One record, owned by the person
Your identity, credentials and outputs belong to you and travel with you. Leaving the platform must never mean losing your record — export paths exist for everything.
About
An ecosystem, not a portfolio of programmes
DiaspAfra exists to connect Africa and the global diaspora through one identity that unlocks sixteen integrated capabilities. The commitment underneath everything: every module operates over the same people and the same records.
Mission
Make the distance between a result and a company shorter
The grant funds the research. The research produces the publication. The publication supports the patent. The patent spins out the venture. The venture hires from the learner cohort.
Today that path crosses five systems that know nothing about each other, and each crossing loses information. Holding all of it on one identity is what makes the whole chain visible — and what makes questions like “which training investments produce companies?” answerable at all.
See the six fields of practice16capabilities on one identity
6fields of practice
54countries in scope
Principles
What we hold ourselves to
These are not aspirations. Each one is enforced somewhere specific — in the kernel, in the funding conditions, or in the build that refuses to pass.
Decide in one place
Every access decision runs through a single authorization kernel. No module makes its own quiet judgement about who may read what, and every decision is recorded with the policy that produced it.
Publish the criteria first
Rubrics go up before calls open. Conflicts are declared before reading begins. Everybody who applies is told what the panel actually said.
Open by default
Funded work publishes open access and deposits its data, with two narrow and stated exceptions: patient-identifiable data, and material under active patent preparation.
Build for the connection people have
Mid-range phone, intermittent mobile connection. That is a design constraint with a number attached, not an edge case mentioned in a review.
Name the decision-maker
Consequential decisions carry a name. A risk register is published. An annual public report says what worked and what did not.
Governance
Council and advisory committee
The Council sets direction and is accountable for it. The Advisory Committee brings the disciplines the work touches — medicine, data, policy, capital, education and engineering.
Appointments are being confirmed. Named members and their affiliations will be published here as each seat is filled.
Council
Council seat 1Co-chair · Health systems
Council seat 2Co-chair · Research & science
Council seat 3Member · Education
Council seat 4Member · Enterprise & investment
Council seat 5Member · Law & governance
Council seat 6Member · Culture & heritage
Advisory committee
Advisory seat 1Advisor · Clinical medicine
Advisory seat 2Advisor · Data & privacy
Advisory seat 3Advisor · Public policy
Advisory seat 4Advisor · Venture capital
Advisory seat 5Advisor · Higher education
Advisory seat 6Advisor · Engineering
Accountability
How to hold us to this
A platform holding this much of people’s lives has to answer for how it is run — publicly, and in writing.
Contact the Foundation- A published risk register, including the risks we have not solved
- Named decision-makers on consequential decisions
- An annual public report covering what did not work
- A moderation policy, appeals process and takedown procedure published before user-generated content surfaces open
- Independent review of high-risk features before release
- No automated decision without a human route of appeal
Get started
Read the longer arguments
Essays and analysis on integration, credentials and building for the connections people actually have.