News — africa technology

Calestous Juma was a Kenyan scientist and university scholar who primarily focused on sustainable development. He served as a Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. Juma also served as the director for the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He was born in Busia village on June 9, 1953 to John Kwada Juma and Clementina Nabwire and grew up in Port Victoria, Kenya. Juma attended Port Victoria Secondary School and later Egoji Teachers’ Training College in Kenya in 1974. After his certification, Juma taught science in Mombasa, Kenya, and wrote for the Daily Nation newspaper. In 1978, he became the first full-time environment and science correspondent for the newspaper.

In 1979, Juma became a researcher and editor for Environment Liaison Centre, an NGO based in Nairobi, Kenya. He then enrolled at the University of Sussex in England with a full scholarship 1982, receiving an MSc in Science, Technology and Industrialization in 1983 and a DPhil in Science and Technology Policy in 1987.

Juma is considered a revolutionary figure in scientific research; he advocated for the use of technology and innovation for development. Juma established Africa’s first science policy think tank African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in 1989. ACTS released a study called “Innovation and Sovereignty,” which helped with the creation of the first industrial property legislation in Kenya. At ACTS, he led a study called Economic Reform and Environment in Africa, which researched the connections between economic innovation, conservation management, and technological transformation in developing nations to further understand how socio-economic environments impact the integration of new technologies. This research was highlighted in some of his first works Long-Run Economics: An Evolutionary Approach to Economic Growth (London: Pinter, 1987) and The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology and the Scramble for Seeds (Princeton: Princeton University Press and Zed Books, 1989).

Juma moved to Montreal, Quebec Canada in 1995 to serve as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity first executive director. However, he left shortly afterwards because he felt the UN agency placed too many limitations on Africa’s ability to crop genetically modified foods. In 1998, Juma moved to Harvard to continue his work. There he created a UN task force that developed ways in which the developing world can attain Millennium Development Goals through technology and science. In addition, Juma in 2005, served at the US National Academy of Sciences as the Global Challenges and Biotechnology chair, and in 2012 served as co-chair of the African Union High-Level Panel on Modern Biotechnology. One of Juma’s last works, before he passed, was Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies, published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

Calestous Juma died on December 15, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts at the age of 54. He is survived by his wife Alison Field-Juma, and his son Eric Juma.

Day in, day out, residents of Freetown, Sierra Leone, are being exposed to indoor and outdoor pollution, leading to numerous health problems, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Most households are using charcoal or wood as a source of fuel for cooking, and this is increasing the amount of carbon dioxide being produced in cities.

Transportation is another major problem. Experts are calling for renewable transport to ensure cleaner air for citizens. It is in this regard that a 24-year-old university student decided to build a solar-powered car made from trash and scraps.

It took Emmanuel Alieu Mansaray, a self-taught Sierra Leonean inventor and engineer, three years to build the car. He now drives it around town. Dubbed the ‘Imagination car’, it can reach speeds of 15km per hour. Mansaray’s aim is to address goal 7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which talks about clean energy.

“…Having a solar car like my ‘Imagination Car’ using solar power for transportation will make for a cleaner atmosphere, thereby reducing the risk of dangerous gaseous emissions that have led to the death of thousands of people around the world,” he said in an interview with Salone Messenger.

Mansaray is a student of the Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Geology. He began developing his innovation skills in 2018 when he built the first locally made solar-powered tricycle in Sierra Leone. “During my primary school days, I used to pick up trash cans (example: milk tin, tomato tin, etc.) which I used to make different types of cars. I also used to collect trash batteries from the dust bin and convert them to supply electricity,” he said.

Now, his ‘Imagination Car’, which is designed using the country’s signature colors of green, white and blue, has made him a star in his community and beyond. The eco-friendly car does not use any fossil fuel to power it, he said. Its body is built with bamboo. The car has a large solar panel at the top of it, which powers the engine and also acts as its canopy. What’s more, the car comes with a self-made engine with three gears attached to it for both back and front movement.

There are two doors and two mirrors attached to the car’s left and right flanks. People are also amazed at its brake system, its left and right traffic light, as well as its four headlights and horn. Most importantly, the solar-powered car is pollution-free. Mansaray explained that it operates by converting sunlight into electrical energy using photovoltaic cells. Thus, it does not produce harmful or hazardous emissions, he said.

Mansaray’s car will not only make for a cleaner atmosphere but will also help the disabled, he said. “Some disabled people have cars that they can’t drive unless they paid individuals to drive them because their feet can’t reach down the clutch, brake, and accelerator, which is challenging. But for my ‘Imagination solar-powered car’, all the features are installed in the steering; including the clutch, brake and accelerator, and all other necessary features. With all this, every disabled person can drive with less to worry about.”

Mansaray said he would like to come up with more awesome inventions that will solve pressing issues that affect the environment and his country. However, his challenges are lack of funding, raw materials, sponsorship, and mentorship. “Sometimes I meet people for help and they don’t. Some people won’t even motivate me, instead they’ll try to kill my dream with negative energy,” he said.

All in all, the young student’s aim is to fly his country’s flag higher above all other flags. “My aim and dream are to work for my country, have a successful career, and help develop my country, Sierra Leone.”

Mahmoud El-Koumi wanted to find a way that his mechanical engineering would bear fruits in Egypt’s management of the coronavirus pandemic. So the Cairo-based technologist thought of how to minimize the contact between healthcare providers – the frontline army against the unseen virus – on one hand, and patients.

So El-Koumi engineered a robot with the specific task of playing a doctor’s assistant. The remote-control robot was named Cira-03, and when Reuters spoke to El-Koumi in December, he reported that Cira-03 was doing exactly as expected. The automaton can test for Covid-19 and take the temperature of patients, at a private hospital in the city of Tanta. where it is being trialed.

El-Koumi explained: “Before starting its mission, the robot receives training to improve its AI. The training is done by a specialist doctor, the AI in this training acts like a human doctor.”

But Cira-03 is not only taking temperatures and carrying out COVID-19 tests. It can detect your echocardiographs as well as X-rays. All of Cira-03’s results can be seen on a small monitor it has for a chest. The robot is built with a human-like face but without arms.

“This robot is specially designed to help the medical staff during Covid-19 times. It is a medical robot capable of multi-tasks, it can deal with patients in their beds, chest scans, fever screening, and face mask detection,” El-Koumi, 27, added. He was also mindful of how humans would have to relate with his creation and that consideration went into Cira-03’s build.

“I tried to make the robot seem more human so that the patient doesn’t fear it. So they don’t feel like a box is walking in on them. There has been a positive response from patients. They saw the robot and weren’t afraid. On the contrary, there is more trust in this because the robot is more precise than humans.”

Egypt has reported nearly 200,000 cases of the COVID-19 infections but the vast number of people – over 150,000 – are well. The country was also the first to roll out a nationwide vaccination program with support from foreign partners such as China and Russia.

Accra will be the site of Twitter’s Africa headquarters starting from 2021. This was contained in an announcement by the CEO of the global social media giant, Jack Dorsey, in a tweet on Monday morning.

“Twitter is now present on the continent. Thank you Ghana and @NAkufoAddo. #TwitterGhana”, Dorsey’s tweet read, thanking Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo.

Ghana’s president also welcomed Twitter, tweeting: “The choice of Ghana as HQ for Twitter’s Africa operations is EXCELLENT news. Gov’t and Ghanaians welcome very much this announcement and the confidence reposed in our country.”

For now, Twitter staff will be working remotely, a consequence of the convenience tech jobs provide in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is foreseeable that Twitter will establish a brick-and-mortar office even though the company has said it is committed to letting workers in other countries work permanently from home.

Why Ghana?

Twitter curtly explained why it chose Ghana:

As a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate. Furthermore, Ghana’s recent appointment to host The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area aligns with our overarching goal to establish a presence in the region that will support our efforts to improve and tailor our service across Africa. 

But this choice also follows working visits Dorsey took of Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa in 2019. It was rumored he was looking for where to establish Twitter’s first African office but that was never confirmed. Dorsey has however spoken of his belief that the next biggest questions in the automation economy, such as cryptocurrency, will be pertinent in Africa.

Twitter has revealed 12 hiring positions in Ghana, as at the time of going to press, including Senior Communications Manager, Senior Content Partnerships Manager and a Media Operations Analyst.

Acclaimed musician and business mogul Akon has set his sights on constructing a second futuristic and cryptocurrency-based city on the motherland, with the East African nation of Uganda being his country of choice this time around.

In a statement Monday, the Ugandan government announced they had reached an agreement to allocate the Senegalese-American singer a piece of land worth a square mile for the “Akon City” project, Revolt reported. The state-of-the-art project is expected to be completed by 2036 and transactions in the city will be done through his “stellar-based” AKoin cryptocurrency. The cost of the project was not disclosed though the one in his native Senegal is reportedly valued at around $6 billion.

Asked if the country’s locals would be able to afford the services the city would be offering once complete, the Freedom singer answered with optimism. “I know if I put it there, they’re going to find a way to afford it because it’s going to motivate them,” he said.

“But ultimately when you create an opportunity, people grow with that opportunity, people learn with that opportunity, people are motivated with that opportunity.”

The news of the Uganda project comes on the back of a similar $6 billion one in his native Senegal. In an interview with the Associated Press last year, the 47-year-old revealed construction was set to commence this year.

Born Aliaume Damala Badara Akon Thiam, the musician had earlier shared his plans of building the city in 2018, describing it as “a real-life Wakanda” in reference to the Afro-futuristic city in Marvel’s movie, Black Panther. He also said the city will similarly use the AKoin cryptocurrency.

The site for the Senegal project is in the village of Mbodiene. And the time this story was reported last year, the Locked Up singer said he had been able to acquire one-third of the $6 billion needed for it.

Akon also said he hoped the project would create jobs for locals in the West African nation as well as serve as a “home back home” for Black Americans and other people in the diaspora who are being racially discriminated against.

“The system back home treats them unfairly in so many different ways that you can never imagine. And they only go through it because they feel that there is no other way,” he told the Associated Press. “So if you’re coming from America or Europe or elsewhere in the diaspora and you feel that you want to visit Africa, we want Senegal to be your first stop.”

Many desire to rent a place where they can have a good landlord. While the idea seems impossible, a Black founder has created a solution that allows renters to have a fair idea of the property they are moving into and its owner.

Ofo Ezeugwu had the idea during his days at Temple University when he was the VP of the student body. He heard horrific stories of students who lived on and outside campus about how they are being harassed by their landlords or living in infested apartments.

“I was running for the VP of Temple’s student body during my junior year (2012). At one of our late-night meetings, we were discussing ways to help students with off-campus living,” he told.

“I thought aloud, ‘what if students could rate their landlords, that way those coming in behind them would know what to expect before ever signing a lease?’ The students loved the idea and our team eventually won the campaign with, at the time, “Rate Your Landlord” on our platform,” he said.

Ezeugwu founded “WhoseYourLandlord”, which allows users to submit reviews of their landlords to help potential renters to avoid difficult and troublesome landlords. WhoseYourLandlord, a multipurpose online platform, is also aimed at increasing housing literacy in communities.

Since launching the platform, WhoseYourLandlord has raised $1.1 million and reviewed by some 22,000 landlords across over 250 cities in the United States. The ApartmentTherapy.com describes the platform as “The MVP of Landlord Review Sites.” Ezeugwu’s initial funding, about $25,000, was from family and friends and he secured an additional $20,000 from pitch competitions.

Ezeugwu has received many questions regarding the name of his company. But he explains that he chose the possessive form of the word “who” because he is giving renters ownership of the situation by putting housing in their hands.

“Here at WYL, we truly believe in the concept that knowledge is power. The ability to move word of mouth onto an online platform that can be of more use in highlighting positive people to work with and revealing negative situations prior to you finding yourself in one is tremendously needed,” he said.

The Philly native was recently recognized as a Disruptive and Innovative Entrepreneur by NBCUniversal and New York On Tech. In 2018, he was named the Young Professional of the Year by the African American Chamber of Commerce and also named as one of BET’s #30Under30.

He is also a model and actor who has been featured on the Today show, Philly Fashion Week and Brooklyn Fashion Week, BET reported.

Ezeugwu has been instrumental in the fight against Covid-19 in Philadelphia where almost half of residents are renters. The pandemic led to job losses and many struggling to renew their rent bills. He partnered up with Walmart to disburse $25,000 for rent relief to help 50 Philadelphia families amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to reports.

“With everything happening amidst COVID, in one of our meetings they were asking us to highlight issues that we’re seeing they could help us address,” said Ezeugwu. “And I was like ‘look my company is in the housing space. We have a non-profit that’s focused on the intersection between housing and mental health.”

Police brutality against minorities, particularly African Americans, often dominates media discussions. Multiple advocacies to end police killings of unarmed Black men have yielded little results. 

The killing of George Floyd by the police is still fresh in the minds of the Black community. His killing led to massive protests across communities in the U.S. calling for an end to police profiling and killing of minorities.

Several tactics have been devised to capture incidents of police confrontations with Blacks but this has done little to change police attitudes towards Black men and women they arrest or engage.

In search of a comprehensive solution to make Black people feel safe when they get pulled over, arrested, or confronted by the police, a Black-owned firm, WestMason, has come up with an app for minorities to protect themselves.

WestMason has launched a mobile app called MyOneOne to provide a personal security network made up of the friends and families of its users. The app is currently available on Android and iOS, according to Black Business.

Eric Mills, CTO of WestMason, in a Youtube video, explained how the app works. “Myonone is an app to allow minorities in the underserve the ability to create lifelines where groups of individuals or a group of loved ones that you would like to contact in an emergence,” he said.

“Say, you are driving down the street and you get pulled over by the police, you feel unconformable, you feel unsafe, you are in the middle of nowhere and you do not know why you got pulled over in the first place, you can simply tap the alarm button and it will bring up a list of options for you in an emergence. One of those is, ‘I was pulled over by the police,’” he said.

He further explained that “if you feel uncomfortable in that situation, you hit the button, then your live stream is started from your phone where your love ones or your lifeline is alerted, they know you’ve been pulled over and a video automatically starts and they can view it.”

According to him, the significance of the app is that “you know you are not alone.”  The app allows users to:

• Create and maintain a lifeline consisting of friends and family.
• Alert your lifeline when in dangerous situations.
• Livestream from your device to your lifeline. Video is stored in a secure location for future review.
• Send location information to your lifeline.
• Contact emergency services with the same information as your lifeline. Coupled with health information and profile picture.

Globally, there is a gradual shift to clean energy and the automobile industry has also been caught up in this energy shift movement. Giant automobile companies are now producing cars that solely rely on electricity or solar.

According to a report by the Center for American Progress, more than 30% of the global passenger vehicle fleet is expected to be electric by 2040. Also, a report by McKinsey & Company notes that the electronic vehicle (EV) market in the US is expected to grow but at a slower rate compared to China and Europe.

The switch to electronic vehicles is still at the nascent stage as most economies do not have the capacity to power electronic vehicles. Many cities in developing countries do not have a stable power supply, and in countries that have stable energy, the cost of electricity is expensive, which makes EV less preferable.

The situation is not only dire in developing countries. An article by the Wall Street Journal said mass adoption of electronic vehicles has not materialized due to the lack of charging infrastructures. The article cited a survey of 3,500 in which half of the respondents reported having problems with public charging.

Thanks to mobile charging battery company SparkCharge, charging EVs could be less problematic. The company, in partnership with Allstate Roadside, is venturing into vehicle services by developing a mobile vehicle charger.

The mobile vehicle charger is the world’s first on-demand mobile electronic charging network, according to a press statement.

Electronic vehicle owners can now access this new network via SparkCharge’s BoostEV smartphone app and have a charge delivered directly to their vehicle with a push of a button.

SparkCharge, founded in 2017, is launching in 12 cities including New York, Chicago, San Diego, Dallas, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. It plans to open up in a different city every month after February and roll out the service in 25 cities by the end of 2021.

“We’re building a completely new type of EV charging infrastructure,” shared SparkCharge CEO, Josh Aviv, in a press release. “It’s mobile, on-demand and for the first time truly gives EV owners freedom and control to charge their car anytime, anywhere by ordering the service through the Boost EV app. Just like food delivery, EV owners can now have range delivered to them on the spot. When people think about EV charging, we know BoostEV will be top of mind for them.”

The company said Allstate Roadside, a roadside assistance service provider, and HONK Technologies, the digital platform connecting drivers and towing professionals, and the other partners will bring the portable Roadie charging system to charge vehicles that need a charge.

“Our relationship with SparkCharge supports our commitment to providing innovative solutions and a circle of protection for customers,” said Joan Trach, Allstate Roadside Chief Operating Officer in the statement.

Spiffy, a car-care service company, is joining BoostEV to offer charging as a service alongside mobile car wash, disinfection, tire changing, among other services, according to SparkCharge’s statement.

“Our goal is to basically be the fastest-growing EV charging network in the United States because we can be anywhere anytime,” SparkCharge founder Aviv told Insider. “With us it’s like take it out of the box, plug it into a car, and you’re charging the car.

According to Techcrunch, the company plans to launch 500,000 electric charging stations in four years.

One of the challenges confronting Africans in the diaspora is the ability to remit to their relatives through safe and cheaper means. Despite the existence of many banking solutions, Africans in the diaspora continue to face multiple challenges sending money home, particularly, irregular migrants.

A Tanzanian entrepreneur created a hassle-free, offline mobile money payment platform to make sending money to the continent cheaper. Benjamin Fernandes co-founded Nala following the frustrations of some Africans in the diaspora with mobile money payment services.

The app, which is live in Tanzania and other African countries including Uganda, has over 250,000 users. The app makes it easier for users to send money to anyone on any device. All one has to do is download the app to start transacting. 

In Tanzania, Uganda and other East African states, internet penetration is low. Nala’s offline solution mode allows users to send money without data or internet services and at no extra cost.

Prior to starting Nala, Fernandes was a television host of youth talk shows and sports shows in Tanzania. He migrated to the U.S. for his first degree at the evangelical Christian University of Northwestern in St. Paul. At the university, the former TV host took interest in economics. He received a full scholarship to school at Stanford through the school’s Africa MBA Fellowship in 2014 and moved back to America.

“I took the two years at Stanford to learn everything I can about fintech,” Fernandes recalled. “In the summer I started working at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and that’s where I met Sam Castle. He was a PhD student at Washington doing research in mobile payments in MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa.

After Fernandes’ studies, he returned home and started working on Nala while convincing Castle to come on board. Fernandes was a previous winner of the Seedstars Tanzania and the Ecobank Fintech Challenge.

Nala announced in January that it was planning to roll out its beta app targeting UK customers sending back remittances to Uganda and Kenya this year, according to Tech in Africa. This payment option will also be available to Tanzanian customers.

Fernandes said Nala does not only make it easy for people to transact, but also provides users with insight into their accounts. “The offline application allows us to build trust, which is the backbone for any company in the financial services industry,” he said, according to cardrates.com. “As we build that trust, we can enable and leverage other services to layer on top of what we’re already doing.”

His goal is to operate in at least 30 countries. Since the app was launched in Tanzania and expanded to Uganda, it has seen a massive subscription. “I wish I could build 15 different fintech companies in Africa because there’s so much that needs to be done,” he said. “Most people think it’s easy, but it’s not. If it were easy, everyone would do it.”

Fernandes attributes the success of his business to building trust. “That means we always have to let users know what we’re doing and what security measures we’re taking with our application,” he said.

Nashlie Sephus is on a mission to build a tech hub in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, to train the next generation in technology. Downtown Jackson is not known for its technology prowess but Sephus wants to put the community on the map of technology hubs in America.

She is building a $25-million Jackson Tech District out of 12 abandoned acres of vacant lots and ramshackle buildings in downtown Jackson. “My goal is to turn this space into a self-sustaining village where people can live, work, play, and eat,” Sephus tells Inc.

The plan includes developing seven of the abandoned buildings within five years and the redevelopment will include a maker’s space, an electronics lab, a photography studio, apartments, restaurants, a grocery store as well as an innovation center. 

The techpreneur works at Amazon as an applied science manager for its artificial intelligence initiative. Before joining Amazon, she was the chief technology officer of the startup firm Partpic, a visual recognition technology.

Partpic was sold to Amazon in 2016 and in 2018, Sephus launched her own company called Bean Path. The firm is an incubator and technology consulting nonprofit, Sephus says, and claims to have helped over 400 locals businesses and individuals with their technology needs.

She founded Bean Path after she watched members of her team get laid off during an internship at Delphi Technologies in Indiana. That was when she decided to be her own boss.

The idea to build a tech hub occurred to Sephus in 2018 when she was looking for an office space for Bean Path. According to Inc., her search for an office space focused on the downtown Jackson area, a once booming business community for Black businesses. 

“It’s clear that people don’t expect anything good to come from Jackson,” she says. “So it’s up to us to build something for our hometown, something for the people coming behind us.”

She adds: “It had never occurred to me, even though I had sold a company to Amazon and was working with some of the top people at Amazon and having led a whole startup, started our own nonprofit. It just never occurred to me that I, a young Black female, could buy a building in downtown Jackson, Mississippi.”

Her vision to build a tech hub in downtown Jackson has resonated with some investors and city officials, including her superiors at Amazon. One of such investors is Toni Cooley, whom Sephus once provided tech help.

Contrary to her fears, Amazon has also offered a helping hand through its Amazon Future Engineer program, which provides scholarships and instruction for teachers interested in improving their tech skills.

Raising money to finance her project has been one of Sephus’ challenges. In fact, less than 10% of Black businesses get access to venture funding. She has sunk $500,000 of her savings into the project, in addition to funds she raised from friends and families amounting to some $150,000. 

She intends to raise additional cash through crowdfunding, grants and private sources. The tech hub project will generate funds through rentals and membership fees, she says.

Sephus obtained her first degree in computer engineering at Mississippi State University. She subsequently earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

The federal government of Nigeria says it will have to sell as many as 36 properties to fund its 2021 national budget as a result of challenges in raising funds and expectation of further encumbrances in the international financial markets.

A number of the properties will also be available for concession. The process of sale and concessions began at the beginning of this year and expected to be wrapped up by November 2022.

The Abuja International Conference Centre (ICC), a major venue for local and international programs is part of the properties put on the market. Some oil refineries have also reportedly been listed. A building belonging to the Abuja Environmental Protection Board in the capital, as well as Abuja Water Board and Nigerian Film Corporation properties are up for sale.

Nigeria is also prepared to sell or list for concession some 29 ongoing projects under different federal departments including Energy, Natural Resources, and Industries. Some of these would only be available for partial ownership and for sale in shares and they will be available to foreign investors.

It is not known how much Africa‘s largest economy expects to generate from the fundraising drive but the country’s Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, has already hinted that Nigeria may borrow up to $14.69 billion from international and local lenders.

Between $1.3 billion and $8.65 is reserved for debt servicing in this fiscal year. Nigeria’s quest to raise money in a very difficult period across the world has been met with challenges of different kinds, including a religious row.

Toward the end of last year, the government announced that it was going to fund some projects using Sukuk, an Islamic financial practice.

Under a Sukuk, an issuer sells an investor group a certificate, which then rents it back to the issuer for a predetermined rental fee, while the issuer also makes a contractual promise to buy back the bonds at a future date at par value.

But the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) accused the federal government headed by a Muslim, of trying to “Islamize” Nigeria.

Lupita Nyong’o has spoken out on colorism and self-love several times and her maiden children’s book Sulwe delivers that message aptly to young and old readers alike. Giant streaming platform Netflix announced Thursday that it is bringing the book to life in an animated musical and we are all here for it.

Sulwe, which means Star in the Lou language, centers around Sulwe, a dark-skinned girl who goes on a starry-eyed adventure and awakens with a reimagined sense of beauty as she comes to terms with her dark skin.

Nyong’o noted that in her native Kenya, there is an explicit preference for people with lighter shades even in the overwhelmingly Black-skinned country.

It was illustrated by Vashti Harrison and with this being her first book, Nyong’o hopes to inspire young Black children to appreciate and accept their uniqueness.

A statement released on Thursday by the ‘12 Years A Slave’ actress reiterated how personal the book was to her indicating that Sulwe is close to her heart being a victim of colorism herself. “Growing up, I was uncomfortable in my dark skin,” she said. “I rarely saw anyone who looked like me in the aspirational pages of books and magazines, or even on TV. It was a long journey for me to arrive at self-love.”

She continued, “Sulwe is a mirror for dark-skinned children to see themselves, a window for those who may not be familiar with colorism, to have understanding and empathy, and an invitation for all who feel different and unseen to recognize their innate beauty and value. 

“I am thrilled that the book is being adapted into an animated musical that we hope inspires children all around the world to celebrate their uniqueness.”

Last year, Lupita had a special homecoming for Sulwe in East Africa with new editions in her native language Luo and widely spoken Swahili.

The Oscar-winning actress shared the news on Twitter hoping that the message of Sulwe “can travel the world for readers of all ages, but it’s especially meaningful to bring it home”.

“#Sulwe is coming home! You can now find editions in Kenya in English, Swahili & my mother tongue, Luo. My childhood inspired Sulwe’s story,” she wrote at the time.

Nyong’o is an outspoken voice on issues of racism and colorism. Since her breakout appearance in 2013’s “12 Years A Slave”, she has used her platform to channel the movement aimed at collapsing racial prejudice.

Often, she draws on her experiences as a young Black woman in spaces with people who do not look like her. Nyong’o went to the United States from Kenya although she was born in Mexico where she lived for several years.