FIELD NOTEBOOK · VOL. 1 · 2026
Systems designed where constraints are real.
↑ the whole idea, in six words
Field notes from building for West Africa.
Field notes
one a month, promise →
NO. 04
← newest
The AI Assistant I Want To Build
Natural language for the conversation, deterministic logic for the truth. Designing Doli, a WhatsApp assistant whose memory doesn't depend on which model is running it.
read it →
NO. 03
Building Sierrafy: An Open Identity Verification SDK for Sierra Leone
93% of Sierra Leoneans hold a NIN, but developers have no open way to verify one.
NO. 02
The Bottleneck
Why my V1 takes months when AI builds apps in a weekend. Code was never the bottleneck.
NO. 01
Why No One Will Adopt Your Tech Product in Sierra Leone
Infrastructure is one slice of adoption. Trust, skills and poverty take the rest.
more field notes →
Currently building
every project costs something.
here's the receipt.
UB WORKSHOP
SIERRA LEONE · ORDER #2026
- SIERRAFYON THE BENCH identity verification SDK
- DOLION THE BENCH whatsapp assistant · read note no. 04
- WITAPPARKED b2b payment gateway
- KONTRITICKETPARKED registration + ticketing
ITEMS4
PAID INLATE NIGHTS
** THANK YOU, COME AGAIN **
STATUS KEY: ON THE BENCH · SHIPPED · PARKED · SCRAPPED
IF MY CODE WERE A PODA-PODA, THE BACK WOULD SAY:
- Optimize for constraints
- Clarity over cleverness
- Systems over features
hi, I'm Umaru.
I'm a product builder. I created and maintain Sierrafy, an open-source toolkit for verifying Sierra Leone's national IDs, and I run Young Access Hub, a youth-led nonprofit in Kono District. The rest of it is on the receipt above.
Once a month I write up what building for these markets teaches me: what breaks, what survives, what scales. Sometimes something else entirely.
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