About the Residency
The Vanguard Residency is a two-week discussion group inside Zanzalu designed to build a high-agency peer network among early-career Africans and Africa-focused builders, thinkers, artists, and policymakers who have demonstrated real problem-solving on important issues. It is built around our belief that the work that reshapes societies often starts in small, high-trust groups where ambitious ideas are treated as raw material and where people push each other toward clearer thinking and higher standards. Vanguard is an environment for rigorous conversation, practical exchange, and constructive pressure-testing, with the expectation that residents will contribute, challenge assumptions, and leave with stronger lenses on Africa’s most important questions and stronger relationships with fellow residents.
Vanguard programming runs during the first two weeks of Zanzalu. Zanzalu is a three-week pop-up community in Fumba Town, Zanzibar, running July 25 to August 14, bringing together founders, researchers, technologists, investors, and policy thinkers in a dense, in-person environment that makes repeat interaction and real collaboration possible.
SPONSORSHIP
Vanguard residents' accommodation is covered from July 25 to August 8 (the length of the residency), with travel to and from Zanzibar also covered.
EXPECTATIONS
Residents will be expected to participate actively in a mix of peer-led discussions, short presentations based on their expertise, group meals, and office hours with mentors working in areas like economic development, investing, and institution-building. Residents are also expected to prepare a talk or workshop to contribute to Zanzalu programming. Once accepted, residents will also receive a curated elective reading list in advance to raise the quality of shared discussions on themes such as state capacity, industrialization, urbanization, and energy.
There are no formal obligations after the residency, but our hope is that residents will continue to nourish the relationships they made with fellow residents and mentors and that the experience will inspire more ambitious and meaningful work.
Application Deadline: May 25, 2026
The Vanguard Experience
Supported By
The Vanguard Residency is made possible through the support of Emergent Ventures, whose grant funding enables sponsored participation, including travel and accommodation, for selected residents.
Meet Your Mentors
Vanguard residents engage with mentors working across economic development, investing, governance, entrepreneurship, and institution-building. Mentors join the residency through office hours, small-group discussions, and informal conversations, offering practical insight drawn from real-world experience.
Michael Muthukrishna
Professor of Economic Psychology at the London School of Economics
Michael Muthukrishna is a Professor of Economic Psychology at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he also holds several cross-cutting affiliations that reflect his expertise across psychology, economics, data, and development. His work conceptualizes cultural evolution as a practical toolkit for understanding human behavior at scale, then translating it into policy-relevant questions about growth, cooperation, and institutional performance. Michael’s book, A Theory of Everyone, explains the forces shaping human cooperation and conflict and applies them to modernity’s biggest challenges, such as polarization and inequality. At LSE, he is affiliated with the Developmental Economics Group at STICERD and the LSE Data Science Institute, and he has held leadership roles in graduate training as Director of the PhD Programme in Psychological and Behavioural Science. He is also the Technical Director of the Database of Religious History.
W. Gyude Moore
Former Minister of Public Works of Liberia
W. Gyude Moore is a public-service leader and policy thinker known for unifying the perspective of a senior public executive responsibility with the analytic work on how infrastructure is financed and governed in African settings. He served as Liberia’s Minister of Public Works from December 2014 to January 2018, overseeing the construction and maintenance of public infrastructure, after earlier roles at the center of government as Deputy Chief of Staff to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and head of the President’s Delivery Unit. After government, he has remained a prominent voice on development, infrastructure finance, and geopolitics, including as a Distinguished Fellow at the Energy for Growth Hub and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development.
Daniel Yu
Co-founder of Maxsoko
Daniel Yu is a technology entrepreneur who co-founded Sokowatch, now branded as Maxoko, a B2B commerce and logistics platform focused on supplying informal retailers at scale. Daniel built the company to a continental scale, even making it the “fastest-growing company in Africa” based on the inaugural Financial Times ranking of Africa’s fastest-growing companies. Trained at the University of Chicago, he gained early recognition well before his major company-building years, including winning the Prince of Wales Young Sustainability Entrepreneurs Prize while still a student. Daniel has been recognized by the White House as an “Emerging Global Entrepreneur” and by Forbes’ 30 Under 30 listing. Daniel has worked in or travelled to 60+ countries and speaks Mandarin, Swahili, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Cantonese, and French.
Who Should Apply
The Vanguard Residency is for early-career professionals serious about shaping Africa’s long-term future.
You should apply if you:
- Are building companies, institutions, or research initiatives
- Care deeply about development, governance, technology, or economic growth
- Enjoy rigorous discussion and intellectual challenge
- Want your thinking tested by equally ambitious peers
Explore Other Residencies
Zanzalu hosts multiple residency tracks bringing together different communities working toward shared questions about the future.
The Swahili Futurism Residency is a two-week artists’ residency exploring future aesthetics rooted in the Swahili coast through creative practice, cultural immersion, and public exhibition.
