Mo Ibrahim, Sudanese-British billionaire | The Brave Ones

[Music] Africa should be rich because we have a very rich continent well was really designed for Africa that's the best place to use mobile communications power corrupts who decided really to focus on something which nobody is touching the issue of governance in Africa that was a challenging moment for us we are Africans this is African money nobody can complain deliver this a big gap between perception and reality there is a wonderful business opportunity [Music] it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Murray brahim foundations leadership ceremony welcome to our Bijan it is wonderful to have you here with us tonight Moe was a good friend of my late father and the man for whom my father had immense respect we need to rebrand Africa no Ibrahim success comes from his vision his ability to see what was possible we need to show that his life after office he has a passion about governance and leadership we discussing some really important issues for Africa there is no country today in Africa that doesn't want to be in the rating of most foundation Europe cannot succeed if Africa fails most people know that now the Ibrahim prize works in two ways it's not just a great thing if you receive it it's a terrifying thing if you don't I was born in Haifa in Sudan my father worked in Egypt so I grew up did my schooling in Alexandria Egypt that's why I love the Mediterranean with the smell of the sea is amazing normal childhood in a third-world country we lived modestly and I was one of five Sudanese it's a very ancient people very dignified but actually when he takes the the boxing gloves off he's he's very warm I had a very happy childhood I recall also fondly my late mother who was very adamant that we focus in education she has this obsession with education as the most important thing and it is a one way out of poverty I love science and I want to be I wanted to be science scientist I had no plans at all or idea that I'm gonna end up being a businessman I don't know because of my social background all suspect businessman I mean we assume businessmen are crooks we respect professions you know you need to be a doctor engineer to him honest money he's one man all the way through in many ways you know he I mean my dad is he's a mathematician and a scientist really at his core and he'll always find a solution a practical solution to a problem I ended up being an accident there's a businessman now so this is not by choice actually I was fascinated by the concept of mobile communication and mobility they are more convenient than regular telephones but this strange propagation of radio waves going around the streets and canyons and I saw that as an interesting challenge and that's what I decided to do and it's the moment where the world is going to go from landlines to wireless phones and he is at the right moment in the right spot for this dramatic transformation Bridge telecom got a license from the government to develop a mobile network so they asked me to join them as technical director Moe is at British Telecom in the early 80s and this is just as BT is privatizing it was an interesting proposition for me because as an engineer now suddenly you know are like kids you know would love to play with train sets and now I have the big train set you know around the whole country to play with so I designed the first mobile network in UK I think when he was a pretty Telekom he might have half invented the mobile phone really cuz he's scientist underneath it all so it's no surprise that he's finding that this institution is still very bureaucratic even as its trying to change so what do you do when you get philip working in a large company and there burocracy this a guy I'm gonna be a consultant so I want to be free he leaves BT to start mobile systems international MSI I went home i dining-room I said okay this is gonna be my office I went to work from here it was one room there was the dining table and there was the sofa in the TV we're all in one me great to my amazement I got so much work I I really could not cope with it so I said I need some people to accuse me we ended up was like 900 engineers and we had 16 offices worldwide who became the largest independent technology company in Europe he creates develops trademarks a soft word that goes on to be used by Motorola and Siemens he never expected that something that he started in his dining room would be so successful when we sold the company if you years later some 33% of the shares were in the hand of my my people not the senior management not myself at the hand of my engineers and software people that said and that was a great wonderful experience but I found it if the most important thing is just to common sense that's all what is needed really to do business and never afraid of saying I don't know he's very Irish I mean for a Susan his dude he does feel like family in a certain sense Bordeaux is a business my Irish brother and there's a lot of arguing RG barchi and I think Irish people like that you know my was never met an argument he didn't like what people said to him was don't touch Africa Africa is so corrupt mobile was really designed for Africa that's the best place to use mobile communications [Applause] [Music] in the University of Guyana once it was an egg and the crowd and and he was he had all this crowd it's a great speaker but at one point I think one of them came up and said can I would you would you take photograph I said fine I mean gave before I took your photo I said no no you give the phone to Bono and same Bono yeah I said he said you checked the iv of us fair was like a start signal honor doesn't matter can you please just take a photo of us and then they handed me the camera and put their armor Oh Bordeaux is humble he's a superstar is that means the rock star in the room but it's good for those rocks are also to be humble sometime to be able to laugh at yourself is great a messiah was a success story and I still I don't know why we succeeded or what what happened I had enough money them to be comfortable so will we to Africa to do self tell I believe they're gonna be successful business but I didn't realize if we're gonna be that hugely successful so this engineer who thought he was never gonna be a businessperson discovers there's an even bigger and better business to do besides his mobile phone consultancy deployment of wireless networks in Africa he smells the coffee he understands that the new infrastructure of the kontin's not even roads or power it's mobile telephony and the Internet is the superhighway and the the trucks and the cars are these phones and they're gonna change everything all of Africa had about three million telephone lines at the fine this is landlines who said okay what's going to happen Africa really needs mobile communication it is not the right technology to service Africa by using landlines it's just too expensive and it cannot be protected mobile was really designed for Africa that's the best place to use mobile communications a friend of mine who's also one of my customers I said you know the Ugandan government contacted us and they really want to offer the mobile license seller license they need that and it's for free you know he said to me you would need to go to my board and advise them to invest in Uganda this country you know they have this terrible man idea I mean running the country I said excuse me idea I mean left 15 years ago Amin had proclaimed himself president for life but for now he doesn't have power or a country this is the perception of Africa unfortunately and that really was a wake-up call for me I remember more talking about launching his cell cell company and what people said to him was don't touch Africa Africa is so corrupt I'm an African I'm not afraid of Africa I believe there is a big gap between perception and reality of Africa whenever there's a big gap between perception and reality this is a wonderful business opportunity I met more in 98 immediately after he started cell tell in a room full of investors it was quite interesting to watch him go from person to person introducing himself as more please call me more he just knew that he could do it and and the way that he thinks that is because he thinks longer and harder than anybody I know if I need to build a mobile network UK runs all what I need to do is to build the mobility layer it's just the towers and the exchanges and the infrastructure is provided by the incumbent in Africa is nothing like that so that's one big problem we have to build all the infrastructure ourselves I have to put in the microwave the fibre to connect the towers to the exchanges all these thousands of radio towers they need power and you need power 24 hours so I have to have a generator in every tower then I need to have a backup to the generator and then I need to have batteries for emergency I need somebody to go every morning to supply fuel it is a tough job really to go onto it that was a huge challenge for us at the operational level of the company second challenge we had was typically you get at least 50% funding from the banks loans etc we could not get any we have to build the company with equity it happened that telecom was a sector where you could put quite a bit of capital and get a very rapid return given the spread of this technology in a population who did not have to fix telephone lines when we sold the company seven years later we had no debt there's no telecom company in the world which had know that we in Africa have to build the company with equity with with our money because the banks will not touch us it was a momentum it was a sector and more had the flare at the nose to jump into that and to realize that he could a huge business no one had wanted to start a wireless company in Africa and then lo and behold nearly 10 years later everyone is clamoring to buy the wireless network that he created and he sells it for more than three billion dollars we do not understand the whole economic and social it changes the bring it to the whole continent we will know that smarter to foresee that I wish who here on exit his greatest points of joy was to be able to say wow we've created over a hundred and eighty nine multimillionaires who participated in building the business and should of course share in the upside of the business but that was the tip of the iceberg because there's no viable banking systems or credit cards or even postal addresses in many areas this means that millions of people every morning have to walk by scratch cards so suddenly all these little shops they started to appear we had something like 400,000 selling points these are 400,000 entrepreneurs this guy start with a little kiosk by the side of the road and after a month will be some oranges and some bananas also and then some deep sea of coal suddenly this guy have a business which was built in mobile phones that has actually open up a lot of things you know people especially from rural areas where they have never seen a phone before do you think about the constant of Africa's leapfrogging even quite modern technologies like the telephone into this whole other system banking system of communication and yeah so facilitating this tech revolution which turbocharged transparency what people using is mobile phones to tell the world what's happening it's really a huge important tool for democratization and and and and and human rights in the air in Africa as an African he was so much concerned to the people of Africa so he wanted to sacrifice his own money to serve these people of the continent and he makes a giant fortune and he thinks I don't need all of this what'll I do with it and again he invests it in governance this idea that if we reward people for doing the good things we may not have to punish them for doing the bad [Music] the first Mo Ibrahim prize for achievement in African leadership has been announced in London [Music] I'm delighted to announce that the winner is Festus kadambini more hi the president Petrov Verona Perez is a wasa winner of the 2011 Ibrahim price Humber the winner of the 2014 prestigious Mohammed the power in Liberia today rests where it should I remember very well when I first met Mo it was at a business lunch mo literally had hunted me he you know saw me out of the room said can I give you a lift back to your hotel I really need to talk to you and he began by talking about this foundation that he wanted to establish for African leadership I know a lot of wonderful people doing great things with his medicine and you know Bill Gates and Melinda are doing a wonderful turn I love them to bits you know giving Plante's baby male family planning or whatever my my view is slightly different that why African people need it in the first place so he's just a small in charity when your geography is set against you as you attempts to find dignity in your life that's a matter of justice that's that's his anger your dress should not be your destiny Africa should be a rich because we are a very rich continent huge continent we have all these resources so why are we poor the answer was clearly the way we run our countries he knows that if Africa had its governance the being of domestic resources to pay all their own bills so that's why we decided we need to focus on something which nobody was touching the issue of governance in Africa and the issue of leadership in Africa and is that sort of angry pride in him this is we we will do this for ourselves we are Africans this is African money nobody can complain domestic resource mobilization is the game but corruption is is the obstacle in the way of it but there is a vaccine for corruption its transparency we say we need a score sheet for every country governance is measurable what is governance governance is about delivery of public goods delivery of education health safety security we believe that assessing outputs and outcomes of policy not measuring legislation is the most useful way to measure governance in Africa when I was in office I was always looking into more Brahim index and compared myself with my peers and see where where I am and try to design a program where I can improve in every big multinational that's now looking to invest in Africa somewhere the first thing they will look at is this big book with all the data and I can tell you this will have big big influence on whether they do it or not it becomes a guiding tool for many of us it was for me brother and sister it is wonderful to have a winner this year the prize was clever because it was the sexy part of the foundation Debra's really is an acknowledgment of courageous and decent leadership in Africa because it's important to have the leaders who can really move things forward I mean you look at people like Mandela they come at the crucial time and you do the right things and that can change the whole makeup of our country that was the one issue the prize that I had a slight you know problem because I thought that mo was putting it at far to higher level I mean why I have a prize you know that is bigger than the Nobel Prize and I said this to him and he explained two things he said first of all governance is beyond price you know good leadership and governance at the on price and secondly Mary in Africa if you've a corrupt leader they make far more than this price we are looking for heroes people who came and did the right thing and left not because of the price because that is what we doing this is five million dollars and $200,000 for life so it's just enough to let people leave this and flee and go on doing some good stuff for Africa European leaders American leaders anybody they've accomplished of the leave office actually because every bank in the world lured them under bore they want a speech circuit they make a lot of money our guys have none of this so what do you do after office if you are a good leader and clean you leave an office you are penniless we say no we want you to go around Africa town to go around country speak to the school kids tell them your story this is a wonderful thing to free those people because of the brides money do you don't need to work and they now work for Africa as the first woman to receive this award it is my hope that women and girls across Africa will be inspired I'm trying to remember where I was when I received the phone call that I had been selected to break through barriers to push back the frontiers of possibilities and I received the corners oh wow you know I didn't expect it I think it's true to say that the Prize Committee on occasion has not given the prize when Moe thought we would and it almost embarrassed him that we didn't give the prize because we've actually recognized there we must be very strict in the criteria power corrupts I have seen many African leaders come to office very well-meaning they live in a bubble and they start to grow this creates the idea about being indispensable by being extremely wise that we said excuse me some humility please because he takes on leaders sometimes in in in ways that surprises all of us he's become a hero to people at the grassroot level more is the only African that I know that will come out and tell our leaders the hard truth he's very fearless and he always stand by what he said because you always say the truth if we don't say what we think what is our value this notion that you cannot remain in power too long that you should not use public funding for your own purpose that corruption has to be addressed that the rule of law is something which matters I think Moe will have sort of solidified this part of the future of Africa [Music] he's fighting with headwind so that makes him to be a brave person and he's really a brave Africa i thinkin an African Nubian who tried really to be good to our people to do something good I don't know if I succeeded or not but I think I tried and yes there's been hills to climb some very steep personally politically probably has put his life in danger but don't think Moe feels brave Moe feels blessed I don't think if my dad were down the street you would know who he was then or now or how much money he had or how successful he was if he was art I would call him a masterpiece it really really passionately believes in the future of the continent future of his own country Sudan that's what gets him up in the morning it's quite quite dear I'd like to think I was you know Robin to his Batman but I think in reality I am or is it Alfred the butler I just kind of come as roadie what advice would you give to your younger self be brave be brave be brave [Music] [Music] you [Music] you

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Id: 46dCQ6nHIEY

Length: 26min 0sec (1560 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2019