[Music]
I was born into the old Africa and for
me that Africa has an image that I know
some of you have in your heads but at
the end of this talk I’m hoping to show
you an image of a new Africa the story
of my birth began in on may 2nd 1971
when a young Justyna Anyanka chose to
marry her highschool sweetheart
see at that point the civil war in
Nigeria just ended and for a lot of
people getting away from the village
getting away from those communities
where the war was hard as felt was an
escape was also a way to get away from
their past but more critically it was a
way to seek out a new economic future
and for Justyna she did just that along
with her husband she left the village
and moved out to the city and when she
got to the city she embraced
entrepreneurship and I’m proud to say
that she was the first entrepreneur I
ever knew see him that time Justyna and
her husband built a new life
in the city and through many encounters
and opportunities went ahead and forged
that life and like good Catholics they
had a lot of children and at this time
like many other Nigerians they would go
back to the village to visit with their
families connect with childhood friends
and participate in local community
activities later in the 70s a heavily
pregnant Justyna five children in and
against all of the advice of her doctor
she went to the village of course to see
her family and on Christmas Day her
water broke
no medical care in sight Justyna had
this baby on Christmas Day on a dirt
road right there in the village that
child is starting in front of you today
and the story of my birth and the story
of Justyna leaving that village is
casting that first boom
I pay attention that boomerang it might
come back to you see being born in the
village of Nigeria was my first foray
into the world but I moved back to the
city with my parents got a great
education and had the opportunity to
emigrate to the United States and I
joined a legion of the aspirants in the
United States but in being here remember
I was born in that old Africa so I still
had interactions with what that old
Africa used to be and some of those
images of that old Africa we’re not
particularly images that I was in
agreement with the old Africa was known
for its strife and within these stories
of the old Africa yes
I I put out the caveat Africa is not a
monolith right it’s 55 countries is over
a billion people so for some of these
pockets of the continent where this pain
and anguish is actually felt I stand
before you today to say that that
concentration is decreasing it’s not all
perfect yet but it’s better than it ever
was and it’s certainly better than it
was in my four decades on earth and you
find that when I joined this prestigious
Diaspora Club and I came out here and
sought a better life for myself I cast
my boomerang and my boomerang left and
it allowed me to get educated and work
in wonderful places travel the world but
this stands for a population that I
became a part of was also growing and I
looked at that population and I
remembered that entrepreneur who gave
birth to me and my entrepreneur zeal
started kicking in it kicked in because
I took elements of my education to find
a better job and to give back to the
communities that birth me but it also
kicked in because this community itself
created such a great pipeline for this
new Africa that I’m pushing forth to tap
into the US Census data shows that the
Diaspora population in the u.s. the
African Diaspora population
the US has grown from about 80,000
people in 1970 to about 2.1 million as
of the last instance in 2015 and this
represents about 4.8 percent of the
total foreign-born population so when I
speak about this new Africa and I speak
about this activity that we’re bringing
forth the new Africa that I paint has
three main actors who are going to be
critical to its success the first actor
I want to call him the expat and not
expert but the expat and it’s short for
expatriate see the expatriate was born
here in the u.s. I see some of them in
the audience and for some of you born
here in the u.s. strong African roots
you read it in the papers you follow it
on Facebook but that connection is there
because you have extended cousins
extended relatives and you have that
connection to the continent and you keep
telling yourself that at some point you
will get back there and you will do some
work so the expat is foreign-born but
with very strong connections to the
continent the Repat like me was born on
the continent so he’s repatriated
because he came out and she came out to
the US or to the west gained education
gained a better life but is always going
back that boomerang goes full swing
you’re always going back you’re going to
do work there you’re gonna do projects
there you’re going back to family and
friends and you’re going back to join
this Legion that you left behind and the
Legion that has actually created such a
good foundation that you’re incentivized
to actually go back and then they’re the
globalists the folks who are not even
African but who recognize Africa’s role
in a global economy see these folks like
many of you in the room are looking at
Africa and looking at that new continent
they’re looking at a continent that used
to be branded in a variety of ways at
some point it’s Africa rising at some
point it’s the dark continent you never
really know right
but when you’re playing in this global
space and you recognize the
macroeconomic policies activities and
directions you would see that Africa is
a remarkable opportunity
so this expat this Repat and the
globalist and they’re all coming
together in a very interesting collision
course because the one particular
element that they’re going to amplify is
the afro premier see I belong to the
school of thought that says Africa’s
economic future will be built on
entrepreneurship and we’ve chosen to
brand that entrepreneur an afro preneur
because we want to localize it and
because we want to have that
conversation builds on african talent
resources and unique african solutions
so in this case we have an expat we have
a Repat we have an entrepreneur and back
in that continent we have the Afro
preneur who stayed back even when the
repass left who’s there to welcome the
expats when to get back
and who’s the token unit for all of the
globalists to come in and see what she
has done and we’re proud of these
entrepreneurs we know that they are the
future and we know that they’re going to
be the unit of Africa’s success leading
into the 21st century and beyond in the
now-famous movie coming to America Eddie
Murphy once said he believed the
children are the future I believe that
the African children are the future and
in this new Africa that were painting a
lot of these children are children of
the Internet the old Africa had a lot of
strife and pain but this new Africa in
this new generation of knowledge
economies even after Africa’s skipped so
many industrial revolutions are now born
into this new knowledge economy where
with the power of the Internet and the
power of a mobile phone you have all the
information at your fingertips and for
many of these African children whether
they’re facing a new code a new software
code that they want to write and learn
how to program or they’re just on you
Schoop learning a new song or taking a
new class the Internet and the mobile
economy have now become critical tools
for Africa’s economic future and a lot
of these young kids including my kids
are now becoming direct beneficiaries of
this because for every village in Africa
where you have a phone for every city in
Africa where you have mobile
connectivity and for every institution
in Africa where self-directed learning
is the path forward you’re looking at
the next generation of leaders in Africa
because they will seize that opportunity
they will take that initiative and they
will build that economy but on their own
terms but I talked about this larger
entrepreneurial activity I talked about
this afro preneur and I’m very fortunate
see a day in the life for me
includes talking to a lot of African
entrepreneurs and guiding them through
elements of their business developing
their businesses seeking capital seeking
partnerships we run quite a number of
programs on the African continent to
advance entrepreneurial activity and in
a given year
I talked to hundreds of entrepreneurs
and I meet with a lot of changemakers
now I mentioned the internet but these
are all non digital entrepreneurs a lot
of these entrepreneurs are social
entrepreneurs they’re not just solving
technology problems they’re creating
impact and solving those billion
problems in a billion population economy
clean water energy education gender
empowerment but they’re doing it on
African terms and they’re doing it with
local resources that point to how it
should be done it’s not copy-paste from
the West its localizing its
conceptualizing and it’s allowing for
these next generation changemakers to
make sure that the Afro preneur creates
Africa centric solutions and we find
that we’re very fortunate in the way
that we have designed these as well
because I left the continent came out
here
sought a better life for myself but I
was also specific about how much I
wanted to give back and when my
boomerang took flight and came back to
the content of my birth entrepreneurship
was one of the ways I could give back
but there are a lot of things that are
constraints to that system there are
infrastructure challenges there’s talent
challenges in some cases capital for
some of these entrepreneurs to scale and
in some cases is the lack of basic
formal education that will drive this
new 21st century job and we’re very very
intentional about the way we go about
this and that’s why this combination of
the expat the Repat and the globalist
becomes that critical tool that we know
will advance Africa’s future so if you
are an expat if you were born here and
you were thinking about Africa and your
passion for the continents is on a
Twitter feed well it’s on a Facebook
post
well it’s in one of those church
programs that has you go into the
continent for a few days and come out
well I want you to think about Africa
now and see the opportunity the economic
opportunity the level of youth ingenuity
and the technologies that would allow
you participate in a continent that is
thriving if you are a Repat like me
and you came out of the continents in
its darkest times and you were looking
for this new opportunity here and then
you’re now hearing
it’s just filtering out there how in
Kenya and pacer is allowing people pay
through SMS well guess what folks that’s
been going on for ten years now way
before Apple got Apple pay way before
you could do the smart googly fix market
women in Kenya have been making payments
via SMS so for us repats sometimes we
need to stay connected and we must we
have a responsibility to but in staying
connected to some of these technology
innovations insane connected to see how
much impact we could give we need to
stay connected to the Afro preneur we
need to reach back out and we need to
make sure
at some of the knowledge gaps that she
has some of the intellectual gaps that
he has are things that we can provide
because our boomerang has taken flight
and is returned and if you are that
globalist if you have that passion for
Africa if you own one of these shirts in
your closet you want to I want to call
you out today and say hey here’s what
you need to do for me look around you
find an expat find a Repat and get on a
plane with one of them to Africa because
at this point it’s no longer about what
you can say about your Africa passion
it’s about what you can do and the
Africa that I speak about this new
Africa it’s open for business it’s
thriving so this is not one of those
sappy Africa’s stories not at all this
great business to be done there there
are great entrepreneurs coming out of
there there are great expats that have
passion to give back and there are great
repats that are willing to take that
knowledge and give it back the brain
drain that was the bane of Africa’s
existence in the 80s is now a reverse
brain during that’s becoming a fuel for
the 21st century so I urge each one of
you to look at your personal boomerang
and see when it’s going to take flight
it’s gonna be an expat there’s gonna be
a Repat or is it gonna be globalist and
for that first boomerang I spoke about
Justina
her boomerang took flight in Aquila
Nigeria and she just became a US citizen
about three weeks ago so her boomerangs
currently floating in Morgan Hill
California that’s my Africa
that’s the Africa that I see that’s the
Africa that I’m rebooting and that’s the
Africa that I’m welcoming you to join me
on this journey because the only way is
up thank you
[Applause]
I was born into the old Africa and for
me that Africa has an image that I know
some of you have in your heads but at
the end of this talk I’m hoping to show
you an image of a new Africa the story
of my birth began in on may 2nd 1971
when a young Justyna Anyanka chose to
marry her highschool sweetheart
see at that point the civil war in
Nigeria just ended and for a lot of
people getting away from the village
getting away from those communities
where the war was hard as felt was an
escape was also a way to get away from
their past but more critically it was a
way to seek out a new economic future
and for Justyna she did just that along
with her husband she left the village
and moved out to the city and when she
got to the city she embraced
entrepreneurship and I’m proud to say
that she was the first entrepreneur I
ever knew see him that time Justyna and
her husband built a new life
in the city and through many encounters
and opportunities went ahead and forged
that life and like good Catholics they
had a lot of children and at this time
like many other Nigerians they would go
back to the village to visit with their
families connect with childhood friends
and participate in local community
activities later in the 70s a heavily
pregnant Justyna five children in and
against all of the advice of her doctor
she went to the village of course to see
her family and on Christmas Day her
water broke
no medical care in sight Justyna had
this baby on Christmas Day on a dirt
road right there in the village that
child is starting in front of you today
and the story of my birth and the story
of Justyna leaving that village is
casting that first boom
I pay attention that boomerang it might
come back to you see being born in the
village of Nigeria was my first foray
into the world but I moved back to the
city with my parents got a great
education and had the opportunity to
emigrate to the United States and I
joined a legion of the aspirants in the
United States but in being here remember
I was born in that old Africa so I still
had interactions with what that old
Africa used to be and some of those
images of that old Africa we’re not
particularly images that I was in
agreement with the old Africa was known
for its strife and within these stories
of the old Africa yes
I I put out the caveat Africa is not a
monolith right it’s 55 countries is over
a billion people so for some of these
pockets of the continent where this pain
and anguish is actually felt I stand
before you today to say that that
concentration is decreasing it’s not all
perfect yet but it’s better than it ever
was and it’s certainly better than it
was in my four decades on earth and you
find that when I joined this prestigious
Diaspora Club and I came out here and
sought a better life for myself I cast
my boomerang and my boomerang left and
it allowed me to get educated and work
in wonderful places travel the world but
this stands for a population that I
became a part of was also growing and I
looked at that population and I
remembered that entrepreneur who gave
birth to me and my entrepreneur zeal
started kicking in it kicked in because
I took elements of my education to find
a better job and to give back to the
communities that birth me but it also
kicked in because this community itself
created such a great pipeline for this
new Africa that I’m pushing forth to tap
into the US Census data shows that the
Diaspora population in the u.s. the
African Diaspora population
the US has grown from about 80,000
people in 1970 to about 2.1 million as
of the last instance in 2015 and this
represents about 4.8 percent of the
total foreign-born population so when I
speak about this new Africa and I speak
about this activity that we’re bringing
forth the new Africa that I paint has
three main actors who are going to be
critical to its success the first actor
I want to call him the expat and not
expert but the expat and it’s short for
expatriate see the expatriate was born
here in the u.s. I see some of them in
the audience and for some of you born
here in the u.s. strong African roots
you read it in the papers you follow it
on Facebook but that connection is there
because you have extended cousins
extended relatives and you have that
connection to the continent and you keep
telling yourself that at some point you
will get back there and you will do some
work so the expat is foreign-born but
with very strong connections to the
continent the Repat like me was born on
the continent so he’s repatriated
because he came out and she came out to
the US or to the west gained education
gained a better life but is always going
back that boomerang goes full swing
you’re always going back you’re going to
do work there you’re gonna do projects
there you’re going back to family and
friends and you’re going back to join
this Legion that you left behind and the
Legion that has actually created such a
good foundation that you’re incentivized
to actually go back and then they’re the
globalists the folks who are not even
African but who recognize Africa’s role
in a global economy see these folks like
many of you in the room are looking at
Africa and looking at that new continent
they’re looking at a continent that used
to be branded in a variety of ways at
some point it’s Africa rising at some
point it’s the dark continent you never
really know right
but when you’re playing in this global
space and you recognize the
macroeconomic policies activities and
directions you would see that Africa is
a remarkable opportunity
so this expat this Repat and the
globalist and they’re all coming
together in a very interesting collision
course because the one particular
element that they’re going to amplify is
the afro premier see I belong to the
school of thought that says Africa’s
economic future will be built on
entrepreneurship and we’ve chosen to
brand that entrepreneur an afro preneur
because we want to localize it and
because we want to have that
conversation builds on african talent
resources and unique african solutions
so in this case we have an expat we have
a Repat we have an entrepreneur and back
in that continent we have the Afro
preneur who stayed back even when the
repass left who’s there to welcome the
expats when to get back
and who’s the token unit for all of the
globalists to come in and see what she
has done and we’re proud of these
entrepreneurs we know that they are the
future and we know that they’re going to
be the unit of Africa’s success leading
into the 21st century and beyond in the
now-famous movie coming to America Eddie
Murphy once said he believed the
children are the future I believe that
the African children are the future and
in this new Africa that were painting a
lot of these children are children of
the Internet the old Africa had a lot of
strife and pain but this new Africa in
this new generation of knowledge
economies even after Africa’s skipped so
many industrial revolutions are now born
into this new knowledge economy where
with the power of the Internet and the
power of a mobile phone you have all the
information at your fingertips and for
many of these African children whether
they’re facing a new code a new software
code that they want to write and learn
how to program or they’re just on you
Schoop learning a new song or taking a
new class the Internet and the mobile
economy have now become critical tools
for Africa’s economic future and a lot
of these young kids including my kids
are now becoming direct beneficiaries of
this because for every village in Africa
where you have a phone for every city in
Africa where you have mobile
connectivity and for every institution
in Africa where self-directed learning
is the path forward you’re looking at
the next generation of leaders in Africa
because they will seize that opportunity
they will take that initiative and they
will build that economy but on their own
terms but I talked about this larger
entrepreneurial activity I talked about
this afro preneur and I’m very fortunate
see a day in the life for me
includes talking to a lot of African
entrepreneurs and guiding them through
elements of their business developing
their businesses seeking capital seeking
partnerships we run quite a number of
programs on the African continent to
advance entrepreneurial activity and in
a given year
I talked to hundreds of entrepreneurs
and I meet with a lot of changemakers
now I mentioned the internet but these
are all non digital entrepreneurs a lot
of these entrepreneurs are social
entrepreneurs they’re not just solving
technology problems they’re creating
impact and solving those billion
problems in a billion population economy
clean water energy education gender
empowerment but they’re doing it on
African terms and they’re doing it with
local resources that point to how it
should be done it’s not copy-paste from
the West its localizing its
conceptualizing and it’s allowing for
these next generation changemakers to
make sure that the Afro preneur creates
Africa centric solutions and we find
that we’re very fortunate in the way
that we have designed these as well
because I left the continent came out
here
sought a better life for myself but I
was also specific about how much I
wanted to give back and when my
boomerang took flight and came back to
the content of my birth entrepreneurship
was one of the ways I could give back
but there are a lot of things that are
constraints to that system there are
infrastructure challenges there’s talent
challenges in some cases capital for
some of these entrepreneurs to scale and
in some cases is the lack of basic
formal education that will drive this
new 21st century job and we’re very very
intentional about the way we go about
this and that’s why this combination of
the expat the Repat and the globalist
becomes that critical tool that we know
will advance Africa’s future so if you
are an expat if you were born here and
you were thinking about Africa and your
passion for the continents is on a
Twitter feed well it’s on a Facebook
post
well it’s in one of those church
programs that has you go into the
continent for a few days and come out
well I want you to think about Africa
now and see the opportunity the economic
opportunity the level of youth ingenuity
and the technologies that would allow
you participate in a continent that is
thriving if you are a Repat like me
and you came out of the continents in
its darkest times and you were looking
for this new opportunity here and then
you’re now hearing
it’s just filtering out there how in
Kenya and pacer is allowing people pay
through SMS well guess what folks that’s
been going on for ten years now way
before Apple got Apple pay way before
you could do the smart googly fix market
women in Kenya have been making payments
via SMS so for us repats sometimes we
need to stay connected and we must we
have a responsibility to but in staying
connected to some of these technology
innovations insane connected to see how
much impact we could give we need to
stay connected to the Afro preneur we
need to reach back out and we need to
make sure
at some of the knowledge gaps that she
has some of the intellectual gaps that
he has are things that we can provide
because our boomerang has taken flight
and is returned and if you are that
globalist if you have that passion for
Africa if you own one of these shirts in
your closet you want to I want to call
you out today and say hey here’s what
you need to do for me look around you
find an expat find a Repat and get on a
plane with one of them to Africa because
at this point it’s no longer about what
you can say about your Africa passion
it’s about what you can do and the
Africa that I speak about this new
Africa it’s open for business it’s
thriving so this is not one of those
sappy Africa’s stories not at all this
great business to be done there there
are great entrepreneurs coming out of
there there are great expats that have
passion to give back and there are great
repats that are willing to take that
knowledge and give it back the brain
drain that was the bane of Africa’s
existence in the 80s is now a reverse
brain during that’s becoming a fuel for
the 21st century so I urge each one of
you to look at your personal boomerang
and see when it’s going to take flight
it’s gonna be an expat there’s gonna be
a Repat or is it gonna be globalist and
for that first boomerang I spoke about
Justina
her boomerang took flight in Aquila
Nigeria and she just became a US citizen
about three weeks ago so her boomerangs
currently floating in Morgan Hill
California that’s my Africa
that’s the Africa that I see that’s the
Africa that I’m rebooting and that’s the
Africa that I’m welcoming you to join me
on this journey because the only way is
up thank you
[Applause]
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