East Africa’s digital transformation is often told as a simple start up success story, yet beneath the surface two very different architectures are shaping who really builds the region’s knowledge economy and who benefits from it. This thought piece sketches an emerging research agenda on transnational founders as people based infrastructure and on donor scaffolding as a quiet force that can both open and close doors, inviting readers to look again at power and inclusion in “Silicon Savannah” and beyond.

Foreign education is usually treated as a detail in founder biographies, in Lombardy it turns out to be part of the region’s innovation infrastructure. Drawing on a founder level census of funded innovative startups, this new report maps who studied abroad, at which degree levels and in which countries, and shows how those learning pathways concentrate in a handful of global hubs while largely bypassing manufacturing. The result is a clearer picture of where Lombardy’s ecosystem is quietly strong, and where a manufacturing learning gap may be holding back its next wave of productivity and deep tech growth. If you work in policy, ecosystem building or investment and want to see how global learning pathways shape the pipelines you rely on, this is a report worth exploring.

What if international exchange was not just a student benefit, but a pillar of national innovation strategy?
Originally developed as a concept note for Tanzania’s Ministry of ICT, this piece outlines how a targeted exchange programme could unlock new capacity for founders, educators, and ecosystem builders. It argues that now is a critical moment to turn global connections into a deliberate tool for Tanzania’s startup growth.

This report provides a founder-level empirical analysis of Lombardy’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, assessing its diversity, inclusivity, and structural composition. The report outlines the need for inclusive policies, expanded funding mechanisms, …