Creative Capital Ep. 2: How Archivi.ng Built Nigeria’s Most Important Digital Library
A leaked manifesto, a chain of favours, and 18,627 days of Nigerian newspapers digitised in plain sight. Here’s what that actually took.
Building a media preservation project is a great undertaking. Sustaining it is even greater. But Archivi.ng seems to have done this really well, especially given that building a media company on the continent is quite hard. How, you may ask?
The reason may come down to something simple: Archivi.ng was never built behind closed doors. It was built in full view of everyone, and that simple fact might be the truest reason behind its success. But what does “building in public” actually mean here? Starting an idea from a single tweet or a personal observation is a well-worn genre by now, but this story deserves a closer look for the lessons it actually offers.
In this episode of Creative Capital, we break down the decisions that turned one man’s obsession with the past into one of Africa’s most important archival and media projects.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
How a frustrated search for historical context turned into a mission to digitise 18,627 days of Nigerian newspapers.
How a leaked manifesto and a chain of favours unlocked the funding, publisher deal, and registration Archivi.ng needed to exist.
Why archives alone don’t change anything, and how Archivi.ng’s Fellowship and editorial arm turned raw history into usable insight, including as a source for African-context AI training data.