Legacy Codex Project
We help you document and preserve the greatest gift you can ever give your family — your life wisdom in a book held on three continents.
We are like cowherd men. Your lived experiences are like the cow. Our work is to milk out the nectar of your wisdom from those experiences and then pour it into the hands of the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Your wealth will one day be spent. Your wisdom need not be lost.
The Tragedy We Are Ending
We know where these people built. We can count their companies, walk through their buildings, read their obituaries.
But ask their children the one question that matters — how did they actually decide? — and you will find a silence no inheritance can fill.
No one recorded how they truly thought. No one captured what they whispered to themselves at 4am on the mornings their empire nearly collapsed. No one preserved the principles that guided them or the vision that made them believe in a country most had given up on.
Their wisdom which is the real wealth, the nourishing milk of their lives — went with them to the grave.
What We Create
Hekima is the Swahili word for wisdom.
A beautifully produced hardbound book of 200 to 800 pages which is like the milk of your life rendered in writing for your children and great grandchildren. This is not a memoir, neither is it a biography. It is a structured excavation of the principles, decisions, and hard-won wisdom that shaped every consequential moment of your existence.
When your great-granddaughter faces her first great failure a hundred years from now, she will open your Hekima and relish your association.
A hardbound book of 200 to 800 pages. Your life's wisdom rendered in writing, designed to endure, produced to the highest archival standard. Handed to your family in a custom presentation case.
A cinematic 90-minute documentary capturing your voice, your presence, and direct messages to future descendants for specific life moments — their wedding day, their first great failure, the day they feel lost.
Formal certification that your Hekima has been deposited with named institutional partners across three continents. Preserved for two thousand years.
How We Work
Any competent journalist can ask you questions. Few will ever reach what matters most. Our work is a disciplined art of sincere inquiry where we carefully draw out the wisdom that already lives within you.
Every engagement unfolds across three distinct movements. You are not rushed. You are not performed at. You are simply heard (perhaps for the first time in your life) with the seriousness your life story deserves.
The origins. The family. The faith. The moments that shaped who you would become before you knew who you were.
The building years. The decisions. The failures that taught you more than any success. The principles you never compromised.
Your direct address to those who will come after you — the wisdom, warning, and counsel you want your descendants to carry.
Where Your Wisdom Lives
Every man who commissions a Hekima asks the same question. How do I know this will still exist in a hundred years? A thousand? This is how.
Africa · Kenya
Official Partner · Confirmed
The constitutional custodian of Kenya's documentary heritage, established by Act of Parliament. Your Hekima enters the national record — preserved in perpetuity, with guaranteed access for your designated family.
Europe · Norway
Institutional Partner
Two hundred and fifty metres beneath Arctic permafrost. The world's most secure vault. Home to the Vatican Library, national constitutions, and GitHub's entire open-source codebase. Designed for centuries.
Europe · United Kingdom
Acquisitions Partners
Two of the most significant institutions in the world dedicated to the documentary heritage of Africa and the global South. Your Hekima takes its place in that collection.
The Founder
"It was in the course of writing my own book that I realized that we bury our greatest minds with their greatest asset still inside them. I made a decision to dedicate my life to changing that."
Frank Owen is the founder of Mapel Firm. He is a cultural practitioner, former monk, author, and entrepreneur based in Mombasa, Kenya. Owen spent five years living as a monk, immersed in the study of ancient wisdom traditions, sacred texts, and the art of philosophical inquiry. His path has since spanned engineering study, theological training, and founding a faith-based community centre serving hundreds of young people weekly. He is the author of multiple published works and has organised large-scale art exhibitions.
The Legacy Codex Project emerged from a conviction that Kenya, and the rest of Africa's most valuable intellectual heritage is being lost with every generation, and that a deliberate, institutional-grade preservation effort is both urgent and achievable.
Mapel
Founder, Mapel Firm
Begin Your Legacy Conversation
We work with a limited number of individuals each year — by careful selection. Leave your email and we will be in touch personally.
Every enquiry is reviewed personally. No automated systems. No pressure.