Ask anyone who knows Africa today: the continent sits at a critical inflection point. Not just for Africans, but for everyone on our planet. By 2050, the bulk of the world’s population growth will take place on the continent.
And while Africa has experienced spectacular economic, demographic and creative growth, both opportunity and danger are rising at an exponential rate. The stakes have never been higher.
What better time, then, to assemble some of the continent’s brightest thinkers and doers to help prepare for that future?
Next month, TED, the non-profit dedicated to spreading ideas, will gather 40 or so such minds, with expertise ranging from technology and startups to business and the creative arts, in Arusha, Tanzania to do just that.
They are this year’s TEDGlobal 2017 speakers, and we’ve just announced their names for the first time Thursday.
They include brave, vulnerable and gutsy doers, problem-solvers and status quo shakers ready to challenge the prevailing wisdom, even of those here on the continent—and serve up fresh perspectives that look well beyond tired narratives.
Take, for instance, Natsai Audrey Chieza, who is working in the field of Biotextiles, and Oshiorenoya Agabi who is building a startup at the juncture of AI and biology. And Pierre Thiam, a chef, food historian and entrepreneur.
Or Eric Mibuari, who is examining how blockchain can be used to help uproot corruption in Africa.
August’s event isn’t an experiment — it’s an homecoming. In 2007, 800 people gathered in the same spot beneath Kilimanjaro for TEDGlobal 2007—a moment some point to as the catalyst for Kenya’s then-nascent Silicon Savannah, while others say it shed the first real global spotlight on Africa’s teeming insights and innovation. The ideas and connections forged that week ten years ago have had untold impact.
But for this year’s event to land with the same impact it did 10 years ago, two things must occur: First, we must commit to unearthing ideas and stories that go well beyond the usual tropes about Africa. And when we do, they must spark collaborational magic among speakers and participants, no matter how unlikely.
To spur this along, speakers at next month’s TEDGlobal will eschew finger-wagging and instead hold up Africa’s power to spark ideas and creatively problem-solve.
The bootstrapping spirit is alive and well on the continent, and these speakers will examine what can happen when such proactive, hands-on work gets catalyzed.
They will do so from widely diverse perspectives. Where a conference of only bankers or just technologists might shed some light on a trade, stark combinations of seemingly unrelated industries can be transcendent.
Combine a poet with a biologist, an advocate with a statesman, a musician with a doctor—and you reach a new kind of common ground. TED’s signature format has led to countless orthogonal breakthroughs, rewiring our brains with fresh outlooks as it goes.
They will traverse Africa’s own boundaries. It isn’t a single country with a single language and single government, after all. The inconceivably diverse continent teems with ideas to be unearthed and shared.
TEDGlobal’s pan-African approach could help, say, apply what works in Kenya to Egypt. Or take ideas that have flourished in Botswana, and spread them in Morocco.
We’re looking past governments, and considering institute-to-institute, business-to-business or individual-to-individual ideas.
Most important, though, our speakers will present with urgency—a theme that is sure to pulse throughout this critical event. Time is a luxury we simply don’t have.
Africa’s burgeoning population faces an employment crisis, and we’ve got to come up with ways to solve that challenge and others quickly and sustainably.
The world should be listening attentively to those ready to map practical solutions—our collective future depends on it.
