Kenyan Pundit

The first series of talks from TED Global have been posted, so you can now all see what we were raving about. Two of my favorites are up - Ngozi Okojo-Iweala’s nuanced summary of the themes that permeated the conference (best line - infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure) and William Kakwamba’s earnest story of his journey to TED (best line - I try and I make!).

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I’m a huge proponent of building and showcasing our local (African) content rather than bitching up a storm about how neglected we are…here’s two opportunities to do so.

First, the African Cookbook Project launched by the indefatigable Fran Osseo-Asare at TED Global. Please hop over and find out how to contribute…you know when you leave home (read Kenya) even for a few weeks, after family you typically miss food the most (how many times have you dreamt about chapos, proper ugali and nyama choma, that ka-fried tilapia etc.)…so lets do our part to help record and preserve a critical part of who we are. An aside, wish we had more African cooking blogs, haven’t come across any new ones since I stumbled upon the wonderful Mirecipe.

Second, for the sheng speakers (I don’t think I qualify anymore, I belong to the sasa/fit/buda/mathree days that are almost certainly obsolete), please update the list of words on Wikipedia’s Sheng entry.

EDIT: Please check out African Writing for another great example of African content…just debuted and lots of great stuff there. Hat tip Sunrise!

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My random musings….

- Euvin Naidoo: Good start…during his talk I was basically thinking -damn he has his speech memorized…I haven’t even finished my slides…I need to get my shit together. I’m also thinking all the stats he is citing about investing in Africa are great, but wouldn’t it be great to have a one-stop shop website or something where you can access stats and info about investing in individual African countries. I thought the Investment Climate Facility was supposed to be doing that, but it appears that they are focused on other things. Niche blog opportunity anyone?

- Andrew Mwenda: His talk ends of framing the debate at TED. Trade vs. aid (does it have to be versus?). Just as it’s easing to throw stones at Bono, it’s easy to throw stones at the aid proponents by pointing to the millions who will die without humanitarian aid. As others later argue, the debate is not that simple and Andrew makes the critical point that he is not opposed to all aid, just what Hash terms elsewhere “bad” aid. I think not enough of the analysis Andrew does exists - looking at the hard numbers and seeing just how aid props up non-performing governments. In my opinion, bad aid leads not just to the EMASCULATION of governments, but also of citizens. As long as bad aid is filling the gap, citizens do not feel compelled to press their governments (painful as the process may be) to implement better policies and be accountable. Governments also have no incentive to be creative and look for alternative revenue sources. It’s not rocket science really. What annoys me about the Bono/Sachs brigade is that they get so much airtime, whereas AFRICANS who are offering alternatives are not sitting (or even getting invited) at the table…isn’t it crazy, for example, that out of all the phenomenal African speakers at TED only Bono and Ngozi (by virtue of her previous position) have had the opportunity to speak for Africa at venues like the G8?

- Carol Pineau: Why did a non-African have to be the one to make this movie? I’m just saying… Hash, maybe we can have Afri-gadget the movie?

- Andrew Dosunmu: Wow! I had no habari about this guy. I just love his images…Africa like you rarely see it, people loving, living, enjoying, just being.

- Of course, it was followed by a presentation on how Google Earth is being used to highlight the crisis in Darfur. Important issue to be sure and I’m sure it wasn’t planned this way, I just thought it was so ironic that positive images were immediately neutralized by jarring images of Darfur.

More thoughts to come…

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I really want to jump into this debate, but my thoughts on TED Global are long overdue and blogging time is short in supply. I’ll try and go through my (hopefully not so fuzzy) thoughts on each session using Ethan’s excellent recap.

Session 1

- It’s here! In October 2005, I was privileged to be one of 12 African fellows sponsored to attend Poptech in Maine. Attending Poptech opened a whole new world for me - I had never been to anything like that before…a conference that was stimulating, provoking, full of passionate people and I kept thinking I would love to see something like this in Africa - an intellectual, inspiring, positive conference that basically turned your brain on. On the last day of the conference, there was a panel on Africa featuring the fellows and during the interview I remarked that instead of flying Africans who represented the future of Africa to speak in conferences in the States, I would love to see a similar concept to Poptech in Africa. I knew nothing about TED at the point. Once the panel was over Tom Rielly and June Cohen came up to me and introduced TED and mentioned that they were working on exactly that and did I really think it could work. I ended up meeting with Chris and the rest of the team in NY to share my ideas on what the conference, and brainstorming about the idea with Emeka (also a fellow) who later became the TED co-producer (yes I also pitched strongly for the conference to be held in Kenya!). I was so proud to see the idea come to life. Those of you who attended can attest to the enormous amount of work that was put into making the conference happen (the TED team are logistics Nazis!), but I just want to re-emphasize just how committed Chris, June, Tom, Kelly, Amy, Katherine, and the rest of the TED team has been to making the event a success for many, many, months. They truly went out of their way to make sure that the event really was the next chapter for Africa - starting with their choice of Emeka as a co-producer (Emeka those late nights were worth it, no?). I just want to salute everyone who worked on the conference for pulling it off…I’m sure there were numerous challenges…you cannot begin the appreciate the impact that you have had/will have on many individuals…and for me that is what is important…not some big-bang aid package or fancy razzmatazz Millenium_fill-in-the-blank_Goals…simply getting people inspired to think, act, and be agents for change.

Gosh…out of time…I didn’t even get to the first set of speakers!

Excuse the typos and rambling - stream of conscious etc.

More to come…

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