{"id":1627,"date":"2016-07-21T11:44:19","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T10:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1627"},"modified":"2016-10-26T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T14:23:09","slug":"youth-the-key-to-optimism-about-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/07\/21\/youth-the-key-to-optimism-about-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth: The key to optimism about the future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Did you come across <strong>Bill Gates<\/strong>\u2019 post on LinkedIn of last Monday? If not, you may want to read it: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/my-message-next-generation-africans-bill-gates?trk=eml-b2_content_ecosystem_digest-hero-14-\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>My message to the next generation of Africans<\/strong><\/a>.\u201d The essence of his message resonated quite well with me: a message of<strong> optimism about Africa\u2019s future that is based on a young population, and a youthful mentality<\/strong> \u2013 the title of one of my earlier <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/03\/19\/a-young-population-a-youthful-mentality\/\">posts<\/a>; actually, one of my favorite ones!<\/p>\n<p>Let me share one quote from Gates: \u201cEconomists talk about the demographic dividend and the potential for Africa\u2019s burgeoning youth population to accelerate economic growth. But for me, <strong>the most important thing about young people is the way their minds work<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1628\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1628\" style=\"width: 3143px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1628\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/07\/2014-07-12-11.32.54-2.jpg\" alt=\"Young population is the future of Africa\" width=\"3143\" height=\"1750\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/07\/2014-07-12-11.32.54-2.jpg 3143w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/07\/2014-07-12-11.32.54-2-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/07\/2014-07-12-11.32.54-2-768x428.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/07\/2014-07-12-11.32.54-2-1024x570.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/07\/2014-07-12-11.32.54-2-500x278.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 3143px) 100vw, 3143px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1628\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">African youth: full of energy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Yes! <strong>African youth is full of entrepreneurial initiative<\/strong>. I won\u2019t say that cuts across all people from all countries. In fact <strong>there are striking differences<\/strong>, as this funny story shows:<\/p>\n<p>A Kenyan entrepreneur started <strong>a student housing business in a neighboring country<\/strong> (I prefer not to say which one). She needed to equip the facilities: table cloths, linen, etc. A first order was placed to a local seamstress. The job was well done, so a second order was placed. Next time, the entrepreneur didn\u2019t find the seamstress. She went back another day, and another\u2026 finally, she asked the person at the next store: <strong>the seamstress had moved to another location because she was getting too much work!<\/strong> The entrepreneur was astonished: this would have never happened in Kenya!<\/p>\n<p><strong>In contrast, plenty of other stories show the creativity and entrepreneurial thrive that the African youthful mentality releases<\/strong>. Just a few examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/05\/20\/clean-robot-cops-of-kinshasa\/\" target=\"_blank\">Traffic control robots<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/04\/01\/access-to-electricity-in-africa\/\">Schoolbags with a solar panel<\/a> that charges while kids are in school<\/li>\n<li>An emergency set for filtering and transfusing lost blood back into a patient<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Our shared <strong>optimism is not blind<\/strong>. As Gates says, \u201cp<strong>ositive change across Africa won\u2019t happen automatically<\/strong>. The real returns will come only if Africans can unleash this talent for innovation in all of the continent\u2019s growing population. That depends on whether all of its <strong>young people are given the opportunity to thrive<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What a fascinating challenge!<\/p>\n<p>Would you like to share any other entrepreneurial initiative born in the continent?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Related Posts<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/07\/29\/drivers-of-african-entrepreneurship\/\">Drivers of African entrepreneurship<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/09\/16\/entrepreneurial-energy\/\">Entrepreneurial energy<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/01\/21\/the-strength-of-nigeria-is-its-people\/\" target=\"_blank\">The strength of Nigeria is its people<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did you come across Bill Gates\u2019 post on LinkedIn of last Monday? If not, you may want to read it: \u201cMy message to the next generation of Africans.\u201d The essence of his message resonated quite well with me: a message of optimism about Africa\u2019s future that is based on a young population, and a youthful [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99314],"tags":[1559,235,121,157,8073,93593,100265],"class_list":["post-1627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-and-institutional-context","tag-bill-gates","tag-creativity","tag-economic-growth","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-population","tag-youth-population","tag-youthful-mentality","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1627"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1632,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions\/1632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}