Transmitting from Nairobi

Talent is everywhere.
Infrastructure isn't.

I build the second one.

Gary Layn ~ communications strategist, published short-story writer, and builder based in Nairobi, from Kigali. Working the line between stories and the systems that carry them.

  • 3× published · in short story anthologies
  • Speaker · Women Deliver · GDHF · Future of Sex Ed
  • Featured · CNBC Africa
  • HEC Paris MSIE

FR.01 / 03

Writing

Proof of craft

Three short stories across three print anthologies, plus other stories, essays and thought pieces. Oh, and five seasons of CyberRwanda webcomics, written for YLabs' digital health platform.

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FR.02 / 03

Work

Proof I build

Communications at YLabs, on CyberRwanda, Rwanda's digital health platform. Audience growth at Showmax East Africa. UNFPA, Girl Effect, HEC Paris. A venture in early development.

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FR.03 / 03

Studio

Proof I'm building toward something

Projects in development. The Kenya nobody photographs. The stories nobody tells. The people we don't see. Concepts looking for collaborators.

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The venture · early days

Owning the infrastructure layer.

Talent is not the bottleneck in African film and storytelling. Infrastructure is…or lack of it for that matter. The rights systems, the distribution rails, the production pipelines that let stories travel and get paid for traveling. That's the intersection I'm building towards.

Building this alongside an MSc in Innovation & Entrepreneurship at HEC Paris, 2026–2028.

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In development · Nairobi

Film

Feature films and short films

Documentary

Long and short form

Series

Fictional, factual, reality

The long cut

Kigali to Nairobi,
by way of HEC.

How a communications career, a fiction habit, and a business-school detour turned into a thesis about who gets to own African creative infrastructure.

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Call sheet · today

21 Aug 2026

  • HEC Paris · MSc Innovation & Entrepreneurship, first term
  • Shaping the venture
  • Comms at YLabs
  • Essay: Who Owns the African Creative Infrastructure
Full /now log →
This place isn't ready but I let you in anyway.