A Call for Bold Student Voices
Taxes sound boring until you realise they decide whether your hospital has medicine, whether your roads have tarmac, and whether a billionaire pays less to the government than your mama running a kibanda. The people making these decisions rarely look like you, rarely sound like you, and almost never ask what you think.
We want to change that.
The Committee on Fiscal Studies is launching a new kind of platform. We want 10 university students to step up and deliver a five-minute talk that makes fiscal policy feel urgent, human, and genuinely interesting. No jargon. No PowerPoint slides crammed with bullet points. Just you, a microphone, and an idea worth spreading.
What Should You Talk About?
Pick one of these areas and make it yours:
- Why should Kenya tax the ultra-wealthy, and what happens if we do not?
- How do we make global tech giants pay their fair share when their money moves faster than our laws?
- Should we be cautious about data centres popping up across Africa, and what are we trading for those investments?
- How do we stop money from bleeding out of Africa through illicit channels, and who benefits when we fail?
- What happens to jobs and incomes when artificial intelligence can do what humans used to do?
What Makes a Good Talk?
Your five minutes should walk us through four things.
- First, show us the problem and make us feel why it matters, who it hurts, and what is at stake.
- Second, tell us how it can be fixed, not with vague wishes but with actual ideas about policy, politics, or institutional change.
- Third, help us imagine what the future looks like if we get this right.
- Fourth, challenge political leaders and those who fund development to pay attention to what they have been ignoring.
The best talks will be clever without being confusing. They will be passionate without being preachy. They will teach us something and leave us wanting more.
Who Can Apply?
Any university student in Kenya. Any discipline. You do not need to be studying economics or law. You need to care about these issues and have something sharp to say about them.
How to Apply
Send an email to Dr. Lyla Latif: latif@uonbi.ac.ke with a pitch of no more than 300 words. Tell us what you want to argue and how you plan to make it memorable. We are not looking for essays. We are looking for sparks.
What Happens Next?
We will read every submission. The most promising candidates will be invited to audition in person. The top 10 will be selected to present at our launch event, with mentorship, visibility, and a chance to join a growing network of young fiscal thinkers across the continent