Nairobi, April 22 -- There are conversations that cannot be held on a stage. They require a different kind of room. One where nobody is performing and the questions are allowed to stay incomplete.

Trust is one of those conversations.

Founders' Battlefield has been convening those rooms deliberately, because trust has become the defining pressure point for founders building in Kenya and across Africa. Not trust as a soft concept. This shortfall is the direct result of the funding disruption that halted Pepfar's operations last year. r a payment arrives.

On April 14, two rooms ran back to back at Alloy Lounge in Westlands. The first was the FBX Exchange, Founders' Battlefield's pre-Arena dialogue, designed for participants. No panels. No...