[MUSIC] I want to first start off by saying
that you have easily been one of the most instrumental leaders
in shaping my journey. And you've even been responsible for my
journey here to Stanford Business School, so, it's truly an honor to be here today. And I think I speak for
many of the people here in this audience, that it's truly an honor.
>> Thank you. >> So I'd like to start with one of the most compelling pieces of advice
I've heard from any business leader. You've mentioned that the three most
important skills in business are to read, count and sell. Take us back to the early
days of your career, and how you cultivated these skills and used
them to become a successful entrepreneur. >> Well, first of all, it's indeed a great privilege and honor to be here,
thank you for inviting me. In particular,
my colleague and dear friend, a chairman of Stanford, and
Jeff Raikes, thank you, Jeff. Jeff and I work on the Alliance for
Green Revolution in Africa, snd he invited us here,
told our board meeting. So, I've got a number of my
colleagues from the board. And Judith Rodin I see there, Jozette and Lina, thank you so
much for joining us today. Well, you got to be able to read,
you got to be able to count and you got to be able to sell, in reality
that's what we as entrepreneurs do. When I was a little boy, my mother, she came up with this idea that I
should earn my own pocket money. So, she brought me a box
of chewing gum and started selling them to
my school In my school. But I got lost on the way back home
because I couldn't read that well, because I was only little. So I quickly learned that
you got to be able to sell. I could count, but I couldn't read before,
that's probably why I did math and engineering.
>> [LAUGH] So, let's talk a little bit more
about entrepreneurship. It's easy for a lot of us to think of entrepreneurship
from a more current context. It's such a hot topic and respected career path here with thousands
of tech startups emerging each year. But let's go back to Zimbabwe in the early
90s when you first had the vision for Eco net. What gave you the courage to take on
such a daring and uncommon career path? >> Well, by the time I decided to set up Econet in 1993, I had been in business for
about six or seven years. So I had a well-established business,
because I started in 1986, so I was actually 25. And so I had built up a fairly
successful construction business, I'm an engineer in telecommunications. So the whole mobile revolution was something I'd been tracking
since school actually. When I was at university we
already knew what was going on, like most engineers do, it's school. If you want to know what's going
on in artificial intelligence, talk to the guys at Stanford, they'll tell
you what's going to happen in ten years. So we knew this was going to happen and
it's going to be big. But 1993 was particularly
important in my tracking. Because that's when they went to using the
digital standard, which were called GSM, and I immediately knew this
was the time to get in. And I thought it was going
to be a fairly simple thing, you know you,
I went to my former employers. And I said hey guys this thing
is going to happen now I'd like to do a joined venture with you. And I used to have a letter I think
someone from the intelligence stole it. But I used to have a letter which used
to be on my wall written by the head of the telephone company. Back to me to say this is a fad,
it's going to disappear, we have more important things to do here,
so don't bother us. So I went back and I said okay since you
don't want to be bothered, let me do it. They said well no you can't do that, because then you would
violate our monopoly. I says so how can you monopoly
something you don't do? So I did the smartest thing
which is hire a lawyer. Right, I went to a lawyer I said
do they really have a monopoly? He says no they don't but if you really want to take them on,
there's easier thing to do. Just steal a tank and go park it in
front of the President's office, that's a much quicker,
because that's how he's going to react. And somebody did it to him
about three weeks ago. >> [APPLAUSE] >> So, we won't go into that. So, anyway I took him to court and I hired a lawyer from New York, an amazing American lawyer
called Judith O'Neil. And she was a specialist in
telecommunications law, but she couldn't practice in our jurisdiction. And she read the law and
she said to me, you know, you've got a point,
I'll help you with this. So she actually used to come to and
advise my legal team on this battle, and it took us five years.
>> So at the time you were trying to
bring in a service when 75% of Africans had not heard
a telephone ringing. So you were trying to solve a problem
that Africans did not yet know they had. How did you gain the boldness and
the conviction to take on such a problem at the time?
>> You know when I worked as a telephone engineer, you can imagine, we used to take out adverts,
the government used to. Saying to people you talk
too much on the phone. The ads used to say don't jabber jabber so
much to the customers. [LAUGH] So
I mean to get a when you work for the telephone company
in any African country. One of the great,
whenever you walk down the street, people would come up to you and say,
can you help me get a telephone line? It was a badge of honor. And a lot of my friends made money out
of it, it was called corruption, but it was, it could take, officially,
14 years to get a telephone. In most African countries our tele-density
was point zero seven percent. So it was literally impossible for
anyone to have a telephone line. And when we went to
the constitutional court we took this thing through the lower
courts and of course, be honest, by the time we got to constitutional
court I was public enemy number one. I mean it wasn't funny
I used to get arrested. So but when we finally get to the constitutional
court we had to get evidence. For our courts to even consider. It's not very different from
your own Supreme Court and we were to face a nine member bench and the matter was no longer
about the monopoly. We had taken it was a matter
of freedom of expression. And so we said look. 75% of the people in this country
have never heard a telephone ringing. That was the headline of. And that captured headlines across
the entire African continent. 75% of our people have never
heard a telephone ringing. And people were calling me and
said where did you get this stastic from? And I showed them where we got it. We had to gather this research. Which is very important as
an entrepreneur, you got to get your data. So, the quote pulled down the monopoly and for me it was really,
we were just trying to respond to a need. The revolution for
me in telecommunications in Africa. When we look back now,
that is just over 20 years ago. 75% of the African people
have a telephone now. Not just ring but they own one. Cause our teledensity now is 75 percent,
continentally. Some countries like Botswana, well,
you know, they're 120%, 130%. I don't know how they do that stat but.
>> [LAUGH] >> In Nigeria, I know how they do it because
it's the robes you see, so they have one phone in here and
the other one in this one. [LAUGH] It's a remarkable revolution for our industry.
>> It seems like every step of the way, building trustworthy partnerships
were fundamental to your success. Whether it was gaining the trust of
agents who enable mobile money to work or the trust of the hundreds of young people
who first spread the message of Econet during the early days. How did you get people to trust you?
>> You know, I think the key is by not being
transactional in relationships. And it goes broader than just
your relationship with customers. Getting people to accept mobile
money rather than mobile phones was the most counterintuitive
thing we ever had to do because you're talking to people who
don't have money or very little money. And they also had no bank accounts. So we had to persaude them that
they could give us their money. In the case of Zimbabwe,
they had faced 500,000% hyperinflation. They knew if you put money in the bank. The next day you didn't have it. And we had to launch mobile
money during that time. So I used to say to my people, I'd say, when we're discussing how
do you take mobile money across. How do we get people to accept it? It's just like trying to get people to
drink how did they do that Coca-Cola, a black drink in a bottle? But they did it, right? They build this incredible company,
Coca-Cola. I mean,
that must be the most difficult thing, to get somebody that
black stuff you drink. Well, we got people to open bank accounts,
millions of them. And one ways we used to do it was, you're familiar, many of you,
with what are called matatus in Africa. The little combis. So we went to the universities and
we hired the university students. And we wanted them to ride on matatus. So they'd ride two by two in matatus. And do you know how noisy and
lively African buses are? We talk to each other. And so get onto the bus. And you start, they're supposed to strike
a conversation about mobile money. I'm sending money to my cousin on the
other side of town, the whole bus stops. >> [LAUGH] >> And they talk, they get off the next bus stop, they get onto the next one,
and they had to do this. And we had a calculation that said,
we needed them to talk to one and a half million
people to get to our tipping point. There's no marketing, that was it. Those guys on the buses, talking and
getting off the next one. And people didn't realize
they were the same guys. [LAUGH] Coming on the bus and
having an argument about. And we also set a street comedy. Where someone will say
you've stolen my money and they start a mock fight in
the middle of a township. And people will always gather
when there's a fight, right? [LAUGH] So, they then explain that actually you can't
steal my money because it's in my phone. And that got people to go out and
register. So these are just techniques
that our people work on. >> Amazing. Here at Stanford Business School, we celebrate failure, we even go as
far as to say it is necessary for growth and success and
to look at a leader such as yourself, it can be extremely tempting to
view you as absent of failure. Given that entrepreneurship
one of the hardest parts is managing your own psychology. Can you talk to us about how
you've navigated failure and self doubt.
>> Well I wouldn't say I've ever celebrated failure, but
I've run into it now and again. Let's say that, okay. And probably the most spectacular
was my entry into Nigeria. Now that was pretty spectacular. We went in just after the end
of military rule in Nigeria, this would be I guess 99, 2000. Because one in five black people
in the world is a Nigerian, and this is some market, and we were trying
to get in, and we went and of course We had to build a consortium, and
Nigeria was particularly difficult. Today you've got billions of
dollars going into Nigeria. But if you look back in 2000, 2001,
there's no noble industry in Nigeria. And no one was putting money into Nigeria. I remember going around the banks
in South Africa, and investors and they said are you mad? You want to go to Nigeria? I said we have to be in Nigeria. If you're going to be in business in
Africa, you have to be in Nigeria period. So, we went in and we build a consortium
of Nigerian high net worth businesses, and business leaders, and so
forth to bid for a license. And the government had
set up an auction system. And they became the most expensive,
even to this day, licenses ever issued In sub-Sahara,
south of the Sahara. I know in Tunisia it's
something paid more for it. But we paid in 2001 $285 million for
a license. And a year into the business,
one of my partners walked in and put a bill on the table for
one of the state governors. And said you gotta pay us each $4 million
or we throw you out of the country. So, I got thrown out of the country. And pretty much got kicked
out of that investment. It took me ten years of
international arbitration to win back our investment
that we had lost. And along the way I had
that governor jJailed. Spent thirteen years in
British prison after making the mistake of going to the Biag,
got picked up by Interpol. I mean, it's a known fact that I was
a witness against them for corruption. So that was bittersweet,
very difficult time for us. But there were a lot of
entrepreneurial lessons. And after fives years,
we went back into Nigeria. And the fastest growing parts of our
businesses are in Nigeria today. So we learned a lot that was really,
really difficult. And there were no celebrations.
>> [LAUGH] >> Except when I got the Arbitral Award, which is the biggest in African history. So there was a nice end to it.
>> You've been saught out by many leaders such as Barrack Obama,
but who do you look to for inspiration? Are there any open coming young leaders
on the continent that inspire you about the future of Africa?
>> Absolutely. When I started that Facebook page,
my daughter, I didn't know that my daughter
was at college in the US, was sharing things I was sending her,
with her friends. So she started saying to me, but you know, my friends think
you should talk about this. I said, what friends?
>> [LAUGH] >> She said, well, we share everything. So we then got to start
working on this Facebook page. And the most interesting part for
me is reading the comments. I just get absolutely inspired by
the comments of young Africans from virtually every corner of
the continent who are running businesses. In extraordinary situations,
that even I couldn't have imagined. And they're making a success of it. So I really get inspired by what
young entrepreneurs are doing. And I'm in constant conversation
with them on Facebook. I even know some of them. I go into meetings, I say,
hey, where is Austin? Stuff like this and they come. Because they are doing amazing things. And basically you've got
people like Juliana Rotich. The young Kenyan woman who built Ushahidi, we got Fred,is Fred here today? Fred Swanika, the African
Leadership Academy many of you know Fred is an alumni of Stanford. I mean these are the guys who are going to totally transform our continent and
the world to be honest. So it's not so much,
I mean it's a great privilege of course, when you can have a conversation
with people like President Obama, who I knew before he was President. And I was reminded that
I'm eight months older. >> [LAUGH] >> Just, you know, this helps you to get a stability and
manage such a great success. But in Africa it matters,
I'm senior brother. [LAUGH] So no, but really it's people I work with over the years. People like,
Doctor Judith Rodin, she's here. She's the former president of
the Rockefeller Foundation. She's been an amazing mentor to me,
over the last ten years, particularly in
understanding philanthropy. Because many of us as entrepreneurs,
we set out to go into philanthropy. We actually don't know how it works. And you need to be talking to people
like Doctor Rodin to understand. So it's a lot of people that I work with
over a very, very long time that I turn to when I face challenges.
>> Shifting to philanthropy a bit. In addition to your success
as an entrepreneur, you've funded the education of over 40,000
children across Zimbabwe and Africa. How must it feel to have come so
far from humble beginnings and what has motivated you to give
back in such an extraordinary way? >> Well, first of all, I'm really excited this week because
we just got an announcement that we got a Rhode Scholar out
of program this year. >> [APPLAUSE] >> And we got one last year. And I think that's our third or
fourth now. So, and it began,
like a lot of things I don't think my wife and I sat down and
said, let's give back. Because, to be honest with you,
we started when we didn't have any money. So there's almost nothing to give
back if you think of it that way. There was a crisis In Africa at that time. Which was HIV/AIDS. People were dying on
a scale you cannot imagine. If in my small business I was burying members of my workforce every week. We actually thought we
were all going to die. That's how it felt living
in Africa in 1990, 91 because of the HIV crisis. And what made the crisis so
difficult were the children. What would we do with the children? I knew what happens when
children don't go to school. We had Liberia to tell us about that. Child soliders, all sorts of challenges. You could rip apart a country if
these kids did not go to school. So for us, it was responding to that and
we came up with this model. Which my wife then said she
was going to run full time. It was basically,
if we can find a relative to the child rather than try to institutionalize any
children, let's find their relatives and tell their relatives we will
meet the economic side. We'll pay for school fees. We'll give you some food. We'll help with clothing, and so forth. So it began as a little program,
really around our own employees. And we probably had 50
when my wife kind of began to do it on a full time basis. And she'd come from work and she would just really just make
sure these kids were looked after. And one day I just walked in and said
actually they're 5,000 that we now help. And we've extended beyond the company
because people keep bringing these kids to us. So we built it from there. And as of this year,
twenty-odd years into it, we've assisted 250,000 that went
through our system of education. We began to wherever we went the first
thing we told our management teams, if we went to Botswana or
Zambia or any country, you've gotta set up the program,
you've gotta support it. So we support it across every
single country where we operate. And then, we select from those kids,
the really high performers. What do you do if it's 16 and
you got a genius on your hands? Do you say go home? We just treat them like our own kids. We help them apply for scholarships
to Stanford and Harvard and wherever. So we have 354 in the United States
this year, of our kids. And we'be got some in China,
some in the UK and so forth and we helped them along and so
it's been a great program to see. >> [APPLAUSE] >> You've mentioned that entrepreneurship is not just about making money, but
about being an agent for change. There's many people here in this audience
who have larger dreams of going into the world and being catalysts for
transformative change. What do you think we should know,
and most importantly today, what is your call to action for us?
>> First of all, don't wait until you've made your billion,
okay? I know, everyone at Stanford ends
up making a billion once they're entrepreneurs, right?
>> [LAUGH] >> I mean, that's why you come to Stanford, that's right? So look,
you're almost guaranteed to be successful. So start straight away. Why do you have to wait? As you register your company,
register your foundation. Register your philanthropy. And it's actually good for you. In our house,
we actually never discuss business. We discuss the things we're
doing around philanthropy. With my kids,
in fact it's very difficult with my kids because they're more interested
in the philanthropy side. Then, maybe they, during holidays,
they prefer to go work for their mother. Very few volunteer to go and
sell in one of my shops. [LAUGH] But
the reality is these things in today's society, we have to start straight away. There's no reason for you to wait. You've got to find something that,
you've gotta find a cause. If you don't find a cause, you'll find that making money is a self. You've gotta get into your cause now. What is it you're interested in? Is it the environment? Is it the climate change? Is it, there is something that should
capture your interest every day. And for me,
I can't wait at the end of my day to escape into discussing
the issues of philanthropy. That's why I'm here, what we're here to
discuss, small holder farmers in Africa. So make it an integral part
of what you are doing. If there's an even more
excellent way as they say, why not just do the philanthropy? Because if you feel you can make a change
without going off to running for profit to do it, that's my counsel.
>> Final question before we open it up so some of our business students here for
questions, what do you think are some of the most
pressing global problems that we should be thinking about today?
>> Wow, [LAUGH]. We always think don't we
that we'd like to hand our children fewer problems
than were handed to us. Our parents kind of handed
over a world where they say, well, we've achieved
the Soviet Union is gone. because we lived under the Cold War and
not so sure we are handing over a great world to
you at the moment, I'm sorry about that. You've got a few problems that
you're going to have to deal with. Of course, top of mind for
me is climate change, because it doesn't give us. We don't have a planet B somebody said. We don't get another shot at it,
if we don't get into it now, so it's up there. From the African perspective, it's jobs. One would argue it's global,
but for your generation it's bigger than decolonization
ever was as a challenge. We have a continent where
the average age is 19. We have 1.2 billion,
by some estimates we'll be 4 billion by the turn of the century,
in the lives of most of you. If we don't create jobs, we end up with. It's as simple as that. And they can sweep all
the way down to the South. So the security nexus
is linked to the jobs. We have to create hope. When I think of the people trying
to cross the Mediterranean, sometimes you read reports of 500
drownings a week in the Mediterranean, we almost forget that they had
to cross the Sahara first. To get to the Mediterranean. And yet, we are the continent with so
much resources, so much capacity. So it's an extraordinary charge for us,
while we are still able to do something, but an even greater challenge for
our children, but it's also global. I think the stability of the world,
the future of the world, will to great extent be shaped
by our response to this. So we have to pick up every
too,l everything that we can, to try and
take on some of these challenges. The rest, well they're Stanford, you know them.
>> Amazing. So now we'll take some
questions from the audience. Hi Strive. Thank you so much for being here,
I really appreciate it. I was just wondering,
on either a personal or professional level,
what keeps you up at night? What do you wake up in the morning
really concerned about, thinking about?
>> You know, I never keep up at night.
>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] President Obama said to me once, what keeps you up at night? I said nothing. I'm not running the world, you are. [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] >> He said, okay, suppose you woke up in
the middle of the night. So okay, jobs,
how do we create employment? That really is a challenge to me,
how do we get our young people. So now I'm persuaded that the answer lies
in part with entrepreneurship, okay? If I can't create somebody a job, maybe I can help them create the jobs,
inspire them to go out and do something. And I have an exciting job to do,
which does give me a lot of energy in the morning. >> We have a question right up here.
>> Okay. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I had always dream to
come very close to you. >> [LAUGH] >> My name is Brian and I'm from Zimbabwe. So my question was, I understand after you
finished your undergraduate in Germany, or somewhere in Europe, I'm no longer
sure, you went back to Zimbabwe to work in Africa, and then start to
build your ideas from the continent. What advice would you give to someone
who is graduating right now, or maybe to be specific, graduating in 2020?
>> [LAUGH] >> Do you think it's best for us, if we dream of changing our continent
through entrepreneurship, to first start working and gain some skills, or to go and
work maybe in past titles that we think would want to change in the future.
>> Yeah, thank you, that's quite multifaceted. I think there's no simple answer to this. I wish I could say that, but
what I can say to you, if you have an intention to get home and work there,
the sooner you go there, the better. It's actually very difficult
if you spend five, ten years, you've got a family,
you've got roots, and so forth. That's harder to do. I just picked up my bag,
and I went home, okay? And it was easy. I think it would have been much harder
if it had been ten years later, but having said that, I know a lot
of friends who came after they had spent some time building up experience
and so forth, and did very well. But I also go so far as to say that I'll
never condemn somebody who doesn't come. Okay, the Africans living and
working in the diaspora are contributing as much
to Africa today as anybody who's there, and
I'm very proud of what they do. We can't accommodate a lot of these guys,
even if we wanted to, but they are sending money home,
they are keeping people in school. The burden they carry for such a small
group of people is extraordinary. So that's why I said there's no simple
answer, I wish I could say there was. All the above will work hard, but
I wouldn't send you to a country at war. That might be an issue. I had to leave Zimbabwe 18 years ago,
haven't been back, even for one day. Okay, so there are always issues
that one needs to take into consideration.
>> Hello. Hi Strive. Hi.
>> My name is Tunde, I'm from Nigeria. >> I figured, Tunde. >> [LAUGH]. >> There are just just some names, you know, Tunde from Nigeria,
Tendai from Zimbabwe. >> [LAUGH] >> You never get a Tendai from Kenya. >> I think I know a Tende from Nigeria though.
>> [LAUGH] >> Anyways, thank you for this opportunity. Kind of piggy-backing on your point,
have you ever thought about initiatives like what Africans and
the diaspora can do to support developmental
goals in Africa? Most of entrepreneurship, rather than what
you mention in terms of philanthropy or supporting folks back home,
like investments and stuff like that. because from what you said,
not only do we have people here, we have tremendous talent that work for
tough companies and stuff like that.
>> And there is a lot of conversation
around this issue today, okay. How can we encourage,
we call it the diaspora, which means we include people
like Lebron James, by the way. He's an African in the diaspora. [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] >> So in Africa, we think of all black people around
the world as part of the African diaspora, but Africa is not just black people. We have a wonderful
diversity on our continent. But on the serious note,
there's a lot of conversation around encouraging those who are living and
working outside Africa to invest in creating businesses and
supporting entrepreneurship. Even investing through
local stock exchanges and so forth, trying to mobilize capital. I'm a great supporter of that, but I haven't seen anything that I could say
to you, this is the perfect solution. Thank you.
>> Hi [INAUDIBLE]. My name is Ruth. I'm from Guana. I was wondering, as a chairman of what you think is the future
of small farming in Africa? And then thinking about that,
how do you think we are going to meet for security challenges?
>> You should listen to the radio interview that Jeff and
I did this morning at 7:00 o'clock. >> [LAUGH] >> Jeff Rakes, please Jeff, stand up. >> [APPLAUSE] >> He's the Chairman of your esteemed university. But I've been a member of the board for
many, many years and help set it up. And we spent goodness, an hour and a half and you really gotta
listen to what Jeff had to say. because I was just the backup.
>> [LAUGH] >> I'm a city boy, I'm not a farmer. >> [LAUGH] >> But I've learned a few things and amongst them of course, 70% of our food
production in Africa is done by women, small holder farmers, and they are ageing. It's a paradox for us. We've got millions of young
people without jobs or they're not interested in agriculture and
rightly so. It's not sustainable. What we've gotta do is to put
in place a policy framework. That makes agricultural,
modernizes the way that we do agriculture. Looks at agriculture as an industry, sustains the incomes of a small holder
farmers, increases their income. And this is what we are trying to
do from the perspective of Agra. We are investing and
catalyzing in small businesses. We've created over 100
seed companies in Africa. And these seed companies
now produce a third of all the certified seed produced
on the African continent. Phenomenal in ten years. They produce enough seed to feed
15 million people every year. So we're trying to help 30
million small holder, households. So the small holder farmer is
the absolute bedrock of Africa. There's nation, China, Europe, the United States, that ever got going
without sorting out their agriculture. So, to the extent that. So we've gotta put in place the right
framework from a policy perspective. And that's what we work to try and
encourage governments to do. Ensure that there is a sustained domestic
investment, both from governments, from entrepreneurs and
create a stable environment for farmers. Markets, ensuring to get access to seeds
and there's a whole value chain around it. So there's a lot of space in agriculture. >> Hi Mister I'm [INAUDIBLE] from Angola. Here at the GSB we talk
a lot about managerial practices that we're supposed to implement
to increase the likelihood of success. But those are mostly premised
on the existence of certain factors such as the investability
of the rule of law, or the existence of a highly
qualified labor market. People that have succeeded
in the developing economies in spite of those obstacles are usually
associated with the ruling regime. I think it's fair to say that
you are not one of those people. But you still succeeded. So how did you do that? And for those of us that are still
working on our first billion or million, or thousand.
>> [LAUGH] >> How would you, what sort of advice would you give us?
>> You know somebody asked Richard Branson,
how do I become a billionaire. And he said, start buying. He says how do I become a millionaire and
he says, start with a billion and buy an airline.
>> [LAUGH] >> So you can keep, but you I understand where you want to go.
>> [LAUGH] >> You know, it's one of my challenges when I'm advising young entrepreneurs
from different African countries. Because, you know,
there are different types of governments. There are different
situations on the ground. How to I advise someone from Togo and
someone in South Africa? Zimbabwe and Zambia? So what I try to do is to
teach principles that will make you a success as an entrepreneur
irrespective of the conditions. And one of my mantras is to say the
entrepreneur must train like a soldier. We fight in the conditions,
not the conditions. Because we really can't wake up in
the morning and say, today it's raining, I'm not fighting. So the challenges are there. But the thing is,
Africa is full of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is alive and
well in Africa. It is just building the support
systems to ensure that these ventures can grow in scale. So I hope that as some of you get
skills from here you can take them home to be able to help others to scale.
>> My name is I am from Rwanda and
I remember the dismay in South Africa. I was there by the way. You talked about how data is actually to our generation is what internet
was to the 90's, 80's generation. And with that I took at ad face but
I tried to look into that. But the problem is,
part of it data in Africa is in the air. It's not somewhere you
can actually find data. And even when there is data it's so hard to break through the government
censorship actually to get that data. What do you think of,
how can you break through that? And they also have a side
question about your program. I'm part of another program
we run called Buscharunda. We come to the states, study, and go back. But the issue with the program
right now is, it's so hard to convince us to go back. I graduated from Stanford having
an offer from Microsoft and an offer to go back home. Those two offers,
you can't even weigh them. How do you convince your students to
actually reject the offer because it's not a problem of being it's
an issue of weighing the two offers and
seeing which one is better. How do you make it more attractive
to students to come back in Africa? >> I have a better offer you. >> [LAUGH] >> Go and start your own business. It's better offer than Microsoft or
Intel, or Uber, or anybody, okay. Once you decide to go down that route,
none of those are good offers. So that's my challenge for you. I have a program,
which is fascinating, which we take young American
graduates every year. This year we had 30. We offered not to Africans,
you can't have this one, young Americans and
we send them to Africa, for three to six months, and
they work for African companies. They don't work for governments,
it's not Peace Corps, you got to go, and you got to work for
companies like mine, and guess what? They don't want to come home either, so there's something going on there,
my friend. You gotta come. [LAUGH]
>> [APPLAUSE] >> Good afternoon. My name is Daphne Sehore. I'm from Zimbabwe, and fortunately,
I'm one of your Andrew Young scholars. I graduated from
Spelman College this past May. So, I have a background in biochemistry,
and I am interested in addressing health
problems in developing countries mostly, particularly in diagnostics,
because I feel like those diseases, such as Malaria, HIV,
Tuberculosis have been neglected mostly. And I'm interested in some day owning my
own biotechnology company in Zimbabwe, to address matters in Zimbabwe,
because it's very, very important for us to have such facilities
that allow us to try and solve our own problems
using our own resources. So what advice would you give
a young person like myself, with no background in business, but interested
in making such changes to our continent, and to the place that we come from.
>> Wow, that's great. >> [APPLAUSE] >> We have a program with Morehouse College. So, Andrew Young came to me and said, why don't you have
a program just for Morehouse? I said okay, so we did a deal
where we would send ten students to Morehouse, but
I forgot that was only men. So we ended up doing
the identical program at Spelman, and that's where the Andrew Young Program
she talks about comes from. >> [APPLAUSE] >> So, we send these amazing young people there, and
this is the future of Africa. The. The most important thing that, look,
the challenges for you are there, but they are no different from any
generation anywhere else in the world. Okay, to the extent that you can come
home, come home and we will help you, and we will get you started in
the business that you want to get into. And really, we want to say that about,
I mean, your country, Zimbabwe, which is also my country, has
just gone through an extraordinary change that the whole world witnessed, and
so there's a lot of sense of hope. So I'll see you there for
Christmas next year, how about that? >> [APPLAUSE] >> So I know there's still tons of questions in the audience, but you'll have to post it to his Facebook
page, because we're out of time now. But I think we all agree that it's been
phenomenal, and let's give another round of applause to Strive.
>> [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC]
