On 17 November 2021, Émile Servan-Schreiber invited people who believed they understood Africa to join a new Hypermind forecasting contest. The invitation offered free participation and said the best forecasters would share more than $6,000 in prize money. It described a programme running through the end of 2022.
The opening questions concerned Côte d’Ivoire’s political and security situation. Servan-Schreiber highlighted the durability of President Alassane Ouattara’s third term and the question of who would emerge as the principal opposition figure ahead of the 2025 presidential election. These were the themes of the invitation; the post did not publish numerical probabilities or complete contract wording.
A contest calendar and a forecast horizon
The dates describe different things. End-2022 was the announced contest period. The reference to 2025 concerned the political horizon that participants were asked to consider. Treating the two as interchangeable would change the question the launch was asking.
The proposed agenda extended beyond Côte d’Ivoire. Servan-Schreiber said further questions would address economic and military ties with China, the COVID-19 pandemic and digital technology across Africa. His recruitment request specifically encouraged sharing the invitation with people living in Africa, particularly Côte d’Ivoire and the Gulf of Guinea.
The first wave becomes public
A Le Point article published on 30 January 2022 supplies a more concrete record of the opening phase. Its methodology note says 296 volunteer forecasters participated between 15 November 2021 and 6 January 2022. It reports 1,681 forecasts on fifteen questions, with between 55 and 204 participants per question.
The note describes recruitment among Le Point and Le Point Afrique readers alongside experienced Hypermind forecasters. It gives the prize pool as €5,500. That later euro figure and the launch’s dollar description are retained as their respective sources stated them; no exchange-rate calculation is implied.
This made the contest a specific application of the Le Point–Hypermind reader-forecasting partnership. The launch sought locally informed participation, and the published methodology makes the size and composition of the first wave visible. It does not establish that the resulting panel was representative of African populations.
