Creative writer and publisher Benison Christopher discusses building scalable digital ecosystems designed to amplify African and diaspora storytellers, integrating advanced technology with fair, creator-centric business models.
In the global digital marketplace, the challenge of providing visibility and fair compensation for underrepresented creators remains a significant hurdle. For African and diaspora storytellers, systemic barriers in traditional publishing have often limited their reach, creating a need for new models that merge technological innovation with cultural preservation.
Christopher, a creative writer, publisher, and cultural entrepreneur with a Master of Science in IT Project Management, is addressing this gap by building sophisticated digital ecosystems. Through her platforms, Christopher is developing scalable, revenue-generating solutions designed to amplify these voices and ensure they are heard, valued, and protected on a global scale.
From personal outlet to platform
The journey toward creating a comprehensive digital publishing ecosystem began with a focused, practical goal. Christopher’s initial platform, benisonchristopher.com, started as a direct channel to connect her own literary works with a global readership, bypassing conventional industry gatekeepers and the financial barriers often present in open-access publishing models.
“The original vision behind benisonchristopher.com was simply to share my work directly with readers,” Christopher states. However, the site quickly demonstrated a much broader potential. As it successfully navigated global payments and digital access, it became clear that the underlying infrastructure had applications far beyond a single author’s catalogue.
This evolution transformed a personal project into a robust model for a larger mission. Christopher explains that, “It functioned as a proof of concept for a digital publishing and licensing system.”
By integrating payments and rights management, the platform laid the groundwork for a scalable system, showing how new AI-driven content licensing platforms are creating new institutional models in publishing.
Addressing the representation gap
Building on the validated framework of her initial platform, Christopher is developing AfroNarrate, a venture designed to open the same digital tools to a wider community of African and diaspora creators. The platform aims to address the persistent underrepresentation of these voices in mainstream digital storytelling spaces.
“AfroNarrate is the next phase of what began with benisonchristopher.com,” Christopher explains. The goal is to provide an ecosystem where creators can publish, license, and distribute their work on their own terms.
This mission aligns with broader industry efforts to counter systemic biases in technology, as most large language models are trained on Euro-American data, highlighting the need for initiatives that support African languages and indigenous knowledge.
The platform integrates advanced technology to enhance both the creator and user experience. “With innovations like AI-assisted translation and personalized voice selections, AfroNarrate is designed to ensure African narratives aren’t just published but also experienced, valued, protected, and globally visible,” says Christopher. Such tools are crucial for overcoming language barriers, similar to how platforms like Kolibri useAI-driven translation to adapt content into local languages.
Navigating cross-border complexities
Constructing a platform to serve a global audience, particularly one that includes creators and consumers across the African continent, presents significant logistical challenges. A primary hurdle was establishing a multi-currency payment infrastructure capable of handling transactions from diverse economic regions.
“Many global processors don’t fully support African markets, so we had to integrate multiple gateways to ensure readers could pay seamlessly from Lagos, London, or Los Angeles,” Christopher notes.
This technical obstacle extends to navigating varied legal and licensing norms, requiring a system that respects regional laws while providing broad access. The complexity of these issues reflects a wider trend, asregulatory actions against digital platforms are increasing in developing countries.
Overcoming these initial difficulties has provided a distinct strategic advantage. Christopher confirms, “Solving those challenges with my own catalogue gave us a blueprint — and now AfroNarrate is being built on top of that tested infrastructure.” This foundation will support advanced features, including blockchain-based licensing, which leverages technology that enables smart contracts to facilitate secure, automated financial agreements.
A new model for institutions
A key component of the platform’s strategy is an institutional subscription model tailored for universities, libraries, and cultural organizations. This B2B approach provides these institutions with licensed access to a curated collection of African and diaspora literary works, presenting a modern alternative to traditional acquisitions.
The model’s effectiveness has already been demonstrated on benisonchristopher.com. Christopher states that, “It delivers curated content in a way that is cost-efficient for institutions and offers them cultural diversity in their collections.” This approach mirrors the product-led and hybrid strategies often used in B2B SaaS, where value is demonstrated directly to end-users within an organization.
AfroNarrate aims to expand this model by offering a richer, more diverse library and integrating accessibility tools. “With AI-powered listening features, institutions can also make content more engaging and accessible, particularly for students with different learning needs,” Christopher adds.
This vision aligns with the goals of emerging open-access initiatives like Direct to Open, which librarians see as promising models for increasing access to scholarship and supporting responsible financial frameworks.
Balancing commerce and empowerment
At the core of Christopher’s ventures is a commitment to create empowerment, a principle that shapes the platform’s entire commercial structure. The business model is intentionally designed to ensure that the creators whose work gives the platform its value are treated as equitable partners.
“Our platforms are built so that creators are partners, not products,” Christopher emphasizes. This philosophy is embedded in the operational systems, from revenue-sharing agreements to licensing frameworks, which are structured to be transparent and fair. Such a model directly confronts the industry’s “value gap,” where an estimated one billion US dollars in royalties are withheld annually due to opaque systems.
This mission-driven approach also builds a strong commercial foundation, fostering trust and a positive reputation. Christopher notes, “By balancing reach, revenue, and empowerment, we’ve demonstrated that a business can grow commercially while also staying true to its mission.” This reputational strength is a key asset, as over 81.5% of professional services providers have received referrals based on their expertise and reputation.
The model in practice
The development of AfroNarrate is grounded in the real-world performance of its predecessor, benisonchristopher.com. Using her own literary works as the initial test case allowed Christopher to validate the platform’s core infrastructure for global distribution and multi-currency transactions.
“My own books served as the initial catalogue to test our model — and that experience demonstrated that the infrastructure works,” she says. This successful pilot showed tangible market demand and confirmed that the system could reliably reach readers and process payments across different continents. This phase was crucial for gathering data and refining the technology before scaling.
The insights gained were instrumental in shaping the vision for a multi-creator platform. “That proof of concept informed the design of AfroNarrate, which extends those same tools to a wider community of creators,” Christopher notes.
This iterative, evidence-based approach is critical in a complex B2B sales environment, where a decision to partner with a platform can involve a ‘buying center’ of 7 to 20 individuals. Emerging blockchain platforms like Publica, where authors crowdfund projects by issuing ‘book tokens’, further highlight the industry’s shift toward such innovative, creator-centric technologies.
Digital preservation of heritage
Beyond commerce and distribution, the platforms are envisioned as vital components of the modern infrastructure for cultural preservation. In an increasingly digital world, technology offers powerful tools not just to archive cultural heritage but to make it accessible and resonant for new generations.
“I see platforms like benisonchristopher.com and AfroNarrate as part of the digital infrastructure needed to preserve and promote cultural heritage in the 21st century,” Christopher states. This perspective positions the ventures alongside major institutional efforts, such as the four-tiered system of digital repositories categorized by The Royal Society, which range from individual to international initiatives.
Through technology, cultural stories are transformed from static texts into dynamic experiences. Christopher elaborates, “This means that cultural heritage is not only preserved in text but reimagined in accessible, engaging formats that resonate across generations and geographies.”
This approach is supported by projects like MasakhaNER, which creates high-quality datasets for named entity recognition in ten African languages, enabling more nuanced and accurate technological engagement with local content.
Scaling for global impact
Looking ahead, the focus is on scaling the platforms’ reach and impact through continued technological innovation and strategic partnerships. The roadmap includes the integration of advanced tools designed to protect creators’ rights and enhance the user experience across a global audience.
A key innovation will be the use of decentralized technology to manage intellectual property. Christopher says, “We’re also developing blockchain-based licensing systems to ensure transparent royalties and protect intellectual property.” Such systems can provide immutable proof of authorship and automate royalty distribution, an approach detailed in proposed designs for blockchain-based digital rights management.
The ultimate vision transcends that of a simple publishing outlet, aiming instead to create a self-sustaining digital environment for knowledge and culture. “Ultimately, the goal is for these platforms to function not just as publishing outlets but as global digital libraries — living ecosystems where stories, knowledge, and culture are preserved, shared, and monetized sustainably,” Christopher concludes. This concept aligns with proposedhybrid IP governance frameworks that combine traditional legal protections with adaptive digital systems to safeguard creative works in the digital era.
By weaving together technical expertise with a clear cultural mission, Christopher is architecting a digital infrastructure that not only empowers creators but also ensures that African and diaspora narratives can thrive in the global literary landscape. Her work demonstrates that with the right design, commerce and cultural preservation can be mutually reinforcing goals.
