TED Day 3, Afternoon Session
Connecting the Continent
AMD’s Héctor Ruiz, the CEO of AMD just put up a chart on the use of the Internet per 1000 people and it’s sad how far back we are on the continent because of high costs to internet access.
AMD’s 50×15 initiative is a business venture and not a charity, it’s focused on simple, accessible, and human-centric solutions; it’s based on a “geo-sensitive” approach and is about fostering local, integrated, end-to-end ecosystems. AMD’s vision of local integrated, end-to-end ecosystems encourages the building and development of complete hardware and software solutions locally to provide solutions. Architecture for Humanity is also involved in the design of the best-suited computer lab for the emerging world.
A very important point Héctor made throughout his talk was of his father’s constant reminders for Héctor to strive and achieve more than he did, in the context of the continent, the current generation has to do better in all facets of their lives than that of our parents and we should wake up every morning wanting to achieve more and better than they did. Africa’s Cheetah generation (as Dr George Ayittey referred to the current conscientious and increasingly passionate generation) couldn’t have been challenged any better.
Herman Chinery-Hesse of theSOFTtribe gave a good talk about being proud to be an African and working in Africa once you have acquired the necessary skill set. One should not wait for government to provide a job, but come up with innovative solutions and business ideas as this is what will change Africa and not aid because we’re resourceful people. His other argument is that in order to get any services, rural areas the people will need to have cash and theSOFTtribe has come up with a system that will enable people to send cash to one another via the mobile phone.
One champion for all of us that decided to come back home after spending years away to startup businesses has to be Nick Nesbitt of Kenya’s KenCall; he made a decision to come back initially thinking he was coming back to save the continent but has now shifted gears to actually trying to get a business going that empowers his employees.
