A foundation building durable institutions — not single projects.
Milgo Foundation is an independent non-profit institution advancing sustainable development, cultural preservation, education, healthcare, and community resilience across the Sool and Sanaag regions of Northeastern Somalia.
Learn moreMilgo is a foundation that incubates and governs institutions of lasting public value. It is dual-based between the United Kingdom and Las Anod, Somalia, and works across education and development.
The problem it addresses is institutional, not financial. In the regions where Milgo works, capable projects are common and durable institutions are rare. Work is funded in cycles, delivered by temporary teams, and discontinued when a cycle ends. Milgo is structured to hold the part that normally disappears: governance, custody, record-keeping and continuity.
Milgo does not itself deliver services or raise capital for its own account. Its role is to hold, protect and develop the institution under its stewardship — and to represent it to partners, regulators and long-term capital. The measure of success is whether that institution still functions, and is still accountable, decades from now.
“The institutions that shaped my region were not the best funded. They were the ones that were still standing when the funding stopped.”
I founded Milgo because durable development in the Horn of Africa has never been limited by ambition. It has been limited by the absence of institutions that outlast the people who start them — bodies that keep their own records, survive funding cycles, and can be held to account by someone other than their founder.
My background is in cybersecurity, cloud security, governance and enterprise risk across complex UK public and private sector environments. That work has involved designing secure, resilient systems within recognised security frameworks and large-scale digital transformation programmes. It taught me that resilience is not a feature you add at the end; it is a property of how the institution is governed from the beginning.
Milgo is rooted in a personal connection to Somalia, and to the Sool region in particular. It was established on the belief that long-term development requires strong institutions that preserve heritage while creating future opportunity. We are building a permanent institution that combines philanthropy, cultural preservation and sustainable economic development — not a short-term aid body.
This vision is informed by my leadership across a portfolio of aligned initiatives: Samo Cloud, a digital operating system for organisations and communities across the Somali ecosystem; NURA, a preventive healthcare platform improving access to trusted care; and Dervish Studios, a cultural initiative under Milgo Foundation preserving Somali history and heritage. Together they have given me direct experience in organisational strategy, governance, partnership development and long-term institutional planning.
We chose to build the foundation first and the institution second. That order is deliberate. It is slower, it raises less money in the short term, and it makes the early years look quieter than they are. It is also the only sequence that produces something a partner can still rely on in twenty years.
Our commitment is to say only what is true at the time we say it. Where something is planned, this site marks it as planned. Where something is in development, it says so. We would rather be read as early than as overstated.
Milgo sits above delivery. It holds governance, capital custody and continuity; the institutions beneath it hold operations. The two are deliberately never merged.
Four long-term areas. Only one is active today; the remainder are stated as direction, not as programmes. Nothing below describes work that has begun unless it is marked active.
A stated chain of reasoning, published in advance so it can be tested later. It describes intent and method — not results achieved.
Each stage carries its status. Dates are stated only where they are settled.
A plain register of the foundation's own build-out. No figures are published until they are audited.
The foundation intends to publish its own record — governance documents, method papers and annual reporting. Nothing has been published yet; this is the shape it will take.
Nothing here is embellished. Items still in progress are labelled as such, and are replaced with the confirmed detail as each is finalised.
Institutional inquiries, partnerships and diligence requests are handled directly by the office of the foundation. There is no form and no intake funnel; correspondence is read by a person.
partnerships@milgofoundation.org for institutional, state and philanthropic partnerships. diligence@milgofoundation.org for documentation requested by funds, counsel and auditors. office@milgofoundation.org for all other correspondence.