Stopping the Brain Drain in Developing Countries through Entrepreneurship
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:18
Welcome to the session, which has been initiated by the BMZ, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
00:29
We are reshuffling a bit the program. We were initially planning to welcome the parliamentary state secretary, Mr. Silberhorn, to give an introduction to this session from the perspective of the ministry.
00:43
But he has to be excused. For now, he might still make it. But we will start with a discussion. Stopping the brain train in developing countries through entrepreneurship, that's the topic of this session. There has been a lot of focus on migration and the refugee situations over the last month or year, let's say.
01:05
There are approximately 250 million people living outside their countries as we speak, out of their countries of origin, migrating for different reasons. At the same time, though, there is a lot of new stuff happening in a lot of countries where people migrate from.
01:24
So there's a new startup and entrepreneurship scene passing in some of the countries. And this is what we want to look into a bit closer today. And we are very, very honored to have three of those great entrepreneurs from Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco here
01:43
today to share with us their experiences of setting up their initiatives and doing great work in their countries. So please, a warm welcome.
02:00
So we have from Egypt's largest summit that connects entrepreneurs and resources from the MENA region in Africa to bringing the collaborative economy to Morocco, to managing a hub for technology innovation in Kenya. Great expertise here on stage today. And I will briefly introduce, and I will sit down now with you, each of you.
02:25
So we have Abdelhamid Sarra, and I hope I pronounced it well. Abdelhamid is the founder and CEO of Rise Up, the Middle East and Africa's top and biggest entrepreneurship summit with around 5,000 attendees from 52 countries.
02:49
And before he founded Rise Up, he worked at Injas Egypt where he helped creating the first startups pipeline in all junior achievement countries worldwide.
03:00
He's also a young global shaper, a network of young people under 30 who are exceptional in their potential achievements and thrive from all over the world. Wow. So, okay. Okay, we are flexible, of course. So as I just mentioned, our state secretary, Mr. Silverhorn, was a bit delayed, but he's here now.
03:26
So I would like to welcome him and give his introductory speech before we continue with the discussion or start the discussion. Thank you.
03:53
Thanks. Ladies and gentlemen, so thank you for your introduction to this panel already.
04:03
Welcome. We are proud to be here, I think, for the third time at the Republica, which is a unique event, not only for the BMZ and for Germany, but for all the world. Because it brings together thousands of free thinking, unconventional people who engage in dialogue with one another and who are fond of inspiration.
04:31
We want to make use of your creativity, to be frank, for our development cooperation.
04:41
Digitalization in particular is a topic where we need and we want to explore new avenues and create new partnerships. That's why the BMZ was also represented at the CBIT Digital Trade Fair for the very first time earlier this year. We invited 13 startups, specially selected from developing countries, to present their business ideas
05:06
at the trade fair and to get into contact to German and European companies. And therefore, it's for me only natural that we are once again represented at the Republica this year.
05:25
Development cooperation is not just work done by development workers or in development organizations in a more traditional manner. And it's certainly not the work done by development policy makers like me.
05:42
Effective development is when expertise is brought together, including via channels and pathways that are outside the mainstream. Just 15 years ago, three quarters of all Internet users lived in industrialized countries.
06:01
Today, it's almost the other way around. Two billion or three billion Internet users worldwide are from developing and emerging economies. This is causing upheavals in every sphere of life. We development policy makers would be behind the times if we did not attempt to make use of this most powerful force for change.
06:30
One topic that is very high on the agenda in Germany right now, a topic that will continue to occupy us in the future as well, is migration and displacement.
06:41
Every day, people are leaving their homes because they hope to find a better life in a different country. And unfortunately, all too often, they are also forced to leave because that's their only chance to survive. There are many reasons why people decide to migrate.
07:01
A lack of prospects in their country of origin is one, and great differences in living conditions and income between different parts of the world are another. Digitalization has made these differences visible to the whole world.
07:20
We can see this effect every day in social media. And by the way, I think this has really changed in recent years. This is new, that so many mobile phones are spread across the world, in particular also in African countries, with 500 million mobile phones in Europe, 700 million mobile phones in Africa, more telephones than toilets in Africa.
07:52
And this has changed the world, because what we are experiencing here in Europe or
08:00
industrialized countries is sent to across the world, everywhere, and makes our planet a big village. In my ministry, we are working to create programs so that more people will once again have a reason to stay in their homes and will have prospects for their future.
08:25
First of all, we are tackling the root causes of displacement in the countries of origin, including in the home countries of our panelists today, that is in Egypt, Morocco, and Kenya. We want to create prospects for the future in these countries, and we have launched three special initiatives
08:46
and are working through them in the Middle East and North Africa, in West Africa, and in the Ukraine. Over 1 billion euros is being provided for ongoing projects to help refugees directly, and we have set up a
09:01
cash-for-work program, for example, through which 50,000 mainly Syrian refugees will be found work in this year only. In many cases, however, migration also means returning home again, and that's why the second way that we are helping is with the reintegration of returnees.
09:25
Digital transformation can help here. The BMZ is one of the first donors to have recognized the potential. The possibilities of digital networks are huge, and they mean that people can do their jobs independently from their own homes.
09:43
The ideas here reach from virtual careers fairs to app-based info portals and personal digital coaching programs. For example, we are supporting a pilot project together with a Berlin startup here on open higher education.
10:00
I just had contact to this project at the CVID fair in February. Its aim is to enable refugees in Jordan, for instance, to gain access to tertiary education through e-learning. This is a very promising example for young refugees coming here to Germany or to Europe and giving them a chance to use the time they have.
10:26
We recently issued a toolkit, another example, with inspirational project ideas. Our intention was to provide input for further discussions about such digital approaches in development policy and to offer a round up of the instruments that can be used for digitalization.
10:45
A few copies of the toolkit are available here at the front. Another example is our cooperation with Better Place Lab. The Better Place Lab is a German think tank that is part of Germany's biggest digital donation platform, betterplace.org.
11:05
The lab is currently in the process of conducting a study on the digital needs of refugees in Jordan, Greece, and Turkey. The findings of the study will be used to generate ideas for development cooperation support.
11:20
The BMZ uses existing commitment in projects all over the world. However, particularly when it comes to new innovative ways of providing support, we also want to work with new players and with social startups. Startups are setting new trends and entrepreneurs are creating jobs.
11:43
A study conducted by the OECD in 2013 showed that more than half of all new jobs that were created in the past ten years were created by companies that had been on the market for less than five years. That is also meant to be our topic today.
12:02
The panelists and the organizations and projects they are representing in our session today have some very interesting approaches to show you. I'd like to briefly introduce our guests, but maybe you already did it. You started already. So you introduced Rise Up, founded by Adel Hamad Sharara.
12:25
This is one of the most important entrepreneurship summits in the world. It brings together thousands of entrepreneurs from the tech startup and business scene from the Middle East and Africa with a view to creating the synergies and forming networks.
12:41
WeShare, I hope I pronounced it correctly, is one of many innovators working together on important topics to do with a collaborative economy. Topics that are also highly relevant in the context of Republica, ranging from even government to open knowledge and crowdfunding.
13:01
Asma Gedira, who herself moved from Morocco to Paris, introduced this approach into the Middle East region. And Jessica Colasso, one of the creative brains behind Brave Venture Labs and iHub in Kenya, is focused on supporting African entrepreneurs looking to establish new tech startups.
13:26
For the German Development Ministry, your thoughts on the following questions are of great interest if you allow me to give you some of our hopes and expectations. How can development corporations support entrepreneurships and the startup culture?
13:46
What is the role of diaspora entrepreneurs and transnational networks when it comes to making use of the potential of migration? And to what extent are digital technologies important for you in your projects?
14:02
So I am looking forward to your panel discussion. I am certain that it will provide inspiration for everyone. And just before I conclude, let me invite you to our next Congress on ICT for Development. ICT for Refugees is the title. On Tuesday, the 31st of May in 2016, here in Berlin, so some flyers are available here with our staff.
14:35
Thank you very much for your attention and I am looking forward to a fruitful discussion, hopefully
14:41
many new ideas and concepts we want to support and want to implement in our development policy. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming. Okay. Thanks a lot, Mr. Silberhorn. So I will not go back into the introduction.
15:08
In that case, I think what is important to emphasize is that we have three people here who have set up and are running also since years great initiatives or actually work beyond initiatives that has been initiated, is rooted in the countries of their origin.
15:27
And stems from within the countries themselves. I guess that is an important thing to mention. So let us go straight into the discussion then. I think it would be nice
15:41
if you could maybe each of you briefly introduce how your work, your initiatives actually started. What was the driving motivation behind them? Maybe we start with you. Hi. I am from Egypt, Cairo. So you all know in 2011 there was an Arab Spring and that spread a lot in Egypt.
16:06
So post the Arab Spring, there was a huge buzz and huge drive for a lot of young people at my age to start businesses and start start-ups that solve the current existing social and economic problems. For that, we needed an ecosystem of resources that actually supports these start-ups between investors, accelerators,
16:25
incubators, corporations, government support, media and culture and policies and all the needs and resources for start-ups. So we collectively with the ecosystem founded Rise Up, which started off as
16:40
a large entrepreneurship conference with 2,000 people in downtown Cairo in 2013. Currently we are nearly 5,000 attendees. It is a very global event that works with more than 50 countries all over the world. We have attendees from more than 50 countries. And the main focus is how can start-ups get the most benefit from the resources existing around them in the MENA region ecosystem or even beyond.
17:05
So we work with educators, incubators in Silicon Valley and in Berlin and in London and Copenhagen and Sweden and Dubai and everywhere else so that they get better access and no one really kind of monopolizes the start-up movement there.
17:21
It is a very inclusive and neutral entity. So we work with everyone who drives value and we are not really government, neither corporate nor investor related. We work with all of them. So it is a platform in that sense and the values are driven from what happened in 18 days in Tahrir Square, which was a great time.
17:45
We are currently working on developing new things to actually accelerate this movement forward. One of them is a city-to-city partnership and that is starting with Berlin. Thank you. Jessica, you had been with IHAP, Digital Innovation Hub in Nairobi from the very first moment but recently actually left
18:05
to found the Brave Venture Labs. What was your motivation behind that? What made you do that, I guess, quite big step? Alright. Hello? Alright. I'd like to say entrepreneurship is about taking risks and it's not being conventional
18:24
and not being conventional by sitting at a panel and telling your story. So I'll not be conventional. What motivated me to start Brave Venture Labs starts from a story. Ladies and gentlemen, Africa's youth is about 1 billion, a sixth of the world's population.
18:45
Over 70% of Africa's youth, of Africa's population are youth. People sitting here, three people here, people in the group are part of this youth and are here to revolutionize this industry.
19:04
It starts from a story. It starts from Brave Venture Labs. But let me take you back to 2007 and 2008. At that time, I was a student studying computer science at the University of Nairobi.
19:23
I got an opportunity in 2003 to study in Canada and I got an opportunity to study in Nairobi where I was born. I chose to study in Nairobi. Why? Because I saw opportunity and I knew that if I stayed, I could make change.
19:42
And yes, being there at the right time did happen. At the university, I met some of the world's best professors like Nathan Eagle who was invited as an adjunct professor and started the EEPROM program from Nokia and I learned how to do mobile programming.
20:02
Two years later, I developed a wireless mapping service in 2007, the first mapping application that would show points of interest around Nairobi. And in 2007 and 2008, we all know what happened in Kenya, the post-election violence. What happened? Arab Spring. That
20:30
right there was an opportunity for the young people like me to actually tap into this opportunity and use their skill sets. Bloggers on the ground like Eric Hurstman, Juliana Rotich, Ori Okolo rallied together and what
20:47
could be built in weeks was built in days. By who? None other than the youth. The youth who developed their skill sets at universities, who developed their skill sets on their own. They were putting their skill sets to good use and they developed the Ushaydi platform in a matter of days.
21:05
There was a media blackout in 2008 and through Ushaydi, there was an information flow by using the power of the internet and the power of the youth with apt skill sets. But you have to get people who have the right mindset to disrupt and the leaders at the right positions to disrupt.
21:26
And these same leaders, a couple of years later, 2008 and 2009, Eric Hurstman and I set up the iHub to give them a home where they could call it the technology hub in Nairobi.
21:43
Where they could come on a frequent basis every day, have meetings, meet up and giving rise to what we call now in East Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Silicon Savanna. Five years later, ladies and gentlemen, we did know that we would be starting the startup revolution.
22:03
And being in this space for over five years, I am passionate and passionate about talent, young people who have potential. In August last year, I met a very humble gentleman called Ibanga Umana who inspires me, who
22:22
is now my co-founder and started Brave Venture Labs because talent is global, opportunities are not. At Brave, we create opportunities for talent everywhere. We want diaspora people to come back to their home countries and give the knowledge to the people in their home countries.
22:45
We want people in this group to share with each other. Through Brave, we are building a global network where diaspora connections and global connections can be made through entrepreneurship for young people.
23:00
Talent is everywhere, opportunities are not. Here, we are here to create these opportunities. Let's do that, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much. Fantastic. Thanks a lot, Jessica. Asma, for you, it's also a story of having grown up in Morocco, living in Paris, but having decided to
23:25
work back in your home country or, better to say, in your home region since you are actually working in various countries in the minority. So what was your main motivation to do that step? Yes, definitely. It's kind of hard to go after you. I'm going to be very conventional and sit on my chair.
23:48
The thing is I'm the opposite of your case because I left Morocco with the idea of never at 18 years old and I never wanted to come back. So I studied there and started working in a consulting company and so on, and then I just got
24:01
bored and started working more and more with innovative communities with WeShare and other things in Paris and globally. And by seeing that and by traveling a lot, I realized how important it was and how dynamic this creative community were. And I wanted to bring that back in Morocco, actually, because initially I wanted to work for
24:23
development institutions and so on, but after an experience that I realized it was not dynamic enough. And I found all the innovation and welfare change in the different entrepreneurship communities and groups in the collaborative economy structures and so on.
24:44
And I decided to organize events, start to raise awareness, connect people, especially in the collaboration topic, because I don't know if you would agree, but in our region, I'm not very familiar with sub-Saharan Africa, but more with the whole Middle East and North Africa.
25:00
We have a strong initial culture of collaboration that we still found in rural areas and so on, but that is completely lost in the business world and in cities. And by seeing how it's kind of, it has been growing for like five or more years now in Europe
25:25
and in the U.S., I wanted to bring these concepts and ideas back and connect the different people around just to make them aware, to make them experience that collaboration is still possible, that it can be a promising business model. And that we have to trust each other for that, which is kind of the biggest challenge for me in the region right now.
25:49
Thank you, Asma. Yeah, I think, yeah, we have three points, which is really like there is talent and potential like everywhere. It's about having the opportunity and the space to live it. And a lot of times that happens when there's
26:03
a moment of challenge, of crisis, that people actually rise up and take action and feel empowered to do so. And yeah, giving that opportunity, providing a framework for that in that moment. This is where you guys are actually having your heart beating, I guess.
26:20
And the other aspect is, yeah, the aspect of collaboration. It's about bringing people together to achieve something big. So looking at that, like at your work, more like zooming in inside of the countries, like what is the main situation of entrepreneurship and so what are the main challenges or obstacles you're dealing with?
26:41
Maybe we'll take the round like this again. So we're not a conventional entrepreneurship conference, so basically it started within times that you shouldn't organize a conference. So streets were blocked, there were tanks everywhere, there was people protesting everywhere.
27:00
And this, overcoming this, gave the whole ecosystem this kind of drive and energy that it's a resilient ecosystem. And I think this is from, I'll start first with the opportunity side. It's not a conventional startup ecosystem, it's not, the drive is not just the business itself.
27:20
There's a very strong drive to become resilient, so basically everyone stemming out of this movement is there to stay or trying to stay further. So I think the first opportunity is you have a cult and a movement around entrepreneurship. Second opportunity, it's a very young movement, so usually founders are fresh grads or people who had two or
27:44
three years of experience after university and that's 50 or 60 percent of Egypt's population that are under 30. The third opportunity is it's getting more global, so because of the location and its attachment to Europe
28:02
and to Africa and to everywhere in the world, they get access to local resources and global resources. So many of the VCs that invested in the most successful startups in Egypt were actually from London, Stockholm and the U.S. 500 startups, one of the most important accelerators in the world, just invested in 10 startups over the past two years in Egypt.
28:25
From the challenge side, definitely instability is a challenge from a political and regional side, which shies away investors that are intending to invest in the region.
28:41
This is one. However, as I'm saying, there's an equivalent or equilibrium for that, which is the resilience of that space. The second one is very, very old laws, so I studied law and international law and most of the Egyptian laws that govern business are 50 or 60 years old. So I imagine now with all the tech disruption, how can you start a startup with all these
29:04
old laws and how can you get investment and how you can vest shares between you and your partners. The third challenge, which is changing a lot, is the cultural side. So there's a huge gap between the older generation in Egypt and the younger generation. The older generation is very preservative, conservative. They don't like change. They're a
29:26
big part of the hinder against what's going on in terms of the revolution. And the younger age is actually all about getting out, change, doing stuff, meeting new people, traveling, and change for them is the only constant.
29:43
So this kind of clash between two generations is still one of the hinders for the ecosystem as well. Thank you. Jessica, how is that in Kenya? Do you see parallels or where do you see other aspects actually? Well, I see a couple of overlapping challenges and opportunities and I'll definitely say when it
30:04
comes to entrepreneurship on a policy level, we still do have very archaic laws in Kenya. And some of the entrepreneurs need to collaborate with government officials to actually educate themselves on some of the
30:21
policies and also governments educating the young generation and the entrepreneurs on this concept, especially in the hardware space. An example is BRIC, the Internet Backup. How many of you know about the BRIC? Show of hands. Yeah, B-R-C-K.
30:41
When they were in their stage of actually, Eric did launch it at Republica, I believe, a couple of years ago. And when they were actually doing prototyping like components which are like $5, when they import, they need to pay tax like about 10 times. So very archaic laws around what ICT means. So we need to have like a bit of
31:09
amalgamation with these two stakeholders so they can be informed of like what needs to work where. Another challenge I do see is the copy-paste model. Silicon Savannah, as they call it, is not Silicon Valley or startup nation.
31:29
There are key ingredients of a startup ecosystem that you can replicate but not copy in the sense that, let me talk about this talent, but there's a skill set.
31:44
The skill sets, and compare Israel to this, Israelis are very technically apt. On the Kenyan skill set, they are apt, but they are apt at very specific skills. So it's not a copy -paste model where you can actually take technology from one country and copy it into a developing country and start a startup.
32:07
You have to understand the factors in the environment. On the opportunity side, I mean, what has happened over the last eight years in Kenya has a lot to do with different stakeholders.
32:24
And this goes all the way from government, private sector, civil society, and startups. And let me start with the government. At that time, we had a champion in the ecosystem called Professor Bitangi Demo, and he pushed to actually create policies around data and policies around the use of fiber.
32:49
And right now, Kenya has a couple of optic cables coming in from the port area and at least fiber in the major cities. And I remember in 2009, I was interviewed by a couple of international media, CNN and BBC,
33:04
and asking, with all this bandwidth, what are you going to do now that you have faster internet? So government actually has done its part to actually push for faster internet, but not necessarily that the cost has gone down.
33:21
The other opportunities that do exist is from private sector. We've seen over the last five years major companies like IBM Research setting up their headquarters in Nairobi and bringing very specialized skill sets into the country.
33:41
Over 50 researchers from all over the globe are coming to live in Kenya, and it's really good to kind of like tap into this component. The other opportunities, when the iHub was set up about six years ago, there's been a sporadic mushrooming of over 120 tech hubs across Africa to actually indulge the young entrepreneurs to get into entrepreneurship and tap into the opportunities.
34:11
The challenge to that is, and I like to say this from an activist, a lot of you know Ori Okolo. Ori Okolo is a political activist in Nairobi, in Kenya, and she's one of the co-founders of Ushayidi.
34:27
And she does mention is that you can't entrepreneurship yourself out of everything. Entrepreneurship is not necessarily the solution to everything. Sometimes you actually just need to fix things on the governance level.
34:43
And this calls for various leaders in the space, is looking at the opportunities and the policies while you're in that term. What can you do better? How can we work more efficiently? So it's not about just creating startups and getting the business going, but I think it's more about, we talk about collaboration and we talk about partnerships.
35:07
How can we actually create more tangible, actionable partnerships that can be measured and said over the five -year period, this is what we did for our city and for our country in terms of development. Thank you. Great. Yeah, we're already running short on time. Thanks a lot. I think
35:25
we do see generation gaps, but not only within civil society, but also between institutions and those institutions that actually set the frameworks, legal frameworks for a lot of things. And those initiatives and new forms of organizing. But yeah, the technology aspect became very emphasized here.
35:49
Asma, you work in various countries, but the actual connection between communities plays a big role. How would you describe the role of digital technology in your work and how did the rapid increase of digital opportunities actually change or improve the work you guys are doing?
36:07
Well, it's not a surprise that digital technology is kind of revolutionary, especially since most of the population in our region is very young. But in the case of Morocco, for example, and in many developing countries, Morocco has one-third of its population who is illiterate.
36:26
So basically, you have like different types of challenges that you need to address as a change maker, as an entrepreneur, and so on. You cannot disconnect your will to innovate and to start a business and so on from the social impact part.
36:41
And digital technology and social networks and so on and new media enabled actually these youth to connect online when it was not able to do it offline, for example, due to mobility issues or so on, and of course to create projects that help. For example, in Palestine, there is a very interesting woman, Habira Abouayt, who created a freelancer platform, basically, because she lives
37:13
in Bethlehem, and when you're in this region, you just can't move, especially if you're a woman, because there are security problems.
37:21
And a lot of women in the region are very well educated. They go to university more than men more and more, and they just cannot work. So in that case, being able to start a business online is a very powerful tool. And in terms of the other point, it's just self-organizing.
37:43
You have more and more grassroots projects, like, for example, empowering rural areas as well. We have Anou, which is a very interesting project run in the south of Morocco. Basically, it's kind of an Etsy, but working with craftsmen in the rural south of Morocco.
38:09
So basically, the artisans are able to use their mobile phone with very simple technology that has been made specifically for them, post their pictures on the platform, and then they're, like, self-organized with it and cooperative and so on.
38:22
This would not have been possible with digital technology, but my point is that it's not enough, and I think you can confirm, maybe. Thank you. Yeah, you mentioned before the aspect of city collaborations, and indeed, good that you mention rural areas, because context matters, we all know, and you have all mentioned that what works in one place doesn't work in the other,
38:44
and what works in urban areas in your countries might be an extremely different story in other places within the countries. So how do you, for instance, in your work, look into scaling and diversifying in an inclusive way?
39:02
Generally speaking, entrepreneurship ecosystems don't tend to revolve around countries, neither continents. They revolve around the smallest governance, which is the city. So in Germany, you'll find Berlin, and then other cities are different in terms of ecosystem. Even the U.S., Silicon Valley, and then you go to Detroit, you
39:22
have a totally different ecosystem that is actually stemming from an economic challenge. In Egypt as well, Cairo, and then other places. So I think this hubs thing, the concentration on very small ecosystems that are tending to scale, the potential of collaborating between these ecosystems, and actually, when
39:43
we're able, for example, if a start-up in Egypt is able to raise funding from Kenya, and then basically scale in Morocco, or come for mentoring in Berlin with the ease of flow of communication and transportation, this is the ideal world of start-ups we're going to live in. Start-ups are no longer located or centralized around one hub. They don't even, we're talking about how to prevent brain drain.
40:08
They don't even drain towards one place. Telefonica, one of the companies in Spain, did a research. They asked millennials. 70% of them said, we want to start a start-up, and most of them, like 90% said,
40:25
we don't really care where it is. So it's going to be the next trend that anyone will start their own company anywhere in the world, depending on the need of that business, and depending on the resources that ecosystem will drive. So ideally, I would love to see Cairo collaborating with Nairobi, with Casablanca, Rabat, with Berlin, with Silicon Valley, and so on.
40:46
Thanks a lot. I would like to soon also give space to the audience to actually ask questions to you. But before we do that, so we have various people from the Ministry, from the German Development Corporation actually sitting here,
41:04
and who are very keen to know, of course, like, what can the Development Corporation do to best support your initiatives, and not only your initiatives, but support the start-up and entrepreneur scene in countries such as yours on a longer term? There's a very clear-cut answer for this. Government and Development Corporations are usually best when they work with their local partners.
41:30
So basically, when they catalyze the ecosystem, not try to implement or build an ecosystem themselves, because as our colleague here said, it's a cohesive ecosystem.
41:41
There's a government, corporations, investors, media, universities, and each has its own role. The role of a catalyst from the government side and from the Development Corporation side is usually the best. If they're able to find one neutral entity where they can actually gather the whole ecosystem in one round table and speak about the challenges and how they can do so by catalyzing that
42:03
through resources, either their networks or their funds or their even presence at some of the points catalyzes that. But implementing is, I haven't seen until now, one strong ecosystem where the government is the main implementer, in the 21st century at least.
42:22
Jessica? I'm actually really pondering about the term catalyzing, and I've heard a lot of collaborations, the way we want to catalyze the growth of entrepreneurs. And what I do say is, just do it. Experiment and boldly prototype the problems.
42:46
So come down to the level of, I am not in government, I am not in the development, I am not an entrepreneur. We are all smart people in one room, going to one direction, solving a problem.
43:00
If we do that, I think then we're going towards something tangible. Because when we start putting all these processors and prerequisites around us, we start creating a box around us. You see this line here? We start creating a box around us. Let's get rid of the box. If we want to collaborate with each other, what do we want to do here at Republica? We
43:24
want to disrupt, we want to tap into the 70%. How are we going to do this, these opportunities? How are we going to create jobs? How are we going to tap into the digital rise? Are we going to give money? Are we going to create infrastructure?
43:41
Talk to the people on the ground, the champions on the ground. They know, they have the answers. But let's not leave it at conversations. Let's do something for three months. If it worked, what worked? Let's scale it. If it didn't work, what didn't work? Let's experiment again and let's do it. And these are the values of brave. Be passionate about what you're doing. Experiment boldly
44:05
to unleash the best in yourself for the better of the human kind and the world. Your true calling is here when you're doing something, when you're really happy. And I cannot express at the moment how joyous I am doing brave because it's helping young people building companies in Africa.
44:29
Thank you. Asma. I'm sorry!
44:42
Try to stand up. I have to stand up. Okay. So now I have two mics so I can testify about Morocco. Well, having worked, I'm going to sit because I have heels though. Having worked with actually like within development institution and with development institution for funding program, I agree with all of you.
45:12
The problem is that we have resources like especially funding resources and a huge network, powerful network connected with politics and so on.
45:22
And they are completely disconnected with the actual reality on the ground. It's slowly changing, of course, but what we need is indeed more collaboration and more trust in the collaboration. And by that, I mean you don't just sign like a local partnership with a small NGO locally or whatever grassroots movement.
45:46
And then whenever the person or the organization offers an initiative that is not in the initial plan, not be flexible and not funding. Because if you want change, you have to trust the people who know the reality and be as fast as they are.
46:01
And this is the problem. Be like able to allow funds and like resources like HR, mentoring and so on to these small institutions and small groups. This is the best way, I mean, to have an impact, I guess. Thank you. Are there questions in the audience? Do we have, maybe I just.
46:35
Thanks for the interesting discussion. I wanted to ask, I myself am from Iraq as well and I wanted to ask you guys, I don't know how it is with you.
46:45
How is the idea of becoming an entrepreneur in your country seen as? Because in my country, it's the best thing to become a doctor, it's the best thing to become an engineer, make your parents proud and happy. And becoming an entrepreneur is not really that much of an, it's not really desirable right
47:06
now, it's not the top priority for a lot of young people in my own country. So how it is in yours and is it changing? Do you? I have that. I totally agree, especially like in the difference, I think
47:23
like from what I know from Nairobi and Carol, there are more dynamic ecosystems for start. Morocco is a very young entrepreneur scene. It's still seen as something different and not desirable or people don't understand. Nobody in my entourage in Morocco like understands what I'm doing.
47:46
But it's slowly changing because of the activism of the actual ecosystem. The more it grows and the more you start working with big companies to get funded, there are more and more programs and so there is more awareness about it. So there is a big challenge of storytelling and you have to work with media, online
48:06
platform, with big companies and government even if it's the less dynamic institution supposed to follow. So it is difficult but it is changing, slowly, slowly.
48:23
Okay, we have one question here. Coming back to the headline of brain drain, you discussed very much that obviously you want to keep initiatives local, etc. And at the same time, the ministry and so on, of course, are trying to help with that and many other institutions as well. However, at the same time, there is multiple EU member states, for example, that set
48:42
up programs that make it easier for entrepreneurs to get visas, to set up companies here. There is Estonia with the e-residency program that measures its success by how many people set up companies in Estonia. Is it something that worries you that at the same time these European or Western countries are basically trying to get the best talents to Europe or to the US, etc. through these programs?
49:06
I learnt about the Estonia program when I was in Finland about a year and a half ago and I think it's brilliant because you talked about scaling and diversifying. And a challenge that we do have in Kenya is actually getting, when we actually see talent, it doesn't matter where you're from.
49:28
And it's really expensive to pay for work permits. It's probably like double, three times the cost. And if you can actually make that easier to actually bring talent in a specific country or
49:40
have regulations like the e-residency program where you can actually have part of your team in Estonia and register a company in Estonia at a very low cost and keep that down because the highest cost of a start-up is actually starting. I think that is actually brilliant. I think that's a really good move, in my opinion.
50:01
Thank you. I'd also briefly introduce Lucas Van Salinger. He's working with the BMZ on creating digital economy or entrepreneurship opportunities for Syrian refugees in Turkey.
50:20
And I'd like to introduce briefly the work you're doing. So, hi everyone. Since I don't have high heels, I think I can stand quickly. I just wanted to quickly share with you a very interesting project we're implementing for GIZ. It's about creating employment and entrepreneurship for Syrian refugees actually in Turkey, also including the German IT industry.
50:46
And we just started the project, so I cannot tell you too much about the results. So we started two weeks ago, but there are some figures and some insights I wanted to share with you. First of all, what we saw that we have relatively small but very dynamic IT industry in Turkey with about 2,500 companies, but growing very rapidly.
51:07
And what we also found out that there's a very dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem which has the potential to give a lot of jobs to Syrians. And what we also found as figures which I wanted to share with you, and I think this is very relevant for what we're discussing today.
51:24
If you look at the start-ups of newly established businesses in Turkey in 2015, we found out that about 32% of these newly established companies were established by Syrian refugees. And about 50% of the start-ups which were established in a joint venture with Turkish and Syrian entrepreneurs.
51:42
So I think this is a very relevant figure when we discuss this topic which we have today because it shows the potential which migration have, which the refugees have for pushing the entrepreneurial ecosystem, for creating jobs. And it also shows the great potential of the digital technologies of the digital industries.
52:02
And we can see actually this pattern from some other projects we're implementing on behalf of GZ in Kosovo for example, where we also work on promoting the digital industry in combination with promoting business of refugees and migrants. And I think this is a very, very interesting relevant topic as I said before because it's a
52:23
dynamic industry, it's a very good industry to create jobs for young people, as we heard and saw today. And it creates high level jobs, highly qualified jobs and therefore I think we should really push this topic and we hope that with this project in Turkey we can also make a good contribution to this very interesting project activities.
52:46
Thank you. I think we have time for one more question and I saw a hand here. Hello, my name is Christian, I'm from the Development Corporation as well. It's not a question, I just want to back up what you said from Egypt. Jessica, you know I love the way you think and your ideas and of course it would be
53:04
great to just sit down and really experiment, have crazy ideas and either scale it or lose it afterwards. But it's still difficult from a governmental perspective to test because it's not so easy, we have to justify to its taxpayers and stuff.
53:22
So I can rather see the role and I think that's what you said in our function as a kind of a broker, as a facilitator, we are not disruptive, we are not really innovative. But you guys are, but what we can do is bring you guys together or network with you with other guys because we have the contacts and we have the policy credibility in a way.
53:43
You have the secret, we have the policy credit in a way. One brief last question, I saw a hand back there. Thank you. I was just wondering, there's two great women sitting up there, but overall what's your experience of the participation of women in entrepreneurship?
54:05
Can a man answer that? Please do, it's interesting, I'd like to know your opinion. So basically I'll talk on my experience, our team is nearly 50 or 60% females. Our summit has nearly 5,000 attendees, 40% of them are women.
54:24
And we've seen I think much more female founders and female people in tech and entrepreneurship in the past two years than any other ecosystem. I've been to nearly 30 countries, I've seen all the ecosystems. So honestly I would say they're better than the Egyptian and Arab men have usually encountered in terms of working with.
54:48
They're usually less egoistic, they're very targeted and very focused on what they want to do and very, very passionate about what they have. So on the entrepreneurship side, I can't generalize more than that, but on the entrepreneurship side it's a very, very positive ratio.
55:06
Thanks a lot. Yes, maybe just a little addition, but gender is a very important topic for me and I organize many events in the region, especially since it's really complicated in terms of social situation in the whole Middle East and North Africa.
55:26
But in the small ecosystem of entrepreneurship, it is actually where we see the gender balance starting to shift. And for example it's like 35% of female founders of entrepreneurs are female in the MENA region and it's like 10% in the rest of the world.
55:43
So yeah, it's difficult but it's changing again. And what's happening in the MENA region and Africa as well is probably the future of this region, right? And probably part of the big future of the world because, again, statistically it's 60% of the population. So when we have a very strong economy one day that taxpayers are actually deciding on who to
56:07
rule them and who to decide on their own policies, these are the people who are going to vote. And accordingly these are the people who are going to state what their future are. So as much as it's shaky right now and transitional with all the changes of governments and the changes of
56:23
policies, I think the future is really bright and you have three examples of people who just decide to stay there. And make this happen and we know thousands of others. We're just a smaller presentation of a very big generation. Thanks a lot. Thanks so much to the three of you. I'll try to wrap this up briefly and correct me if I miss something.
56:46
So I think bottom line there is potential, there is drive and what we see is that it's where there is friction where change actually sparks and gets bigger. And friction doesn't only mean conflicts inside of countries that makes people gather, join forces and rise up but
57:04
also means friction between institutions that are maybe not really having the frameworks that are supportive to reality as we see it and as the generations who are not the young and upcoming but the ones that are young and right there right now fighting for the change they want to see in the world to support those frameworks.
57:26
So one of you mentioned, basically said we need to break down hierarchies, work together. Don't actually see this distinction between governance and those people who are actually served. So maybe that's the essence of the advice like equal out divides within countries, between
57:47
people but also between those who set the frameworks and those who drive the change. Thanks so much. Thanks to you everyone. Thank you.