Creating Wakanda - a Pathways evening at the Blavatnik School
The Marvel Studio’s Black Panther movie recently inspired a generation of Africans to see themselves as technological leaders in a sci-fi world and saw them portrayed with powerful voices defining their own futures. What does a real-world technologically driven future vision of Africa look like? How can this future be created by people from the continent themselves?
On Monday 11 June we hosted a rich discussion on harnessing entrepreneurship to take advantage of the continent’s youth and ambition. We asked how Africans feel this can be supported by better access to finance, a more conducive start-up environment, and skills to meet future technological challenges.
Our three panellists were Strive Masiyiwa (commission co-chair and founder and executive chairman of Econet), Jessica Price (co-founder of the Rhodes Incubator), and Atherton Mutombwera (CEO and founder of Hutano Diagnostics). The dean of the Blavatnik School of Government, Ngaire Woods, moderated the discussion.
One of the big take-aways of the discussion was on the importance of having a positive, problem-solving mindset. The speakers agreed that technology undoubtedly does create new pathways to prosperity, yet the challenge remains to foster a mindset across Africa that young people are the ones who can create jobs and prosperity. Strive called for an upheaval in the education system to allow students to operate in that environment.
Jessica Price also summarised that: "One version of this discussion is just to focus on tech, and that is an easy discussion. We also need to focus on the human factors, the real political and cultural challenges."
The discussions also focused on the environment needed to allow for entrepreneurship and innovation in Africa. The commission’s academic directors, Stefan Dercon and Benno Ndulu, also voiced some thoughts on this from the audience. Some key factors were examined, such as: being able to access finance, and operating in a context where risk is reduced and regulation isn’t strangulating.