Transcriber: ali alshalali Reviewer: Abd Al-Rahman Al-Azhurry
I love you,
(Laughter)
I really do
So, My name is Anwar Dafa Alla
And I'm from East Sudan.
Someone asked me, "where are you from?"
I said, "from Sudan." He said, "North or South?"
I said, "from East!" He said, "uh?" (Laughter)
Yes, there is East, of course! Right?
It was a long way coming from Khartoum
to Jeddah to Washington D.C.
I have been to the U.S twice before and this my third time.
I want to take you in a short journey,
from 2009
while I was doing my PHD in computer science,
in South Korea.
Back then, someone threw me a link for a TED talk,
It was about statistics,
and my research is focus on
databases and data mining
and statistics involved.
And it's boring.
(Laughter)
But you know what, the statistician
was talking about a really interesting story,
in a novel way,
that makes you like, (deep breath) you want to take more.
So I went and found about TED.com
And there, there was a project called
'' The Open Translation Project ".
I'm passionate about knowledge sharing;
there's a way that I can
translate the subtitles of this talk into another language,
and I speak Arabic.
So I start translating the TED talks into Arabic
since June 2009.
And every day I say ''OK, I'm retiring".
(Laughter)
But no way.
So, up to now I've translated over 980 talks into Arabic.
(Applause) Thank you.
(Applause)
And I was invited to speak at TEDx conference in South Korea.
When I went there, I found the setup similar to this one,
intimate community, loving, supporting.
So I said: "Wow! I can take this experience to my country, to Sudan".
So I applied for TEDx Khartoum
and started mobilizing the people to join the team,
to recruit the speakers,
since November of 2010.
And we had our first TEDx event.
And the theme was "Who We Are?".
We wanted to touch that question of the identity.
You know, the conflict of identity,
and this kind of stuff in Sudan.
South Sudan is the new-born country,
two years back.
But as well as Sudan,
is also born a new country.
And still the same government,
that causes the problems, that causes the separation,
that didn't succeed to make the unity attractive.
It's the same government, that's governing us, right now.
So nothing has changed.
Only borders, you know
governments.
But still the same ideology, the same suppression...
At that time, I worked with the youth organizers for TEDx,
and I've met with fabulous people in Sudan.
That really gives you hope about the future.
Because the conventional wisdom will tell you that
"there is no hope in this country".
Last year alone,
there are more than 1,000 faculty members,
in the university in Sudan, just went out of Sudan.
One thousand.
If we multiply their average experience by two years,
we talking about 2,000 years of experience
just left Sudan.
And this is the kind of the government,
and this is the kind of situation that we live in, in Sudan.
Despite of this fact,
we see very smart and innovative people
who don't have a chance
to be exposed to the international arena,
they don't have a chance to be connected with other people,
we have a deep sense of isolation, in Sudan.
Because of the bad governments.
So at that conference, in each conference we do,
we try to focus on
having creativity or innovation in a specific place.
At that time, this artist, his name is Ammar Haggar,
he designed the stage, that reflects the theme
''Who We Are?''.
And that stage, made it to the best of TEDx stage design.
And then we went to organize the TEDx Youth.
If you focus,
there are more ladies, speakers, than boys,
over there from... you know?
(Applause)
They study hard and they inspired the theme,
they suggested this theme:
"Yes, youth can be the change", or
" Yes You'' in specific, ''Can be the change''.
And then this lady, this young lady,
called Wafa Alameen,
has spoken about positive thinking,
and the importance of positive thinking
in pursuing our way in life.
So, she ended up to represent the Sudanese youth
in a UN conference in Doha.
The same month that we have met as TEDx organizers in Doha;
and that lead us to organize the next TEDx Khartoum
with the theme "Positive Thinking".
It became like, episodes of positivity
going and injecting each other.
This young guy, his name is Tarig Hilal,
he graduated from Johns Hopkins university here,
he spoke about the dream of our generation
"Our Sudan"
And it's supposed to be a new Sudan.
It's a novel story,
well written and well presented.
and that's a big thing for us.
For me as organizer, for me as a Sudanese,
for me as an African and so on.
This was the TEDx Khartoum 2012
and then we organized TEDx Youth,
at Khartoum the second event
which had the theme "Turn On The Lights".
Also young speakers,
spoke about their passion,
their dreams,
what they love,
and we had an 11 year-old speaker,
she spoke about teaching democracy at school
and practicing it at home.
It was amazing,
Every one like, (gasping) and she spoke in English!
Two speakers at that conference,
had their extra mile, after the conference.
One of them now is the TEDx organizer,
the other organized a conference for the Expats,
and their problems.
Now we have a huge population of Sudanese in a diaspora.
This year's event was in May 2013.
And the theme was "Knowledge Into Action".
We challenged the TEDx community,
of how can we put our knowledge into action.
And it turned out to be a very dangerous theme.
At that conference, we invented a new ticketing system.
We said: "You pay knowledge".
So we ended up having the first crowd-sourced book out of TEDx.
We had over 500 contributions,
articles, photos, and Wikipedia edits about Sudan.
Some people donated their research papers.
And then you heard this:
the Sudanese security forces came during the event
interrupted a first time; you don't have permit to work.
By the way TEDxMidAtlantic, do you have a permit?
I guess the headquarter of the FBI and CIA is here, right?
(Laughter)
So this is the place where you should have a permit, right?
So out of 17 speakers, only 3 made it,
to complete their talks.
Two talks interrupted,
and the others were filmed after the conference.
And this the first Why?
Why?
Here is my team, at that day, at the stage.
I apologized for the attendees and everyone, and I cried
like I never done before.
But this team, I'm so proud of them.
I'm very, very proud of them.
They have done a massive job
and they reflected.
Six of my team members now are TEDx organizers.
So we sustain TEDx in Sudan,
not because I wanted,
but because our community deserves it.
It's a story about love!
The second story that, earlier we mentioned Tarig Hilal.
He spoke about the story of our generation,
the dream of our generation.
We sat, and we brainstormed
about how can we take the message further?
So we suggested that
to take the TEDx talk and make it into a film
to reflect about Sudan,
to reach out to our generation.
We started a Kickstarter campaign.
It was very successful.
This is the first crowd funded film in Sudan.
But see here,
Is it really Sudan?
The project is based on London,
and
in Sudan, Texas, here in the U.S.
Thank you U.S, you have Sudan, Texas!
And here the second Why?
Why?
The sad story that I want to share with you:
in August, we had hard flash floods.
That damaged the country very hard.
Over half a million people affected,
nearly 75,000 houses damaged or destroyed.
So all the volunteers in the Khartoum area,
came together,
and revived a tradition that we have in Sudan,
it's called ''Nafeer".
Nafeer is a call for mobilization.
Everyone came using his own expertise,
his own knowledge.
We decided to do some food distribution,
basic health care, environmental sanitation,
awareness raising,
and this kind of stuff that was urgently needed.
So you see here the young guys again,
who gives you the hope.
In fact the country has every single resource that's needed.
It's only about management.
Right?
It's only about management.
Our politician lack of imagination,
it prevents them from seeing the resources that they have,
the stocks of resources that they have.
So Nafeer has done an information system
my friend Pelow called it
"A system of citizens, by citizens, for citizens".
And this was also the first time,
we see the youth in practice, the ICT,
the Information Communication Technologies
for disaster management.
There was awareness raising, through plays, workshops
and we ended up with having workflow,
Nafeer workflow;
that's very original.
This is now a subject of studies for many people.
And Nafeer went viral.
We had Nafeer in the U.S, where people fund raised
in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt, in many places.
And we got the attention of the International Media.
and then you heard this.
(Sudan's Nafeer targeted by government security agents)
Why?
So I leave you with these three whys.
And I tell you,
how can you help?
You can help us, by just becoming aware
well informed about what's happening in our country.
It's not South versus North.
It's not Arabs versus Africans.
It's not Muslims versus Christians.
It's more complicated than that,
And we really appeal to your understanding.
It's that people like me suffer.
You can reach out to your Congress member.
You have the right to do that.
I don't have it.
Tell them to lift the sanctions of Sudan.
The First Why?
Why we put it U.K and U.S, Sudan, Texas
because the American sanctions.
We don't have credit cards.
You are not allowed to have kind of fundraising,
or anything
electronically.
Because of the sanctions.
You can help us also by training our youth.
Leadership in basic and higher education
I don't believe in charity.
I'm an educator myself.
And the reason,
the very reason that I'm here standing in front of you
it's because I'm educated.
And I want to provide this
to my peers in Sudan, in Africa
and in the whole world.
You can help.
Start now.
Thank you
(Applause)