Designing for
Belonging

Building the science of opportunity design — how to structure culture, incentives, institutions, and infrastructure so that people in constrained settings can innovate, discover, and build for their communities.

Knowledge / Impact / Scale

We start from what people actually know and have lived — not from what has been imposed on them. We build knowledge from that ground, rigorously, because we owe our communities accuracy.

Then we make sure that knowledge doesn't stay in journals. It becomes how people actually live. Lived experience becomes rigorous inquiry, rigorous inquiry becomes real impact, and impact returns to the lives it came from — transformed.

The sacred text is lived experience. The method is rigorous inquiry. The congregation is everyone who believes you can build from truth rather than from power.

We are children of this world, just like everyone else.

Thesis

Development is a spiral,
not a line

Growth is not linear — ever climbing upward, singularly, with no reference to past, present, future, or who is beside, below, or above you. It is concentric. A spiral.

Sierra Leone in 2026 occupies the same angular position on the spiral that the United States did during its industrial awakening — and vice versa: the United States in 2026, with its almost tribal political divisions, sits at the same position as Sierra Leone now. The radius is different. The phase is the same.

At every turn, the same human needs: the desire to belong, to build something for your people, to experiment without fear, to have your curiosity taken seriously. Patriotism, pride, community — these aren't soft variables. They are the deepest infrastructure of economic development.

The Spiral

Same phase,
different radius

Economies at different scales pass through the same phases at different moments. Smart intervention recognises the phase, not the radius.

Operating System

Knowledge / Impact / Scale

Knowledge

Rigorous field ethnography and experiments that advance theory on innovation governance and opportunity design in constrained settings.

Impact

Beyond the study site. Community partnerships, national adoption, regional rollout, continental institutions. The research becomes the program.

Scale

The trajectory of handwashing, cash transfers, behavioural economics. Ideas that started as research and became how the world works.

Portfolio

Six experiments, one question

What happens when you design for cultivation instead of extraction — when you build the culture, context, and scaffolding for people to flourish?

01

Innovation Architecture

Contextual infrastructure for SMEs to innovate
In field

Knowledge

RCT with AIDE in Sierra Leone testing how a learning architecture — peer-sharing, psychological safety, failure-tolerant incentives — shapes whether constrained SMEs experiment.

Impact

An industrial innovation hub for SMEs in Sierra Leone. The infrastructure SMEs need to learn, experiment, and grow.

Scale

The model tested, refined, and implemented across emerging markets. Y Combinator meets SEZ — adapted for constrained contexts.
02

Freedom Grants

Sparking ambition in African science through trust-based funding
In field

Knowledge

Embedded experiment + DCE measuring how unrestricted funding changes what scientists propose and pursue, and the dollar value of autonomy.

Impact

Annual unconditional grants for scientists across the continent, across sectors. Trust-based funding as the standard, not the experiment.

Scale

Model adopted by governments and permanent institutions globally — not one-off, not NGO-dependent.
03

Valley of Death

Innovating for food security by bridging the science-market gap
In field

Knowledge

Identifying where and how to bridge the science-market gap — when it's most socially valuable and what design closes it.

Impact

An African Seed Value & Innovation Observatory with AFSTA — measuring trait value, mapping breeder capability, aligning supply and demand, and surfacing the policy levers that move adoption.

Scale

A global model for bridging science-market gaps — applied across agriculture and other innovation-dependent industries.
04

Speed of Science

Maximising the speed and impact of African scientific research at scale
Design

Knowledge

With African Academy of Sciences. Quantifying how grant infrastructure shapes researcher productivity — and what design unlocks it.

Impact

Identifying the grant infrastructure that actually works — and getting it adopted by African research institutions.

Scale

A global model for research grant design — adopted across funders and institutions everywhere science is done.
05

Mispriced Ventures

Increasing accuracy in non-familiar venture evaluation
Analysis

Knowledge

Multi-country data on how evaluators read non-familiar ventures — and what shifts their accuracy.

Impact

A fund that tests the thesis in market — backing foundational ventures invisible to conventional recognition.

Scale

A global venture infrastructure for ventures the standard playbook can't pattern-match.
06

Belonging Builds Economies

Culturally anchored entrepreneurship for durable ventures and economies
Pilot

Knowledge

Cultural anchors developed in Sierra Leone. Testing whether rootedness in place, pride, and heritage shapes who builds and what endures.

Impact

A cultural awakening yielding economic and social prosperity in Sierra Leone — belonging becoming the foundation for ventures and communities.

Scale

A global model for culturally anchored entrepreneurship — adapted across countries reckoning with extraction, displacement, and identity.
The People
'Leke Jegede
Co-founder

Institutional architecture, opportunity design, field experiments. Lagos-born, Freetown-raised. USL / LSE / HBS.

Vernon Hastings-Spaine
Co-founder

Cotton Tree restoration, heritage programming, culturally anchored entrepreneurship. Founder/Principal, Object Do. USL.

Hilary Mahar
Co-founder

Media, global partnerships, adoption strategy. Former Director of Innovation, Microsoft.