Kwanda

Diasporans coming together to fund local innovation across Africa.

🇳🇬 🇬🇭 🇰🇪 🇯🇲 🇸🇱 🇺🇬 🇿🇼 🇨🇩 + more

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

@mscontrversial They're not paying for R&D for personal experiments.

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

Alright let's do the public address on this. Thread 👇🏾

[Antony Gordon @mscontrversial]

Is @Kwanda a charity or a startup incubator?

Promise: 70/30 split.
Q1 reality: Less than 40p of every £1 reached Africa.

I asked why donor money funds an AI product studio stack (OpenAI, Anthropic, ElevenLabs).

My comments were deleted by the founder.

Here's what I found🧵👇

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

@mscontrversial They all do different things. You can go on their websites and check.

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

@mscontrversial We are using non-profit discounts :) We don't pay full commercial unless the tool doesn't offer a non-profit discount.

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

@mscontrversial If you look at the demo on the website. You'll see that the demo itself is one showing how Anthropic is used specifically for Kwanda.

Other Shapes is pretty simple, I just help people set up the same tools. There's no need for R&D. It's basic consultancy and tool setup.

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

@mscontrversial Happy to. For the public record, not only do we have entirely separate accounts for Other Shapes.

We actually don't use much AI to run the Other Shapes consultancy (Just Anthropic, Codex, Instantly, Apollo, Loom + Notion).

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

@mscontrversial Here's all our fixed costs described: https://t.co/my4EAhqfMI

This syncs to our website. As you pointed out our own ledger already shows you these costs.

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

The core of our mission is transparency and we always encourage villagers to ask questions. Every villager has my email (Jermaine) and I always reply.

If you ever do have questions you can reach out to us in good faith and we'll respond (no need to make a fake account).

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

On the deleted comments:

Yes we did, after we realised he was using a freshly created account to engage and wasn't actually a villager, which we felt was misleading to readers.

As a result we reported his comments and removed them.

[Kwanda @JoinKwanda]

1,810 girls in rural Kenya 🇰🇪 have received free reusable menstrual kits funded by Kwanda villagers.

65% of Kenyan women and girls can't afford menstrual products. Schoolgirls miss up to 40 days a year.

The kits are sewn by local women who earn $3 each. Each kit lasts two years.

Our 2026 goal: 1,300 more girls.