About three years ago, inside my thatched home bordering Kruger National Park, I stared at the screen of my laptop as I contemplated the ending of another great partnership. It had been eight years of building Me-Vision Academy—first as a daily leadership nudge, then as an ecosystem dedicated to transforming leadership standards in partnership with like-minded leaders globally. But still the numbers refused to close. The app was impressive; every leader who saw it nodded in awe. But leaders being impressed didn’t pay servers. I had paid enough “school fees” to fund a small university: failed joint ventures, damages from COVID19, vanished co-founders, code rewritten from scratch. The hyenas laughed outside. I would have laughed with them if it wasn’t so serious.

These are moments of choice: Retreat or Pivot hard. We chose the latter. If the world wouldn’t buy leadership fitness, perhaps we should reward people to get leadership fit—and make the payment itself an appreciating investment; make leadership improvement an investable asset. After months of burning the candle at both ends, and putting everything we had into it, in December 2024 we launched MEV, a purpose-driven currency tied to the acts of improvement inside the platform. We launched a Global Improvement Revolution! Pledge $4.50, $11, $22, $50 or more a month, get MEV back; watch it grow as micro-improvements compound, all focused on helping leaders improve Self, Others, Organisation and Society—SOOS. The math was brutal and elegant: scale SOOS, scale MEV. Early patrons believed. In nine months MEV climbed 10,000 %—from $0.10 to $10. The currency worked. Believers were richly rewarded. The content, though, still trickled. We needed a flood of micro-improvements. We needed that too to scale dramatically. And we needed leaders to be certified for what they learnt on the platform.

Two months ago we launched our real-time certification program, in all SOOS categories with progress on five levels. And just before that, three months ago, now from a house on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast with the Indian Ocean showing off its beauty, we started recruiting Improvement Architects (IAs)—young tech-savvy individuals, often students and recent graduates. The brief: source real-world SOOS content and examples, turn them into Leads (messages) with AI-assisted tests, earn MEV instantly as you do this. We started with five IAs. Word spread almost too fast. Over the next few weeks the number climbed steadily to 33 across several African countries, with 17 more waiting to be onboarded. They are from South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Botswana—many still in lecture halls, many more with degrees gathering dust and anxiety gathering speed. Stats SA says 62 % of them have no job; WHO says one in three battles clinical despair. We handed them the steering wheel instead of a pamphlet.

Tonight, as I write, a young, hungry, ambitious, keen student from a Kenyan university uploads an inspiring Lead on “Leaders, conflict, and team coordination”. AI refines the test in seconds. The human validates it. Lc hits his wallet as he leads. He converts to his local currency, buys data, contributes to rent, texts his family: “I earned today”. Another IA or a senior leader in a large corporate in South Africa studies the message, completes the test immediately after, earns Lc and credits towards another certificate, showing that he is improving himself as a mining leader. Tomorrow a 22-year-old in Sierra Leone or South Africa will do the same on maternal health or building trust. This is starting to happen in every sector of society. The content velocity is now measured in thousands of Leads per month—faster than many large institutions. Every certificate a leader or an IA earns (Leading Self, Leading Others, Leading Society) is a credential no lecture hall issues in real time.

We set out to save current leadership standards. We were wrong. The rising generation is saving us—and themselves—by building the curriculum they wished they’d had.

Here is the positive challenge you may be able to assist with. The global incentive fund from which we reward IAs, once a comfortable buffer, is already starting to drain faster than pledges can refill it. The IAs are too good, too fast, too hungry. We need fuel fast or they will earn less: $22, $50, $100 monthly pledges from individuals and organisations who understand that infrastructure is not only concrete—it is hope converted into daily income. We have many potential IAs waiting for this incredible opportunity. But we have to strengthen the global incentive fund for their hopes to materialise.

Your monthly pledge is not an ordinary pledge at all. It is split three ways: a thank-you in appreciating MEV back to you, turning into a healthy investment. The lion’s share into rewards for IAs and participating leaders (global incentive fund), the rest into servers and code. You are not donating; you are investing in our youth and an operating system—a digital economy—that could make unemployment obsolete, student debt a problem of the past, while preparing tomorrow’s leaders and supporting today’s.

Organisations, enroll your interns—they are the exact cohort we target. Watch them turn idle hours into certified leadership and bank deposits while your ROI compounds alongside MEV.

If I was at my home in the bush, the hyenas would be quiet, no laughing. The stars would be sharp. Somewhere a young leader is drafting another Lead and earning. Someone else is studying it while earning. Yet another is awarded a well-earned certificate in real-time.

We are fighting the following challenges and much more. Please join us:

•⁠ ⁠62% youth unemployment in South Africa (Stats SA, Q2 2025)
•⁠ ⁠1 in 3 young people globally report clinical anxiety or depression (WHO, 2024)
•⁠ ⁠AI displacing 85 million jobs by 2027 (World Economic Forum)—probably much more in reality
•⁠ ⁠Traditional education failing: $1.5 trillion in global student debt, yet 70% of graduates underemployed
•⁠ ⁠Leadership vacuum: 79% of CEOs worried about skills gaps; only 11% see improvement (PwC, 2025)
The result? A lost generation—disconnected, disillusioned, and disempowered.

Worldwide leadership standards are declining. 76–86% of people believe the world is producing worse, not better leaders in politics and business.

We can reverse this, together.
The mission has clarified: improve leadership by empowering the rising generation who will inherit it. The model is working. The only variable left is constant fuel—growing the incentive fund. We do have loyal patrons who pledge monthly and we couldn’t be more grateful. But with a growing IA Army this needs to increase exponentially.

Join Me-Vision Academy on ThinkLead.app. Pledge. Increase your pledge if possible. Participate. Help mentor these young leaders. Scale the IA Army.