Global Tech Innovations
i now want to introduce uh olav our next session is going to be about global tech so the type of innovation that goes on across boundaries geographically where we see a lot of leapfrog innovation olaf joined us from yale about a year or so ago he is the faculty research director for the price center for entrepreneurship and innovation he's got a lot of plans to continue growing the research the course offerings etc at anderson all related to entrepreneurship and uh and innovation um his research is very much focused about entrepreneurship and how it affects certain geographic regions how it affects growth in those regions competitiveness in those regions etc olaf please uh come up and it's great to have you here great uh thank you terry for the uh introduction i'm uh happy to be here and one of the things that uh he didn't mention in my biography but i think is one of the reasons why i'm particularly excited about this session is that you know over the last decade i've led uh entrepreneurship themed student trips to estonia hungary russia south africa and there's a lot of interesting things uh that are happening you know kind of around the world uh in technology entrepreneurship so you know to frame the descript discussion i'd like to uh mention just a couple of i think you know sort of interesting tidbits that people may not be aware of so um you know when i started i'm teaching a course on venture capital when i started teaching venture capital 15 years ago you could basically teach that just about the us in fact you could almost teach that just about california because there wasn't much happening uh in other parts of the world um but that's really dramatically changed if you looked at the last you know two or three years there are essentially as many deals just in china as there are in the united states and if you start adding up other places around the globe there's actually more happening outside the us than in the u.s and that's even true on a dollar value basis so even the the number of dollars being deployed is larger outside the u.s than inside it and i think what we're seeing is just the beginning of a wave if you looked for the last you know sort of 12 to 18 months on a per capita basis you know what have been the fastest growing you know kind of tech areas where has vc been most active san francisco the bay area is not even in the top five the top five would include amsterdam dublin london um so i think that you know this kind of trend that we're seeing is is only going to continue and accelerators are popping up you know kind of everywhere around the world so uh we have a really interesting panel here today um we have uh dieng who's going to be joining us she's with the company formerly known as 500 startups um fortunately the name change was not quite as extreme as meta and we also have zinnia tata joining us who was formerly with the xprize um so before i uh let them briefly introduce themselves i would like to remind you that we're going to be using slido for the questions i have this handy ipad so i will see your questions popping up the uh code for this session is tnsp1 and for those of you who uh like the nato code signs we can go for tango november sierra papa and the number one um so uh with that uh maybe we can have the the panelists give just a very brief introduction uh to themselves marine would you like to start us off thank you so much so um as just mentioned my name is marem i lead our global innovation strategy at i'm looking particularly at europe middle east and africa and especially because as just previously mentioned venture capital today is definitely more active in emerging markets and so i look at our strategy both in implementing ecosystem development work as well as understanding where are the underlying markets where there is the highest investment potential and xenia hello everyone thank you so much for having me olaf um i'm xenia tata and i have had the absolute privilege for the last 20 years to watch this entire innovation landscape especially in the global south absolutely explode just been part of my career journey i was last for the last eight years with xprize as the chief impact officer where i designed prizes and just designed impact programs and my entire career journey has been about designing innovation for high impact the kind of innovation that truly can transform the lives of of many great thank you so i i think an interesting pla you know kind of place to start would be to say you know what are some of the places that you find particularly exciting right now you know both of you have had experiences you know kind of around the world and you know there's different pockets different ecosystems popping up and and i'd be curious which ones you think are are currently really interesting uh maybe we could start uh with uh xenia so i i think olaf you're asking about geographically but i'm going to talk a little bit about sector-wise if that's all right with you um so i think some of the most interesting innovations that are popping up for me are are in climate tech and um i'm really uh tracking those and trying to figure out um now of course these climate innovations some of the beauty about them is that these are multi-country efforts so you can't say that it's just in one hot spot of innovation or another and that's that's kind of part of the charm of them as well because again when you're dealing with climate you're dealing with such a massive global issue so uh for me i've been tracking a lot in climate tech recently miriam hmm thank you zunia um i would say that for me and i'm probably a little biased um because i am from from senegal that there are quite interesting um companies that we're seeing come out of particular emerging markets so i specifically think of the different fintechs that have been coming out of nigeria in the past few years but i also think about the different companies coming out of egypt both in edtech fintech e-commerce and logistics and also as well kenya which today we're seeing a quite active um unlocking of industries in agritech and so like zenya said i think there are interesting companies coming out of many different sectors um but if i had to say the geographies that i am definitely the most excited about um those are geographies that we see today on the african market as well as the mena region for that matter so very exciting companies coming out of uae saudi um so it's a very exciting time for a lot of different emerging markets and i think that we're going to see a lot more of that come up in the next coming years yeah marin could i uh follow up on that maybe so you know what do you think is really driving some of the innovation in these places so you know i i know i i'm you know some of it could be driven by local needs but of course the other thing that we know is happening is you know places like near nigeria are just having a boom in the sort of the middle class so is it you know kind of general increase in demand is it differences in needs that what do you think is happening i think there's two very exciting phenomenas that are happening in those in those markets and the first one i think has been the realization that technology can solve um primary issues and i think for a long time there was kind of this narrative that technology can only be applied to higher needs on the pyramid of maslow and nowadays what we realize is actually that technology can allow us to exponentially and in a much more sustainable and scalable manner address some of the most primary and important issues of the continent and being able to that empowerment and that realization i think has tremendously changed the landscape and and you were mentioning earlier so nigeria today what we're seeing is that the capacity at which um startups have taken over fintech and financial services in order to allow a much bigger amount of the population to have access to those financial services has tremendously changed um the landscape of the country and as well has actually catalyzed the growth of this middle class that we're talking about because it has allowed a distribution of services and the second thing that i also think is happening across those different markets is the realization that they have the potential to go from technology and innovation consumer to technology and innovation producer and i think that that has made a major major shift across those markets as well because today we're seeing them wanting to drive and lead emerging technologies and their adoption and we often talk about the concept of leap frogging which is when different markets are actually able to skip um certain phases of technological development and i see it as an incredible competitive advantage and strength of these markets because it's allowing them to go much faster in adoption and it's allowing them to actually be and turn into case studies for what the penetration of emerging technologies would look like um i'm always very pleasantly surprised when i hear in remote areas of senegal people talking to me about their crypto wallet right those are individuals who do not have bank accounts who barely have access to to to computing technology as a matter of fact but they are a lot more savvy on crypto wallets than other individuals who i know who are middle class in certain western markets so i'm incredibly excited uh for for these markets and i really think that the shift is happening because there is a level of empowerment that's happening and also um actual case studies that prove that technology can solve some of the most important issues of the continent xenia do you feel similarly as to what's sort of driving this or do you think there are other factors maybe particularly if we sort of think outside of africa southeast asia and other areas um is it a different type of dynamic yes i think there are a few other factors as well and i'll get into them in a second but i wanted to comment on on uh what i was thinking uh miriam when you were speaking is that you know in the mid kind of 2000s what we were seeing is you know this burst of entrepreneurship just starting out um in in other countries to address issues like water and energy and waste etc uh so cut and health of course you know so so again down on on that maslow's hierarchy of needs but they were being addressed with very basic technology you know the kind of technology that that probably existed here in the west uh of many decades ago and now what we're seeing is um the confluence of the exponential technologies and the emerging tech actually being used to solve some of those bigger problems which allow for those problems to be solved uh faster uh in a more affordable way and also at much greater scale than than sort of the the older analog versions of technology that we were seeing so um other things that make up that enabling environment uh i think is that governments have got more savvy about being real partners and bringing partnerships to the table that focus on improved policy and ease of business in certain cases and and so again when governments come on board as partners of course everybody thrives especially in countries where uh the government presence is very large and and you have to work through those bureaucratic barriers so easing easing that has has helped for example in in a country like india that that has happened uh especially in in though it is india still remains a very difficult country to do business in but the government has made efforts especially in the last eight years or so to open up doors especially for entrepreneurs to to have ease of business and then i think the the diaspora um uh in a lot of countries the the people who came to silicon valley in the 90s made made some good money going back home have encouraged uh and become vcs become angel investors and have encouraged entrepreneurship through the example of their own success and teaching risk teaching the rewards of risk teaching the ability to fail which traditionally doesn't exist in so many of our cultures so i think those are a couple of the other factors that have enabled uh this this uh spark to blossom uh that's interesting dude i'm curious um uh marim do you think there's also been a diaspora aspect in in kind of africa's uh latest wave of submerged emergence i know that you know you went to ala and that was actually founded kind of around the idea of creating that type of diaspora a hundred percent um and i think that me and many other ala students are a testimony of what zenia was just talking about today which are um africans who had had the chance and the opportunity to go and learn from these markets but who also very still rooted within their culture and within their cultural realities and who are coming back not as saviors but who are coming back to try to understand and to try to create more opportunities based on what i have they have seen and i think that that has definitely changed the landscape on the possibility to unlock more for the continent but also the perspective of how do you actually use international best practices to relate them to what's happening on the continent because before i think also a lot of you know the frustration came from the fact that the examples that were being taken were not very examples that could be replicated on the continent you can't take what's happening in paris in london and try to replicate it somewhere in in nairobi or in takara but now we're seeing more and more also the diaspora going places like india malaysia singapore go to markets that have actually historically experienced similar issues that have similar infrastructural hurdles and take best practices from those markets as well i think about brazil mexico so looking a lot more outside of the scope of what is the best that can be taken from what's happening elsewhere but also how can it be actually adapted to the realities of today and i have to say that today more than ever the quality of the local talent is absolutely astonishing i have been traveling across the continent this year and the local talent of people who have been on the continent who have been working there for the past couple of years and built their career there so they need to go to educations abroad they didn't need to work abroad the talent of that the quality of the talent pool has exponentially grown and so today what we're seeing is that there is also a lot of best practice being learned from the continent itself i keep telling entrepreneurs that they can find a lot of lessons learned from going to nairobi from looking at the work happening in lagos from learning about what um kaza is doing on miracle because now the ecosystem is growing and we're really being able to actually nurture that growth so i i i want to dig into this just a little bit so what do you think have been some of the you know maybe key additions in a sense to the ecosystem that's really you know kind of allowed some of these places to take off what wasn't there before was it the money was it the you know having the kind of models to follow i'd be curious what your perspective is there of course capital uh is is one of them and you know we would be naive to not acknowledge that capital definitely does make a difference in being able to create more distributed opportunities uh for sure but i also think that something that wasn't there before and that's here today is success stories what we're seeing now today is that you don't need to go looking at what's happening in other countries to know that it's possible to be done right here because today we have actual examples to look at and to learn from flirter wave is one of them all pay is another one thinking about also paystack andela fari all of those are actual companies that were built on the continent that have most of their market on the continent and that have built job opportunities that have created a redistribution of opportunities for those that are working on it and so that tangible people usually i think neglect the importance of tangible outcome tangible stories right when you're thinking about what would the development of the continent look like in the next 10 years it's right here we can actually see it now today we can see what is it like when we're able to leverage on technology to create opportunities and to actually create economic development on the continent and so that in itself has completely changed the landscape today people are actually looking at people like e as a role model they can actually personalize and create a direct relationship between what does that success and growth look like for them and finally what i think the continent has now and hadn't had before is also time it takes time for this development to happen and that's something we sometimes forget that most of these countries are basically maximum 70 years old we're talking about an extremely young content with young economies and young infrastructures that are yet to be developing and now we're at the dawn of what we're seeing success to look like but we still need time and it will take time and kind of allowing that process to happen is also a very key part of understanding that we are all today part of building an ecosystem that we may not see the result of and that should be okay we should be okay of the idea of participating in building the foundation of an economic development that we may never see because it's going to be in the next 100 200 300 years but that acceptance i think really makes a difference in being able to also provide perspective to how that growth is happening and how rapidly it's happening great uh zinnia do you think it's sort of a similar issue in say southeast asia or are there different factors at play there i think one factor that we should discuss and add to is the role of industry and um so for example if i look at india and where where the sparks happen where this movement started and bubbled up these were hotbeds of and they were emerging industries at the time too but they were hotbeds for i.t uh for medicine
uh for healthcare services rather you know that's so so there was a role that industry played where they didn't want to see their talent leave their shores either and so they understood that they have to nurture this new wave and uh and somehow feed it because uh this is again that rising tide that will lift all boats and it does play into that longer vision of success economic upliftment and success um not just for a country but a whole entire region so i think the role of industry um you know has been important especially in southeast asia where those clusters did exist and then of course with that comes you know again a different kind of a role model right that well you could be you could you could be a mega industry one day you you also that pathway was open to you you know um the role of education um you know educational institutes um again talking a little more on the asia side because that's more of my familiarity in southeast asia right now a lot of the the premier universities have accelerated programs have entrepreneurship programs have uh their alumni uh seating um a new new ventures that that come out of that particular university so again the government on one side fantastic role models from diaspora or even local role models emerging but then the influx of the support from industry and and the support from universities themselves to actually teach that mindset that has been a game changer so there's a question that came in from the audience which i think is an interesting one to think about in this perspective which is you know is there anything that you know well-established countries uh or if we're going to use the the opposite of the global south youth banism the global north i guess uh like the u.s can learn from these emerging regions or you know maybe another way of thinking about that is there are there things that are being done particularly well there that the u.s europe other places could learn from i think that um two there was a point that was made earlier about how today we're seeing more even investment activity happen outside of um silicon valley which was historically kind of kind of the hub of that for me when i'm looking at again um how the investment landscape has evolved i would love for you know american-based startups to refocus their initial approach towards entrepreneurship around solving problems i think that um something they could really learn from the emerging markets is well you have emerging markets that would have tons of problems and that are now trying to leverage emerging technologies to solve those problems and i would love for american startups to also re-center and refocus their approach and use of emerging technologies around solving problems and not necessarily creating problems to solve because that creates an incredible difference in the sustainability of these solutions on the long term but also it will allow them to truly have two to five to ten steps ahead of where the world will be in the next coming years and how their solution can also then be applicable and deployed in other markets so it's really that thinking ahead of as the world and other economies are also growing and with the status of where the u.s economy is today how can they adapt emerging technologies to solve the us's issues today and even prepare for the next coming issues in other emerging markets and i think that will truly give them a differentiating factor that will allow these solutions to be sustainable otherwise what we we fear to see is that in the coming years with emerging technologies begin being absolutely leapfrogged in in emerging markets and um you know us-based companies not necessarily always working on solutions that are actually solving problems they actually may miss out on the future um and miss out on what technology and emerging technologies in particular will truly do and i and i i re-emphasize something that then i actually said earlier which was that the true magic happened when emerging markets are now figuring out how to not just use basic technology they are using emerging technology to solve their issues so they have done that you know two-step ahead already because they are not even looking at now regular technologies they want you know a lot of markets on the content for example have already given up the idea of credit cards and bank it's not even something that they think would be viable and so and the the funny part is for example here in europe the adoption of mobile money is incredibly difficult to get because there's a lot of infrastructural change that needs to be done before they get there and so i really really encourage um startups in the us and in more developed markets in general to really try to think about that five to ten step ahead which is where will the world be in 10 years and what will those issues look like and how can i already start with the access to technology that i have now solving for those great xenia yes so um i'm always fascinated by by entrepreneurs who take on a big problem but have to quickly design for unprecedented scale and that is something that you don't see quite in the u.s you know you see or um you just
you just see the usual kind of uh plotting through those steps of scale up whereas um when you're dealing with uh even even a problem whether it's whether it's you know leapfrogging the financial system or leapfrogging transportation traditional transportation systems whatever it might be you have to design for such massive scale and and rapid adoption and so you have to adapt so quickly you know whether whether it's it's a piece of hardware or software i mean your your market is growing so fast and and it is so varied because a lot of uh uh these countries are extremely varied right they're they're they are really a collection even in india it's a collection of multiple tribes really you know so so you're navigating all these these cultural differences at breakneck speed while you're growing your company while you're adapting your technology and while you're gaining new market momentum uh all the time looking behind your shoulder because you know the copycats are right there because that's part of the culture you know success is going to be imitated and uh flattery or not you know however you want to view that and so uh so i think that's um that's something that that in the west uh entrepreneurs don't have to grapple with for a while scale kind of they have the luxury of waiting and planning for scale whereas that doesn't happen in the emerging markets that's interesting i almost feel like those might be flip sides of the same issue in a sense where you know if you're really solving a core you know problem that the face a lot of people face then once you have the solution you know the demand is almost instantly there right and you need to scale up the production of it for that demand you know kind of right away whereas you know if you're trying to basically create the demand through marketing you know that's a you know kind of slower uh process um super interesting so like you know so there's a lot of you know exciting interesting stuff going on um what's holding it back what's keeping it from you know being kind of emerging at an even more breakneck pace what are the kind of key features that you think is preventing these ecosystems from having an even larger number of successful startups than they have like i said earlier i would say that for me it's time um they have finally unlocked that critical moment where they realize that it works um that it's not just theory it's not just predictions it actually works um people's lives are being changed by these solutions um they are finally now attributing change and growth to not just the public sector um they are realizing that a individual entrepreneurs can change completely their way of living and the opportunities that they have access to so they themselves are now internalizing what that looks like and especially in markets like africa but also southeast asia and latin america entrepreneurship is not new at all um to to their way of functioning because it has been a very strong pillar to their economic development for the past couple of years and so they have most of the time attributed that entrepreneurship power to building mainly small and medium sized businesses so smes for the most part and now that they have unlocked that very important piece around being able to leverage technology to solve issues i think their most important need is going to be around time giving them the time but also for us as ecosystem stakeholders to continue making sure that we are allowing them to have opportunities and i reinforce on that very importantly because at 500 we believe that talent is equally distributed but opportunities are not and so there is talent everywhere and they are um incredible entrepreneurial potential in all markets but opportunities are not necessarily distributed so you can find amazing solutions being built um in certain markets but they don't have access to neither their capital nor the network nor um the mentorship that they need and so what we can continue to do as ecosystem stakeholders is to continue providing that access to as many opportunities as we can to as many markets as we can and that the map the magic will happen when those entrepreneurs are able to leverage on those opportunities and only with time um will we actually see what happens in this market and where does it take them do you feel like you're not able to do enough i mean you know 500 500 startups you know i had a goal of of really trying to invest i know you've gone way past 500 already but you know is it still sort of not enough if you had 10 times the capital deploy would you really be able to push that out there i don't know i don't know if i feel that there is not enough capital um i think there's a lot of capital already in the market and um we need to be better about distributing that capital for sure um but something that i do feel is never enough is human resources i feel like there is never enough mentors never enough time that can be dedicating coaching and supporting these entrepreneurs never enough time that can be dedicating to allowing them networking opportunities never enough human resources that can really leverage upon that and i think that that's also something we're seeing for example in certain specific markets where now today a lot of capital is going to right there's a lot of vc activity in nigeria you'll be tremendously surprised there's a lot of bc activity in egypt there's a lot of bc activity in all of these markets so there's definitely and the thing about capital is it goes where it can grow and um as as investors we know that capital will flow in markets where it can grow and multiply that's how that's the nature of how investment works but i always will feel like there is not enough human resources to dedicate i always wish that we could do more um i wish that we could do more as institutions i wish we could do more as individuals i wish that we could create more knowledge transfer and that we could dedicate more time to helping those not make the same mistakes that we may have made in the past so capital i think that of course there should be more but human resources to me is very much the one that we will never have enough of xenia what you know kind of coming back to this ecosystem question you know what do you think uh maybe the missing ingredients are what's holding them back yeah i mean you know at the end of the day you're still talking about uh countries that are struggling um they have infrastructure issues they um yes there is a rising middle class but at the same time not you know the purchasing power is still low um and and and so those those problems haven't quite gone away you know the way might have been eased a little bit there might be a better enabling environment but you're still operating in countries that that have those setbacks that hasn't fundamentally changed and uh and so those will always slow things down those kinds of factors will just just slow it down um i think the question about opportunity and and you know the access to opportunity rather is is is massive i'm sorry um that's that is still fundamentally um uh lies in the realm of the few who were able to get an education in these countries and a lot of times just not any education but in education that was a little more international in probably an english medium school and an english medium college and that makes all the difference um you know so so again access to opportunity is still minimal and it isn't for everyone you know you're talking about countries with hundreds of millions of people in them um and and it's just the few that were able to do something so yeah so those those problems still exist and that's slowing everything down and maybe what miriam what you're saying it you know is give it give it more time is maybe that is what is what is needed you know one thing that hasn't come up but you know i i think a lot of people uh you know feel like is a drain in some sense on on growth in a number of these countries is corruption yes you know to what extent is you know corruption whether it's at the highest levels or you know kind of more mundane a real impediment to business yeah yeah so i think that's a huge impediment to business and it's a huge impediment to the desire to be an entrepreneur frankly um you know you have to have a different level of tenacity to be able to break through those barriers and so at the end of the day i mean you know a corruption or let's do the opposite i mean the enabling environment uh for startups and for innovation has to have decent rule of law you cannot um innovate or or you know create enough entrepreneurship that will leapfrog that i mean that has to exist so that is a very large impediment do you want to comment on that as well maram yeah no i i very much um agree with zenya i think that the effect of corruption if anything are also strongly psychological because you know entrepreneurship and especially the type of entrepreneurship we're talking about where we're legitimizing technology and leveraging upon it is based on this common understanding that if you have a product market fit and a solution that actually has a demand for it in the market it should work right so it's that basic foundation that is completely broken when there is corruption because then it doesn't allow for that fair pursuit of a product market fit because there are other factors that could either prevent that topping or or enhance that to happen um and i think particularly in some emerging markets it's been a historical barrier also towards trust um and and you know it's hard to build anything without trust and it's hard to scale and sustain anything without trust and that psychological barrier um i know that you know it's something that different countries have been really working toward eliminating to a certain extent um and who have tried to do extensive work but the reality is it's truly still very very present and it also kind of then destabilizes the ability of the entrepreneurs to really truly um see the potential in themselves and in their products if there are additional factors that can either enhance that growth or block it completely also the radical swings right in some of these countries with the ruling parties uh you know where it doesn't even necessarily happen every four or five years it can happen a lot a lot quicker than that so that fluidity i mean in a place like america fine you know you know your party might change you know with the president and all the rest of it uh your your uh the party in control as such might change but fundamentally that does not completely disrupt your business here again it comes back to i can't trust my government to even have consistent policy around a critical issue that will break or make my uh my my uh my venture so you know and and when you know that that could change every couple of years then you're more hesitant to to actually weight in those waters yeah instability i mean another you know kind of interesting type of instability that's not even necessarily related to the kind of political instability uh is even thinking about you know currency volatility uh which is another uh potential issue i guess you know that's mostly an issue when we're thinking about exporters and i guess you know one of the things that i want to maybe come back a little bit too is you know we are seeing some really interesting innovations here are these going to be mostly for domestic consumption or do we really believe that these can become you know engines for wealth creation by creating opportunities for exporting to other countries as well i think a lot of them are are probably more regional uh than than you know just widely globally adaptable and so maybe more regionally adaptable um also let's go back to what we talked about you know at the beginning of this conversation about about these entrepreneurs really trying to solve a big hairy problem that exists for their society right where they are which is which is what we all want to encourage and so just the nature of doing that um sort of cuts back on the ability to be globally adaptable and and you know uh in in that way so i think that depends on the industry and depends on on on on this on the startup itself and you know these these companies are not startups anymore some of them are huge uh now and so yeah there's some regional transference that can happen but for the most part that's not what they were set up for that's not what they were built for and they have such enormous markets and such enormous potential right where they're at that the incentive to look across the seas is not as much yeah absolutely something that's kind of i guess related to this that just came in from the audience is you know what what's a sector that you think actually needs more innovation in emerging markets but that's not really getting attention i would say um for me it's a sector that i think is getting attention but should get more and it's definitely not getting as much as i think it should uh which is agritech and food systems because you know a lot of you know the excitement right now in emerging markets of course around e-commerce and fintech of course because we're seeing some business model work we're starting to see some benefit from from actually investing in those type of companies but let's also remember what technology and innovation is about which is about sustainability how do we create a world where we are constantly trying to do two things improving the quality of life of the people who are in this world and increasing the length of that life and so in improving the quality of life um it's incredibly important to think about food systems and agri technology especially in emerging markets where they base a lot of their actual raw resources in their natural resource and technology is the best tool to enhance and kind of amplify that existing competitive advantage that they have which is access to those resources and so i'm a very big advocate for agri-tech and food systems and i know that it's a sector that you know we have in vogue but to me it should be getting as much attention as much investment as fintech with those e-commerce and of course it's a sector that takes longer to yield returns because there is a lot of r d that goes into it but to me investing in agritech and food system is basically investing in the sustainability of our future and making sure that no matter how the technological development goes we are creating sustainable systems that the next generation can actually find themselves upon all right so agritech and zinnia education all levels of it higher education basic education um yes yes their innovations happening not fast enough not wide enough um and honestly you know i would debate that it needs to happen in this country as well that's a sector that is ripe for innovation and ripe for for major disruption there have been some disruptions you know people have tried tried different things they have and haven't worked mixed results but i think it's a sector that is ripe for massive disruption all across the board yeah i mean there's at least in in the u.s there's obviously been a lot of attempts uh to going to moocs and other forms of online you know most of those have not been particularly successful why do you think they keep running into trouble well i mean the mooc discussion is is a slightly separate one and a larger one but i think you know people have realized that uh uh everybody learns in very different ways and just having access to information which we have access to all the information in the world right now right so having access to information isn't it it is how people actually um uh imbibe that information and then regurgitate it and put it into action um and and that there is some power in the collective in the in in discourse in the classroom uh setting whatever that might look like in today's world i mean look at us we're all in different parts of the world right now and having great conversation but there is power and discourse there has always been power and discourse all the way back to the greeks right and that is how people have learned to you know and and learned how to think critically and uh just having access to information which is what the moocs did doesn't allow people to really learn how to think critically and dialogue intelligently and actually uh take away and adapt and create uh from that knowledge base yeah so i mean it's interesting that you bring that up i i think that um so uh marim you you know i believe that you said you're friends with fred swaniker who is the founder of ala and i'm sure you're aware that his latest uh venture is sort of these alus you know what they're they're basically trying to bring university education to the masses in some sense and in africa what what are they doing differently the success of alu and ali and the ale group um as a whole has always been that um the vision was to be able to allow to educate but most importantly to empower and i think that that makes a very crucial difference because the alu education even in itself is very much rooted in entrepreneurial education so it's not only just about knowledge and how you acquire knowledge it's what you do with that knowledge and as a group as the the ale group both alu and ala the educations are also such centered around you know the african realities and the african economies that it say imagine a high quality education that's entirely centered around the realities where the education is happening so providing examples that are rooted in the environment that the students are actually living in providing applicable practice that are rooted in the environment that the students are in and making sure that that knowledge then transfers into empowerment and really allowing those students to be able to transfer that into actionable items again in the environments that they live in and i think that that truly made a difference and alu's hope is to be able to widespread that education to as many as possible and that's what i was saying earlier around we could never have enough human resources we could never have enough education and we we really try to think about what are different models of education that can work on the content because there are different models of education that can work there's not only one way to educate when we refer to education sometimes we make the mistake of thinking about simply one kind of education which could be a western education but really there are multiple different ways of going about education and it's really about many different institutions bringing that different those different aspects to the table and so providing knowledge with empowerment and that being applicable to many different things so the l group is doing it in one way and there are also many other educational institutions on the continent that are also doing it differently addressing different pieces of education whether it be through art whether it be through sports whether it be through creative sports and and you know i i was actually quite amazed by an orphanage that i visited in nairobi that is utilizing art therapy and creative sports like skateboarding to help kids who are in an orphanage feel reaccepted into society and feel reaccepted by themselves and others so aside from just the academic education the big piece of the orphanage is really around this art therapy and creative sport education to allow them to feel empowered so that they can use their academic education into something useful for them and so education really has different aspects and is flourishing on the continent in different ways and i think different groups are doing it differently but the al education in particular really leverages on that idea of empowerment to actually help um kids do something useful with that education interesting so you know we could have this conversation i think for uh for a long time but our time is uh running short here uh and uh at least in this time zone we are standing in front of uh lunch um so i i want to um you know kind of give uh you know kind of a brief chance to um see if you have kind of last thoughts that you'd like to leave people with um you know that maybe we haven't had a chance to talk about yet uh xenia do you want to lead us on uh you're on mute though xenia thank you yes since we're talking to a student body here um the markets are vast and the opportunities have asked globally and um a part of of being in such a privileged school system here is being given the license the permission to to take a chance and to actually create something to fail at it to lift yourself up again and maybe never do it again but also be enrichened by the experience and the experience the journey of entrepreneurship and or innovation because they don't always have to go hand in hand you know but of creating something new that might impact the lives of many and actually trying it even if you fail at this point in your journey is is will just be so valuable for for your entire life and uh a lot of us started after school started later and um and and again the privilege of having this kind of education and this sort of platform and where where you are today at ucla um you have the ability to do it while you're here so take that chance and try it thank you i i will have to agree with everything that zenya just said they the you know i think i realized the safe haven uh of of university once i was out of it um in being able to really truly be in an environment where failing is success because then you're learning and you have the ability to learn while being protected and having a safety net and that's incredibly important because always ask yourself you know what's the worst thing that could happen if i'm about to start this project about to start this business idea i want to start what's the worst thing that could happen i would do it i'll probably fail it i'll go back to class period so really leverage and take advantage of that opportunity of being able to to be in that safe haven to fail as much as you possibly could so that you learn and you actually absorb as much as you can in such a short time frame because that then you can actually take as a tangible outcome that will provide you with the ability to avoid some of those mistakes once you're actually leading your own ventures and remember that at the end of the day try to have fun with it as much as possible building a company is fun and it's fun because it's something that you get to do and you get to design and you get to go about it as in the way that you want so remember that a big part of it is having fun and that's why it's successful because you're having fun while doing it because you're finding meaning in doing it and you're actually harnessing that purpose that's great i think both of those are excellent pieces of advice and i hope that our students will pay attention to them and even our alumni may benefit from thinking about those a little bit more you know i i think this has been a really interesting conversation there's a couple of things that i would sort of highlight uh that i think are interesting points here um you know one is uh you know the importance of of you know kind of stories and stories that are salient to individuals so you know in my own research i've actually done some work on this we often call this pure effects but you know there's kind of this idea that uh in order to believe that i can do something i need to see somebody else do it it's not necessarily about having the knowledge but about understanding that in some sense you're empowered to do that yourself and and i think that that's uh not just important to a lot of these emerging markets but it's also you know oftentimes i think why we see the sudden emergence of uh ecosystems even in the united states right so like you know if you went back to cambridge massachusetts in you know 1995 there wasn't a lot of startup activity there it had all the ingredients except it didn't have this sort of stories of locals who had done it that changed very rapidly and now you know it rivals silicon valley in the u.s as a startup ecosystem uh i think a really interesting and important lesson that that hopefully the students will will take away is the value of thinking about basing your startup on solving a real problem uh it you know really does then uh you know in some sense i i mean it's not necessarily easier because you know that may actually be a really hard problem to solve there's probably a reason why it's a problem but it does eliminate some of the issues involved with marketing trying to create demand for something that perhaps no one really needs it could create other issues as xenia pointed out this you know creates perhaps the need then for rapid rapid scaling and that's a different type of problem but in some sense a good it's a good problem to have and the last kind of point that i thought was just really interesting here and and i agree with is that um in some sense the constraint is not you know money or you know kind of other types of institutional resources but it's really the people i love this idea that you know there's never enough you know kind of mentors there's another enough you know kind of network connections uh and anything that we can do to you know kind of build that uh capacity uh that supply would probably make more of a difference than any amount of dollars uh thrown into these places um so with that i'd like to thank you i'll i'll also thank the easton center and terry and i'll hand it back to terry for uh the kind of final words thank you excellent great olaf thank you very much and let me thank the the panelists here as well good learnings here and especially on these enablers for what success is required let me add a couple of items to olaf's point in terms of the so what's here the bottom of maslow's hierarchy that is a fundamental message about what are the market opportunities and when they talked about education they talked about agriculture they talked about financial services those are huge market opportunities these are not niche opportunities candidly a bit of helpful condemnation of u.s entrepreneurs in very nice terms so what was it that that uh
caused that for u.s uh entrepreneurs to think that they understand emerging markets you're basically getting messages that say you know what we're learning more from indonesia and from india etc into the african continent than we are from u.s startups and european ones so for all of you are going to be involved in young startups and want to truly go global that's an important warning sign about understand the market sierra you're going into a couple last points just to add on leapfrog innovation so i think maureen was mentioning it in financial services so credit cards and atms are old they're passe mobile payments are the new things by the way you see this in china a lot we find leapfrog innovation in payment related activities final one important messages about taking risks and failing and making that part of the the culture and all the things that olaf said about how that becomes part of the enabling force for uh for success so let's take a five minute break or so then we'll come back here for the final uh final panel thank you
2021-11-27 16:48
