African people cannot afford to miss the ongoing technological revolution. And to build our own technological sovereignty, we need to control our own satellites.
A few African countries like South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Marocco, Algeria, Egypt, for example, already have their own satellites. But they still depend on other countries to launch them like United States, Russia, China, India.
That is why the State of the African Diaspora (SOAD) is working on a space program: the objective is to create a launchpad in Africa and launch a rocket from Africa. To build this Panafican rocket, we already have many assets :
We have astrophysicist Cheick Modibo Diarra, who has led several NASA programs, who used to be Prime Minister of Mali and who is also the Minister of Sciences and Industry of SOAD, leading our space program.
We have signed different cooperation agreements with strategic partners in India and South Africa.
We have a great piece of land in Zambia to build the control tower.
We have our own finances and our own Lumi currency, recognized by the African Central Bank. We have financial partners in different countries out of Africa.
To do all of this program, we need to start with an Institute, as students, researchers, and engineers need to work hand in hand in that area. The space program in the USA was done through the research faculty in Pasadena, California.
That is why we need an Institute, and it will start its activities in September with a series of conferences. The first one will be given by Cheick Modibo Diarra himself.