Nairobi — The Mohamed Amin Foundation is excited to announce the genesis drop of NFTs from their archive. After years of frame-by-frame cataloging and digitization, the Mohamed Amin Collection is opening its doors for exploration and exhibition to the public through the power of NFTs. The archive includes over 5,000 hours of video content and 2.5 million still photographs gathered between 1955-1996, representing one of the world’s greatest unexplored historical artifacts. It includes unique, high quality documentation of the events surrounding post-colonial Africa, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Our mission is to share this body of work with the global public as a way to stimulate dialogue about Africa and Africans, as well as leverage the new monetization models, introduced by Web3, to create funding for African artists. The impact of this NFT drop will go beyond serving as an example for how cultural organisations can utilise their archive. We also aim to change the way African history is taught and appreciated across the world.
“We’re excited to leverage this new Web3 technology in a way that can catalyze global conversations about Africa’s rich and cultured history”, says Salim Amin, Chairman of The Mohamed Amin Foundation. “The genesis drop from the Mohamed Amin Collection is the first step in a journey towards building a Web3 community dedicated to exploring Africa’s past while leveraging cryptocurrencies and decentralized technologies to create an inspiring future for the continent.”
Along with the launch of the first NFT drop, the Mohamed Amin Foundation will launch it’s own Ethereum-based social currency called $Afrofuture. Each quarter, 5 NFTs from the Mohamed Amin Collection will be auctioned off to collectors with proceeds from each sale going towards building and sustaining the $Afrofuture community. Through quarterly NFT drops we aim to catalyze dialog about the stories and context behind these amazing historical African artifacts, while using $Afrofuture to organize creative efforts towards inspiring it’s future.
The genesis drop will occur on Foundation ( foundation.app/afrofuture ) on May 3rd at 1pm EST. An opening Clubhouse featuring Robert F. Kennedy Junior, Misan Harriman, Chip Duncan, Trevor Hardy and others will kick off the auction starting at 1pm EST on Monday with a closing Clubhouse on Tuesday at 1pm EST. Go to https://afrofuture.ai and drop in your email to register, or you can directly join into the conversation via
https://www.joinclubhouse.com/join/TalkNerdyToMe/OXMT0zMS/M5Gapkk8
ABOUT MOHAMED AMIN: No one has caught Africa’s pain and passion more incisively than Mohamed Amin, photographer and frontline cameraman extraordinaire. He was the most famous photo-journalist in the world, making the news as often as he covered it. ‘Mo’ trained his unwavering lens on every aspect of African life, never shying from the tragedy, never failing to exult in the success. His coverage of the 1984 Ethiopian famine proved so compelling that it inspired a collective global conscience and became the catalyst for the greatest-ever act of giving. Unquestionably, it also saved the lives of millions of men, women and children. He served as both the inspiration and as a catalyst for Band Aid, USA for Africa and Live Aid. Mo’s remarkable life was cut tragically short in November 1996 when hijackers took over an Ethiopian airliner forcing it to crash land in the Indian Ocean killing 123 passengers and crew. Mo died on his feet still negotiating with the terrorists. By any standards, Mo’s life was truly extraordinary; action-packed, full of pain and passion and inseparable from the troubled chronicle of emergent Africa.
ABOUT $AFROFUTURE
$Afrofuture ( https://afrofuture.ai ) is a social token community unlocking new funding opportunities for African creatives by bringing The Mohamed Amin Collection, one of the world’s greatest unexplored historical artifacts, onto Ethereum and leveraging proceeds to commission Africa based artists to produce art within the theme of Afrofuturism.
