Speakers
Keynote Speaker Friday
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
World Bank, Managing Director
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is presently a Managing Director of the World Bank.
From September 2006 to November 2007, she was Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Brookings Institution. From June to August 2006, she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria, overseeing Nigeria’s External Relations and from July 2003 to June 2006 she served as Minister of Finance and Economy of Nigeria and Head of Nigeria's much acclaimed Presidential Economic team responsible for implementing a comprehensive home grown economic reform program that stabilized the macro-economy and tripled the growth rate to an average 6 percent per annum over 3 years. Her achievements as Finance Minister garnered international recognition for improving Nigeria’s financial stability and fostering greater fiscal transparency to combat corruption. In October 2005, she led the Nigerian team that negotiated the cancellation of US $18 billion or 60 percent of Nigeria’s external debt with the Paris Club. The debt deal also included an innovative buy-back mechanism that wiped out Nigeria’s Paris club debt and reduced the country’s external indebtedness from US$35 to US$5 billion. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala oversaw Nigeria’s first ever Sovereign credit rating of BB- from Fitch and Standard and Poor’s—a rating that grouped Nigeria with other emerging market countries such as Vietnam, Venezuela, and Philippines.
Previously, she pursued a 21-year career as a development economist at the World Bank, where she held the post of Vice President and Corporate Secretary. This included two tours of duty (six years) working in the East Asia Region, the last tour (1997-2000) as Country Director Malaysia, Mongolia, Laos and Cambodia during the East Asian financial crisis; two duty tours in the Middle East Region, the last (2000-2003) as Director, Operations (deputy vice-president) of the region. Dr Okonjo-Iweala also served as Director of Institutional Change and Strategy (1995-1997). In this post she assisted with the implementation of the Bank’s reform agenda. From 1989 to 1991 she was Special assistant to the Senior Vice President, Operations, an assignment that enabled participation in high level policy formulation and discussions for countries as diverse as China and Burkina Faso.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was educated at Harvard and has a PhD in Regional Economics and Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is fluent in French, Ibo and English with working knowledge of Yoruba. She has received numerous awards, including Honorary Doctorate of Letters from University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland, 2007, Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Colby College, 2007 and Brown University, USA, 2006, Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Northern Caribbean University, Mandeville, Jamaica, 2005, Time Magazine’s European Hero of the Year Award, 2004, for her work on economic reform in Nigeria, Euromoney Magazine Global Finance Minister of the year, 2005, Financial Times/The Banker African Finance Minister of the year 2005, This Day (one of Nigeria’s premier newspaper) Minister of the Year award 2004 and 2005. In 2006, she was named by Forbes Magazine as one of 100 most powerful women in the world.
She has just been profiled in the Conde Nast International Business Intelligence Magazine called Portfolio as one of 73 “Brilliant” business influencers in the world of business and public service.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is a member or chair of numerous boards and advisory groups, including ONE Campaign, the World Resources Institute, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Nelson Mandela Institution, Friends of the Global Fund Africa, and the African Institutes of Science and Technology as well as the Center for Global Development (CGD). She has served as adviser to several international investment groups working in emerging markets and lectured on Africa and development all over the world. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was the founder of the first ever indigenous opinion research organization in Nigeria (NOI-Gallup Polls) in partnership with the Gallup organization, which strives to strengthen democracy and accountability in Nigeria. She was co-founder of the Makeda Fund, a US$50 million private equity fund designed to invest in women-owned and women-influenced small and medium enterprises in Africa. She founded the Center for the Study of Economies of Africa (C-SEA), a development research think-tank based in Abuja, Nigeria. She was recently named a member of the Danish-Government led commission on Africa and a member of the World Economic Forum Global Leadership Council on Transparency and Corruption. She is also a member of the renowned Commission on World Growth led by Nobel Prize winner, Professor Michael Spence.
She is married to surgeon Dr. Ikemba Iweala and is the mother of four children, among whom is the award winning writer, Uzodinma Iweala, author of Beasts of No Nation.
See Dr. Okonjo-Iweala speak at: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/152
Featured Speaker Friday
William Kamkwamba
African Leadership Academy, Student
When a lack of money for school fees forced William Kamkwamba to drop out of school at age 14, he did not simply sit and wait for a miracle to come. Instead he created a miracle of his own.
Using the knowledge he could gather from two textbooks at the local library and locally-available materials costing about 2200 Malawian Kwacha (approximately $15 USD), William began constructing a five-meter tall windmill outside his family’s modest home in rural Mastala village. “They all thought that maybe I’m going mad and that maybe I am crazy,” he says. But he persevered and two months later, he had built a windmill that could power two light bulbs and a radio for his family of 20. William’s neighbors soon noticed the sounds of Malawian reggae music emanating from his home.
Now William has built a second, larger windmill that produces both alternating and direct current and allows him to charge batteries so his family and neighbors can have electricity even when the wind is not blowing. He has added solar panels, bright lighting and a deep water well to his family compound, and is replicating his work in other parts of Mastala.
After graduating from ALA, William says: “I want to build a windmill company that provides energy to people across Africa”
See William Kamkwamba speak at: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/william_kamkwamba_on_building_a_windmill.html
Keynote Speaker Saturday
George Ayittey
Free Africa Foundation, President / Economist / Activist
George Ayittey is a Ghanaian economist and widely recognized authority on political economics development in Africa. A distinguished economist in residence at American University and president of the Free Africa Foundation, George has championed the idea that “Africa is poor because she is not free.” True freedom never came to much of Africa after independence from colonial rule, says his first book, Africa Betrayed, which won the H.L. Mencken Award for “Best Book in 1992.”
In the analysis of Africa’s woes, George believes that a much greater emphasis should be placed on internal factors—bad leadership, corruption, military vandalism, and exploitation of the African people—rather than the external factors. George stresses "internal solutions" and initiatives that must come from Africa itself. He coined the expression: “African solutions for African problems.” Crying out against the “vampire states” and dysfunctional governments that, he believes, are the bedrock of problems of many troubled Africa states, George speaks passionately about the grassroots enterprises that will enable “Africans to take back Africa – one village at a time.”
His influential book Africa Unchained boldly proposes a program of development—a way forward—for Africa, investigating how Africa can modernize, build, and improve its indigenous institutions. George argues forcefully that Africa’s salvation lies in Africa itself – not inside the corridors of the U.S. Congress or the inner sanctum of the World Bank. Africa’s salvation lies in returning to and building upon its own indigenous institutions and traditions of free village markets and free trade—rather than continuing to use alien and exploitative economic structures. The critically acclaimed book has helped unleash a new wave of activism and optimism about Africa.
His recent efforts have focused on identifying profitable enterprises for “Cheetahs” —a new breed of Africans taking their futures into their own hands instead of waiting for politicians to empower them. His speech “Cheetahs vs. Hippos for Africa's Future: made a powerful impact at the TED Global Conference 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania.
George earned a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada; an M.A. University of Western Ontario, London, Canada and a B.Sc. Univ. of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.
See George Ayittey speak at: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/george_ayittey_on_cheetahs_vs_hippos.html