Inside Pakistan’s Tech Investment Boom
April 19th, 2022
Via Rest of World, an article on Pakistan’s tech investment boom: In 2019, when Kalsoom Lakhani and Misbah Naqvi founded i2i Ventures, a $15 million Pakistan-focused venture capital (VC) fund, they hoped to sign about three deals a year. Now, they’re signing that many deals every quarter. “I can barely keep up with the deal flow,” Lakhani […]
Read more »China’s Inadvertent Empire: Sinostan
April 19th, 2022
Via The Diplomat, a look at China’s rise in Central Asia: In “Sinostan: China’s Inadvertent Empire,” Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen take readers into the heart of Eurasia for insight into Beijing’s rise. Over a decade of travel, research, and writing went into the book, which charts the growth of Chinese power and presence in […]
Read more »BRI: A Look Back and Ahead
April 17th, 2022
Via GIS Reports, a look at how China’s Belt and Road Initiative is faring: With its Maritime Silk Road, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has moved far beyond Eurasia and its original aims of creating a New Silk Road project. The geographical scale has expanded to more than 140 countries, including in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia […]
Read more »Black Market SIM Cards Turned Zimbabwean Border Town Into Remote Work Hub
April 17th, 2022
Via Rest of World, an article on how Zimbabwe’s mobile data is so expensive, people have to rely on a signal from the next country over, Mozambique: Never Mtisi works as a courier at Kurwaisimba, a retail business center in Chimanimani in eastern Zimbabwe, ferrying merchandise between cities. Inflation in Zimbabwe means that wholesale prices often […]
Read more »Pay-As-You-Go-Solar Made Cheap Power a Debt Burden for the World’s Poorest
April 17th, 2022
Via Bloomberg, an article on the limitations of pay as you go solar: As a solar panel was raised onto the roof of their mud-brick home in a Tanzanian village in sight of Mount Kilimanjaro, Akida Saidi and his wife felt giddy at the prospect of entering a new era. In a place where most […]
Read more »The Chinese Companies Trying To Buy Strategic Islands
April 15th, 2022
Courtesy of The Financial Times, an article on the small businesses from China which are scouring the globe for important strips of land: Three years ago, Xu Changyu made his first attempt to get his hands on an island in the South Pacific. The vice-president of China Sam Enterprise Group quietly negotiated a 75-year lease […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.