Harbus

Issue date: 3/3/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Evgenia Eliseeva Brian Frimpong (OA), Africa Business Club Co-President, Barbara Iyayi (OB), Conference Co-Chair, Irene Charnley, Founder and CEO of Smile Telecom and Ex-VP, MTN, Catherine Duggan, Associate Professor, HBS, Chijioke Dozie (OI), Conference Co-Chair.

Simply put, the 10th Annual Africa Business Conference was a celebration of Africa and the 10th year anniversary of the conference, starting with a showcase of successful leaders and ending with an electrifying concert with Grammy award-winning artist Angelique Kidjo.

The conference theme "Controlling our Destiny: Celebrating Africa's success" set the tone for the day for speakers and panelists to share their success stories and provide advice on how people can make use of the many untapped opportunities in the continent. The discussions were engaging, frank and extremely informative. Over 900 people were in attendance. Participants reported they gained incredible value by attending any of the several events which took place during the three day conference.

The conference was kicked off by Fred Swaniker, Founder and CEO of the African Leadership Academy, a world-class pan-African high school, based in South Africa that aims to develop the next generation of African leaders. Fred started his conversation by proposing a toast to the success of the conference and Africa. He mentioned that Africa has lots to celebrate such as its GDP growth of around 5%. He then shifted gears to how Africa needs more growth, such as GDP growth of 7-10%, to really lift people out of poverty and that only Africans themselves can make the necessary changes in Africa. The bulk of the conversation from here focused on how Africans should control their destiny, which is consistent with the theme of the conference. He explained that Africans need to move from micro-entrepreneurship to building large scale enterprise that creates jobs and wealth. He said that there are plenty of ideas and lots of money in Africa, but that there is a shortage of people to execute on these ideas and efficiently utilize the financial resources. He encouraged participants to go to Africa with the mindset of creating opportunities in the continent. He boldly said "Go back to Africa to create your own opportunity and don't wait for someone to give it to you." He believes that entrepreneurs should think on a pan-African scale because of the huge market potential similar to other leading emerging markets like India and China.

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