Friday, August 03, 2007
TED Africa Goes Online
As I've mentioned before, TED Africa was simply the best conference I've ever attended, and that's saying a lot coming from an academic who hates conferences by and large. And one of the best things about TED is how it puts all of this fantastic intellectual property online, free of charge. I've been a fan of TED Talks long before I ever attended the real thing; it just provided endless hours of thought-provoking stuff. Given how much I've been talking about TED Africa, several people have asked me when it would go online and I asked everyone to be patient based on what Emeka told me. The organizers have slowly started putting the Africa talks online and you can find the first installment here. I am also going to embed the videos here for the lazy ones.
TED Africa was opened, amazingly enough, by my good friend, Euvin Naidoo, and Euvin spoke about the investment opportunities in Africa and offered a different lens to view the continent through.
Long-time readers of this blog also know of my admiration for George Ayittey, who I have met several times now to understand Africa better, especially the political dynamics underpinning the economic ones. Here is his powerful and hard-hitting speech that pretty much lays out the fundamental problems on the continent and appeals to the "cheetah" generation to change the way things get done. You judge for yrself whether George is the right-winger he is often deemed to be.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was the finance minister of Nigeria in the Obasanjo government. I have followed her closely in her government role and it was quite amazing how she shook up the political economy of Nigeria, which probably explains why she didn't last that long. It was, therefore, a great privilege to meet her and spend some time with her. Here is Dr Okonjo-Iweala explaining why it's not an either/or scenario.
As I said, this is just one of the many talks going online at TED, so watch this space and I'll continue to link to some of the better speeches I heard. For now, enjoy these three.
TED Africa was opened, amazingly enough, by my good friend, Euvin Naidoo, and Euvin spoke about the investment opportunities in Africa and offered a different lens to view the continent through.
Long-time readers of this blog also know of my admiration for George Ayittey, who I have met several times now to understand Africa better, especially the political dynamics underpinning the economic ones. Here is his powerful and hard-hitting speech that pretty much lays out the fundamental problems on the continent and appeals to the "cheetah" generation to change the way things get done. You judge for yrself whether George is the right-winger he is often deemed to be.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was the finance minister of Nigeria in the Obasanjo government. I have followed her closely in her government role and it was quite amazing how she shook up the political economy of Nigeria, which probably explains why she didn't last that long. It was, therefore, a great privilege to meet her and spend some time with her. Here is Dr Okonjo-Iweala explaining why it's not an either/or scenario.
As I said, this is just one of the many talks going online at TED, so watch this space and I'll continue to link to some of the better speeches I heard. For now, enjoy these three.
