Last weekend I spent 30 hours in Nashville at the Human Rights Foundation's AI Hack for Freedom II. It was intense but an incredible experience working with and meeting activists from around the globe. And we got to build something with freedom tech that might actually have legs and advance the fight for freedom. Maybe even save lives.

Here's the thing that hit me: Aimable Karasira died in Rwandan custody on May 6th. Computer science professor, musician, YouTuber. Six years in prison for online commentary. He was supposed to walk free that day. Governments don't kill one person to silence one person. They kill one to silence thousands. That's the math of fear. And we built something to break it.

The TeamThe Team

Anaïse Kanimba walked up to pitch her idea, and I knew I had to be on that team. She's Paul Rusesabagina's daughter (the protagonist Paul from Hotel Rwanda played by Don Cheadle). Her father spent years in prison for speaking up. She could've walked away from all of this, but she's still fighting.

Derek Ross brought the Nostr wizardry (dev relations at Soapbox), Topher Scott handled Bitcoin/crypto architecture, and I ran the AI integration and bitcoin payable AI services. 36 hours to build tools that keep people alive. No pressure.

What We BuiltWhat We Built

Zuka means "to rise from the ashes." It's a platform that lets activists create cryptographic identities that can't be traced, shut down, or killed.

Cryptographic identity - Just a keypair. No name, no email, no KYC. You can't arrest a signature.

Nostr for distribution - No central server to raid. Content lives on thousands of relays. Kill one, hundreds remain.

Bitcoin Lightning for payments - No credit card trail linking persona to person. PPQ's anonymous AI credits made this seamless (and they donated credits so we could build on a tight deadline).

AI-powered voice - The identity posts 24/7 without you being online. Consistent tone, schedule, audience building. Get arrested? Hand the credentials to someone you trust. The persona keeps going.

Blossom for media - Decentralized storage. Your photos and videos can't be deleted by platform decision or government order.

Cross-posts automatically - X and Nostr (more coming). Protected identity never touches them directly.

Why It WorksWhy It Works

Regimes assume they can find you, trace you, or shut you down. Remove those options and the math changes.

3.5 billion people live under governments that criminalize speech. Zuka removes the cost. No person to trace. No server to seize. No payment trail. The identity exists independent of the human behind it.

The Moment That MatteredThe Moment That Mattered

We won 2nd prize, which was cool. But what actually got me was when Paul Rusesabagina and activists on the ground said "this could save lives."

We weren't building for judges or grants. We were building for the next Aimable. For Anaïse's colleagues. For everyone who's been told to stay quiet or else.

Try It

Zuka is live at https://zuka.live. Code's on Github and Zap Store. The infrastructure works.

Now we find out if we really can break the math of fear, one cryptographic identity at a time.

For every person they bury, others are ready to ignite. Zuka makes sure they can.

Full writeup with FAQ and technical details: https://www.pullthatupjamie.ai/blog/building-zuka-what-freedom-fighters-from-east-africa-taught-me-in-the-hrfs-20260515