Ground Up

A live signal layer

255 millionpeople live where the fuse is lit.

19 countries · 3.1% of the planet · fuse ≥ 60

The fuse is how close a place is to blowing up. Youth unemployment, violence, unrest on the ground, scored 0 to 100 and refreshed continuously. The higher it burns, the less time there is to route something useful in.

See where it's burningFollow the build
01

Find

Youth unemployment as the leading indicator. Where idle, military-age cohorts concentrate.

02

Gauge

Composite score adds violence index and freedom of access. Urgency, not just heat.

03

Route

Power, internet, devices, inference. The four things that unlock self-determination.

v1 · Live heat signature

The fault lines are already burning.

Heat ranked by male youth unemployment. Tap any marker for the full priority breakdown: unemployment, violence, internet, devices, electricity, AI usage.

76%
Peak · Djibouti
7
Past critical · >40%
16
Past acute · >30%
4
Regions on the curve

Rendering globe…

Source · World Bank · ILOSTAT modeled estimates
Window · 2014–2026
Built · 2026-06-29

Provenance

Where the numbers come from.

Every dimension in the priority score has a public, citable source. Window 2014–2026. Signed-input pipeline lands with v2.

Step 02 · Gauge urgency

Three numbers, not one.

Fuse is combustibility. Unemployment, violence, and realtime unrest. It tells you where things blow up. Access is the gap score across power, devices, internet, and AI. How much of the pipe is missing.

Impact is the geometric mean of the two: you need a burning fuse AND a real access gap for intervention to matter. High impact + high reach = biggest opportunity.

CountryFuseAccess gapImpactReach
01Djibouti
100587617
02South Africa
100184283
03Eswatini
7935538
04St. Vincent and the Grenadines
1002752100
05Libya
10020458
06Congo, Rep.
10071858
07Botswana
78335183
08Tunisia
65244033
09Jordan
66244033
10Namibia
78526475
All scores 0–100. Fuse = unemployment + violence + unrest. Access gap = deprivation across power, devices, internet, AI. Higher = more lacking. Impact = √(fuse × access). Both must be high. Reach = Freedom House openness, higher = easier to intervene.

Step 03 · The access gap

The gap you can actually close.

Unemployment and violence are structural. They move in years. The access gap moves in months. Four variables determine whether someone can participate in the modern economy: power, internet, devices, inference.

Each country gets an access sub-score: the mean deprivation across those four pillars, 0–100. The goal composite is 20: all four pillars at 80%+ coverage. Below that threshold, the pipe is open and people there can do the rest.

CountryAccess scoreGap to goalPowerInternetDevicesInference
01Djibouti
58+3865%65%74%16%
02South Africa
18at goal88%78%89%20%
03Eswatini
35+1586%63%82%16%
04St. Vincent and the Grenadines
27+7100%76%88%19%
05Libya
20at goal73%82%90%21%
06Congo, Rep.
71+5151%47%59%12%
07Botswana
33+1376%57%91%14%
08Tunisia
24+4100%77%91%19%
09Jordan
24+4100%96%86%24%
10Namibia
52+3257%65%82%16%
Access score = mean deprivation across four pillars, 0–100, higher = more lacking. Goal: 20. Pillar values: raw coverage %. Red < 50% · Gold 50–79% · Dim ≥ 80%.

The intervention

Four things. Then people can do the rest.

01

Power

Electricity is the gate. Solar microgrids and pay-as-you-go kits first, grid where possible. No power, no pipe.

02

Internet

Starlink, regional ISPs, community Wi-Fi. Where satellite is blocked, mesh and shortwave. Last-mile matters.

03

Devices

Refurbished smartphones and low-cost tablets. A device is the terminal. The terminal is the leverage point.

04

Inference

AI access, free and sponsored. On-device for censored regimes, cloud-routed where open. A model is a tutor, a lawyer, a business partner.

“In your Primer you have a resource that will make you highly educated, but it will never make you intelligent. That comes from life.”

Judge Fang · The Diamond Age

Hand someone in a high-urgency region a device with internet and AI access and you've handed them a library, a lawyer, and a business partner. They can access the world's information. They can launch internet-native businesses. They can bring their situation to global attention and attract capital.

The problem doesn't get solved from the outside. It gets solved when the people inside have the tools. Ground Up is the pipe that routes those tools in.

Roadmap

Four layers, stacked.

  1. v1

    Hotspot map

    Live, agent-forecast view of where idle, military-age cohorts are concentrating. The leading edge of unrest.

  2. v2

    Access pipe

    Power, internet, devices, and inference routed into high-signal regions. Satellite and solar first; mesh, SMS, and shortwave as alternates.

  3. v3

    Creator support

    Where the pipe becomes operational. Open to anyone in those regions, not gated to a cohort or demographic.

  4. v4

    Virtuous loop

    Enabled creators feed back into the signal. More data, more attention, more capacity. Self-supporting.

Design constraints

Day-one constraints, not v3 problems.

Investment, not charity

Where young men concentrate is the prioritization filter. That's where help compounds fastest. Access stays open to everyone in those regions.

No centralized gatekeeping

Data lives on IPFS, Arweave, and L2. Signed and timestamped at the input. Verified by default.

Sovereign by design

Some regimes will not like this. Anonymous routing and out-of-band pipes are day-one constraints, not v3 problems.