AMP Global Is Re-centering Africa as a Global Hub for Technology and Entertainment

Three-time Emmy-nominated producer and host Derrick N. Ashong founded AMP Global Technologies, the company behind the Take Back the Mic (TBTM) app, and The Mic: Africa, the first interactive TV format born on the continent.

Season 1 of the original music competition and docu-series recently aired on the TBTM app, online at takebackthemic.com, and via 8 free-to-air and satellite broadcasters across Africa. Fans from 128 countries used the app to choose which rappers, singers, dancers, and graffiti artists from six African countries would advance in the competition and receive mentorship from international celebrities. The back-end of the app allows AMP Global to help brands and advertisers identify and reward key cultural influencers, reaching young audiences where they live online.

“The AMP Global team is creating platforms that connect cultures through locally relevant content with global production values, and turning that content into currency, by amplifying and rewarding young audiences,” says Ashong, who was born in Accra, Ghana, and raised in the U.S. and the Middle East.

“The pandemic forced us to rethink the purpose of technology. While global internet use went up 70% in the early days of the lockdowns, high-speed internet use in Africa was flat at 7%. Africans pay the highest prices in the world for mobile internet access”, says Ashong, “which is a huge barrier to a relatively untapped market of 1.3 billion people.”

Committed to expanding internet access and creative opportunities for communities around the world, AMP Global built a toolset within the TBTM app to enable users to earn mobile data based on their engagement, and to use that data anywhere on the internet. That concept of a “gateway to the internet” inspired a broader moonshot initiative called 70x25 (Seventy by Twenty-Five), to 10x high-speed internet use on the continent by the end of 2025.

Derrick Ashong and his team safely and simultaneously shot The Mic: Africa in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Rwanda, Mauritius and Kenya during the Covid-19 pandemic, producing low-cost, but premium-quality content that shows a technologically innovative and creatively cutting-edge Africa previously unseen by much of the world.

“We’re combining the power of content and technology to put users in the driver’s seat of their own experience,” says Ashong, “starting with Africa and then expanding to the rest of the world.”

About AMP Global

AMP Global is revolutionizing the Telecom and Media industries by empowering fans to earn mobile data for discovering and amplifying great content. Its Take Back the Mic app is the premiere interactive rewards platform for the fastest-growing media segment on earth — youth in emerging markets. Watch all 5 episodes of "The Mic: Africa" Season 1 and download the Take Back the Mic app at www.takebackthemic.com.

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