africa | January 12, 2017

Everyday Africa: Finding the Human Story

ImpactAlpha
The team at

ImpactAlpha

Bill Gates published his first blog of the new year yesterday: Five Reasons I’m Hopeful about Africa. Much of it was typical Gates. Global in scope. Optimistic. Science (hybrid cassava seeds) and technology (solar kits) based.

But the first reason Gates shares for being hopeful about Africa is an Instagram account: Everyday Africa. Its photos are simple, and stunning. A girl leaping into an empty swimming pool while a crowd looks on. A young woman in running pants sipping a bottle of water on a hill overlooking a village. Two young men, one with a shovel and a Chicago Bears beanie, the other with a clean polo shirt and muddy hands, peering together into a mobile phone. They are everyday Africa.

Photos are powerful. They tell stories and shape narratives. Here at ImpactAlpha, we track new technologies, breakthroughs in science and data trends as signals for the future. As Gates and the photographers of Everyday Africa remind us, sometimes we just need to tune into the familiar.

Here is more from the photographers of Everyday Africa:

https://medium.com/media/0c079866ba83988e6c58f219238c5fc9/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/68db68e5e799cc2917788d182a45ee08/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/84fa211bd282b2671edfd3f365166b5a/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/db1df14b46636b650614200fcb9de691/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/8c8f03a47eac6b21cd22e33ba9228ffd/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/bbbb121c2b625481f6601f7a670fce31/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/2453ead0ed593851e81e3f7301a140cf/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/b59e8027e1c17a5735c3252f5c4b9700/href

Photos credit: Everyday Africa