About LeapNotes
LeapNotes is where I think out loud about the leaps that change the game — in AI, in Africa, and in how technology actually reaches people.
The premise is simple. Intelligence is becoming abundant: the knowledge, models, and tools that used to be scarce and gated are pouring into the open and getting cheaper by the month. The interesting question is no longer who owns the smartest model. It’s who turns that abundance into something real — applied to the problems that matter, coordinated well enough to work at scale. That question is wide open, and it’s especially open for places that are used to leapfrogging.
I’m Kader Diagne. I’m African. I came to Germany to study computer science and AI, and spent years as a researcher at DFKI — the world’s largest independent AI research center, and a pioneer in the field since 1988. DFKI is application-driven by design: a public-private partnership built to turn research into real products and companies. That’s how I came to know both the technology and the market from the inside — and the venture-backed AI company I later spun out was one of those companies.
That experience left me convinced of two things. First, that the durable value in AI lies in adapted application backed by strong coordination, not in chasing foundation models. And second, that you can build that engine before the money arrives. DFKI had no venture capital at the table — the coordination of universities, industry, and government was enough to produce the companies, and capital came afterward, to the ones it produced. That isn’t unique to Europe; it’s the same dynamic that piles capital into Silicon Valley, where the output engine simply runs hardest. And it’s the encouraging part: capital is abundant and mobile, and it follows promising companies wherever they emerge (*). So the first thing to build isn’t a fund — it’s the engine that makes companies worth funding. That’s what I want to adapt and scale across Africa.
That conviction became leapfrogging.africa, a movement to build and connect AI ecosystems across the continent. You’ll find that build documented here, in public, as it happens. But LeapNotes is broader than any single initiative: it’s also where I write about applied AI and strategy, distil research worth knowing, and explore how education itself can leap — toward mastery over seat-time.
And it’s not only about AI. Today, advanced digitalization and AI move together — you can’t seriously transform a sector with one while ignoring the other. I call that fusion DigitalAIzation™: digitalization with intelligence built in, applied across every sector and industry. It’s a lens you’ll see me return to here. #DigitalAIzation
What to expect: essays, field notes, and the occasional argument — written for builders, partners, and anyone who’d rather make the next leap than watch the current race.
Leap. Build. Own.
Subscribe to follow along — and if you’d rather build than read, reach me at alit@leapfrogging.africa.
DigitalAIze™ and DigitalAIzation™ are trademarks of Xpertim.
(*) African startups have historically faced a real funding gap; risk perception, thin exit markets, etc.
