Podcasts about African Leadership Academy

How can personalized coaching truly transform a student's educational journey? Why do students need a coach, and when is the ideal time to start? These are just a few of the intriguing questions we're diving into in today's episode.My guest, Joel Nicholson, will share his thoughts on the gaps in our educational system and how Youthfully supports students in launching passion projects, securing internships, and redefining what success looks like today.Are grades and standardized tests really the best indicators of potential? We'll explore the skills essential for future success, the role of AI in education, and the unique benefits of one-on-one coaching.Join us for an engaging conversation about empowering the next generation and navigating the ever-changing landscape of education.Anna's Takeaways:Personalized Coaching For Students (0:00)Passion Projects And College Admissions (03:30)High School Internships & Their Impact On University Admissions (10:25)Internships, Academic Achievement & Career Success (15:19)Future Of Education, Career Development, And Soft Skills Training (25:00)Alternative Education Paths & Coaching For Students (33:29)Meet Joel NicholsonJoel Nicholson is widely recognized as the world's top youth coach and the original pioneer of the youth coach role nearly 15 years ago. He created Youthfully, the leading coaching and development platform for students. Youthfully flips the antiquated, one-size-fits-all educational model on its head by offering powerful one-on-one coaching, usually reserved to top executives and making it accessible to young people through an innovative platform. Youthfully helps students of their own, boasting some of the highest success rates to the world's top employers and universities, thanks to its unique, holistic approach that crafts the whole student. They also help career centers at universities, admissions consulting firms, and tutoring or counselling organizations optimize and scale their coaching functions using Youthfully's technology and systems. Joel's career began in management consulting, but his path quickly veered towards education and tech with the launch and subsequent sale of his first company, CampusRankings, in 2016. He's a former college professor, and has led workshops at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the University of Toronto, the African Leadership Academy, and other leading institutions. Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple PodcastsMoney Boss Parents! Welcome to Anna's Money Boss Parent podcast, your go-to resource for mastering money management while raising a family. Join me as we explore practical tips, expert insights, and inspiring stories to help you achieve financial success and create a brighter future for your loved ones. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show to support our mission of empowering parents like you to take charge of their finances and build a prosperous life for their families. Let's thrive together on this incredible journey!Links mentioned in this episodeFREE GUIDE- Kid Money Boss: School isn't teaching my son about Money. It's up to us Parents. Here are 9 tools I am using to team my son, everything I never learned as a kid.Guest websites:

Meet Acha Leke, senior partner and chairman of McKinsey Africa and co-founder of the African Leadership Academy. Leke has been analyzing the economic prospects of the continent for decades, so he's the perfect person to share insights on its future, from productivity and digital transformation to the impact of Africa's youth boom and how to plan proactively for job growth. The economic landscape in Africa has shifted dramatically in recent years. In 2010, McKinsey's "Lions on the Move" report, co-authored by Leke, showcased the continent's incredible growth potential. But now in 2024, the story has changed, and the outlook is a bit more pessimistic. Still, Leke notes that there is no “one Africa” or one “sub-Saharan Africa,” so economic growth trajectories can vary widely between countries.“The reality is the last 10 years have been tougher. There's some bright spots, but growth has slowed down considerably from 5.1 percent in the 2000s to more like 3.4 percent in the last 10 years, in a continent that, on average, population grows at 2. 7 percent. So net-net, we're not seeing much per capita growth,” Leke says.Leke believes digital technology is the single most important lever to transform productivity in Africa across public, private, and social sectors. But he advises that more needs to be done to achieve widespread impact, emphasizing the role of political leadership and regulations.Key Insights:Africa's productivity lags behind other regions across sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, and services. Boosting productivity is critical. Large African corporate champions play a vital role in driving growth and innovation and in supporting SMEs in their supply chains.SMEs are critical as they provide 80-90 percent of jobs. Enabling them to thrive is paramount. With the world's largest and youngest workforce, Africa has a chance to be a leading exporter of digital services talent globally. But it will take proactive efforts to develop skills at scale.With the right focus on productivity, skills development, infrastructure, and leadership, Africa stands on the cusp of rewriting its economic story for 2024 and beyond. Listen to Leke's honest assessment of Africa's economic challenges as well as an optimistic take on the path forward.Additional Resources:“The path to greater productivity and prosperity in Africa,” McKinsey & Company, August 2023Reimagining economic growth in Africa: Turning diversity into opportunity, McKinsey & Company, June 2023.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Laura Kaub, director of the Duolingo partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees program, talks about keeping refugees and African students out of the "hole" in holistic admission so they can get into the economic, educational and political systems that can bring about change. She provides examples of U.S colleges that "get it right," including Macalester and Northwestern, as well as models around the globe, like Rwanda and Uganda.Contact Laura directly if you're interested in talking with her about the students she serves.ReferencesPresident's Alliance on Higher Education and ImmigrationMasterCard FoundationWorld University Services of CanadaDuolingo English TestRapid DescentWalkout song: Ghostwriter RJD2Best recent read: The Expanse Series by James S.A. CoreyEager to read next: Old World, Young Africa, a New York Times series Favorite thing to make in the kitchen:  Sparkling conversationTaking and keeping notes: 2/3 paper and pen (no ball points, please!); 1/3 open email to herselfMemorable bit of advice: A whole lot of what's going on [in the college search] is not as big a deal as it seems.Bucket list: Ever since watching Ugly Delicious, I've wanted to do a food tour of Japan and South Korea with David Chang.The ALP is supported by RHB. Music arranged by Ryan Anselment

Episode 30 is with Bilha Ndirangu, CEO of Great Carbon Valley.Today Na'im speaks with Bilha Ndirangu. Bilha is the CEO of Great Carbon Valley. She is also the co-founder of Jacob's Ladder Africa, a non-profit focused on green workforce preparation.  In this and other roles, she is at the intersection of climate action, technology, and education, positioning Africa as an investment destination for the green economy, identifying and scaling relevant technologies, and preparing its youth to provide the requisite skills mix. She has had previous roles as CEO of the African Leadership Academy and CEO of Africa's Talking (a communications technology company), where she expanded the company into 20 markets in African countries. She also worked at Dalberg, where she helped launch the Nairobi office. Bilha holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from MIT and is a Yale Emerging Climate Leaders Fellow.Great Carbon Valley (GCV) is a systems integrator and project development company working to harness the abundant resources of the Great Rift Valley towards the global decarbonization efforts by developing large scale green industry and carbon removals projects. GCV aims to develop comprehensive DACS-anchored industrial parks that serve as complete solutions for energy-intensive businesses, enabling them to operate with enhanced efficiency and achieving net zero targets. GCV is seeking and working with a network of actors, including energy developers, Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology ventures, carbon storage providers, green industries, and project financiers, to develop the hubs. Earlier this year, GCV announced a partnership with Climeworks to explore development of large-scale direct air capture and storage projects in Kenya.In this episode, Na'im and Bilha discuss:* The mission and vision of Great Carbon Valley;* Attributes that make Kenya and East Africa ideal for hosting carbon removal projects;* The political wil behind carbon removal in Kenya and the potential political leaders see;* The employment and innovation opportunities that could come out of Africa;* Policies that will support industrial-scale carbon removal in East Africa;* Challenges and opportunities in attracting companies to build up the ecosystem in Kenya; and* The biggest disconnect in conversations around scaling carbon removal solutions between Europe, North America, and Africa.Relevant Links:* Envisioning African CDR Innovation with Bilha Ndirangu, Great Carbon Valley - Carbon Removal Africa Webinar* Africa's Great Carbon Valley - TED Talk by James Mwangi* Climeworks and Great Carbon Valley chart path to large-scale direct air capture and storage deployment in KenyaThis episode was created and published by Na'im Merchant. Episode production and content support provided by Tank Chen.Na'im Merchant is the co-founder and Executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada, a policy initiative focused on scaling carbon removal in Canada. He is also a policy fellow with Elemental Excelerator. He previously ran carbon removal consulting practice Carbon Curve, and publishes The Carbon Curve newsletter and podcast. Every two weeks, Na'im will release a short interview with individuals advancing the policies, technologies, and collective action needed to scale up carbon removal around the world.Tank Chen is a carbon removal advocate based in Taiwan whose focus is on communicating the importance of CDR to policy makers, corporate leaders, and the broader public through education, communications, and policy advocacy.If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app or subscribe via The Carbon Curve newsletter here. If you'd like to get in touch with Na'im, you can reach out via LinkedIn. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carboncurve.substack.com

"I find that listening to young people is like listening to the future,” Nigel says setting up our latest episode, which features the perspectives on the futures of race from young African people.   Our guests, who are students of the groundbreaking African Leadership Academy, are among the millions of people below the age of 25 who make up 60 per cent of Africa's population and make it the world's youngest continent. They offer glimpses at how young Africans make sense of race now and how they could shape its future, amid complex personal and national histories. The episode also features analyses of intra-continental migration in Africa from Mariama Mohamed Cisse of the International Organisation for Migration.   Journey with us across Africa.   Hosted by: Nigel Richard Special thanks: Sebabatso Manoeli-Lesame, Laetitia Nolwazi Mbuli, Yasmeen Rubidge, Modupeola Oyebolu, Lindokuhle Nkosi and Daryl Hannah    Produced by: The Good People at Between Productions Website: Moya Digital Magazine  

Muhammad Bassyouny and Ahmed Yehia are two of the founders (along with Alaa Ahmed) of Nour Holistic Education, which immerses students in the tradition, nature, and the ancient lifeways and wisdom of the Bedouin people living in the sacred region around St Catherine's monastery, on the slopes of Mt Sinai in Egypt. Drawing upon influences as diverse as Deep Springs College, the Danish folk high schools, and the African Leadership Academy in South Africa, Nour offers holistic summer and winter programs for teenagers and adults combining readings and movement practices drawn from qi gong and martial arts with profound immersions in the lives of their Bedouin faculty and hosts, all in one most spiritually and culturally significant places on Earth.Nour Holistic Education: https://nourprograms.org/Thoreau College: https://www.thoreaucollege.orgDeep Springs College: https://www.deepsprings.eduDriftless Folk School: https://www.driftlessfolkschool.orgAfrican Leadership Academy: https://www.africanleadershipacademy.org/The Island School: https://islandschool.org/Brandbjerg Højskole: https://brandbjerg.dk/international/

In this episode, Diana shares her experience moving from Senegal to South Africa, then to Indiana, USA, and finally to Utah, USA, where she currently lives. She talks about the difference in experiences between moving to a place where she was surrounded by other Africans and moving to a place where she was one of few. She also talks about rethinking self-care, especially when self-care is highly commodified.  Diana completed her A-levels at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. She then moved to the USA to pursue a bachelor's degree in International Economics at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She is currently based in Salt Lake City, Utah, as an investment banking analyst. Diana's podcast recommendations:  1. Not Your Average Jo (Apple Podcasts link)  2. Code Switch 3. Kiffe Ta Race4. InPower (Apple Podcasts link) Connect with her on LinkedIn or contact Refilwe for her email address. Homebound Podcast details are coming soon! Stay tuned! Journey Abroad on Twitter: @journeyabroad_Journey Abroad on Instagram: @journeyabroad_podcastMusic by:  John_Sib from Pixabay

Nono is a commercial farmer and business women who has built a remarkable career in the agricultural sector focusing on primary agriculture, particularly in empowering youth, women and new entrants in the agriculture sector.We discuss her role within the African Leadership Academy where she has successfully managed to establish and run the AL for Agribusiness Network Program, which aims to support and connect alumni of the ALA and MasterCard Foundation to the agricultural sector, across the African continent.Please rate and review this podcast episode.Please rate and review this podcast episode.Email info@mbalinwoko.comSubscribe to The Mbali Nwoko Podcast today!

What does Africa mean to us today? Fellow Takondwa Priscilla Semphere teaches at the African Leadership Academy, a school where approximately 35 African countries are represented at one time. Takondwa speaks with her students about the complicated question of how we understand and define Africa and its people for this episode. In the news wrap, Kim and Rachel discuss a special edition of The Monkey Cage's newsletter devoted to elections in Africa in 2023 and talk about last week's conversation with guest Idayat Hassan on elections in Nigeria. Find the books, links, and articles we mentioned in this episode on our website, ufahamuafrica.com.

For many young professionals, either stepping into the career space fresh out of college or deciding whether to leave that entry-level job they've been in for two years, life sometimes appears to hand you grapes expecting you to make lemonade. Without any leverage as a young upstart in the job market, it can seem like the entire world is looking to you to figure everything out without lending a helping hand. In this episode, Lara walks us through how she has explored her interests over the years and pivoted careers whenever she's felt drawn to add value to young people. Having also worked as the Chief Financial and Operating Officer at the African Leadership Academy, she looks back at the global network she has amassed over the years and credits her career progression and impact to open-mindedness and the ability to double down on her strengths while surrounding herself with intelligent team members. Listen to how she moves from making good choices to better, and better ones to the best. Support and engage with us further by subscribing to our Patreon Page here: https://www.patreon.com/boardroombanter?fan_landing=true

This week on the podcast we are in Kenya, specifically a town called Mariakani which is about 2 hours away from Mombasa. I am speaking to a young lady who has defied the odds and pursued her dream of fixing problems with her coding skills. She codes about 100 hours a week but that doesn't stop her from being an avid reader and writer. She read 58 books in 2021 and has been a consistent writer of technical articles, newspaper content, blogs and much more. She is also the author of the book 'Of Scattered Tears' which is available on Amazon. When Mr. Fred Swaniker; Founder of African Leadership Academy spoke to her in 2021, he called it “The most inspiring conversation I've had this year”. Firdaus H. Salim is our guest on the podcast this week and she shares how and why she does all these hard things. Social Media LinkedIn: Firdaus H. Salim Instagram: Dear Young Afrikan Facebook: Dear Young Afrikan Mr. Fred Swaniker's article about Firdaus: “The most inspiring conversation I've had this year” The book by Firdaus: " Of Scattered Tears" Firdaus' blog - Betascribbles

In this week's episode, I chat with final year student, Trevor Lwere. We talk about his experience moving to South Bend, Indiana, USA. Trevor mentions the healthy habits he is trying to adopt, the challenges he faced while adapting to life in the US, as well as his role as the previous president of the African Students' Association at the University of Notre Dame. Before beginning his tertiary education, Trevor studied at the African Leadership Academy in Roodepoort, South Africa. He then moved to the USA to study Economics, Global Affairs and Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is currently in his final year.  You can connect with him on LinkedIn. Notes from the episode: Pan-African Youth Conference (Virtual) Theme: Which Way, Africa?March 26-17 2022 The Pan-African Youth Conference (PAYC) is a conference co-organized by the African Students' Association (ASA) at the University of Notre Dame and the Pan-African Students' Union (PASU) at Northwestern University that seeks to foster a common understanding and diagnosis of Africa's challenges amongst students from across the world who are interested in the development of Africa.Participants in the Conference engage in critical debate and discussions that seek to answer four critical questions: Who we are as Africans? Where are we as a continent? How did we get here? How do we go from here? Journey Abroad on Twitter: @journeyabroad_Journey Abroad on Instagram: @journeyabroad_podcastMusic by:  John_Sib from Pixabay 

Frustrated. Angry. Disappointed. Such are the feelings of young people in the face of climate change. Four students from News Decoder partner schools -- Paulo Araujo and Panashe Noel Jonga of the African Leadership Academy, Raivo Kleijsen of the European School of Brussels II and Lucy Maitland-Lewis of The Thacher School -- speak about their feelings as world leaders meet at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

In this episode we took a deep dive into the philosophy, vision and mission of the African Leadership Academy. To some it's the most expensive school in Africa (although this is misleading), to others this is one of the few schools that is revolutionizing African education. Join us as we sit down with the Dean to discuss the curriculum, the impact of the school, its model and whether it's sustainable as well as the Americanization of African institutions and what the implications of that are.

What does it take for Latin America to have the next Nelson Mandela, Greta Thunberg, or a few thousand more David Vélez?LALA, the Latin American Leadership Academy, believes it's about unleashing the potential in young people and bringing them together. Seeking to promote sustainable economic development and strengthen democratic governance, LALA is finding, developing and connecting a new generation of entrepreneurial, principled, impact-focused leaders for the region.Diego Ontaneda has seen it work. Originally from Peru, in 2013 he joined the African Leadership Academy, and became determined to adapt the model to LatAm. After completing an MBA from Stanford, he was introduced to educator David Baptista and found in him the ideal founding partner to build LALA. With over 15 years of experience, David chose this path inspired by his own family's story of breaking the cycle of poverty through education.In this episode, Diego and David share:How the Theory of Change and Systems Thinking are applied at LALAHow Unit economics work for non-profitsHow to measure your Social Return on InvestmentAnd how to become an allyStarting something new?Apply at apply.latitud.com

As Dean of the African Leadership Academy, Hatim Eltayeb leads the Diploma Program, enabling the rich community of colleagues bringing the leadership learning program to life. Hatim is a life-long educator with pan-African and south-south tendencies. Sudanese by spirit and nationality; born in Kuwait; reared in Oman; raised in Cairo and flourishing in Johannesburg. Alongside a committed team, Hatim works to translate ALA's mission into the daily work of building, learning, innovating and leading school community. He has represented ALA's work at conferences and convenings across the continent as well as in Singapore, Japan, the US and at the European Parliament in Brussels. Between 2012 and 2016, Hatim was back in his formative home of Cairo, Egypt. With two partner educators, he founded Symposium, a school services and consulting company. Symposium's flagship product, sympoSAT, grew to serve hundreds of students at 15 leading independent schools in Cairo. He left his executive position in 2016 to return to the Academy. Outside of ALA, Hatim serves on the board of Streetlight Schools, an organization working to make world-class education accessible to every South African child. Social Links LinkedIn: @hatim-eltayeb Twitter: @ALAcademy

Part 2 of this UNAJUA Throwback series takes us back to when Lucy Hoffman, co-founder and head of operations at the Cape Town-based mobile content development startup Carry1st, joined Andile Masuku and Osarumen Osamuyi for an extended insight-rich chat—published on March 10th 2020. (Since then, Carry1st has gone on to close a $6 million Series A led by Colorado-based VC firm, Konvoy Ventures.) In this episode, Lucy Hoffman outlines Carry1st's user adoption strategy and suggests how startups like hers plan to compete against the likes of Facebook and Tencent. Lucy is an experienced American business operations specialist who, prior to joining Carry1st, spearheaded operations at impact investment facilitation startup Nexii and the African Leadership Academy. Before that, she interned for the global diversity and inclusion team at Credit Suisse and spent three and a half years embedded at Morgan & Stanley, where she worked on M&A and capital markets transactions for global power and utility companies. You can listen to the full original episode here: www.africantechroundup.com/lucy-hoffman-carry1st/ HAVE YOUR SAY (https://telbee.io/channel/uuatbnkraty1vn-nkazpcg/index.html): Leave us a 60-sec voice note with your reactions to any of the topics raised in the UNAJUA Series. (We will include some of your audio takes in future follow-up episodes.) Image Credit: Shaw Fields (Unsplash)

This UNAJUA Throwback episode takes us back to when Lucy Hoffman, co-founder and head of operations at the Cape Town-based, American mobile content development startup Carry1st joined Andile Masuku and Osarumen Osamuyi for an extended insight-rich chat (published on March 10th 2020). Since recording this conversation, Carry1st has closed a $6 million Series A led by Colorado-based VC firm Konvoy Ventures. Listen in to learn why, as glitzy ecosystem trends like fintech and mobility continue to dominate headlines, Lucy and the rest of her team at Carry1st are quietly bullish on the mobile gaming industry's low-key commercial case and 'super-app/super-platform' potential. Lucy is an experienced American business operations specialist who, prior to joining Carry1st, spearheaded operations at impact investment facilitation startup Nexii and the African Leadership Academy. Before that, she interned for the global diversity and inclusion team at Credit Suisse and spent three and a half years embedded at Morgan & Stanley, where she worked on M&A and capital markets transactions for global power and utility companies. You can listen to the full original episode here(https://www.africantechroundup.com/lucy-hoffman-carry1st/) Click here (https://telbee.io/channel/uuatbnkraty1vn-nkazpcg/index.html) to leave us a 60-sec voice note with your reactions to any of the topics raised in the UNAJUA Series. (We will include some of your audio takes in future follow-up episodes.) Image credits: Kojo Kwarteng

On July 25th, Republic Day in Tunisia, non-partisan protests erupted in various cities, calling for the dismissal of the government and corrupt political parties that have been stalling progress in parliament and failed to address the COVID-19 crisis adequately. That night, president Kais Saied invoked Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution that allows him to implement exceptional measures “in the event of imminent danger threatening the nation's institutions or the security or independence of the country, and hampering the normal functioning of the state” quoting the constitution. These exceptional measures included the dismissal of the Head of Government, Hichem Mechichi, the suspension of parliament and lifting immunity off all parliamentary representatives. Many Tunisians took to the streets and celebrated the announcement with song and dance, while others were rather skeptical. We have invited three Tunisians to discuss what happened and how they perceive the events: Belkiss Anane, Heythem Guesmi and Habib Sayah. Belkiss Anane is a Washington, DC- based Tunisian consultant. Mathematician by training, she holds a minor in MENA studies from Northwestern University and has pursued African Studies at the African Leadership Academy. Belkis has been active with several NGOs in the U.S. and Tunisia, largely focusing on the Arab region and specifically on women empowerment and Palestinian affairs. Heythem Guesmi is a 30-year-old researcher in rural politics and peasants struggles. He belongs to the "Youth of the Revolution", is interested in the history of transitions and the establishment of cultural hegemony. Habib Sayah is a Tunisia-based consultant and researcher. His recent work has focused on security sector reform as well as the effects of disinformation and propaganda on social cohesion, community resilience, and polarisation. He holds a Master's degree from the War Studies department at King's College London.

Learn with Avthar #10: Veda Sunassee on Creating Africa's Next Leaders, Reflection Techniques, Finding FulfillmentVeda is a leadership and education expert. He hails from Mauritius, and has spent most of his career building the next generation of young African leaders through his work at African Leadership Academy and African Leadership University. He was selected among the inaugural Obama Leaders in 2018 and was chosen amongst the 100 most influential Young Africans by African Youth Awards in 2019.TOPICS DISCUSSED:Veda's journey from Mauritius to Princeton and how he found his strengths along the wayThe power of listening to your inner voice, the value of empty space and Veda's favorite reflection practices and techniques that you can use today.Veda's philosophy of leadership and entrepreneurship and frameworks he uses to become a better leader, like the Leadership Map and the PICS framework (passions, interests, causes and skills)Veda's biggest lessons building some of Africa's finest educational institutions (ALA and ALU), how to balance achievement and fulfillment and how to take an iterative approach to your lifeSHOW NOTESAfrican Leadership Academy - https://www.africanleadershipacademy.orgAfrican Leadership University - https://www.alueducation.com/Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans - https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived-Joyful/dp/1101875321Level 5 Leadership - https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/level-five-leadership.htmlIn The Room Podcast - https://intheroom.buzzsprout.com/Veda's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/vsunassee/?hl=enVeda's Twitter - https://twitter.com/vedasunasseeVeda's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/veda-sunassee-37019715/ABOUT LEARN WITH AVTHARLearn with Avthar is the podcast that helps you become a Learning Machine. Join entrepreneur and technologist Avthar Sewrathan as he talks with world class guests about self-mastery, startups, health and happiness. Avthar unpacks truths, lessons and mindsets that you can use to level up your life. Learn more and stay up to date at https://www.avthar.comAvthar's Weekly Wisdom Newsletter: https://avthar.substack.com​​Twitter: https://twitter.com/avthars​​TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@avtharsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avthars/

Hello everyone! Welcome to episode 73My guest today is Tamuda Chimhanda from Zimbabwe but based in South Africa. He's passionate about robotics and artificial intelligence and the potential it has to transform Africa. In this episode, we learn that Robotics "picked him" he was always a curious child, and he wanted to understand how things work by breaking appliances in his home. He spent most of his life developing his innovative side by learning to make and build things. He also attributes his successes to his older brother, who has always been a positive influence. In primary school, Tamuda joined a robotics club and later in 2018 was accepted into the Zimbabwe national Robotics Team, where he was one of the youngest in the team. The team went on to represent the country at the Robotics Olympics in Mexico.He went on to work for Microsoft as the Southern African Ambassador for Digital Civility, a council dedicated to making the internet a safe space for teens. He is currently enrolled at the African Leadership Academy, where he is studying entrepreneurial leadership, computer science, and physics. One of the innovations he co-founded is BOE- The Book of Everything, which aims to increase access to education for the 56 million African students who do not have access to the internet in their communities. He tells us more about his role in this project and its significance.He tells us about Glimmer Virtual Reality, the second innovation he co-created. To address the issues raised by the pandemic's travel restrictions and provide Africans, particularly those in Zimbabwe, with the ability to travel their own country in a virtual setting.  We learn about all of this and so much more. LinkedIn- Tamuda ChimhandaFacebook- Tamuda ChimhandaSupport the show (https://paypal.me/RootofSciPod?locale.x=en_US)

The road that brought Chris Bradford to Chapel Hill began in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and included stops in New Haven, Connecticut; Palo Alto, California; Oundle, England; and Johannesburg, South Africa. Chris spoke with Morehead-Cain from his home in Johannesburg to share his story of founding African Leadership Academy (ALA), his personal mission (which he says is to “build platforms that enable individuals to reimagine what’s possible for themselves and their societies”), and his vision for Morehead-Cain as the incoming president.Chris, CEO and co-founder of ALA, will succeed Executive Director Chuck Lovelace ’77, who leaves this summer after 37 years with the Foundation. Learn more about Chris.How to listenOn your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed. Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at communications@moreheadcain.org.Music credits The intro music is by Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul.The music for the ending is by Nicholas Byrne ’19. Follow Nicholas @art.sandcrafts on Instagram. 

Pour ce 11ème épisode de Sabali, j'ai eu l'immense plaisir de recevoir Papa Moda LOUM, Chargé d'investissements à la Banque Mondiale (BM).  Il était très important pour moi de l'inviter dans mon podcast, car, on le sait des Africains, jeunes et Sénégalais de surcroît travaillant à la BM ne font pas légion. Cette invitation était pour moi une manière de mettre en lumière ces futurs leaders comme Papa Moda. Et surtout de montrer aux jeunes africains les voies et moyens pour intégrer cette prestigieuse institution qu'est la BM. Originaire de la ville de Dakar où il a suivi ses études jusqu'à la Seconde aux Cours Saint Marie de Hann. Papa Moda a été reçu à la fois au Collège du Monde Uni et au African Leadership Academy dont Aida Ndiaye que je salue nous a beaucoup parlé.  Finalement, il a opté pour le Collège du Monde Uni à Singapour où il s'est forgé une vraie personnalité avant de rejoindre Colby College aux Etats Unis où il s'est spécialisé en économie et en finances.  Papa Moda est largement revenu sur les motivations qui l'ont amené à travailler pour la Citi Bank et aujourd'hui à la Banque Mondiale. Pour les jeunes qui nous écoutent Papa Moda est revenu très en détails sur le processus de sélection à la BM, le rôle de la BM, ses différentes missions et aussi l'intérêt de ces missions.  Au-delà du brillant intellectuel, j'ai beaucoup aimé l'homme qui se cache derrière féru de littérature et adepte de l'indépendance et de la curiosité intellectuelle. D'ailleurs à cet égard, j'en profite pour rendre un hommage appuyé à son défunt père Amadou Mbaye LOUM, une grande figure de l'audiovisuel Sénégalais pour qui Papa Moda ne tarit pas d'éloges et qui représente aussi un modèle de pensée et une source de motivation.  Ecoles et universités fréquentées United World College  Colby College Livres recommandées Maktub de Paulo Coelho Zero To One de Peter Thiel En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages de Amadou Kourouma

Interview with Fatoumata Fall. Fatu grew up in Senegal. Her life was forever changed when she got admitted to the African Leadership Academy amongst 3000 young Africans at the age of 15. She graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Applied Mathematics and got featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. She trained over 300 mid-level female managers and her mission is to empower women and help them fulfill their potential at work, and in their personal lives.Fatu experienced her first burnout at the age of 28.In this inspiring podcast interview you will learn:✨ How different burnout episodes where necessary to understand what needs to change✨ Which changes Fatu started to make in order to tackle her burnout✨ Why it is important to understand your belief system and overcome Enjoy watching. With gratitude,Julia----SHOWNOTESIf you would like to challenge your belief system forever, make sure to watch this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/v_oAXkxTARgIf you would like to join a group of Peak Performers prevent burnout and build healthy habits:https://www.peakperformancemethod.com/academy-of-peak-performersMore about Fatu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fatoumata-fall-49a93228/------

Pour ce 11ème épisode de Sabali, j'ai eu l'immense plaisir de recevoir Papa Moda LOUM, Chargé d'investissements à la Banque Mondiale (BM).  Il était très important pour moi de l'inviter dans mon podcast, car, on le sait des Africains, jeunes et Sénégalais de surcroît travaillant à la BM ne font pas légion. Cette invitation était pour moi une manière de mettre en lumière ces futurs leaders comme Papa Moda. Et surtout de montrer aux jeunes africains les voies et moyens pour intégrer cette prestigieuse institution qu'est la BM. Nous avons évoqué la récente nomination de Makhtar DIOP, ancien Ministre Sénégalais de l'économie et des Finances et Vice-Président pour les infrastructures à la BM, aujourd'hui à la tête de l'IFC (International Finance Corporation). J'ai voulu également recueillir son avis sur la crise du Covid qui s'est traduite en une crise économique.  Originaire de la ville de Dakar où il a suivi ses études jusqu'à la Seconde aux Cours Saint Marie de Hann. Papa Moda a été reçu à la fois au Collège du Monde Uni et au African Leadership Academy dont Aida Ndiaye que je salue nous a beaucoup parlé.  Finalement, il a opté pour le Collège du Monde Uni à Singapour où il s'est forgé une vraie personnalité avant de rejoindre Colby College aux Etats Unis où il s'est spécialisé en économie et en finances.  Papa Moda est largement revenu sur les motivations qui l'ont amené à travailler pour la Citi Bank et aujourd'hui à la Banque Mondiale. Pour les jeunes qui nous écoutent Papa Moda est revenu très en détails sur le processus de sélection à la BM, le rôle de la BM, ses différentes missions et aussi l'intérêt de ces missions.  Au-delà du brillant intellectuel, j'ai beaucoup aimé l'homme qui se cache derrière féru de littérature et adepte de l'indépendance et de la curiosité intellectuelle. D'ailleurs à cet égard, j'en profite pour rendre un hommage appuyé à son défunt père Amadou Mbaye LOUM, une grande figure de l'audiovisuel Sénégalais pour qui Papa Moda ne tarit pas d'éloges et qui représente aussi un modèle de pensée et une source de motivation.  Bonne écoute ! 

This conversation will focus on Parenting and Life Long learning. The future of our success as humanity lies in a great education. Most parents want their kids to grow up so that they are successful and can make a positive impact in the world. However, it’s not clear on the way forward as a parent especially because of the pandemic. Is it better to homeschool or make sure they are in a school or university that is more project-based or that focuses on building human potential rather than grades? How can we educate the youth to develop the right skills needed for the future and what are those skills? How do teachers need to adapt to more of a remote working environment? The pace of change keeps accelerating and what we learn today becomes irrelevant tomorrow. How do we build a culture of life-long learning so that we remain curious and motivated to constantly keep learning new skills and tools? Exponential technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, 3d printing and networksand sensors have become widely more available to amplify and enhance learning inmuch more empathetic, immersive, and experiential ways. How is this impacting education?Featuring:Dr Esther Wojcicki - SingularityU Faculty for Education. Esther's primary focus is to help parents, teachers and managers be more effective at home, in the classroom, and in the corporate world! Esther holds three honorary doctorates and is the best selling author of "How to Raise Successful People".Fred Swaniker - Deeply passionate about Africa and believes that the missing ingredient on the continent is good leadership. In line with this, he has founded two organizations that aim to catalyze a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial African leaders: African Leadership Academy and the African Leadership Network.

Zachariah Hani Jambo is currently a student at the African Leadership University in Kigali, Rwanda. He was born in Khartoum, Sudan, although he is of South Sudanese origin - specifically, of the Moru tribe. His family moved to Cairo, Egypt when he was just three, and he grew up there under tenuous circumstances - for example, he and his family had to avoid the Egyptian authorities until his father, a professor, was able to secure a registration with the UNHCR. He went on from Cairo to study at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, and had a brief stint in Uganda before ending up in Kigali. This episode, Zach tells us about his life so far, his travels, adventures, and hopes for his future. 

This episode is part of a special series recorded to celebrate Father’s Day.For the series I interviewed some friends and mentors. I asked them to reflect on the greatest lessons that shaped the men they have become and also to reflect on how these lessons have influenced them as parents.About my Guest:Gbenga Oyebode is a co-founder and the chairman of the Nigerian law firm Aluko & Oyebode, where he advises corporations on matters relating to energy and natural resources, telecommunications, project finance, and aviation.Mr. Oyebode is passionate about education and the arts. He serves on the Global Advisory Council of the African Leadership Academy and is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, a director of Teach for All, and the chairman of Teach for Nigeria. He also sits on the boards of Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the Africa Philanthropy Forum, and he is a member of the Cleveland Museum of Arts International Collectors Council.

Acha Leke is the Chairman of McKinsey Africa and a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. He established Mckinsey's Nigeria office in 2010 and has been at the forefront of McKinsey's expansion across Africa, working in more than twenty countries. He is also the co-founder of the African Leadership Group, which includes the African Leadership Academy and the African Leadership Network.

In this clip, guest Sena Voncujovi describes his work with the African Leadership Group, an organization dedicated to producing the next generation of leaders on the African continent. Sena talks about his time at African Leadership Academy in South Africa, as well as studying abroad at African Leadership University in Mauritius. He highlights how these experiences impacted his life and shaped his passion for Africa.Clip from Learn with Avthar Ep #3 with Sena Voncujovi. Learn more and stay up to date at www.avthar.com

Africa needs between 500 billion to 1.2 trillion USD annually to meet its 2030 Development goals. This is according to a UN report on Financing for Sustainable Development. With the current deficits in most African countries, innovative financial models are crucial. This week, our guest speaker, Dr. Frank Aswani, sheds light on his contribution to Social Investment in Africa. Dr. Aswani is the CEO of African Venture Philanthropy Alliance. This is a network for social investors that facilitates the flow of human, intellectual and financial capital. The Alliance operates in Africa and across a network of 52 countries globally. Aswani is also the MD of Asili Consulting. He previously served as VP & Director of Strategic Relations in the African Leadership Academy. He was also the South Africa & Sub Saharan Sales Director for Eli Lilly & Co among others. In this episode, he elaborates on the different innovative financial models & how your social investment venture can start and remain sustainable. Tune in this week and enjoy the knowledge of a brilliant thought leader on matters Investments.

This Part 2 of my interview with Fred Swaniker, founder of Africa Leadership Academy (ALA), Africa Leadership Univerity (ALU) and ALX (among others). Fred is one of Time Magazine's Most Influential People in the World and has done the requisite mainstage TED talk. I believe this is the only time he has publicly talked about marketing.Subscribe to the podcast: Apple, Sticher, TuneIn, Overcast , Spotify. Private Feed.Transcript:Edward: This is part two of my interview with Fred Swaniker. Today, we're going to dive into his experience leading ALX. Fred, ALU is Africa Leadership University; ALA, Africa Leadership Academy; ALN, Africa Leadership Network. What does ALX stand for? Does it stand for anything?Fred: We wanted ALX to really stand for disruption. It's the anti-university, anti-high school, and we wanted to establish a new category of higher education and the future of learning, et cetera. It actually stands for whatever you want it to stand for. If you want to call it Alternative Learning Exchange, you can call it that. You want to call it Audacious Leadership Experience, you can call it that. Anything that you see as disruptive and unconventional, you can put that label on ALX. That was really the idea behind, like Google has Google X. We want to say this is a very different thing from traditional education. Edward: Explain to me what ALX actually is today.Fred: Think of ALX as a lifelong learning platform with programs that people can take at different stages of their lives. One of the things we believe is that the world has changed so fast, that what you learn in college quickly becomes outdated. You need to keep adapting your skills and learn new things, so you can remain relevant. But yet today, if you want to learn, you either go back to graduate school for two years or one year, or you're left with watching TED talks.So we thought we would build something that was more structured, that could walk with you along different stages of your life. We have different programs where you might have one program for recent college graduates, which is a six-month boot camp where they learn the skills that they should have learned in college, but they didn't. That would actually make them more highly employable, and then they get their first job.Edward: What are examples of those skills? Are you teaching them to code? Are you teaching them to do project management?Fred: Absolutely not. They're learning critical thinking skills, communication skills, leadership, how to manage projects, how to analyze data and make good decisions with it, how to manage themselves, how to manage up [...]. Basically, what you wish every entry-level grad would have, that they just know how to get stuff done, they ask good questions, they show up every day at work, and they're very driven and understand that, and are really open to learning new things.Let's face it. There are very few jobs straight off college where you need to be a specialist in anything. Investment banks will hire people who've done classics in history and engineering, and then they'll train them into what they want. What you're looking for is that adaptable person who's hungry to learn, and really has got these traits that make them highly employable. That's what we're trying to do within that program.Edward: How much of that is the person versus the training? How much is ALX that they're signaling, hey, I'm the type of person who likes to learn, and I want to come work for your company and I'll learn there, versus actual skills that they need to learn before they can start.Fred: It's a bit of both. We take them through a lot of learning by doing and giving them all feedback in ALX. One of the things we believe is that—there was a lot of research that shows—only 10% of any skill can be effectively learned in the classroom, 20% comes from your peers and mentors and coaches, and 70% comes from doing. But yet today, most education is only focused on that 10%. We try and really give people this simulation of the workplace for six months and we give them feedback and then they learn there. By the time they show up for work, they've really got the skills. We've basically done the work for an employer, that they would have had to do in upskilling someone for the world of work in their first year of employment. That aspect with ALX is the brand that we give because what we're signaling to the employers is that we have taken this person to a very rigorous selection process. We only admit about 1% of the people who applied to ALX. The employer knows that we filtered through a lot of folks so that immediately makes them take our talent more seriously.Edward: Why are they buying ALX? Are they effectively buying access to a job?Fred: We try and advertise that. We're saying that you're getting access to skills and networks that can create a lifetime of opportunities for you. You're also joining a club and lifelong community because the peers that you meet in ALX can open doors for you throughout the rest of your life and they can support you, et cetera. We are going to be your partner at different stages of your life. As you progress and you become a manager, you can come back to ALX for manager training. Then three years later, you need to learn data science, you can come up for ALX. We're constantly giving you feedback and identifying development needs, and we're walking with you throughout your career. That is what you're buying when you apply to ALX.Edward: Who are the buyers? Are they all university grads? Or before they graduate? Are they unemployed people? Are they trying to accelerate their existing careers?Fred: We have two main target audiences. One is the fresh university graduate. For example, in Kenya, it takes the average Kenyan college graduate five years to get a job. Many people have got a degree, they've got the theory, but they don't have the networks and skills. That's our target market for the first category. The second category are mid-career managers who want to accelerate their careers. We've got programs for those two different types.Edward: How are they finding ALX? How do your customers find you? How do the students find you?Fred: What's been really exciting is that most of them, the first cohort found us simply through three main ways. One is at the African Leadership Academy and African Leadership University. The two institutions that I built before ALX that built significant brands with them. We used to get thousands of people applying to both of those institutions for just a couple of hundred slots. We obviously had a lot of people who had tried again to ALA and couldn't get in. Tried again to ALU, couldn't get in. That's when we started ALX. Part of the reason they couldn't get into the ALX, ALU would also relate to cost. When we brought ALX to their city, then then they said, I've been trying to get into your institutions for several years, and now you're here in my backyard.”Many people just jumped into our ALX because of what we've done before.The second way in which they may have found us was through partnerships. We established lots of partnerships with universities because they have a problem. They're graduating kids and they're not getting jobs. We were a nice compliment to them; we're not competing with them at all. Youth groups and companies that are trying to connect with youth, et cetera. Finally, my personal brand. Over the years I have been able to build a following amongst young people because of the work I've been doing. I have about 200,000 followers on social media, so I just literally went and posted on those different platforms. That immediately spread and young people wanted to be part of it all.We didn't have to spend much money on marketing at all, to attract the first cohort. For the second cohort, they came because of word of mouth from the first cohort. We literally had kids who were standing in the streets of Nairobi telling everyone that they could meet, that you need to go to ALX because it's changed their lives. Their parents were telling their friends that you need to go to ALX because it changed their lives. At ALU, a customer acquisition cost was $3500 per student, at ALX it was $4 per student.Edward: Was that $4 per applicant or $4 per accepted student?Fred: Per accepted student.Edward: And you were only accepting 1 in 100 students? One in 100 applicants?Fred: Basically, we took 200 out of 14,000 applicants.Edward: So your cost per applicant is on the 6¢ range?Fred: Exactly. Basically, we spend almost nothing on marketing.Edward: Why are you accepting so few? Are they just not qualified? Or you just don't have the capacity or the throughput to put them in?Fred: A couple of reasons. One is we wanted to test the model first. We had to build up our capacity, our technology systems, people, et cetera. Two, we also want to make sure that we could place them into employment and entrepreneurship pathways, et cetera. We didn't want to have produced too much talent and not be able to…Edward: Meet your promise.Fred: Meet our promise, exactly. We wanted to just go a bit slower, develop the concept. But now, we're scaling significantly. We're going to train two million people in the next decade through ALX. We are really taking it up. Next year alone, we want to take about 50,000 people through ALX.Edward: How many of those applicants that came in, that you rejected, are you going to be able to accept in the future?Fred: Of those 14,000 I'd say we could probably have accepted 3000–4000 of them. I would say 20%–30% of them would have been eligible.Edward: The ones that aren't, is because you don't think you could train them well enough to get them a job after your program, and you just don't want to make that investment when you can't deliver?Fred: We have the luxury of choice, so we might as well just choose the top when we have so many applicants. It's generally easier to work with the best talent than the second-best talent. Since we have the choice, we might as well take the best talent. It's part of our brand as well, for the other side, for the employees, one of them if we can say, you can rest assured that we have only taken the top 5% or the top 10% of applicants. It enhances our ability to place them because the employers, the investors who might want to invest in them into their ventures, know that they have been through a very rigorous selection process. Therefore, it actually makes it easier to place them.Edward: You're in a place right now where you don't need to make any marketing investments really at all because you have a backlog of people, your operations are your bottleneck, not your marketing. But presumably, if your aspiration is two million people through your program, you're going to need that marketing muscle later on. How do you work on that marketing muscle when there's no acute need for it?Fred: I've recently built a significant marketing team, I brought in a CMO and digital marketing expert, a content expert, and marketing automation, et cetera. We've got about (now) 20 people and a marketing team. We are now going to be more deliberate in spreading the word to allow us to build a massive funnel for us to be able to scale as fast as we can and as much as we'd like. We are doing that, but we still don't expect our customer acquisition cost to be very high because we're finding that our product has a really excellent product-market fit. What we've done is we've also flipped the entire pricing model. You don't pay upfront for ALX. You pay for it afterward only when you have a job.We've got an interesting subscription model. Essentially, the upfront cost of going through ALX is zero, so we've got a perfect product-market fit, you can say that. We are building a marketing function. We are also about to launch something that we call the Do Hard Things Challenge. Because we have so many more applicants than we can accept, we're putting a barrier in the process which is to say, we will change your life when you join the ALX. You will get connected to an incredible network and you'll get skills that will support you for the rest of your life. But before we invest in you and give you all these opportunities, you need to show us that you're a doer and that you are someone who is a self-starter.The Do Hard Things Challenge is basically asking young Africans to show us over a three-month period that they can get a job, any job. Go and volunteer, do anything, and hold it for three months. Start a venture or start a project in your community. If you do well in that, then we will consider you for our application. That's going to both build the buzz around what we're doing and it's also going to signal the kind of brand that we stand for, that we are a place for doers and not just talkers.Edward: I think you have the luxury of being able to invest in your brand because you don't have that acute fire that you need to put out next week. You're growing things for the long term, which is allowing you to invest for the long term. Fred: Exactly.Edward: That said, one of your important acute channels is universities and having the universities flow students into your program. How do you work with universities?Fred: As I mentioned, universities in Africa have a big problem because about 45% of university graduates are unemployed. In Kenya, it takes five years for college graduates to get a job. In Ghana, it takes up to 10 years to get a job. So we are solving a problem for them. When we started in Kenya, for example, I leveraged my relationships and my reputation to visit some of the different universities. The vice-chancellors literally rolled out the red carpet for me. They had me speak to all their students. They shared mailing lists of all their alumni and they sent out blasts to all of their alumni saying here's an incredible program that you can go to and that will help you find opportunities. They were a natural partner because we had what they needed. We also partnered with various youth groups and media organizations, anyone because youth unemployment is a massive problem in Africa. Because we were providing a solution to that issue, many, many partners wanted to collaborate with us.Edward: Who led those relationships? Did you call in the chancellors yourself?Fred: In some cases, I did that. In other cases, my team just went and visited different universities and met the career development center, the alumni centers, and formed those partnerships. But I didn't need to open the doors. Our offering was so compelling that they welcomed us with open arms in most places we went to.Edward: I find that when you do these partnerships, oftentimes you can get the top-down support, but then when it comes down to bottom-up and actually delivering on it, they sometimes drop the ball. How did you ensure these universities actually followed through and gave you the support they needed? Did they hand you the email addresses or they send the emails up themselves? If so, how did you make sure they were sending out the right emails to the right people?Fred: In some cases, yes. They handed out the email addresses. In Africa, we don't have these crazy data protection laws, but in some cases, they did that. I mean, this is a few years ago; I think now we would do things differently. In other cases, they send it out on our behalf. The way we made sure that it wasn't just some fluffy agreement at the top is that I made sure that I went into these relationships with people who could then do the follow-up with their next [...].I made sure I got a commitment from them about who exactly in your organization should we work with to execute this? Can you let them know that you have made this commitment? Also in some institutions, we built the relationships bottom up because we went straight to the person who actually had that email list or whose job it was to find jobs for the graduates. They were obviously struggling, so we went to them with a solution and it was definitely not a hard sell.Edward: Do you have an account management team that continues to oversee each of these relationships at these schools as you scale?Edward: Not formally. We are going to set up something like that, but again, because of the word of mouth of the first batch of students, those relationships over time become less and less important because we now have our own graduates to vouch for what we're doing. We have a net promoter score of about 85 and Harvard Business School has a net promoter score of 42.Edward: So your word of mouth is going okay for you.Fred: Yeah, it's going all right. Yeah.Edward: It's really fantastic what you're building, Fred. Before we go, I want to talk about your Quake book, but in your case, it's not really a book. It's more of a blog post, is that right?Fred: Yeah. It's this blog post by Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, which talks about things that don't scale. It's his advice to some of the founders that go through Y Combinator, that in the early days, they should really focus on creating outstanding customer experiences and getting a few customers to love them. Then from there, you can actually get to scale. Actually, the first time I heard that concept was from Brian Chesky, the founder of Airbnb. I was attending a conference where he was speaking, and he was talking about how, when he had joined Y Combinator, they'd ask him, they said, where are your customers. He said, well, I've got about 100 customers on the East Coast. So, Y Combinator was like, why are you here? Get out of this office. Go to the East Coast and find out why those 100 love you. Brian and his co-founders went and spent six months in New York, living in those Airbnbs with those hundred clients, and understanding why they like Airbnb, what was working, what wasn't working, and they figured out all kinds of things. For example, if you take a picture of the apartment and put it online, you're going to have more people wanting to book, et cetera. From that, they perfected their product. Then a few years later, they had millions of customers. Brian was saying how, when most founders start companies, they try and get to scale immediately. They're trying to be big [...] doing stages. The first stage is you need to create your product. In the second stage, you need to get love, which is a few people really, really loving your product. That's doing things in very unscalable ways for those first 100 people. Once you have love, you finally get scale. That philosophy goes back to where we started in our podcast yesterday where I was talking about the different stages of relationship-building, where you need to go from connection to continuous interaction to trust, and then finally collaboration. It's really saying get those first 100 customers to really love what you're doing. Then from there, you can get to scale.Edward: Tell me about how marketing is dead.Fred: One of the things that I'm increasingly of the opinion is that we have lost control of our brands. Well, not exactly. We need to think about how we build our brands differently. Fifteen, 20 years ago, you could put up a billboard or TV advert or whatever, and claim whatever you wanted about yourself. But with the advent of social media today, we live in a world of Tripadvisor, where no one actually believes what you say as a brand.I believe that the way to build your brand right now is only through customer experience. You have to deliver exceptional customer experience and then let your customers be your ambassadors. Our job is to create platforms that enable our customers to tell others about the brand because whether it's your brand as an employer, no one will believe what you see on your website, they'll go to Glassdoor or they'll go to LinkedIn and find someone who works with you and ask them what it's like to work with you. If your brand is a hotel, no one will believe what you say. They'll go to Tripadvisor. Any other products, they're going to look for product reviews online, Yelp, et cetera. Especially as we become more and more digitized, it's so easy for anyone to set up a website, set up something, and claim whatever they want to claim. I was looking the other day about how many ecommerce sites exist. There are seven million ecommerce sites that exist, and yet Amazon has been able to build a business with a billion customers and a $1.7 trillion market cap. Look at Netflix and all these guys. They've been able to do that only by focusing on the customer experience. Because there's so much competition, everyone is out there claiming whatever they want. The thing I really believe is that in today's day and age, the only way you can truly build a sustainable brand is by delivering exceptional value to your customers. Anything else, any other claim that you make, you'll quickly get found out and then you lose trust with your customers.Edward: And I think it's almost a red queen situation in that, in many cases, features and benefits satisfy customers, but in overall customer satisfaction and user experience, customers are never satisfied. The bar is always increasing and getting harder and harder and harder, which means there's always work to be done.Fred: Exactly.Edward: Awesome. Thank you, Fred. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

This Part 1 of my interview with Fred Swaniker, founder of Africa Leadership Academy (ALA), Africa Leadership Univerity (ALU) and ALX (among others). Fred is one of Time Magazine's Most Influential People in the World and has done the requisite mainstage TED talk. I believe this is the only time he has publicly talked about marketing.Subscribe to the podcast: Apple, Sticher, TuneIn, Overcast , Spotify. Private Feed.Transcript:Edward: My guest today is Fred Swaniker. Fred was born in Ghana but had to leave the country when he was four years old to escape a military coup. By the time he was 18, he'd lived in four African countries. Today's episode dives into his career, Macalester College, McKinsey, Stanford, Africa Leadership Group, ALA, ALU, ALN, and a mainstage TED talk. Fred's latest venture is ALX, a leadership development and talent sourcing platform. We are lucky to have him here today.Fred, you've never had a CMO role per se, but you've largely been the one responsible for growing your businesses, and I've never met anybody in my life who's better at fundraising. I think fundraising (in general) is a sales skill, but I would argue you've managed to do it by building a brand and then having people throw money at you. Where did you learn your marketing skills? How did you become a marketer?Fred: I wish it was as easy as you make it sound that people just throw money at me. I think that my approach to fundraising has really been one of not trying to do the hard sell. I really believe in establishing relationships and win-win partnerships that enable us and whoever we are partnering with to both achieve our goals.We've been able to raise about US$600 million in the last 15 years, from [...] different ventures, and I would say that probably about 50%–60% of the funds that were raised, I never asked for it. Our approach is really to inspire people and just share the stories of what we're doing, and those who are interested in what we're doing will step up and will join us, those who are not will move on. Maybe it could be the way I was brought up. My parents always told me never to go and ask people for money. I always thought, can I find a way to build a relationship that adds value and shows people the worthiness of what we're doing? If people see that, then they'll come to us and they'll participate in our vision.Edward: Fred, what happens before the building of the relationship? That before you can build a relationship with someone who's willing to write you a hundred million dollar check, you must have built a personal brand or a company brand that gets you there. How did you do that?Fred: Over the years, I've developed a framework that I use for establishing relationships, and I break it down into four steps. First, I met thousands of people around the world. Every person that you meet, there's some connection that you have. Maybe there's some mutual interest, you share a joke, there's some chemistry that you have with someone. That's stage one, which is the connection. Then maybe you exchange business cards, you exchange emails, et cetera.Then you enter the second stage which is a continuous interaction. This is when you're exchanging communication, you're meeting up for coffee every now and then, having lunch, you actually have some dialogue and then mutual exchange. Only a few of the connections move to that stage of continuous interaction. From the continuous interaction, people start to see whether you are someone who delivers on what you say you're going to do, and you establish credibility based on integrity, et cetera.From there, you get to trust, which is the third phase. Once you have trust, finally, and only once you have trust, then you get to collaboration, which is where someone could say, I'm going to invest in you. I'm going to donate funds. I'm going to join your board, et cetera. I think one of the mistakes I made earlier in my career was I would rush straight to stage four (collaboration) without going to the continuous interaction and building trust first. That's the way I approach relationships.Edward: How did you learn that, though? You made that mistake early in your career. How did you come to the realization that there was this four-step process? Did you read about it? Did you learn it from a mentor? Did you figure it out on your own?Fred: I read about this. There's one book that I read called Mega Gifts. It's written by this guy called Jerold Panas who interviewed about 100 people who had given more than $1 million to things, and asked them why they gave. It was really fascinating just learning about some of the philosophy behind that. Before that, when I started the African Leadership Academy, I had never raised money before really. I went to see the Dean of the Stanford Business School where I went, and I said, you raised a lot of money. How did you do it? That time, the Stanford Business School had just raised US$300 million from Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. I went to see him and I said, how did you do this thing. He said, “The first thing you do is never ask for money the first time you meet someone. Just show them what you're doing. Get them involved in what you're doing in some way. Invite them to see the campus. Get them onto a board or something. Then, only once you've built a relationship with them, do you then engage them in possibly supporting you financially.” I must say that there'd been some times when that rule didn't work. I remember very early on, I met this very successful technology executive. She came to South Africa on a business trip and we met. We had this lovely lunch and at the end of the lunch, she said, so Fred, why did you want to see me today? I was like, well, perhaps you can help us structure some thinking about our technology strategy for the university, for the [...] I said, okay, that sounds good. She had a relationship with the President of South Africa in terms of that. So I said, perhaps you can connect us to him, et cetera? Then she goes, is there anything else? I was with my co-founder, Chris Bradford, and he's kicking me under the table, as in, asking for the money.I was just remembering this advice from the dean who said, don't ask for the money the first time you meet someone, and this was the first time we ever met. I decided to just take a chance because she was really saying, ask me for the money. I said, we're hoping perhaps you could support us financially, and she said, I thought you'd never ask. She said, I was sold on your idea when I heard about it, so consider it done. She gave us $100,000 the next week, and she went on to give us about $500,000 over the next few years. Ultimately, you have to read the signals and understand when someone is ready to be asked. I think a lot of marketing is like that. You're taking someone through a journey with you and people have choices about where they can spend their money. If you wait too long before you ask for the money, you lose the deal. If you don't wait long enough and you asked too soon, you also lose the deal. So it's about really knowing when is the right time when you read the signals about whether this person is really interested in your product or service, and they've demonstrated through their actions and their behaviors that they're really interested in what you have to offer. At that point, it's a mutually beneficial partnership.Edward: That's great, Fred. I want to go back and understand the path of how Fred became Fred. I have this theory that what people do when they're 12–14 years old affects them for their entire lives. I'm not even sure what country you were living in when you were 12–14 years old. What were you doing around that age?Fred: I was there in between Botswana and Zimbabwe at that time. I had just started high school, I guess.Edward: What did you care about? What were you spending your time doing? What were you passionate about at that age?Fred: At that time, I was always reading about different kinds of technologies, and I was very passionate about planes. I was curious about how they worked. I used to read a lot about different kinds of planes around the world. I was always trying to invent things with my friends. I also started getting a bit into the business. I remember at the time, these Nike shoes and Reeboks were coming out and they were very popular. My family was from Ghana originally and we used to go back home every now and then. There were these secondhand Nike and Reebok shoes that have been brought imported to Ghana. It's kind of gross now that I think back then. You could buy them there at a really low cost. I would bring them back to Zimbabwe and try to sell it to my friends.I also was very passionate about gathering people. My home was the place where most of my friends from school would come and gather in the afternoons and we would just hang out. I loved bringing people together and having them connect with each other. If I look today, a lot of the work that I do, it has really been involved in building networks. I can say, perhaps that was shaped by that early experience because if I think about what we have done in creating that leadership group, it's been a massive exercise in networks. We've created a network of about 30,000 people with some of the most influential people in the world who have joined us in this mission. It has led to all sorts of exciting collaborations. Part of it is I really enjoy bringing people together and creating communities. I think perhaps that started then.Edward: So Fred, a lot of what you did as a child influenced your mission in life. Did you have skills when you're a child that influenced your career trajectory and where you are today? Was it these connection skills? Fred: One of the skills that I learned was how to adapt very quickly and to build relationships with new people. I was born in Ghana. I left there when I was four, and went to Gambia. Then when I was eight, I went to Botswana. When I was 12, I went to Zimbabwe. As a result, I had to learn how to adapt to different environments very quickly. I'd been to a new school every few years and I had to quickly make friends with different people. So, relationship building became something that I practiced very early on. As I mentioned earlier, I used to bring my friends together every afternoon and we'd just hang out, play games, and so forth. That became a skill as well. I believe I'm really good at designing experiences for people that make them have fun, and that makes them enjoy being in a place. That probably comes from some of those things that I was doing at that age.Another skill that I would say I developed is the ability to see patterns. A lot of my ideas today come from exposure to different countries I've been to, different people that I've met. I fill my life with a lot of diversity. That catalyzed a lot of the innovation for me because I'm able to connect the dots between something that is actually in this country, or that I heard from this person that I spoke to, or an idea that I read about in technology or in healthcare that I can bring into my work in education. I'm constantly scanning the universe to see what's going on and I'm able to bring together ideas from these creative persons to create new products that are quite distinctive. I think part of that comes from the fact that I was always in different environments and I had to absorb very quickly in this new environment that I went to, to be able to survive.Edward: You went to university at Macalester College. How did you come out different than when you went in?Fred: Macalester—if you don't know about it—has a culture that cares very much about social justice and about the world. When I went in there, I would say that I cared about the world, but I wouldn't say that I was obsessed about making a difference. I was going there to get a degree and get a job. But when you go to Macalester, every other week, there's some kind of protest against some social injustice. I remember the students took over the President's Office once because Macalester was buying their athletic gear from Nike. At that time, Nike had sweatshops in Southeast Asia. There was always this protest or that protest. It was very clear that you had to make a difference in the world.I would say that my social conscience changed. Even though my very first job outside of Macalester was not something that I would say was altruistic and made sense—I was working with McKinsey management consulting—I saw that very much as a means to an end because, by the time I left, I had really seen that I could make a difference in Africa. In fact, one of the things I did in my final year at Macalester was I wrote my honors thesis, where I looked at the trends that had happened in Africa in the last 50 years. I saw some exciting changes that were happening at that time. I predicted what I was going to do. Also, I predicted how Africa was going to evolve over the next 50 years. Many of the trends that I saw influenced my passion to go back to Africa. I would say that what Macalester did, it really made me a lot more passionate about the world, about making an impact in the world. The time that I had there enabled me to really do this honest thesis, understand that Africa was about to undergo a massive transformation, and it made me really excited about going back to play a role in that transformation.Edward: Fred, what would have happened if you hadn't left Africa then? If you had gone to college in Africa, instead of going to Macalester, how would your life have been different?Fred: My life would've been different in a couple of ways. Number one is I don't believe how to build networks. Some of the networks that I have today led me to do what I'm doing. My networks probably would remain very Africa-centric, maybe very Ghana-centric, or Zimbabwe-centric, whichever country I would have gone to. The second way my life would have been different is I wouldn't have developed such a global perspective. A lot of the work that I do, even though I'm based in Africa, involves leveraging global networks, global insights, global technology. I always think about what's going on in the world and how do I bring it to Africa, and how do I take Africa to the global stage. Finally, I don't think that I would have been as dedicated or passionate about social transformation because (like I said) you can't go to Macalester and not believe that you have to make a difference in the world. Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the UN, had been to Ghana. He had been to Macalester a few decades before me. I remember being there and everyone's like, oh, you're from Ghana. Kofi Annan also went here. It was almost like you're expected to live up to his track record. I think those influences would not have been there if I hadn't gone to Macalester.Edward: It's interesting. By leaving Africa, you became more passionate about Africa.Fred: Exactly. What's interesting is when I arrived there I remember walking into the cafeteria at Macalester. In Africa, most people watch American TV, so a lot of people were always trying to mimic American accents. That was the cool thing. But when I landed in Macalester and I went to the cafeteria and I asked for food, there was a woman behind the counter. Actually, she was quite cute, and then she said, I love your accent. I suddenly realized that actually my African accent was cool in the US. That made me a lot prouder to be an African, and I really dived in more into it. The fact that I lived all across Africa really made me reflect on how special it was to be an African.Edward: Fred, what were the biggest failure points in your career? Where did things not go as expected?Fred: Oh, I've had so many failure points, but maybe I'll talk about two. One was about a year-and-a-half into my career at McKinsey. A client asked for me to be taken off the project. That was a real blow to me because my career had been rising very much in McKinsey at that time. I'd always had really great reviews on all my projects. But I had really pissed off the client that basically the CEO asked that I remove them from the project team. What had happened was I was a young kid. I was 22–23 and I was advising very senior people in the company. I thought I needed to show them how clever I was. I was always showing them how they were wrong and I was right about whatever idea I had, coming in and advising them then. I guess I thought that that was the way I should show value. I basically came across as an arrogant old prick. I learned a big lesson then, that when you are working with other people, you actually shine if you resist from showing off what you know. You actually will do a much better job at building relationships with others if you make them look great, instead of you trying to be great in the situation. What a very powerful lesson. It made me a lot more humble and made me realize that just because you think you know or thinking of the answer, doesn't mean you need to tell everyone about it. That was a very powerful lesson.Another lesson I learned was, after Stanford Business School, I started both the African Leadership Academy and something called Global Leadership Adventures at the same time. GLA was a summer program where we're going to bring kids from all across Africa, so all around the world to come to keep time for three months. It was the very first summer, and I went and rented out this holiday resort by this beautiful beach in Cape Town. The holiday resort could take about 150 people. I believed that we were going to get 150 kids from the US to show up in Cape Town, paying us $4,000 for a one-month experience each.I booked out the whole place for three months, then we went on the road trying to sell this thing. I signed a terrible legal agreement that committed me to pay for the full thing no matter how many students showed up. Lo and behold, we only got 35 kids to pay. I was [...] for 150 rooms. They just would not let me out of that contract. I ended up giving away another 30 slots for free. We had 70 kids who started being in that summer program, but I had to pay for 150 rooms. That was a very powerful lesson in being very humble when you make your financial projections for a startup, and also making sure you have a good lawyer when you're signing contracts. These are some of the powerful lessons that I learned from my failures. I can just go on and on and on, but I can only say I've grown simply because of my failures.Edward: I think being a bit more humble can be a lesson for all of us. We'll pick this up tomorrow in part two. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

One of the key components in managing the spread of COVID-19 has been limiting physical interactions. At the onset of the pandemic, establishments including businesses and schools were promptly shut down and evacuated in order to curb the spread of the virus. As cases continue to rise with no approved treatment or vaccine, communities have struggled to figure out the best strategy to re-open schools. With the academic year disrupted for students at all ages, we dissect the measures taken in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe in primary and secondary education. We also explore the discrepancies between access to resources within the class divide and how the different governments of the respective countries have responded to the education needs. In this episode, we interviewed Farai Munjoma and Vanessa Chilunda.Farai is a Zimbabwean education entrepreneur at Shasha Network.He is an African Leadership Academy, African Leadership University alumnus. Farai has also previously been an Anzisha Fellow.Vanessa Chilunda is a PhD Student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is the co-founder of Tanzanian based company, Projekt Inspire, that aims at creating career awareness and lightening career paths for youth in STEM. Here we discuss their role in advancing remote learning in STEM in Tanzania.Mentioned in the episode:ZBC RADIO LESSONS PROGRAMME SCHEDULE https://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/zbc-radio-lessons-programme-scheduleZimbabwe education: School lessons broadcast on the radio https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/zimbabwe-education-school-lessons-broadcast-radio-200718142240998.htmlFollow Farai:Twitter: @FaraiMunjomaLinkedIn: Farai Munjomawebsite: www.shashanetwork.comFollow Vanessa:Twitter:@ProjektInspireInstagram: @projekt_inspire_tzWebsite: www.projektinspire.co.tzFollow Desnor Nicole:Instagram: @desnornicoleTwitter: @DesnorCWebsite: www.desnornicole.com Follow Rutendo ChabikwaTwitter: @rutendochabikwaInstagram: @tedoexFollow Tedoex Media House:Instagram and Twitter: @tedoexmediaWebsite: www.tedoexmediahouse.com Music:Title: Elipsis Artist: Chad Crouch (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ch...)Source: Free Music ArchiveLicense: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.Title: Hip Hop Instrumental 2Artist: Ketsa (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa)

Ugochukwu Chukwujiaka sat down with Fred Swaniker, the founder of African Leadership Group to explore questions about education entrepreneur, the building and running of Africa Leadership University, and the key ingredient of a successful global education company. Fred is deeply passionate about Africa and believes that the missing ingredient on the continent is good leadership. In line with this, he has co-founded three organizations that aim to catalyze a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial African leaders: African Leadership Academy, African Leadership Network, and African Leadership University. Collectively, these institutions aim to groom 3 million leaders for Africa over a 50-year period. A passionate entrepreneur, Fred also served as Founder and CEO of Terra Education, a global education company that today provides leadership training to about 4,000 people annually at 46 sites in 20 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Swaniker has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and was listed by Forbes Magazine among the top ten young ‘power men’ in Africa. Fred has an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he was named an Arjay Miller Scholar, a distinction awarded to the top 10% of each graduating class. He holds a BA in Economics with a minor in Mathematical Statistics from Macalester College (magna cum laude). He was born in Ghana but has lived and worked in about 10 different African countries.

"My mission came from seeing first hand in my travels how economic activity declines in perfect step with moving away from large urban centres with sufficient infrastructure, and seeing the economic stagnation that would follow.More than one billion people today do not have direct access to paved roads or even runways. This fundamentally affects the lives they live, without access to the basic things you and I take for granted, like medical supplies.”Spencer Horne is the founder of Cloudline, a remote delivery startup that uses autonomous airships to bring essential goods to the hardest-to-reach parts of the world. He is a graduate of African Leadership Academy and Harvard College, where he trained as a mechanical engineer. His current work combines his passion for aviation with his mission to address systemic inequities around the world.

Chris Bradford is driven to build transformational educational institutions. Over the past fifteen years, Chris has guided the development of African Leadership Academy, which he co-founded with Stanford MBA classmate Fred Swaniker in 2004. African Leadership Academy seeks to transform Africa by identifying, developing, and connecting the continent’s future leaders. In this interview, Chris breaks down the recipe for creating a world-class purpose-driven institution. Chris seeks to build strong organizations that transform societies by empowering individuals to reimagine what is possible for themselves and their communities. He relishes the process of “cathedral building”: ensuring that organizations are built to last and thrive beyond their founders. Prior to ALA, Chris co-founded Terra Education and worked at organizations including Procter and Gamble, BCG, and the Broad Foundation. He also worked as a teacher at Oundle School, a boarding school in England. Chris is a graduate of Yale University (BA) and Stanford University (MBA, MA Education).

Cultivating Africa's most promising young leaders — A peek into the remarkable African Leadership Academy and its programmes Karidas Tshintsholo (Khula! | CEO) and Josh Adler (ALA | VP) In this episode I talk to Karidas and Josh about the importance of nurturing entrepreneurial and leadership talent on the African continent as early as possible. Josh Adler is the Vice President of Growth and Entrepreneurship at the African Leadership Academy. One of the ALA's more successful programmes is the Anzisha Fellowship and Prize, which identifies and develops Africa's most promising Very Young Entrepreneurs in a world class bootcamp environment. Khula! marketplace for fresh produce and the #1 agricultural solution as awarded at the MTN App of the Year Awards. http://www.khula.co.za/ The ALA website https://www.africanleadershipacademy.org/ The Anzisha Prize and research report https://anzishaprize.org/ Music : Mike Morse | Perfect Teamwork Engage with Mike https://mikestopforth.com/ Connect with Mike on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikestopforth/ Follow Mike on Twitter https://twitter.com/mikestopforth When you're ready to #BeHeard, contact the podcast specialists at

Karidas Tshintsholo — Khula! | CEO Josh Adler — ALA | VP In this episode I talk to Karidas and Josh about the importance of nurturing entrepreneurial and leadership talent on the African continent as early as possible. Josh Adler is the Vice President of Growth and Entrepreneurship at the African Leadership Academy. One of the ALA's more successful programmes is the Anzisha Fellowship and Prize, which identifies and develops Africa's most promising Very Young Entrepreneurs in a world class bootcamp environment. Khula! marketplace for fresh produce and the #1 agricultural solution as awarded at the MTN App of the Year Awards. · The ALA website · The Anzisha Prize and research report

Karidas Tshintsholo — Khula! | CEO Josh Adler — ALA | VP In this episode I talk to Karidas and Josh about the importance of nurturing entrepreneurial and leadership talent on the African continent as early as possible. Josh Adler is the Vice President of Growth and Entrepreneurship at the African Leadership Academy. One of the ALA's more successful programmes is the Anzisha Fellowship and Prize, which identifies and develops Africa's most promising Very Young Entrepreneurs in a world class bootcamp environment. Khula! marketplace for fresh produce and the #1 agricultural solution as awarded at the MTN App of the Year Awards. · The ALA website · The Anzisha Prize and research report · MikeStopforth.com · Connect with Mike on LinkedIn · Follow Mike on Twitter · 48h crisis communication consultancy

Melonie Kastman has worked for 20+ years in film, producing television commercials for major brands and networks, partnered with dozens of the top ad agencies and production companies to film around the globe (list available upon request) Moving into the documentary world, most notably directed "Road to Change" inside the life of an African President, filming with then President of Sierra Leone H.E. Ernest Bai Koroma as he worked to rebuild his country after a violent civil war. Other clients include African Leadership Academy, The American Cancer Society, Doctors Without Borders, Ronald McDonald House Charities, UN Department of Peacekeeping, Crow Collection of Asian Arts, The Greenbelt Movement: filmed with Nobel Peace Prize recipient Wanguri Maathi, Foundation for a SmokeFreeWorld, The Carlyle Group, World Food Program, USAID, Themiis Institute, and the Conrad Foundation at NASA . Most currently Melonie followed the UN Ebola Emergency Response team in Democratic Republic of Congo as they coordinated efforts to curb the 2nd largest Ebola epidemic, located in an area of high insecurity, conflict and facing rebel attacks o health care workers ad facilities. Ongoing Projects: For the launch of The Foundation for SmokeFreeWorld, an NGO focused on ending smoking in a generation. Melonie filmed a short documentary "The True Cost of a Cigarette" which depicts the unintended consequences of decline in demand for small shareholder tobacco farmers in developing nations. We continue to film and follow their important story across the globe. First feature length documentary (currently in post production) "...until there is peace" follows a special group of Peacekeepers known as the Force Intervention Brigade as they go about their work, not only protecting civilians but also working to eliminate the rebel forces, in the largest and most dangerous UN Peacekeeping mission in the world, MONUSCO in The Democratic Republic of Congo.

Today on the show I am joined by Ssanyu Sematimba, an entrepreneurial leadership teaching fellow at the African Leadership Academy. She is also a visual communicator and a thought leader in her field. Ssanyu and I discuss the concept and implementation of design thinking in an African context. We talk through the concept of it and define exactly what design thinking is, and then, we delve into the practical implementation approach – nationally, regionally and continentally. I hope you enjoy the episode! Subscribe to the Impactful Conversations YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz4CncLzQXfBU1GRZ5PtQ

Episode 5 is out!!!. And it's one that is very close to our hearts. Our guest, 2016 IITM graduate, Shashanka S Rao. Shashanka, formerly a business analyst at McKinsey & Company, currently works in the development sector at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. His passion for education and grassroots impact has taken him to various places and in this episode, we talk about all these places and what he's learnt along the way. In part 1 of this interview, Shashanka also talks about his life at IITM, how he overcame 'FOMO', and gives a great deal of 'fundaes' for any juniors listening to this episode. Candid and interspersed with several inspiring life stories, this is an episode that will give everyone much food for thought.

Episode 5 is out!!!. And it's one that is very close to our hearts. Our guest, 2016 IITM graduate, Shashanka S Rao. Shashanka, formerly a business analyst at McKinsey & Company, currently works in the development sector at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. In part 2 of this interview, we talk to Shashanka about his time at the African Leadership Academy, his vision to do something similar in India, and his upcoming MBA at Harvard Business School. Candid and interspersed with several inspiring life stories, this is an episode that will give everyone much food for thought.

In this instalment of the African Tech Roundup podcast, Andile Masuku and Osarumen Osamuyi are joined by Lucy Hoffman, co-founder and head of operations at the Cape Town-based, American mobile content development startup Carry1st.Listen in to learn why, as glitzy ecosystem trends like fintech and mobility continue to dominate headlines, Lucy and the rest of her team at Carry1st are quietly bullish about the mobile gaming industry’s low-key commercial case and “super-app/super-platform” potential.Lucy is an experienced American business operations specialist who, prior to joining Carry1st, spearheaded operations at impact investment facilitation startup Nexii and the African Leadership Academy. Before that, she interned for the global diversity and inclusion team at Credit Suisse and spent three and a half years embedded at Morgan & Stanley, where she worked on M&A and capital markets transactions for global power and utility companies.Head straight to the [11:52] to skip all the introductory niceties.Questions discussed in this episode include:What three words come to mind for Andile, Lucy and Osarumen when they hear the words “super-app” or “super-platform” and why? [11:52]Is the hype behind mobile gaming’s super-app potential worth buying into? [16:42]How are mobile gaming startups navigating the power dynamics of Africa’s mobile telco-controlled landscape in order to monetise? [21:32]How much time and effort do mobile gaming startups like Carry1st need to spend on solving for infrastructural and capacity-building frictions as opposed to working on actual product development? [39:50]Why might African mobile telcos do well to take on Google Play in seeking to own a meaningful share of the mobile gaming market? [49:00]What are the exit aspirations of a mobile gaming startup like Carry1st? [51:08]What is the difference between mobile gaming and mobile gambling? [58:23]Are African markets ready to jump on the global e-sports wave? [1:08:47]Resources referenced in this episode:The Mobile Economy: Sub-Saharan Africa 2019 by GSMA IntelligenceImage credit: Angelo Moleele

MultimediaLIVE — In this instalment of the African Tech Roundup podcast, Andile Masuku and Osarumen Osamuyi are joined by Lucy Hoffman, co-founder and head of operations at the Cape Town-based, American mobile content development startup Carry1st.Listen in to learn why, as glitzy ecosystem trends like fintech and mobility continue to dominate headlines, Lucy and the rest of her team at Carry1st are quietly bullish about the mobile gaming industry’s low-key commercial case and “super-app/super-platform” potential.Lucy is an experienced American business operations specialist who, prior to joining Carry1st, spearheaded operations at impact investment facilitation startup Nexii and the African Leadership Academy. Before that, she interned for the global diversity and inclusion team at Credit Suisse and spent three and a half years embedded at Morgan & Stanley, where she worked on M&A and capital markets transactions for global power and utility companies.Head straight to the [11:52] to skip all the introductory niceties.Questions discussed in this episode include:What three words come to mind for Andile, Lucy and Osarumen when they hear the words “super-app” or “super-platform” and why? [11:52]Is the hype behind mobile gaming’s super-app potential worth buying into? [16:42]How are mobile gaming startups navigating the power dynamics of Africa’s mobile telco-controlled landscape in order to monetise? [21:32]How much time and effort do mobile gaming startups like Carry1st need to spend on solving for infrastructural and capacity-building frictions as opposed to working on actual product development? [39:50]Why might African mobile telcos do well to take on Google Play in seeking to own a meaningful share of the mobile gaming market? [49:00]What are the exit aspirations of a mobile gaming startup like Carry1st? [51:08]What is the difference between mobile gaming and mobile gambling? [58:23]Are African markets ready to jump on the global e-sports wave? [1:08:47]Resources referenced in this episode:The Mobile Economy: Sub-Saharan Africa 2019 by GSMA IntelligenceImage credit: Angelo Moleele

In this instalment of the African Tech Roundup podcast, Andile Masuku and Osarumen Osamuyi are joined by Lucy Hoffman, co-founder and head of operations at the Cape Town-based, American mobile content development startup Carry1st. Listen in to learn why, as glitzy ecosystem trends like fintech and mobility continue to dominate headlines, Lucy and the rest of her team at Carry1st are quietly bullish on the mobile gaming industry’s low-key commercial case and “super-app/super-platform” potential. Lucy is an experienced American business operations specialist who, prior to joining Carry1st, spearheaded operations at impact investment facilitation startup Nexii and the African Leadership Academy. Before that, she interned for the global diversity and inclusion team at Credit Suisse and spent three and a half years embedded at Morgan & Stanley, where she worked on M&A and capital markets transactions for global power and utility companies. To skip all the introductory niceties, head straight to [11:52]. Questions discussed in this episode include: 1. What three words come to mind for Andile, Lucy and Osarumen when they hear the words “super-app” or “super-platform” and why? [11:52] 2. Is the hype behind mobile gaming’s super-app potential worth buying into? [16:42] 3. How are mobile gaming startups navigating the power dynamics of Africa’s mobile telco-controlled landscape in order to monetise? [21:32] 4. How much time and effort do mobile gaming startups like Carry1st need to spend on solving for infrastructural and capacity-building frictions as opposed to working on actual product development? [39:50] 5. Why might African mobile telcos do well to take on Google Play in seeking to own a meaningful share of the mobile gaming market? [49:00] 6. What are the exit aspirations of a mobile gaming startup like Carry1st? [51:08] 7. What is the difference between mobile gaming and mobile gambling? [58:23] 8. Are African markets ready to jump on the global e-sports wave? [1:08:47] Resources referenced in this episode: The Mobile Economy: Sub-Saharan Africa 2019 by GSMA Intelligence Image credit: Angelo Moleele

At the age of fourteen Obakeng won a scholarship to the prestigious Bishop's School in Cape Town and his life changed forever. Since then he has studied for his A-levels at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg and later this year he begins a degree in economics in the USA. He is a busy young man.  Obakeng is an advocate for access to quality education and an ethical public service. He plans to go into government once he has finished his studies as he says he has seen too many friends let down one or another but non-functioning state institutions. But what a cool young man. We chatted about the need to transform the way we think about education in South Africa, the way teach, and the role of schools in their communities.  He also spoke about the importance of involving parents education, and the importance of teachers who are inspiring and committed beyond simply teaching the curriculum. Obakeng also spoke about the experience of private schools and how that process detached him in a way from his childhood friends and experience We also spoke abut the the current political system in South Africa and the need for better civic and voter education in  so people understand better how the political system works, and how they can make it work for them.

Afrika braucht Führungskräfte, die den Kontinent voranbringen: Das ist das Credo des ghanaischen Unternehmers Fred Swaniker. An der von ihm gegründeten African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg sollen diese Personen identifiziert und ausgebildet werden. Von Leonie March www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Weltzeit Hören bis: 19.01.2038 04:14 Direkter Link zur Audiodatei

On this episode of Macalester Big Questions, alumni Fred Swaniker talks with President Brian Rosenberg about the history of Africans -- like Kofi Annan -- in shaping the world, and the potential for global leadership among youth across the continent. Swaniker is a native of Ghana, and a co-founder of the African Leadership Academy.Support the show (https://secure.macalester.edu/giving/)

Africa State of Mind with Lee Kasumba commemorates Africa Month with a special episode featuring Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, South Africa’s former deputy president and currently United Nations under-secretary-general and executive director of UN Women. Lee also speaks to Chude Jideonwo, Nigerian lawyer and co-founder of The Future Project and Acha Leke, the co-founder and member of the Global Advisory Council of the African Leadership Academy.  

In this episode, Lee Kasumba speaks to Acha Leke -  the chairman of McKinsey’s Africa region.  Acha is the cofounder and member of the Global Advisory Council of the African Leadership Academy, a co-educational boarding school that aims to develop the next generation of African leaders.   Acha discussed why he thinks Africa has – at times – leadership crisis.  

You might recall that in September 2017 the Cameroonian former Founder & CEO of Afrostream and current Chief Brand Officer of African Leadership Academy's Anzisha Prize, Tonjé Bakang, published a heavily-publicised Medium post in French announcing that his VOD streaming service was shutting down. Here is Tonjé's letter in English— translated by Audrey Lang: http://bit.ly/tonjéokayafrica. Our very own Andile Masuku even wrote a syndicated op-ed for Business Report South Africa (http://bit.ly/tonjeoped) celebrating Tonjé's decision to chronicle how and why his company failed. By founding Afrostream, Tonjé set out to capture the loyalty of an underserved customer segment that lay within the confines of a super-competitive streaming market. We’re talking a well-defended industry dominated by international rivals like Netflix, and by increasingly confident African startups like IROKO— the former reportedly spending something like €33 million on marketing alone in the first year they launched in France (Afrostream’s most important foreign geographic market). That tidbit should put into proper perspective, how very little the $4 million Afrostream managed to raise to fund its mission over four years actually is. In this conversation with Andile Masuku and Tayo Akinyemi - taped at Afrobytes Tech Conference 2018 - Tonjé details the ordeal of watching his entrepreneurial dream die and shares profound lessons about staying true to oneself, failing forward and engineering personal reinvention. Apply for the Anzisha Prize: http://www.anzishaprize.org/apply/

Former US president, Barack Obama says Africa's young people can effect change in many ways but warns against the idea that politics do not matter. Obama has been engaging with young people from across the continent at the African Leadership Academy in Honeydew, Johannesburg. He says young people should not shy away from politics.

In Episode 42 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Fred Swaniker about the future of African leadership and education in the 21st century. By the year 2050, the human population will increase by a staggering 2.4 billion. According to data from the UN World Population Prospects, the figures are cause for great concern. Researchers worry that our planet may not have the carrying capacity to sustain a population of this size; however, their primary concern stems from the fact that a majority of the increases will take place in the world’s most depressed areas. In fact, experts predict that approximately 50% of the increase will take place in African countries. Put another way, by 2050, a quarter of the world’s population will live in Africa. Some may contend that there’s no real cause for concern — 2050 is still decades away and that we have plenty of time. This leaves out the crucial fact that in just seventeen years, Africa will have the largest workforce in the world. By giving these individuals the tools and resources necessary to succeed, we can help ensure that they become valued and productive members of society. By ensuring that they have the opportunities necessary to participate on the world stage, we can secure for future generations an era of unimaginable innovation and prosperity. The alternative? The mass unemployment, starvation, poverty, and displacement of over a billion people — a global catastrophe the likes of which we’ve yet to witness in the modern age.    The difference between the abundance narrative and the scarcity narrative rests on one simple thing: Education and the leadership skills that it fosters. Seventeen years is just 6,000 days away. Time is short, and it’s passing remarkably fast. We must act now. And we are. Fred Swaniker is the co-founder of three organizations that aim to catalyze a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial leaders in Africa: the African Leadership Academy, the African Leadership Network, and the African Leadership University. His paradigm-shifting approach to education is transforming how we conceptualize learning. But more than that, through his work Swaniker is empowering a generation and creating a revolution in Africa. In this episode, Swaniker talks with host Demetri Kofinas about the difference between financial poverty and poverty of the spirit, the importance of faith and determination, and why our future depends on empowering Africa. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Winston Churchill said, "Mountaintops inspire leaders, but valleys mature them."Men and women discover themselves during their days in the valley. Those Valley experiences prepare them for the mountaintop.  However, the key to successfully move through the valley is personal leadership. Sadly, when some people hear about personal leadership, they think about perfection.Personal leadership is never on the premise that you are a perfect being. The basic ideology is that your are to take  responsibility for your life outcomes.It has never been an issue of acting perfect. It's recognizing that you are on a journey. And the end of the journey is greatly dependent on the decisions you take per time.It's on this note that I bring to you Lead Your Life Series.If you follow me on any of my social media channels, you would have seen me share about "Lead Your Life Series."It's a special edition of Lead Your Life Podcast. We would be  sharing real life experiences of how personal struggles and seeming setbacks were turned into phenomenal stories of hope and grace.You won't be hearing my voice. I would feature different people from different works of life. Basically, I hope to inspire and empower you to begin or continue taking responsibility for your own life outcomes as you aspire to live a life of impact and fulfillment.Today, we launch Lead Your Life Series with the first episode. I have a phenomenal lady this week. About Chineze Oluwasina Chineze Oluwasina (fondly called Chichi) is a young and passionate strategist with core competence in team building and organizational structure. Chichi was born in Ibadan, Nigeria on the 24th of October. She graduated from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife with a Bachelor of Science (Agriculture) and currently rounding off her Masters Degree in Agronomy from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Chichi believes in given herself over to continuous learning, thus she has a diploma in Social Work and strategic management from the Open Training Institute. Chichi is currently involved in community development and agricultural research. She is a sought after facilitator for several profit and non- profit organizations with focus on team building, project management, leadership and communication skills. Her agricultural research aims at helping community farmers have access to improved cassava varieties. She is a Research Fellow at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. She was nominated to attend the Global Leadership Submit 2016 in Indonesia and the One Young World Submit 2016 in Ottawa. She obtained a MasterCard scholarship to learn Foundations for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the African Leadership Academy, Johannesburg. She is currently a cohort-2 participant of the Young African Leaders Initiative, Regional Leadership Centre, Accra, Lagos Campus. She has just been nominated as the International Coordinator for Consortium of Young African Civil Society Organizations. Her passion to see inner city girls rise above every prejudice associated with her background and gender, Chichi founded GIRL Afrique, a budding organization aimed at helping inner city girls harness their potentials by equipping them with relevant skills to make informed decisions. She enjoys facilitating, playing lawn tennis and swimming. She is happily married to her campus sweetheart who is also in the development sector. Chichi would be telling us about her struggles, What were her redefining moments, the two most important steps she took differently, what were the aftermath, and what lessons she would like you to take away from her story. Enjoy! *  *Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:50 — 18.8MB) You can also listen on: iTunes | Android | Email | RSS Be SocialPlease share the love by sharing this post across your Facebook, Twitter and other social channels.  What can you make of Chi Chi's story? Is there any part that you can relate with? 

The African Leadership Academy develops the continent's next generation of leaders.  Dr Robert Aswani, Vice-President at the African Leadership Academy, speaks to #NightTalk's Lovelyn Nwadeyi.

With the new school year underway, we're talking with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Student Body President Bradley Opere. Born and raised in Kenya, Opere was first thrown into a leadership role as a high schooler in an effort to keep peace at his boarding school where students were staging strikes, and then honed his skills at the prestigious African Leadership Academy in South Africa. Now, a senior business administration student at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, Opere takes on the new role of student body president.

Cherylann Smith is co-founder and Managing Director of WeCollaborate, a brand communications specialist consultancy. Cherylann brings over a decade of experience working with major organizations such as Nando's as well as the African Leadership Academy. She has worked on a wide variety of international brands such as MasterCard, Microsoft and Audi, focusing on digital, content and social media strategy. An active participant in the marketing community, including as a judge on a variety of major industry awards, Cherylann joins us today from Johannesburg to discuss the role of the digital strategist in South Africa.

"I am intrigued by this strange collision of people from around the globe in Africa. What interests me is how fantastic, horrific, and how transparent, human stories unfold in this beautiful place from which we humans originate." - Hubert SauperSix years in the making, Hubert Sauper's We Come As Friends observes the precarious start of South Sudan, the African continent's newest country. With an eye for both haunting beauty and sorrow, the film captures South Sudan's earliest days of independence, the rapid exploitation of its natural resources by the world's superpowers, the displacement of its people from their ancestral homelands, and the devastating descent into war.In a tiny, homemade tin and canvas airplane, through surreal and surprising encounters, Sauper explores the human landscape of the fledgling country – Chinese oil workers, UN peacekeepers, Sudanese warlords, American evangelicals, displaced farmers and their families – to capture all their thoughts and dreams for South Sudan's future.Follow the discussion online using #NANYC and by following @NewAmericaNYC.

Fred Swaniker, founder of the African Leadership Academy whose TEDtalk has been watched over a million times, says the continent has the potential to solve its problems. But is hampered by leaders who don't serve the people. Speaking to Tim Modise he says the much touted growth rates are misleading as they don't lead to employment and economic opportunities for Africans. Swaniker says for South Africa’s economy to grow substantially, it has to become the preferred home for talented Africans from around the world: "A wide range of current policies undermine the country’s potential and role as economic leader on the continent." - Tim Modise

Fred Swaniker's African Leadership Academy and his African Leadership Network are already helping thousands of young people become entrepreneurs activists and professionals. His latest effort the African Leadership Universities could multiply that exponentially. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fred is deeply passionate about Africa and believes that the missing ingredient on the continent is good leadership. In line with this, he has founded two organizations that aim to catalyze a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial African leaders: African Leadership Academy and the African Leadership Network. [saf feature=”itunes” cta=”Subscribe & Listen in iTunes”] In recognition of his work in developing Africa’s future ... Read More

African Leadership Academy is a social enterprise that was founded in 2004 with the belief that ethical leadership is the key to transforming the African continent. In this university podcast, co-founder Chris Bradford talks about the role of educational institutions in shaping the future of Africa. He also discusses the personal journey that took him from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Johannesburg, South Africa, and how Stanford was an influential part of that process. Bradford spoke at the 2011 Stanford Africa Forum: Entrepreneurship and Development, hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/chris_bradford_education_as_social_enterprise_in_africa