Data & Purpose: Notes from a Curious Builder
It’s that season again, when half the world quietly agrees to move time.
One day you wake up, check your phone, and discover that what was 8 a.m. yesterday is now 7 a.m. today.
No cosmic event. No time travel. Just humanity doing its annual “let’s trick the sun” experiment.
Daylight Saving Time started over a century ago as an energy-saving idea - a noble cause that’s since evolved into a global test of who remembers which direction the clocks go.
Some countries change time; others don’t. The rest of us just spend the week joining meetings an hour early, convinced the internet betrayed us.
The funny thing is, time itself never moved, we did.
Time zones, daylight shifts, global clocks - all human inventions.
Systems we built to make sense of the world, each shaped by geography, convenience, and a bit of optimism that we can somehow manage the sun.
Working on something exciting
A while back, two of my friends and I started a thing - we called it Activ.
No clocks involved (thankfully), just an obsession with how Africa can create and own its data infrastructure.
Because, much like timekeeping, data systems mirror the people who build them.
What you measure says something about what you value. And right now, too many of the systems measuring Africa were designed somewhere else for someone else’s context.
Without rich, structured, localized datasets, Africa’s AI models are basically studying from borrowed textbooks.
That’s partly why I’ve been spending late nights exploring Google BigQuery. It’s fascinating, though. Querying massive datasets feels like standing in front of an ocean - all that information, waiting for someone to build a boat.
At Activ, we’re trying to change that - turning the chaos of news and media into structured insight.
What I’ve Been Watching and Reading
Now, onto the fun part.
I’ve noticed many of you - my very kind and intellectually curious readers click on the links I share each week.
First, thank you. Second, it tells me we share a similar taste.
This week, mine involved a Diary of a CEO interview where I discovered Mohnish Pabrai.
What. A. Brain.
This man treats decision-making like an art form and patience like a superpower.