I had the
opportunity to attend the Ashoka Changemaker Summit in Arusha. Some great
businessmen and innovators were in attendance. Ashoka is a collaborative group
that seeks to bring innovators together with business people. The focus of this summit was the future of
work in Africa. We kicked things off with an icebreaker, and then went into a
panel discussion about where East Africa is headed. “By 2035,
Africa's labour force will be more than China, with 41% of the world's youth
being African and 40% of East Africans under 15 years of age. What does this
mean for the future of work in East Africa?”
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| Conference Icebreaker |
We broke into workshop groups, and I went the workshop all
about talent. There were four panelists, mostly Kenyan, that were all young
“intrepreneurs.” I found this to be a funny concept—instead of focusing on
developing peoples’ independent skills, they focused on retaining people within
a company. But, the panelists had some interesting things to say about finding
talent. They thought that talent could be cultivated, and that it was important
to give people room to fail. But they also stressed dedication to the cause.
Twende of course had a table at the conference. There were
many companies there, including one that seeks to spread sexual health
knowledge by using marketing comics for sanitary pads. The Kenyan based company
is working to empower girls using these comics and give them the freedom of
sexual health. I thought that was pretty cool.
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