Friday, July 11, 2025
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Name:  Tiya Fikre Korsa

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2. Education (የት/ት ደረጃ):  3rd year student at Jimma university

3. Company name (የመስሪያ ቤቱ ስም): Debo Engineering

4. Title (የስራ ድርሻህ): Agritech Team Leader

5. Founded in (መቼ ተመሰረተ): 2019

6. What it does (ምንድነው የሚሰራው): AI-powered Agritech and smart digital solutions, focusing on coffee sorting, IoT tools for agriculture, web/app development

7. Headquarters (ዋና መስሪያ ቤት): Jimma, Ethiopia

8. Start-up capital (በምን ያህል ገንዘብ ስራዉን ጀመርሽ/ክ): 15,000 ETB

9. Current capital (የአሁን ካፒታል): Over 2,000,000 ETB

10. Number of employees (የሰራተኞች ቁጥር): 11 permanent, 49 commission-based freelancers

11. Reason for starting the business (ለስራው መጀመር ምክንያት): To solve agricultural challenges through AI

12. Biggest perk of ownership (የባለቤትነት ጥቅም): Freedom to innovate and directly solve community problems

13. Biggest strength (ጥንካሬህ/ሽ): Innovation-driven, resilient, and solution-oriented mindset

14. Biggest challenge (ተግዳሮት): Limited funding and slow digital adoption by traditional sectors

15. Plan (እቅድ): Scale Coffee AI solutions nationwide and expand into new digital agriculture tools

16. First career path (የመጀመሪያ ስራ): Currently student

17. Most interested in meeting (ማግኘት የምትፈልጊ/ገው ሰው): Elon Musk

18. Most admired person (የምታደንቂ/ቀው ሰው): Zaha Hadid

19. Stress reducer (ጭንቀትን የሚያቀልልሽ/ለህ): Listening to spiritual songs

20. Favorite book (የመፅሐፍ ምርጫ): The Alchemist and Sememen from Amharic

21. Favorite pastime (ማድረግ የሚያስደስትህ): Reading fiction, listening to music or podcasts

22. Favorite destination to travel to (ከኢትዮጵያ ውጪ መሄድ የምትፈልጊ/ገዉ ስፍራ): Rome, Switzerland and Turkey

23. Favorite automobile (የመኪና ምርጫ): Santorini Black Range Rover

To build is to remember: The architectural practice of Fasil Giorghis

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“Architecture should not dominate—it should listen.”
—Fasil Giorghis

Beauty, like truth or virtue, may belong to the domain of philosophy—but it migrates, insistently and unbidden, into art, poetry, music, and architecture. Plato, no stranger to this migration, spoke of the beauty of laws, constitutions, and institutions—order made humane, structure made just. Such is the pulse of my own doctoral work: seeking the convergence of beauty and justice in constitutional design.

But on this occasion, my attention turns to a different kind of architect—one who shapes not legal edifices but the lived environments of our cities. I recently attended a presentation by Fasil Giorghis, Ethiopia’s foremost architect, at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. In his work, I saw a resplendent confluence of form and memory, stone and spirit. There was a profound lyricism in his use of light and material—a sense that architecture, like law, is ultimately about how we choose to inhabit the world together: what we preserve, what we enshrine, and what we dare to reimagine.

In a field too often dazzled by spectacle, Giorghis has long preferred the quiet gesture. Whether restoring medieval churches, transforming imperial residences, or designing eco-toilets with local masons, his work is marked not by grandeur but by care. In a public conversation held on June 7, 2025 with Heran Sereke-Brhan, Deputy Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, Giorghis offered a moving retrospective of a career rooted in memory, material knowledge, and moral purpose.

The Child Who Ran Through Ruins

Born in Gondar, a city inscribed with the shadows of Ethiopia’s imperial past, Giorghis spent his early years weaving through historic courtyards, unknowingly absorbing the language of stone. After moving to Addis Ababa and completing his education at Teferi Mekonnen School, he joined the School of Architecture at Addis Ababa University. But instead of finding Ethiopia in the curriculum, he found only Europe. His dream was to be the Frank Lloyd Wright of Ethiopia.

The syllabus was rich in the history of western architecture but poor in Lalibela and Gondar. Aksum’s geometric genius was nowhere to be found.

So he taught himself. With pen and brush in hand, he roamed the capital sketching neglected balconies, carved doorways, and worn colonnades—rendering them visible to a society already forgetting them. In doing so, Giorghis was engaged in a kind of inspired recollection—not unlike what Plato describes in the Phaedrus, where the soul, once having glimpsed the Forms, is stirred by beauty to remember. The balconies and lintels of Addis were not merely visual forms; they were architectural memories—signs of a past worth remembering, worth reanimating.

Heritage as a Living Practice

If Giorghis is now recognized as one of the most eminent architects of Ethiopia, it is not for inventing a new style, but for reviving an old ethos. His signature is not formal—it is ethical. Restoration, for him, is never about static preservation but about reuse with respect. He insists on adaptive transformations—reviving buildings not as fossils but as spaces for contemporary civic life.

This ethos stands in quiet dialogue with an earlier era of Ethiopian architectural ambition. In the 1960s, Addis Ababa underwent a dramatic construction boom, catalyzed by its rising international stature as host city to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the newly founded Organization of African Unity. Under Emperor Haile Selassie, architecture became a diplomatic and symbolic instrument—an effort to materialize an African modernity that could stand alongside global peers yet remain anchored in Ethiopian tradition.

Working with expatriate architects like Arturo Mezzedimi, Henri Chomette, and the team of Zalman Enav and Michael Tedros, the imperial state sought to craft a built environment that fused international modernist vocabularies with local idioms. Italian colonial planning logics were reappropriated, not simply erased. The result was a distinctive imperial modernism—at once forward-looking and historically situated.

In this lineage, Giorghis’s work marks both a continuity and a corrective. Where Haile Selassie’s architects sculpted modernity through grand public works, Giorghis has channeled it through civic humility. The Red Terror Martyrs’ Memorial Museum, for example, was never conceived as a monumental gesture. Giorghis declined to build a triumphalist edifice and instead designed a quiet museum embedded into the slope of Meskel Square. Drawing on indigenous forms—zigzagging masonry, rock-hewn transitions—the structure dignifies national memory without aestheticizing suffering.

Plato warned in the Republic that imitative art, when fixated on appearances, could mislead the soul—away from truth, away from the Forms. But Giorghis’s architecture does not imitate. It participates. It does not seduce the viewer with illusion; it invites the citizen into relation—with time, with place, with others.

The Team Behind the Vision

Giorghis is bold enough to deny the myth of the solitary genius. “This is not a one-man show,” he insists. “I work with brilliant, committed young Ethiopian architects.” Whether restoring Baata le Maryam Mausoleum, Takla Haimanot Church, the Taitu Cultural Center or the Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, each project is a collaborative undertaking.

These restorations are supported by a remarkable array of benefactors—from government ministries to diaspora Ethiopians and working-class donors contributing a few coins. The architecture becomes communal.

“From very poor women to wealthy businessmen,” he observes, “people give what they can. That’s when you know it matters.”

This emphasis on shared endeavor recalls Plato’s own ambivalence about inspiration. In the Ion, poetic madness is both dangerous and divine: the poet is a passive vessel, overcome by a god, moved like an iron ring suspended from a Muse’s magnet. But the real miracle, as Plato seems to recognize in the Phaedrus, is that this madness—if properly oriented—can lead the soul not to chaos but to truth. Giorghis’s architecture channels such divine energy not into spectacle but into civic continuity. His buildings do not claim credit. They listen.

Gondar: A City Reawakened

One of his most ambitious ongoing projects is the restoration of Gondar’s royal compound, including the 17th-century palace of Emperor Fasilides. The site, eroded by time and water, is being rehabilitated with original materials—lime, rock, and timber. But the effort goes far beyond stonework.

Giorghis and his team envision a socially integrated restoration: transforming the main palace into a museum, and surrounding buildings into workshops for local craftspeople—woodworkers, leather artisans, guides.

This model of preservation-as-livelihood is, in many ways, a microcosm of his architectural philosophy: buildings must serve both memory and economy.

Adwa: Stones of Memory and Paths of Renewal

Giorghis sees in the Adwa Heritage Preservation Project a rare and vital convergence: “a good example of public-private partnership which involved the local community as well.” It is, in many ways, a model for how heritage work in Ethiopia—and indeed across Africa—might be reimagined.

Here, too, his contribution is best described as inspired—not in the extravagant sense Plato warns against, but in the deeper sense of being attuned to the spirit of place. Inspiration, in Plato’s later works, is not mere mania. It is the soul’s recognition of beauty, of form, of order, calling it home.

Initiated by Elizabeth Ambaye, a native daughter of Adwa, and her husband Rick Stoner, the project began as a family remembrance and matured into a civic renewal. The Adwa Heritage Center now stands completed. Adjacent to it, the Assem Park project restores the natural and urban landscape. Most urgent of all is the Campaign to Save Old Adwa.

Here, Giorghis’s role is pedagogical. As professor and mentor, he has guided students in the documentation of one of Adwa’s oldest neighborhoods, a project that serves as both record and protest—against forgetting, against the kind of modernity that levels difference and silences time.

A Story from Lalibela

Heran Sereke-Brhan shared a telling anecdote during their public dialogue. One day in Lalibela, two young men pulled Fasil aside. They had once been guides. Their dream was to build a hotel. An American couple quietly financed the construction. That hotel—Mountain View—stands today not as monument to wealth, but to aspiration.

The original design was done by a student of Giorghis. The second phase was guided by Giorghis himself. These echoes of mentorship are part of his larger method: to build through others. His influence is less visible in form than in spirit.

Learning from the Vernacular

Giorghis has long championed vernacular architecture—not as aesthetic, but as epistemology. In Aksum, he helped design a library using ancient construction techniques. In Mekelle, he designed ecological toilets from local stone and earth.

“When I go to a site,” he says, “the only outsider is me. Everything else is local.”

In this too, one hears a Platonic resonance. In the Meno, Socrates praises inspired ignorance—not as an end, but as a beginning. Giorghis does not impose knowledge. He uncovers it, listens to it, dignifies it. His students learn not by projecting ideas, but by recovering the meaning that already inheres in a place.

The Architecture of Patience

His pedagogical ethos is best captured in a trip to Aksum in 1998. He brought 29 architecture students, who at first scoffed at the mud and rock houses. “What are we going to learn from this?” they asked. He said nothing. By the end of the week, they were transformed.

“There is so much knowledge here,” they whispered. The humility had set in.

This is the architecture Fasil Giorghis teaches—and practices. One that attends to local material, to forgotten skill, to community voice. It is not the architecture of abstraction or ego. It is the architecture of relation—of reverence for place, and responsibility to people.

“Ethiopia has so much to offer—to the world, and to itself,” he says. “But to see it, you must be patient. You must find the middle point.”

In a world of rapidly vanishing places, Giorghis reminds us: to build is not just to create. It is to remember. To repair. To make space—for beauty, for justice, and for the slow dignity of time.

Alemayehu Fentaw Weldemariam is Managing Editor of Africa Today, published quarterly by Indiana University Press, and Orbis Africa, published by the Roy Sieber Chair in African Art History at Indiana University Bloomington and Diasporic Africa Press. He is a PhD Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Democracy, majoring in constitutional design and minoring in political philosophy.

New BRICS literature award launched to foster cultural exchange

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A new international prize, the BRICS Literature Award, was officially launched today during a press conference hosted by TASS. The award, established at the BRICS Forum “Traditional Values” in November 2024, aims to promote cultural exchange and highlight the importance of literature in strengthening humanitarian ties among BRICS nations.

The event featured prominent figures including Sergey Stepashin, President of the Russian Book Union, and Dmitry Kuznetsov, Head of the Award Secretariat, along with representatives from various BRICS countries. They emphasized the award’s role in fostering intercultural dialogue through artistic expression.

In his opening remarks, Stepashin noted, “Literature is an essential tool for mutual understanding. Through works of art, we destroy prejudices, build empathy, and deepen ties between our peoples.” He expressed confidence that the award would enhance trust and cooperation among BRICS nations, which collectively represent over three billion people.

Kuznetsov elaborated on the broader objectives of the award, stating, “The Award’s overarching goal is to explore common values that unite our nations. The common moral platform will facilitate cooperation not only in culture but also in economics and politics.” He announced plans to present a list of shared values at the upcoming “Traditional Values” Forum in Brasilia.

The press conference also introduced the BRICS Literature Network Initiative, aimed at uniting writers’ unions, literary scholars, and publishers for ongoing cultural exchange among BRICS countries. This initiative was proposed following a meeting with the Writers’ Union of China.

International participants echoed the significance of the award, with comments highlighting its role in promoting dialogue and cultural diversity. Dr. Shoaib Khan from India remarked, “Literature Awards encourage dialogue and critical thinking. The authors will represent societies, not just countries.”

The award is open to authors whose works reflect the traditions and values of BRICS nations, with a jury comprising experts from each country selecting nominees. The winner will be announced in November 2025 and will receive a prize of one million rubles, provided by the Eurasian Book Agency.

The establishment of the BRICS Literature Award marks a significant step towards enhancing literary cooperation and cultural exchange among member countries, paving the way for international recognition of emerging literary voices.

The devaluation dilemma

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In the world of economic policy, few decisions are as consequential—or as fraught with risk—as the devaluation of a national currency. Ethiopia’s move to float the birr and allow its value to be determined by market forces was heralded by some as a necessary step toward correcting long-standing imbalances and unlocking international support. Yet, for anyone familiar with the country’s economic structure and the lessons of history, the consequences now unfolding were not only foreseeable but virtually inevitable. The question that must be asked is: what did the government expect would happen, and why does it seem surprised by the pain now being felt by ordinary Ethiopians?

The rationale behind devaluation is, in theory, straightforward. By weakening the birr, Ethiopian exports become cheaper and more attractive to foreign buyers, potentially boosting export revenues and narrowing the trade deficit. The move also aligns the official exchange rate with the realities of the parallel market, a step long demanded by international lenders such as the IMF and World Bank as a precondition for financial support and debt relief. In a country where foreign currency shortages have crippled businesses and stifled growth, the hope was that a market-based exchange rate would attract investment, improve competitiveness, and set the stage for a more sustainable economic model.

But the costs of devaluation are immediate and severe, especially for a country like Ethiopia. With a large stock of foreign-denominated debt and a heavy reliance on imported goods, the impact of a weaker birr is felt across every sector of the economy. The most direct and painful consequence is the sharp increase in the local currency cost of servicing external debt. Even if the total amount owed in dollars remains unchanged, the government must now find far more birr to make each payment. This is not a technicality—it is a budgetary crisis in the making. As the finance ministry itself has acknowledged, debt service in local currency terms could soon consume more than half of the regular government budget, crowding out spending on health, education, infrastructure, and social protection.

For ordinary Ethiopians, the effects are even more immediate. The price of imported goods—fuel, food, medicine, and industrial inputs—has soared since the devaluation. Inflation, already a persistent problem, has accelerated, eroding the purchasing power of wages and savings. For those on fixed incomes, such as public sector workers, pensioners, and the urban poor, the squeeze is relentless. The cost of living rises daily, while incomes lag far behind. The government may point to the long-term benefits of a more competitive exchange rate, but for millions of families struggling to afford basic necessities, those promises ring hollow.

It is important to recognize that these outcomes were not only predictable—they were predicted. Economists, financial analysts, and even some within the government warned that devaluation would bring a wave of inflation and a surge in the local currency cost of debt service. The experience of other countries that have undertaken similar reforms is clear: currency devaluation almost always leads to a spike in prices, especially in economies that import most of their essential goods. The poorest and most vulnerable segments of society bear the brunt of the adjustment, as prices rise faster than incomes and social safety nets are stretched to the breaking point.

The government’s decision to devalue the birr was made under significant external and internal pressures. Years of state-led development, financed by heavy borrowing and an overvalued currency, had left Ethiopia with a mountain of debt and a chronic shortage of foreign exchange. The old model was no longer sustainable, and international partners made it clear that further support would depend on meaningful reforms. In this context, the move to a market-based exchange rate was perhaps unavoidable. But it is disingenuous to suggest that the pain now being felt by ordinary Ethiopians was somehow unforeseen or could have been avoided with better timing or implementation.

What is most troubling is the apparent lack of preparation for the social and economic fallout. While the government has taken steps to secure debt restructuring agreements and negotiate with creditors, there has been little evidence of a comprehensive plan to protect the most vulnerable from the shock of devaluation. Social protection programs remain underfunded, and efforts to cushion the impact of rising prices have been piecemeal at best. The result is a growing sense of frustration and disillusionment among the public, who see their living standards eroded while the promised benefits of reform remain distant and uncertain.

The exclusion of Ethiopia from the World Bank’s income classification for 2026 is a further sign of the country’s economic volatility and the challenges ahead. While the reasons for this exclusion are complex, it reflects the reality that Ethiopia’s economic trajectory is now marked by uncertainty, data gaps, and the unpredictable effects of rapid policy shifts. For investors and development partners, this sends a worrying signal about the country’s stability and prospects for recovery.

In the end, the lesson is clear: currency devaluation is not a quick fix, and its costs are borne most heavily by those least able to afford them. The government’s expectation that the benefits of reform would quickly outweigh the costs was always unrealistic, given Ethiopia’s economic fundamentals. The pain of adjustment was not only inevitable—it was the price of years of unsustainable borrowing, delayed reforms, and a reluctance to confront hard truths.

It is essential that policymakers acknowledge the human cost of their decisions and take concrete steps to mitigate the impact on ordinary citizens. This means prioritizing social protection, strengthening domestic revenue mobilization, and maintaining transparency in economic management. Above all, it requires a willingness to listen to the voices of those most affected and to recognize that economic stability cannot be achieved at the expense of social justice.

The current hardship facing Ethiopians is not an unexpected crisis—it is the logical outcome of choices made over the past decade and the necessary, if painful, reforms now underway. The only way forward is through prudent management, open communication, and a clear-eyed understanding of the challenges ahead. Anything less is not only unrealistic—it is a disservice to the people who bear the brunt of economic change.