Slides from my recent talk at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida

We recently completed the first part of a research project that aimed to test whether or not real-time mobile data could be used as a means to predict future macroeconomic trends like interest rates, inflation and GDP per capita in African countries...

In 2000, the CIA made many predictions about the world. One of them was this: “Aids, famine, and continuing economic and political turmoil means that populations in many [African] countries will actually fall.”
While most of their predictions were fairly prescient, this one was way off. Not only is most of Africa more peaceful and politically stable, the population is booming as are many African economies. Foreign direct investment is way up as is sovereign...

This past weekend I attended Diaspora Demo Day, the inaugural startup competition organized by the people at TipHub and held at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.. The day was not without its hiccups but for a first-time event really exceeded my expectations...