March, 2026
It is Wednesday.
I am in Detroit.
I have just completed my move from the capital of Michigan: Lansing, to the City of Detroit to build my new venture: Q2 Systems—a company of Bien Corporation.
I write these words sitting on the seventh floor of a twenty-five floor high rise on the waterfront.
I have been listening to Driemo and Gwamba’s ‘Yonseyi‘ on repeat since yesterday.
When I look out the window, I see Canada staring right back at me across the river.
Life has a way of arranging moments like this. I am taking this very brief moment to look around for a second.
Twelve years.
That is roughly how long it has taken to get here.
I find myself pulling at the threads.
Small bricks. Small decisions. Tiny turns that, at the time, did not seem important.
Tiny turns that led us to precisely where we are.
Lessons Conversation
Delve into Business and International Development with Nthanda Manduwi
Book 7 – A New Normal [lessonsbooks.com]
2026 High Level Political Forum
This past week brought me back to New York for two reasons: I was in the Big Apple to attend my Schengen visa interview ahead of my upcoming trip to Europe, while also taking advantage of the opportunity to reconnect with former colleagues and attend discussions taking place alongside the 2026 United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
My first stop was, of course: Sweet Linda – a new bar by one of my best friends, Aury.
It is such great joy for me to see this happening for Aury – being one of the greatest humans I have literally ever come across.
Read more about Sweet Linda
Foot Traffic
As has often been the case throughout my career, moving between embassies, conference venues, meetings and the United Nations Headquarters meant covering much of the city on foot. Walking is often [and perhaps ironically] the fastest way to travel through Manhattan, and after enough journeys, one begins to notice patterns that are difficult to appreciate from inside a taxi.
Video filmed at Laguardia Airport in New York. Enjoy!
Suppose I need to travel from 44th Street and 1st Avenue to 56th Street and 7th Avenue.
There are numerous possible routes, each differing by only a few minutes. I have never found it worthwhile to stand at the starting point trying to calculate the optimal path. Instead, I clarify what the general direction is, and I simply begin moving towards the destination. If the avenues are flowing, I head north. If the cross streets are moving more freely, I turn west. Every intersection provides new information. A red light may encourage another block north before crossing. A series of green lights may make an earlier turn more efficient than I had anticipated. The route is not predetermined. It emerges through continuous adjustment.
I got to reflect on this: something I do quite intrinsically, yet seem more efficient than how some of my friends move in NY. For me, the optimisation does not occur before movement begins; it occurs because movement has already begun. Every block travelled generates additional information that was unavailable one block earlier. Every decision improves upon the previous one because it incorporates new evidence. Standing still may produce the appearance of careful planning, but it produces very little new information. Movement, by contrast, is itself a mechanism for learning.
This took me on a tangent, and got me thinking about development work.
This Week’s Book
📖 A New Normal [Book 7]
The closing book in the series closes with the same central question that connects all the books in the series:
What Works? In What Context? Under What Circumstances? Why?
After tracing failure, power, dysfunction, impossible economies, denial, and the quiet wars that still shape the Global South, we turn towards the work of building. The book asks what countries, institutions, entrepreneurs, and communities can do when knowledge is more available than ever, but execution under constraint remains the central challenge.
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A small rewind
I have been thinking about March lately.
March seems to be when my life quietly reorganizes itself.
March, 2026
I have just moved to Detroit to build Q2.
March, 2025
I had just landed in Madrid, Spain, for my study abroad with the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.
March, 2024
I was in Manhattan completing the incorporation of my non-profit, Ntha Foundation, as a 501(c)(3), while preparing to complete my mission with the United Nations.
March, 2023
I was living what was, honestly, a fairly magical life in Manhattan.
March, 2022
I was wrapping up my life in Lilongwe, Malawi, preparing to move to the United States to join the UN in New York.
March, 2021
My organization had just received a $250,000 grant from the World Bank to build innovation hubs in Malawi.
At that exact moment, I had enrolled in my first Master’s degree.
I could go further back.
I probably should.
But for now, 2021 feels like a good place to begin pulling the threads.
The Road to Motor City
There was a time—not too long ago—when all I wanted was to be a travel and lifestyle blogger in Malawi.
To write.
To photograph food.
To tell stories.
Life, as it tends to do, had other plans. Or perhaps it simply had larger versions of the same plan.
The blogging turned into storytelling.
The storytelling turned into organizations.
The organizations turned into companies.
And somehow, one brick at a time, the road lands us here today.
Detroit.
Why Detroit?
Detroit to me feels like a reset.
The past few years of my life have been motion. Constant forward motion.
New York.
Torino.
Pattaya.
Lansing.
Redmond.
Madrid.
Always always moving.
Detroit, however, feels different.
Detroit feels like a moment to pause as my companies scale.
It is a city that understands reinvention better than most places on Earth. It built the modern industrial world. It lost it. And now it is rebuilding something new.
That energy resonates deeply with me.
It is an economy that is not so advanced that everything feels abstract, but also not so fragile that ambition feels unrealistic.
Things here still make sense.
You can see the bones of industry.
You can see the possibility of what comes next.
And somewhere within that possibility, I see a place for Q2.
Q2
Q2 is my new venture—what I went to Michigan State University to build: a company of Bien Corporation.
Bien began as a creative company—an attempt to bring high-quality storytelling and branding to businesses in Malawi and across Africa.
But over time, a lot interesting things happened.
The work started pointing toward larger systems.
Technology.
Infrastructure.
Platforms.
Q2 is the next chapter of that journey.
I am excited to spend the next year [and perhaps more] exploring what this company can become.
The Season Ahead
More than anything, this next chapter feels personal to me.
For a long time, my life has been about building things for others. Communities. Platforms. Organizations.
Detroit feels like a moment to also build something within myself.
Over the next year, I hope to spend time doing the following:
Writing.
Telling the stories I have been carrying for years.
Reflecting.
Pulling at the threads of the last decade and understanding how the pieces fit together.
Resting.
Allowing my mind the space to breathe after years of constant motion.
Building Q2.
Carefully and thoughtfully shaping what this company can become.
Making new friends.
Every city teaches you something through the people you meet.
Finding myself again.
Perhaps the most important work of all.
Spring
I arrived in Detroit at the very beginning of spring.
The trees have not yet bloomed.
The air still carries the last breath of winter.
But something is shifting.
Soon the city will turn green again.
And, if I am lucky, so will parts of my own life.
So for now, I write.
I reflect.
And I look forward to seeing what blooms next.
—
Ntha
Detroit, Michigan
March 2026
Read my Published Works:
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About the Author
