Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate

Towards the end of our first deep dive on the Africa focus area, a session that included 15 university students from all over the continent (including Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania), it was a young man from right here in Nairobi that sent a strong and direct message to the business leaders, government officials and academics that will constitute the future GIO deep dives: “Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate.”

This simple request came from Athman Fadhili, an MBA student from the University of Nairobi, who had spent a large portion of the day imploring the private sector to take a more active role in the development of curriculum at African universities. And he was not alone in his desire to see this kind of public and private collaboration. In a day-long, wide-ranging conversation that focused heavily on the overburdened African university system, many expressed the need for increased involvement from the businesses that will one day employ these students. But no one said it any better than Athman. So I’ll let him tell you what he wants, and how he thinks it can get done.

In general, there seemed to be a high level of frustration and discontent with  government ability to steer the university system (and a few other major infrastructure challenges). And no one in that room underestimated that system’s role in fostering a culture of entrepreneurship. So the students were clearly reaching out to the private sector for help. Help in influencing the government to overhaul curricula; help in creating internships to give students more real world experience; help fostering students and the ideas through mentoring programs.

“The private sector is known for its ability to implement and sustain ideas,” said Kevit Desai, the ICT Governor of the Kenya Private Sector Association (KEPSA), an industry group. “But it’s important that they do things the right way.”

And there is at least one example of the right way. At Cida City Campus, a university in South Africa that caters to students from poor backgrounds, there is an entire school for entrepreneurs. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin conglomerate, donated the school (called the Branson School of Enterpreneurship), and even set up a seed fund to get students the capital they need to launch their businesses.

The Branson School is more of a purely philanthropic endeavor. But what Athman is calling for is large corporations that have the funds and long-term vision to create centers of learning in African schools in exchange for qualified, trained employees. It seems as though more of them would be willing to do it if the government loosened up its controls.

In other news from today’s dive, we did an interesting exercise with the students. The tendency in meetings like this is to dwell on problems. But today we asked the students to think of things that have gone right in Africa, examples of entrepreneurship and innovation that can serve to inspire. And the list was too long to publish in just one blog.

But the highlights included: a mobile service from Kenya wireless provider Safaricom, called M-Pesa, that allows subscribers to maintain bank accounts on their phones, and transfer money to other Safaricom subscribers; a Ugandan Health Information Network that uses low-cost handhelds to transmit continuing medical education information to doctors in remote areas; and a couple of entrepreneurs in Kenya that fashioned sandals from used tire treads and sold them for $100 a pair.   

A student dive was a great way to kick off the Africa focus area, as we will now take the perspectives of the youth of Africa to the business, government, and academic leaders of the world. And if this dive was any indication, the order of the day is going to be: collaborate.