January 5th to 10th 2011: International Youth Conference on Peace
Venue: Palace of January 15th, N'djamena, Chad
Youth Organization for the Promotion and Development (OJPD) in partnership with the Network and Partners to Support Development of the CEMAC zone (RAPAD / CEMAC) are organizing an international youth conference on peace in Chad.
The conference will include a total of 800 people including 300 people will come from Chad and the other 500 will come from around the world. The Conference set for January 2011 will be a collaborative framework that brings together youth leaders, cultural entrepreneurs, representatives of organizations.
For more information on this event and to download an application visit http://goo.gl/FSsEA
The Youth Entrepreneurship & Sustainability (YES Kenya) Network and the Youth Interactive Portal for Enterprise (YIPE) have embarked on a joint project aimed at Promoting the Culture of Entrepreneurship in Kenya.
To meet the challenge of achieving this ambitious project, the services of a skilled contractor is required to design a dynamic website and content management system and translate that onto a mobile platform that will meet YES Kenya and YIPE needs.
Expected end-results
Front end:
Creation of an eye-catching, easy to navigate website and mobile portal, that is robust and searchable, whilst offering several interactive features to the users.
The website should be accessible to low-bandwidth users and should not require downloading of any specific fonts or programme for complete user experience. The mobile platform should be accessible to low-end devices.
Back end:
Creation of a robust and intuitive customized Content Management System based on project requirements. The CMS should allow YES Kenya and YIPE to manage and update the website easily through sub-administrators who are not expected to have any special technical knowledge.
YES Kenya and YIPE should be able to update all the pages and sections remotely but securely through the online CMS without requiring any external HTML editor or downloading of software.
The website (net and mobile) should be database-driven / modular so that it can handle all the existing information and be able to handle new documents that would get uploaded on it on a daily basis.
The website should be able to integrate multimedia
Overall:
The website should be secure and bug-free.
The data should be held in a secure environment. It should be possible to regularly back-up the entire database and restore all the data in case of any errors.
The website should conform to major web-standards so that the website and its content can easily be indexed by major search engines and is accessible by different browsers.
Requirements
The requirements although not exclusive, will include:
Proven track record of use in web and mobile development. Applicants will have to provide a minimum of three (3) links and references for sites they have developed in the last two (2) years.
Applications
Your application should include, but is not limited to:
A capability statement.
Your CV – maximum of 2 pages
A list of at least three (3) web and mobile site links and references. The references should be organisations/ individuals that have contracted the applicant within the last 2 years.
Please submit electronic applications by Friday November 26th 2010 to info@yipekenya.org with the subject heading Application for web and mobile development assignment.
Youth entrepreneurs are encouraged to apply.
About YES Kenya
Youth Entrepreneurship & Sustainability(YES Kenya) Network is a national youth multi-stakeholder network involved in promoting youth entrepreneurship and employment in Kenya and committed to the global call of creating sustainable livelihoods for Youth. For more information, visit www.yeskenya.org/new
About the Youth Interactive Portal for Enterprise (YIPE)
The Youth Interactive Portal for Enterprise (YIPE) is a new media social enterprise that provides free business information and resources to Kenyan youth entrepreneurs. For more information, visit www.yipekenya.org, and follow @yipeorg on Twitter.
On the week that marks Global Entrepreneurship, I haven’t even gotten half way and yet I have met three entrepreneurs (one social) who told me about the impact corruption has on their lives.
The first is at the aspiring stage. He just finished a business plan to sell liquor on the outskirts of Nairobi. His reason for consulting me was not just to take a look at the plan and let him know if he could proceed. The plan was great: projections, cash flows, inventories … but missing were what are commonly called indirect costs.
The aspiring entrepreneur wanted to know where he would put the cost for “protection” that was to be paid to the police as well as the local gang. He asked, does that go under miscellaneous costs?
The next day I met two other entrepreneurs. The first a social entrepreneur with a brilliant concept has been at the contract signing stage for a grant from an NGO. In his case, though the boss at the overseas headquarters has said that the project should commence, the local officers seem to have problems preparing the final documents so the grant can be disbursed. The weary social entrepreneur asked: do you think they want a bribe?
The final entrepreneur I met has been in business for two years, and is making money. When I asked him how easy it was to secure contracts with his large business clients, he didn’t even waste a second in responding that you have to be friendly with the person in charge of procurement, then not only do you get local purchase orders, but you also get paid without the headache of having to chase for the money long after the invoice due date has passed.
And indeed these three entrepreneurs show that corruption and cronyism are the shadowy elephants in the room that need to be addressed. Most times the assumption is that corruption is prevalent in the public sector. But it can be just as rampant in the private and third sectors. Youth entrepreneurs by their very essence of being young and not as connected socially and financially are vulnerable to unfair business practices against them. This means that they too often like the last entrepreneur frequently engage in bribery and it eventually becomes just another operational cost, though not inserted as glaringly into the audited accounts of their enterprises.
The loss they face in terms of business is also shared amongst the larger corporations with corrupt procurement officers. They wind up paying heftier prices though they probably never learn about it. In the case of the NGO sector, the loss is probably even more fatal in terms of projects that could save lives never taking off because of corrupt fund managers.
Food for thought during this third Global Entrepreneurship week whose theme this year is “dismantling barriers”.
Fiona Mati is the founder of the Youth Interactive Portal for Enterprise a social enterprise that provides free information and resources to youth entrepreneurs in East Africa. For more information, visit www.yipekenya.org, and follow @yipeorg on Twitter.
A fascinating article by Kofi Akosah-Sarpong titled ‘Archbishop Palmer-Buckle’s “Funeral Oration”’, published in The African Executive this week describes the growing custom among Ghanaians of spending vast amounts of money on funerals. In fact according to Akosah-Sarpong, these ‘bling’ laden funerals often leave the living in debt.
However what we found more intriguing is that the funeral business has also spurred on various related enterprises. Akosah-Sarpong writes:
“Kweku Akosah, one of the leading funeral services proprietors in Ghana, owns the Owners Funeral Services. Owners Funeral Services, driven by Ghanaians sheer obsession with the dead has grown so much that it has branches in most parts of Ghana. Akosah employs over 100 people with varied professionals – wailers, criers, dancers, praise-singers, decorators of the dead, coffin makers, musicians, tailors and seamstresses, promoters, food makers and servers among others.”
In fact death has become so commoditised in Ghana that funeral service owners like Kweku Akosah also offer further incentives to use their services such as financing.
All this in a country where the living still struggle day to day for basic living needs such as food, shelter and education.
A post published at the end of September on the Good Intentions are not Enough blog, questioned the viability of introduction of new bottom of the pyramid innovations such as the cook stoves hailed by Hillary Clinton during the recently ended MDG summit.
The gist of the post is that as benevolent a gesture the stoves are for the 1.2 billion people considered to live in poverty worldwide who will use them, the durability of the stoves is not as assured. This raises the question of whether the stoves and similar social innovations are in and of themselves a sustainable alternative to what is already being used.
Included in the Good Intentions post is also a quote from a vice president of the UN Foundation saying apart from distributing the stoves, “You’ll need a supply chain and business model that delivers them, not on a one-time basis, but as a continuing enterprise.”
And without such a supply chain, after the 2 to 5 years and without a steady supply channel, won’t the target beneficiaries just revert to the traditional kerosene and wood?
This is the oft neglected side of social enterprise. The question of how sustainable must the social entrepreneur’s efforts be? And does it mean that just because an enterprise is for profit that business effectiveness and value for money aside from other financial variables take second place to social impact?
The impetus to scrutinise the value of such socially-oriented innovative solutions has become more topical with the aid versus trade debate. Proponents for trade such as William Easterly have argued for business, being recently quoted in the Financial Times that: “current experience and history both speak loudly that the only real engine of growth out of poverty is private business ...”
And with such voices coupled with austerity measures among traditional donor countries (though the UK unexpectedly increased international aid), social business initiatives to mitigate government and market failures in developing countries are sure to claim the limelight.
Social entrepreneurship must include a strategy for achieving financial sustainability, and that includes ensuring that aside from the sentimental value of providing solar lighting, water pumps and eco-friendly stoves amongst other new technologies, that the nitty gritty business essentials such as supply chains and customer care are included in the package, from the outset.
Let’s remember that without the business model there can’t be a lasting and durable social impact.
Kibera Community Youth Programme is a community- based organization formed and run by a group of young people in the Kibera slum in Nairobi. The group have been manufacturing and selling solar torches going by the trade name Kibulight.
We recently got the opportunity to briefly interview Elizabeth Otieno, a Programme Manager of the organisation regarding the group’s solar energy project. She told us though the group started assembling the Kibulight torches last year, the organisation has been implementing solar project for years. In fact in 2007, KCYP won a clean energy award in Switzerland for their solar technology program.
The market reception for the torches has been promising, though Elizabeth told us that at the price of Kshs. 3,500 (approximately US $44), the torches were beyond the pockets of the majority of the market. The price could be cheaper if the group was in a position to manufacture all the components themselves.
Another marketing challenge the group faces is the influx of cheap products from China that have flooded the Kenyan alternative energy market. Nevertheless, in spite of the challenges the group face, they continue to produce the solar torches for increased security as well as promoting the use of clean energy in Nairobi.
December 2nd – 4th 2010: Invitation to Erevuka Kuwa Sonko: Youth Empowerment Forum
Venue: Kenyatta International Conference Center
Square Gold PR & Marketing is an Integrated Marketing & Communications firm that specializes in devising creative and innovative communication marketing strategies for corporate clients and institutions. In its effort to offer innovation, Square Gold is organizing a grand youth event dubbed Erevuka, Kuwa Sonko!
This is Kenya’s first interactive youth empowerment event with an aim to integrate the youth in Kenya’s economy building process through entrepreneurship. The 3-day extravaganza includes a youth exhibition, a business conference, career testing centre, ICT centre and a creative arts garage. With a fun mix of interaction, information and entertainment, this extravaganza will be the first of its kind in Kenya. The target audience for Erevuka, Kuwa Sonko! is youth aged between 18-35 years.
Square Gold invites you to interact and showcase your products with the key target market through exhibiting the project(s) at Erevuka, Kuwa Sonko! Exhibition fee is Ksh 20,000 for three days.
Erevuka, Kuwa Sonko! gives you direct access to consumers, venture capitalist, mentors etc. It will also provide you with extensive contact points for your brand, including an online viral campaign. The projected number of visitors for this event ranges from 8,000-10,000 due to its broad appeal.
Kindly contact Margaret Waithaka Email: maggie@squaregold.co.ke Cell: 0722791351 on participation and any questions or concerns.
Making the world clean and green, one idea at a time.
The Cleantech Open Global Ideas competition is a hunt for the most promising clean technology ideas anywhere in the world. One national winner from each country will then compete, in November, against the winners from other countries at the global finals in California.
This is your chance to join a major national project that can really make a difference.
The Cleantech Open is more than just a fun competition, more than just cool technology, more than just smart entrepreneurship.
Together, we’ll find, fund and foster the most promising cleantech ideas in the world - ideas that address today’s most challenging economic, environmental and energy challenges.
We’re looking for anything from revolutionary ways to generate clean energy, to better ways to filter water, to ideas about how government policies on climate change can foster new businesses.
And we’re not just looking for good ideas - we’re looking for concepts and technologies that can become great businesses that will reward entrepreneurship and bolster your country’s economy.
Signing up for the Ideas Competition
Contestants register through this easy, three-step process at:
Each idea needs to fit into one of these six categories:
1. Air Water & Waste - Ways to cut pollution
Entries focus on improving resource availability, conservation and pollution control. Air covers services, instruments and equipment related to emission control, treatment or reduction technologies. Also included are creative approaches to greenhouse gas reduction, such as carbon conversion and sequestration. Water covers treatment, storage, monitoring, recycling and conservation technologies. Waste covers waste management equipment; sorting; resource recovery processes; pollution prevention, control and treatment technology; and, waste reduction through innovative recycling processes and the creation of new recyclable materials such as bio-based plastics.
Examples:
• Storm-water, flood control and rainwater harvesting
• Smart irrigation
• Water filtration and disinfection
• Advanced filters and filtration (air or water)
• Carbon and GHG monitoring and control
• Carbon capture sequestration and storage
• Waste cleanup and remediation
2. Energy Efficiency - More efficient methods and devices
Entries include technologies that can significantly reduce wasted energy and help lessen the need for additional power plants.
Examples:
• Industrial process improvements
• Natural gas monitoring and control (industrial or residential)
• LED lighting
• Advanced lighting controls
• HVAC (Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning) solutions
• Natural gas controls
• Smart/User-friendly energy management systems
3. Renewable Energy - Replacements for fossil fuels
This category includes innovations that use, enable and accelerate the migration to renewable energy. Renewables encompass technologies that use waste streams to directly produce energy.
Examples:
• Thin film solar manufacture
• Concentrating solar photovoltaic
• Bio-based fuels
• Hydropower
• Advanced fluid-flow designs
• Wind power technologies
4. GreenBuilding - New kinds of buildings or materials
Reducing the environmental impact of building construction or operation through improved design or construction practices, new or innovative use of building materials and new hardware or software applications is the goal of this category. Technologies are applied directly to the built environment.
Examples:
• Insulation materials
• Cement alternatives
• Indoor air filtration systems
• Disaster relief and modular housing
• Low VOC carpeting and flooring
• Water saving toilets, showers and plumbing
• Recycled materials for use in building material
5. Smart Power, Green Grid, Energy Storage - Better ways of carrying/storing electricity
This category encourages creating links between information technologies and electricity delivery that give industrial, commercial and residential consumers greater control over when and how their energy is delivered and used. It includes improvements in all forms of energy storage, from battery technology for consumer-scale products to chemical, metal, biological or other approaches to storage of utility-scale energy, as well as methods for controlling or increasing the efficiency of energy storage or energy transmission.
Examples:
• Wireless metering and use of real-time pricing information
• Network architecture for power management
• Hydrogen storage
• Battery form factor improvements
• Advanced fuel cell membranes
• Power storage
• Transmission efficiency
6. Transportation - Greener cars, buses, trucks or planes
This category encompasses transportation and mobile technology applications that improve fuel efficiency, reduce air pollution, reduce oil consumption or reduce vehicle travel (not limited to automobiles). Technologies are applied directly to transportation systems or vehicles.
Examples:
• Fleet and route management systems
• Logistics management
• Carpooling solutions
• All electric vehicles
• Flex fuel engines and applications
• Drivetrain conversion kits
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Who is behind the Global Cleantech Open Ideas Competition?
A: The competition is organized by the Cleantech Open (www.cleantechopen.com). Through its annual cleantech Business Competition and mentorship program (the world’s largest), the Cleantech Open has helped hundreds of clean technology startups bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition since 2006, and helped its alumni raise over $150M and create thousands of green-collar jobs.
Q: What is the mission of the Cleantech Open?
A: The mission of the Cleantech Open is to find, fund and foster find, fund, and foster companies with big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental, and economic challenges.
Through this mission, the Cleantech Open encourages the development of clean technology companies that foster a healthy, natural environment - companies that provide environmental benefits in the areas of renewable energy, energy efficiency, pollution reduction and resource protection and conservation. The Ideas Competition is the first step to help entrepreneurs build a successful cleantech business.
Q: Who can enter the competition?
A: Anyone looking to turn their clean technology idea into a thriving business can apply. Entrants can be sole proprietors, teams or early-stage companies. To be eligible, your entity must have received less than $500,000US in external private financing. Grant funding and any money from friends and family are excluded from this $500,000 limit.
Q: What is Sustainability?
A: Sustainability is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Source: Brundtland Commission, 1987).
Cleantech Open’s Sustainability Program strives to highlight the relevance of and promote the philosophy of sustainability throughout everything Cleantech Open does. We ask competitors to have a positive impact on the environment and the broader community, and to make this part of every phase of development - not just for the end-use application. Your idea should deliver products or services that have a net positive environmental impact.
Q: How many prizes are there and what is included?
A: There is one national winner for each country who will receive press recognition for their award and go on to compete at the global pitch competition in San Francisco on November 17.
The global winner will receive at least $100,000US worth of startup services and have access to seasoned advisors in the essential areas that will help ensure their ideas can be translated into a business. The Cleantech Open advisor community includes specialists in business plan development, intellectual property protection, marketing, PR, sustainability and fundraising. Starting with a plan to leverage their Global Cleantech Open award, the advisor team will develop a plan specific to the global winner’s needs.
Q: What does it cost to enter the competition?
A: It costs nothing to enter the Global Cleantech Open. All incidental costs, such as producing a video or traveling to the Awards Gala, are however the responsibility of each contestant.
Q: What is cleantech?
A: Cleantech has been described by Clean Edge, a clean technology research firm, as “a diverse range of products, services, and processes that harness renewable materials and energy sources, dramatically reduce the use of natural resources, and cut or eliminate emissions and wastes.” The terms “cleantech” and “green tech” are often used interchangably to describe products, services and practices that are environmentally friendly.
About the Youth Interactive Portal for Enterprise (YIPE)
The Youth Interactive Portal for Enterprise (www.yipekenya.org) is an online service providing business skills training, information on how to access finance, business ideas & opportunities and advice on how to register a business to Kenyan youth entrepreneurs.
The portal is the first of its kind in East Africaspecifically targeting the youth with free information and resources aimed at ensuring business sustainability. On a wider scale, the portal also provides valuable information to students, corporates, financial institutions, NGOs, government policy makers as well as development agencies seeking to promote economic empowerment. For more information, visit www.yipekenya.org, and follow @yipeorg on Twitter.
About Cleantech Open
The Cleantech Open (www.cleantechopen.com) finds, funds, and fosters entrepreneurs with ideas, technologies, and products that address today’s most urgent energy, climate and economic challenges. Through its one-of-a-kind annual business competition, ideas competition and entrepreneurial development programs, the Cleantech Open has helped hundreds of clean technology startups bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition since 2006, and helped its alumni raise over $150m and create thousands of green-collar jobs.
About Global Entrepreneurship Week
With the goal to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity, Global Entrepreneurship Week will encourage youth to think big, turn their ideas into reality, and make their mark. From November 15-21, 2010, millions of young people around the world will join a growing movement to generate new ideas and seek better ways of doing things. Tens of thousands of activities are being planned in dozens of countries. Global Entrepreneurship Week is founded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Enterprise UK. For more information, visit www.unleashingideas.org, and follow @unleashingideas on Twitter.
It doesn't matter how long an aspiring entrepreneur takes in planning their business. There will always be factors that are unpredictable and beyond their control. Don Rainey, a general partner at Grotech Ventures recently submitted an article to VentureBeat titled “8 things I wish I knew before starting a business”.
The article makes for great reading with real nuggets of advice. Aspiring entrepreneurs are fortunate to get this information now. But for operational entrepreneurs - of course we wish we had read this article before, but there is always room for learning and adapting. After all that’s the life of an entrepreneur.
Last year when we wrote on slum tourism (slum safari’s) we focused on the emergence of this niche sector as well as the incentives for young entrepreneurs in terms of low barriers to entry.
In essence the slum safari article discussed he supply-side for slum tourism. Structural factors such as rapid urbanisation leading to the growth of slums. Indeed for every urban dweller living in the developed world, two exist in the developing world; and it has been projected that this ratio will increase to three by 2025.
However comments to an article published earlier this month in the New York Times on Slumdog Tourism by Kennedy Odede who grew up in Kibera raises demand-side factors for why slum tourism is here to stay. Graphically, Odede describes his own observations as one of the tour attractions. One alarming anecdote is of a group of tourists being taken to visit a woman having a baby at home. As one commentor to the article says:
“This is the kind of story that makes me ashamed to be part of the developed world. But it has an curious angle, and it's that the onlookers, while judging, gawking, and pitying, are in fact there for their own sake. They are seeking the authenticity and reality they lack in their own lives ... We are bored, fat, and out of touch with the earth and our neighbors in it. So we pay to stare at them.”
That’s an interesting take for sure on uneven development, In this case one where poverty stricken countries have the upper hand. If only the money to assuage the feelings quoted above could trickle down to those such as the pregnant woman Odede speaks of.
But then again, if basic services such as maternal care, adequate housing, sanitation and jobs provided to the youth are provided, what then is there to show these novelty-seeking, intrepid travelers? How much does one’s dignity cost, anyway?
A fascinating post on The Curious Capitalist blog, titled “Escaping the middle-income trap” offers valuable advice to government policy makers when planning for economic development. Kenya’s Vision 2030 proposes to make the economy a middle income country; but what happens when that is attained and the time comes to make the leap to a truly world class high-income economy?
Taking the example of Malaysia and comparing it with South Korea, the writer posits that only innovation will enable a country to break out of the trap and make the big leap to high per capita economy. In fact the writer goes so far as to say that it is easier for a country to make it to the middle income level than it is to transition into the big high income league:
"The concept behind the “middle-income trap” is quite simple: It's easier to rise from a low-income to a middle-income economy than it is to jump from a middle-income to a high-income economy. That's because when you're really poor, you can use your poverty to your advantage. Cheap wages makes a low-income economy competitive in labor-intensive manufacturing (apparel, shoes and toys, for example). Factories sprout up, creating jobs and increasing income ..."
However akin to an engine running on its own momentum, this model of high growth starts to plateau with competitiveness rising as well as labour costs of the highly educated and skilled workforce. Thus the “trap.”
And apart from lowering the entry barriers into business, it is more vital that economies begin to innovate. So not only should technocrats focus on consolidating business licences, reducing taxes and other barriers to enterprise; innovation should be actively promoted. At YIPE we call this the W.A.R factor:
Promoting Willingness: a scenario where financial institutions recognise the value of new technologies and entrepreneurs are willing to take risks in order to innovate;
Promoting the entrepreneur’s Ability: by providing a platform where entrepreneurs can grow their social capital by networking amongst other institutional challenges; and
Facilitating Resource transfer: by lowering the information asymmetry faced in access to credit and technical knowledge.
Thank you all so much. I am thrilled to see you. I had to come back to work to recover from my daughter’s wedding. (Laughter.) And one of the reasons I came back was because I wanted the chance to welcome each and every one of you here to the State Department, and to tell you how excited we are to be hosting this Young Leaders Forum.
Now, I know that later this afternoon, you will have the unique opportunity to go to the White House and to meet with President Obama. And I think from what you heard already today and the comments of my friend and extraordinary Assistant Secretary for Africa, Johnnie Carson, this Administration, from the top, is very committed to, concerned about Africa, and especially about Africa’s future, because we know that it is people like all of you and others who are not in this room today who will determine what Africa’s future will be.
I see Africa as a continent brimming with potential, a place that has so much just waiting to be grasped. Sixty percent of the population of Africa is under the age of 25. And that means that there’s a lot of work to be done to make sure that those young people are educated, are healthy, are motivated, are given the tools of opportunity. But it also means that Africa has not just the potential, but the promise of becoming a leader in innovation, in design, in creativity of all that you, your families, communities, and countries can become.
Now, people in this room have already started businesses. You have started NGOs, you have made films, you have helped to make peace, you have worked with at-risk youth, you have cared for people living with HIV/AIDS, you have fought to end mistreatment of some of Africa’s most vulnerable citizens. You have looked for solutions close to home. And you have seen unprecedented progress in your own lifetimes. Poverty and child mortality have declined across much of the continent. Primary school enrollment is up. Ghana, Botswana, South Africa, and others have all recently held elections that were models of freeness and fairness.
Across Africa, more citizens believe they now have the power and the duty to shape their own lives, to help their communities, to hold their governments accountable. So for all of the challenges, which we hear much about, I want to focus on these gains, because it is through this positive progress that we can motivate and incentivize even more to take place. And ultimately, it is up to you. The President and I very much believe in Africa’s promise and we can do what’s possible from afar to assist and to be front-row cheerleaders, if you will. But ultimately, it is up to you, and to citizens like you to make sure that we sustain and deepen the progress.
Every child, boy and girl, deserves to go as far as his or her God-given talents and potential and hard work will take that child. That means education is a right, not a luxury. It means that the best education must be made available to as many young people as possible. It means that every pregnant woman receives prenatal care and assistance for labor and delivery so the child that is brought into the world has a good start. It means that everyone has a safe environment – a house, a roof over one’s head, a fair wage for the work that is done, and that everyone is free to follow his or her conscience in religion and politics to express an opinion without fear of being marginalized, silenced, or worse. We believe that you have the talents, the determination and the ability to bring these dreams to fruition.
When President Obama spoke to the parliament of Ghana a year ago he said, Africa’s future is up to Africans. And he pledged then to work with Africa’s leaders and citizens as friends and partners in a spirit of mutual respect and accountability. We stand ready to be your partners.
What does partnership mean? Well, it means that we have to change the way we pursue development. We have to work harder to expand trade and we have to encourage more trade among African countries yourselves. It means we have to improve private sector competitiveness. Many of you have had the privilege of traveling. You’ve been to Europe. You’ve now been to the United States. You’ve seen the diaspora from your countries and you often see how successful they are. We want that success to be right where you live and to break down the barriers that still exist. (Applause.)
We want to help you modernize how you deliver and create clean energy, how you get more value for agriculture which is still the life blood and the source of income for most people in sub-Saharan Africa. We want to help you strengthen democratic institutions. Elections are great, but that’s only one part of democracy – free press, independent judiciary, respect for human rights and the rights of minorities, giving everybody a stake in their own society. We want to support women and girls to be full participants in their communities and countries. (Applause.) We want to redouble our global efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis, malaria. We want to respond to food scarcity and soaring food prices and growing populations with a multi-billion dollar initiative to help eradicate hunger and achieve food security. We want to join with you to fight against climate change, which will be devastating to Africa.
Meanwhile, we want to be sure that your voices are heard on the global stage. Johnnie was referring to my trips to Africa as First Lady. And I recognized then how much work there still was to be done to educate people in my own country about Africa. I held a roundtable for members of the White House Press Corps, and this was probably in – I don’t know, 1997 or ’98 – and one of the first questions that one of the reporters asked me – he said, what’s the capital of Africa? (Laughter.) I thought, oh, do I have a lot of work to do. (Laughter.) And we’ve made a lot of progress there, too – (laughter) but we have a long way to go. Because you know so well that when people think too often of Africa, they think of all the tragedies, the conflicts. We want people to see a more comprehensive picture.
This forum, along with the African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program, and the AGOA Forum taking place here in Washington and in Kansas City, Kansas, this week will help link African and American leaders, activists, entrepreneurs, investors, and especially young people. And we are inviting you to take advantage of that. We designed this forum not to be a one-time event; we want to create the connections that you will continue to exploit, to think about how you can tap into whatever help and skills, references and ideas that you can get from us.
We want you to take advantage of this when you go home, when you return, and maybe begin to think anew about how you can be more effective. And your generation of young Africans has already pioneered information technologies. You are connecting and empowering people in ways that we couldn’t have dreamed of even five, let alone ten years ago. For example, Ushahidi crisis management platform has become a digital tool for social change all over the world.
Ushahidi was developed by young Kenyans to map reports of violence after the election of 2007. And a lot of the young Kenyans we invited were unable to come because they’re staying to vote and to work on behalf of the constitution that will be voted on very soon. This new network has been used by citizen election monitors to help prevent fraud and violence in Burundi, India, Sudan, Guinea, Namibia. It’s revolutionizing and empowering what citizens can do without permission, just on their own. We have seen the way that sophisticated mobile communications tools have also been used in Kenya to educate and empower voters in the lead-up to the referendum on its new constitution tomorrow.
Good ideas leapfrog languages and borders. Technology created and deployed first in Africa was used by U.S. Marines in Haiti to help rescue earthquake victims, and by a Louisiana environmental group tracking efforts to clean up the Gulf oil spill We are working hard to convey that our relationship with Africa is not a one-way street. We expect to benefit. We expect to learn. We expect to look to you for models and ideas of what we can do better ourselves.
So to ensure that new technologies are used more for good – and not for ill – we have promised to work with partners in industry, academia, and NGOs to try to harness the power of connection technologies to help you spur economic, political, and social progress.
The United States has now joined with three local partners to sponsor a contest called “Apps-4-Africa” – A-p-p-s dash 4, the number, dash Africa. Software developers in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania have proposed applications for everything from educational games for mobile phones, to interactive maps that can track shortages of blood or medicines, to a mass texting app that could broadcast emergency information to rural villages. The winning apps will be announced in September. And we hope to catalyze these collaborations between technical experts and leaders of civil society to develop practical solutions that will improve people’s lives.
This concept of leapfrogging holds such great promise for Africa. You already have. You didn’t have to put up telephone poles, you went right to cell phones in many parts of Africa. Your electric grid doesn’t have to be massive. It can be local and regional and provide sources of energy from wind and solar as well as fossil fuels. We stand ready to help in any way we can.
I often say that talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. Africa has no shortage of ideas, innovations, or entrepreneurial drive. We want this conference to be a start, where we work with you to help you create the conditions in which your ideas can be translated into real-life solutions for Africa and beyond.
I know you’ve been going to workshops and you’ve been talking to one another, and we will maintain a kind of nerve center after this forum to stay in touch with you, to provide assistance if you request it, to connect you up with other people. It’s part of how we’re trying to redefine diplomacy, development, and statecraft in the 21st century. We recently held an entrepreneurship summit in Washington where we invited young business people from predominantly Muslim-majority countries that are lagging way behind in unleashing the entrepreneurial potential of their people. And I think people came in part because they got a free trip to Washington, but also they were curious, wondering kind of what we were up to. But what we were up to was trying to empower them as we now are trying to empower you.
We’re looking for leaders who know that empowering citizens is something that is in everyone’s best interests. The world in which we live in today – top-down hierarchical power – is not sustainable. Oh, it can stay in place for years, but eventually, it is not sustainable. There are just too many ways people are going to get too much information. And technology is going to blow the doors down on governments.
One of my hopes is that we can move toward e-government in Africa, so that you can get more quickly whatever documents you need to start that business, or to register that car, and you don’t have to go through a lot of hands to do it. We’re looking for those kinds of ideas and we want to help you bring them to fruition and then take them to scale.
I’m very excited about what’s possible with your generation in Africa. But you know as well as I that you’re here in part because you’ve already succeeded. And many of you would have the option to go nearly anywhere in the world to pursue your dreams. But you’re here because you care about the future of your families, your communities, your countries. And I urge you to stay with it. Change is not easy. And for many who try it, it can become very frustrating and even discouraging. But it is so worthy an effort, commensurate with your talents and your dedication.
You are educated beyond the average education of most of the people that you know or that you can watch as you drive down the road. You’re here because you had the opportunities and you took them. What we want to help you do is to set forth your vision and then realize it. Because it will not be just for you – although I hope every one of you becomes successful in whatever enterprise you choose to pursue – but it will help to open doors and not go over obstacles, so that people will look at you, especially people younger than you, and believe that they too have a chance for a different future.
Godspeed as you go out from this forum back to your homes, I hope, energized and knowing that no matter how hard it is, you have friends and partners who are rooting for your success.
