like many of you here I am trying to
contribute towards a renaissance in
Africa the question of transformation in
Africa really is a question of
leadership Africa can only be
transformed by enlightened leaders and
it is my contention that the manner in
which we educate our leaders is
fundamental to progress on this
continent I want to tell you some
stories that explain my view we all
heard about the importance of stories
yesterday an American friend of mine
this year volunteered as a nurse in
Ghana and in the period of three months
she came to a conclusion about the state
of leadership in Africa that had taken
me over a decade to reach twice she was
involved in surgeries where they lost
power of the hospital emergency
generators did not start there was not a
flashlight not a lantern not a candle
pitch-black patience cut open twice the
first time was a c-section thankfully
baby was out mother and child survived
the second time was a procedure that
involved local anesthesia anesthetic
wears off patient feels pain he's crying
he's screaming he's praying
pitchblack not a candle not a flashlight
and that hospital could have afforded
flashlights we could have afforded to
purchase these things but they didn't
and it happened twice another time she
watched in horror as nurses watched a
patient die because it refused to give
her oxygen but they had and so three
months later just before she returns to
the United States nurses in a crowd
going strike and her her recommendation
is take this up with the need to fire
everyone start all over again start all
over again now what does this have to do
with leadership you see the faults of
the Ministry of educators the doctors
the nurses they are among just five
percent of their peers who get an
education after secondary school they
are the elite there are our leaders
their decisions their actions matter and
when they fail a nation literally
suffers so when I speak of leadership
I'm not talking about just political
leaders we've heard a lot about that I'm
talking about the elite those who've
been trained whose job it is to be the
guardians of their society the lawyers
the judges the policemen the doctors the
engineers the civil servants those are
the leaders and we need to train them
right now my first pointed and memorable
experience with leadership in Ghana
occurred when I was 16 years old we just
had a military coup and soldiers were
pervasive in our society they were
pervasive presence and one day I go to
the airport to meet my father and as I
walk up this grassy slope from the car
park to the terminal building I'm
stopped by two soldiers wielding ak-47
assault weapons and they asked me to
join a crowd of people they were running
up and down this embankment why because
the path I had taken was considered out
of bounds no signs to this effect now I
was sixteen I was very worried about
what my peers at school might think if
they saw me running up and down this
hill I was especially concerned of what
the girls girls might think and so I
started to argue with these men it's a
little reckless now sixteen I got lucky
a Ghana Airways pilot falls into the
same predicament because of his uniform
they speak to him differently they
explain to him that they're just
following orders so he takes her radio
tops of their boss and gets his all
released what lessons would you take
from an experience like this several for
me leadership matters
those men were following the orders of
his superior officer I learned something
about courage it was important not to
look at those guns and I also learned
that it can be helpful to think about
girls
so a few years after this event I leave
Ghana on a scholarship to go to
Swarthmore College for my education it
was a breath of fresh air you know the
faculty there didn't want us to memorize
information repeat back to them as I was
used to back in Ghana they wanted us to
think critically
they wanted us to be analytical they
wanted us to be concerned about social
issues in my economics classes I got
high marks of my understanding of basic
economics but I learned something more
profound than that which is that the
leaders the managers of Ghana's economy
were making breathtakingly bad decisions
that had brought our economy to the
brink of collapse and so here was this
lesson again leadership matters it
matters a great deal but I didn't really
fully understand what had happened to me
that's what my I had I had an inkling
but I didn't fully realize it until I
went out into the workplace and I went
to work at Microsoft Corporation
and I was part of this team this
thinking learning team whose job it was
to design and implement new software the
created value in the world and it was it
was brilliant to be part of this team
it was brilliant and I realized just
what had happened to me at Swarthmore
this transformation the ability the
ability to confront problems complex
problems and to design solutions to
those problems the ability to create is
the most empowering thing that can
happen to an individual and I was part
of that now while I was at Microsoft
the annual revenues of that company grew
larger than the GDP of the Republic of
Ghana and by the way its continued to
the what the gap has widened since I
left
now I've already spoken about one of the
reasons why this has occurred I mean
there's the people there were so
hard-working persistent creative
empowered but there are also some
external factors free markets the rule
of law infrastructure these things were
provided by institutions run by the
people that I call leaders and those
leaders did not emerge spontaneously
somebody trained them to do the work
that they do now while I was at
Microsoft this funny thing happened I
became a parent and for the first time
Africa mattered more to me than ever
before because I realized that the state
of the African continent would matter to
my children and their children that the
state of the world the state of the
world depends on what's happening to
Africa as far as my kids would be
concerned and at this time when I was
going through what I called my pre
midlife crisis Africa was a mess Somalia
had disintegrated into Anarchy Rwanda
was in the throes of this genocide of
war and it seemed to me that that was
exact that was the wrong direction and I
needed to be back helping I couldn't
just stay in Seattle and and raise my
kids in the upper middle-class
neighborhood and feel good about it this
was not the world that that I'd want my
children to grow up in so I decided to
get engaged and the first thing that I
did was to come back to Ghana and talk
with a lot of people and really try to
understand what the real issues were and
three things kept coming up for every
problem corruption weak institutions and
the people who run them the leaders
now I was a little scared because when
you see those three problems they seem
really hard to deal with and they might
say look don't even try but for me I
asked the question well where are these
leaders coming from what what is it
about Ghana that produces leaders that
are unethical or unable to solve
problems so I went to look at what's
happening in our educational system is
the same learning by rote from primary
school through graduate school very
little emphasis on ethics and the and
the average you know the typical
graduate from a university in Ghana has
a strongest sense of entitlement than
the sense of responsibility this is
wrong so I decided to engage this
particular problem because it seems to
me that every society every society must
be very intentional about how it trains
its leaders and Ghana was not paying
enough attention and this is true across
sub-saharan Africa actually so this is
what I'm doing I'm trying to bring the
experience that I had it's worth more to
Africa I wish there was a liberal arts
college in every African country I think
it would make a huge difference and what
ash se University
is trying to do is to train a new
generation of ethical entrepreneurial
leaders we're trying to train leaders of
exceptional integrity who have the
ability to confront the complex problems
to ask the right questions and come up
with workable solutions
I'll admit that there are times when it
seems like mission impossible but we
must believe that these kids are smart
that if we involve them in their
education if we have them discuss
the real issues that they confront that
a whole society confronts and if we give
them skills that enable them to engage
the real world that magic will happen
now a month into this project which just
started classes and a month into it I
come to the office and I have this email
from one of our students and it said
very simply I am thinking now and he
signs off thank you it's such a simple
statement but I was moved almost to
tears because I understood what was
happening to this young man and it is an
awesome thing to be a part of empowering
someone in this way I am thinking now
this year we challenged our students to
craft an honor code for themselves it's
a very vibrant debate going on on campus
now about whether they should have an
honor code and if so what it should look
like one of the students asked the
question that just warmed my heart can
we create a perfect society her
understanding that a student crafted
honor code constitutes a reach towards
perfection it's incredible now we cannot
achieve perfection but if we reach for
it then we can achieve excellence
I don't know ultimately what they will
do I don't know what they will decide to
have this honor code but the
conversation that they're having now
about what they're good society should
look like what their excellent society
should look like it's a really good
thing
my out of Tang okay
now I just want to leave that slide up
because it's important that we think
about it I'm very excited about the fact
that every student at a Chester
University does community service before
they graduate that for many of them it
has been a life altering experience
these young future leaders are beginning
to understand the real business of
leadership the real privilege of
leadership which is after all to serve
humanity I am even more thrilled by the
fact that last year our student body
elected a woman to be the head of
student government it's the first time
in the history of Ghana that a woman has
been elected head of student government
at any university it says a lot about
her it says a lot about the culture
that's forming on campus it says a lot
about her peers who elected her she won
with 75 percent of the vote and it gives
me a lot of hope it turns out that
corporate West Africa also appreciates
what's happening with our students we've
graduated to class of students today and
every single one of them has been placed
and we're getting great reports back
from corporate Ghana from corporate West
Africa and the things that are most
impressed about is work ethic you know
that passion for what they're doing the
persistence their ability to deal with
ambiguity their ability to tackle
problems that they haven't seen before
this is good because you know over the
past five years have been times and I
felt this is mission impossible and it's
just wonderful to see
so these glimmers of the prom
of what can happen if we train our kids
right I think the the current and future
leaders of Africa have an incredible
opportunity to drive a major Renaissance
on the continent it's an incredible
opportunity there aren't very many more
opportunities like this in the world I
believe that Africa has reached an
inflection point with the march of
democracy and FreeMarkets across the
continent we have reached a moment from
which can emerge a Great Society within
one generation it will depend on
inspired leadership and it is my
contention with the manner in which we
train our leaders will make all the
difference thank you god bless