Eyram Tawia

Eyram Tawia is a Ghanaian video game developer and entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and CEO of Leti Arts, an Accra studio that makes games and digital comics built on African folklore and history, including the Africa's Legends franchise.

Tawia studied computer science at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi and then went through the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) in Accra, where he later worked as a software teaching fellow. In 2009 he co-founded the studio, first called Leti Games, with Kenyan developer Wesley Kirinya; with MEST's support it released its first African-themed game, iWarrior, that year. The pre-seed money lasted from 2009 to 2011, and the studio has since survived on grants, partnerships and consulting work, which Tawia has said makes up most of its revenue.

Leti Arts' flagship is Africa's Legends, which reimagines figures from African folklore and history, mixed with new characters, as superheroes fighting crime in modern Africa, told through mobile games and comics. The Africa's Legends app won Vodafone's Ghana and Global AppStar competitions in 2014. In 2013 Tawia and Kirinya spoke at the Game Developers Conference on African game development, and in 2015 Tawia received the African Entrepreneurship Award for Most Heart for Africa. His memoir, Uncompromising Passion: The Humble Beginnings of an African Video Game Industry, was published in 2016, and he became a Mandela Washington Fellow in 2017.

Today Leti Arts has about 20 people across Accra and Nairobi. It has put its heroine Karmzah into an island in Fortnite, licensed its characters to other games, builds educational games used in African schools, and runs training programs for young developers.

Tawia matters because he is one of the pioneers of the West African games industry, showing for more than fifteen years that African stories can carry original games and comics made on the continent.