveat, though: Just delaying pregnancy won’t make you live longer; growing old depends on your genes too. Read more here.

What Does It Mean To Live Forever?

INCREDIBLE Urban Designs for the Future

This week’s UN report on our warming planet made it clearer than ever: Our world is getting hotter. What’s equally obvious is that our cities will be forced to play a major role in the fight to curb global warming.

While I (maybe naively) envision a future for my hometown, Los Angeles, that is efficient, sustainable and equitable, today’s Daily Dose dives into cities that are already models for the future of urban design when it comes to energy use, equal access to green space and public safety. Read on for a glimpse of what tomorrow’s urban utopias may look like.

hong kong: reimagining energy use

Keeping Cool as the Globe Heats Up

Air conditioning may not be so cool after all. Energy-intensive AC is used extensively in heat-trapping glass skyscrapers. In Hong Kong, air conditioning in the 118-floor ICC skyscraper accounts for a whopping 70% of the building’s total energy. Ouch. As urbanization increases and available land on which to expand diminishes, cities are being forced to build up and not out, emphasizing a future reliant on towering structures. With global temperatures rising, demand for cooler air will also increase, and experts anticipate global AC energy consumption will triple by 2050.

Skyscraper Sustainability

Home to over 1,500 skyscrapers — the most of any city — plus around 8,000 high-rises, Hong Kong’s 42,000 total buildings use up to 90% of the city’s electricity and emit 60% of its greenhouse gases. But in line with the city’s goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, innovators are seeking solutions to reduce energy usage. One approach: turning skyscrapers into smart buildings with high-tech, centralized building management systems. The 48-story One Taikoo Place, one of the city’s highest-ranked green buildings, is paving the way for energy-efficient skyscrapers with several approaches: an artificial intelligence-powered system called Neuron that predicts the building’s AC and heating needs; the installation of energy-efficient AC fans called EC plug fans; and a heating/cooling system that runs on biodiesel generated from used cooking oil gathered from the building’s restaurants.

A Greener Future

One Taikoo Place is reaping the rewards of its green innovations. Completed in 2018, its energy use is now nearly 30% lower than a standard Hong Kong office high-rise. Neuron’s AC system saves almost $400,000 on electricity annually and the EC plug fans are reducing energy use by up to 30%. With the undeniable long-term benefits of investing in sustainable energy, buildings like One Taikoo Place are setting a precedent for a growing global trend of intelligent buildings.

washington, d.c.: equality through parks

Manhattan's High Line Park near the Meatpacking District.

Park Problems

Green spaces are a crucial part of urban life. They keep cities cooler, improve air quality, encourage recreation and provide solace from the bustling streets — all of which are essential for physical and mental health. But green spaces aren’t available to everyone, especially those who live in densely populated buildings with no yards. In cities around the world, access to parks and green spaces is largely unequal; residents of wealthier neighborhoods have many more opportunities to experience the benefits of parks than those who live in poorer areas. “We need to value access to parks and green spaces as critical to the health and well-being of everyone equally,” Dartmouth College professor and sustainability architect Karolina Kawiaka tells OZY.

Bridging a Divided City

A lack of access to green space is even a problem in America’s capital. Washington, D.C.’s historically Black Anacostia neighborhood has been cut off from much of the rest of the city by the pollution-spewing Interstate 295 freeway that slashes through the community. But change is underway, thanks to a project enacted by local leaders. The 11th Street Bridge Park, a redesign of the underserved area, is an elevated 7-acre green space that will boast a rain garden, boat rentals and an environmental education center. Set to open in 2023, the bridge park will connect communities on both sides of the river, fostering equitable access to green space and economic growth.

Lasting Equality

Fancy new parks have been built alongside disadvantaged communities before, but they tend to usher in higher housing prices and new development — aka green gentrification — at the expense of the very communities that they were intended to serve. So how are local leaders ensuring this won’t happen in Anacostia? To put it simply: community involvement. Discourse between park planners and local groups has allowed residents to voice their needs, leading to more than $60 million being invested in equitable strategies for the community. These strategies include helping families purchase homes, providing construction training to local workers, administering loans to local businesses and supplying pandemic relief funds. The lesson: Community involvement is crucial to providing equitable access to green space.

oslo: a safe haven

The Rise of the Car City

Following the invention of the automobile, cities quickly adapted to car-centric urban planning with multilane roads, complex highway networks and large parking lots. But this shift in urban design has come at a cost: the safety of those who prefer embracing the tradition of traveling on foot or by bike. The U.S. has faced “mind-boggling” rates of traffic-related deaths in cities like Los Angeles, the country’s deadliest city for those on foot, and New York City, which saw a 58% surge in pedestrian deaths in the first four months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020. But this global problem disproportionately affects the poor, from bustling Bangkok to small towns in Romania. Can urban planning turn the tides to focus on humans over cars?

A Nordic Solution

Norway’s capital, Oslo, may have found the solution to this deadly problem. In 2002, Norway adopted Vision Zero, a project initially launched in Sweden in the ’90s that deems it unethical to accept death as an externality of roadway traffic and aims to eliminate fatalities and reduce the number of cars on the road. Further, Oslo implemented extensive road safety initiatives beginning in 2015 to “pedestrianize” the city. These efforts included reducing street parking to encourage residents to use public transit, installing speed bumps and redesigning intersections to slow cars, adding more bike lanes and walkways that are separate from roadways and creating car-free streets in city centers and around primary schools. “It’s not rocket science, but it does take political will to make changes that will keep people safe while still providing plenty of mobility,” founder and director of U.S.-based Vision Zero Network Leah Shahum tells OZY.

Lifesaving Results

Before safety measures were introduced in Oslo, which has about the same population as Portland, Oregon, annual traffic fatalities were common, with 116 serious injuries and five deaths in 2015. But since the changes, the city has seen impressive results. In 2019, Oslo recorded zero pedestrian and cyclist deaths and only one traffic fatality. Though the urban updates faced opposition — some feared that reducing the number of cars on the road would stifle local trade — the car-free streets have actually stimulated the city center’s economy, and having fewer vehicles on the roads has led to a reduction in carbon emissions. As the pandemic has shed light on city dwellers’ love of car-free urban spaces, can Oslo’s simple and effective innovations serve as a model for car-crazed countries like the U.S. to bring back more human-centric urban designs? “U.S. communities have been designed and operated for too long in a way that prioritizes speed over safety,” says Shahum. “We can and must turn that around if we’re serious about safety.”

mexico’s city of the future

Startup Cities

As the global population grows, more people are flocking to cities. To accommodate the influx of residents, urban spaces must morph and adapt through massive infrastructure projects and renovations. But what if we created new cities from scratch? With another 2.5 billion people expected to join the global urban population in the coming three decades, creating cities from the ground up won’t just be cheaper and simpler than retrofitting existing ones — it’ll be a necessity. It’s already happening in places like Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, where developers have wasted no time drafting blueprints and breaking ground on empty swaths of land for master planned cities: ready-made, high-tech bustling metropolises with thriving economies.

An Environmental El Dorado?

But how do you ensure that a future city doesn’t become just another energy-sucking, carbon-polluting megalopolis? Italian architect Stefano Boeri’s Smart Forest City project may have the answer. Boeri’s city, planned for the resort destination of Cancun, Mexico, aims to accommodate up to 130,000 residents in a 557-hectare, eco-friendly design. Part city, part botanical garden, Smart Forest City will contain 7.5 million plants from 400 species that will absorb 116,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually; be entirely food and energy self-sufficient; and house a high-tech innovation campus dedicated to addressing climate change and improving sustainability.

OZY Magazine: Meet the Best Interviewer on TV

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