Earlier this month I received an email from Chris Anderson, the curator of the TED following up on the conference in Tanzania. Several videos from the TEDGlobal conference I attended in Arusha a few months ago premièred online. My favourite is George Ayittey who roused the audience, alternating from lacerating criticism of Africa’s “hippo generation”…
Patrick Awuah left Microsoft to found Asheshi University. The questions of transformation in Africa is a question of leadership. He gives a shocking example of two incidents at a hospital when they lost power. Learned about courage when stopped at age 16 and stopped by soldiers who wanted him to join some protesters. He found…
Fred was invited onto the TED stage for another 3 minute slot…renaissance, steam revolution, information age: pc, mobile and Internet. President Thabo Mbeki proclaimed the African Renaissance. The African Leadership Academy was launched. Goal is to become more systematic and being proactive about bringing about peace and prosperity. Young people from all 54 countries in…
Session 11 was closed off by a speech by the President of Tanzania, the honourable Mjue Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete. He started out extending a warm welcome to all guests and visitors to Tanzania and Arush. It’s the beginning of the winter but it’s not snowing yet. He referred to a conversation he had with U2′s…
Africa is a continent full of contradictions. You’re Harvard educated and you’re coming here to tell us what to do? She told us about her experiences growing up. Although not in the slums she grew up poor. She was sent to a expensive school and kept being thrown out. And once when she failed she…
This is the 2nd talk on the second last session of TEDGlobal 2007. We need to commercialising enterprises or entrepreneurship in Africa. Chris Anderson, TED curator, described him as one-man think tank, a libertarian economist. Address famine as a business opportunity. Lost $200 million due to famine in Kenya. Estimated cost 300 to 500 million…
Paul van Zyl gave one of the regular 3 minute talks that fits in between the main talks at TED. He was involved with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and now runs an NGO in New York that shares these strategies and experience with other countries in transition. For more on this…
The final session of TED: Leadership and Truth, opened with a short film with photos from the famine in Ethiopia. He open with “My name is Salim Amin and I am an African.” The images from the film saved the lives of 3 million people. Images taken by his father, Mohammed Amin. A24 media project,…
Russell Southwood publishes one of Africa’s leading newsletters on technology: The Balancing Act. He’s talk was going to be about tech, wealth and culture. He was inspired John Perry Barlow’s dream of wiring the Internet in Africa as written in this great piece written Wired. Russell referred to what he calls Door Openers which may…
Ron Eglash is a mathematician and author of African Fractals. According to him concepts of fractal geometry resonate throughout many facets of African culture. He started out giving is a brief history of fractals. In the early 1900s Helge von Koch was frustrated with the complex definition and set out to simply the understanding. This…
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