Arm Your Competitors For a Better Future
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I woke up to a thought.
A naive, hopeful thought it was. A thought that could make all the difference in this world. A thought that will be hard, if not impossible to make come true.
But I thought I’d share it with you anyway.
Me, 20 years ago
Twenty years ago, I was eight. A bright-eyed kid just like the eight-year-olds you see when you take a look at schoolyards and families next door. Excited, full of ideas, believing everything was possible.
Me with my grandpa and two of my brothers
I was living in Senegal, the most West African country of all West African countries and couldn’t understand the difference between my two home countries: comparing the poor Senegal to one of the wealthiest of all, Finland, made the differences strikingly clear. In the mind of an eight-year-old the solutions are always easy, and so I thought building new houses and teaching local farmers to use their farms more efficiently would be the solution. Inside my head, I was drawing plans for how the farmers would need just a few new tractors, and how their houses could be made to be more like those I’d seen when visiting Finland on holidays.
Twenty years later, I realize that my solution back then would never have worked. We cannot just take our ways of doing things and bring them to Africa, hoping they will work there too.
Awakenings
I got back to thinking about Senegal when, last week, I read an article in the Helsinki University student newspaper, Ylioppilaslehti, about how young men around my age are doing all they can to flee Senegal (article in Finnish) and try their luck in Europe. All of this because the opportunities to make a living in Senegal (and the rest of Africa just the same) are growing smaller all the time.
When at the same time, the European Union does their best to keep foreigners outside of its borders, the situation gets unsustainable. We can travel anywhere we want, so we often forget that this is not the case for everyone. And the other side of the story, all young people moving abroad, hardly is a sustainable solution for the country either.
Then yesterday, I was reading Tim Flannery’s fabulous book on climate change, The Weather Makers
That’s a terrifying thought.
I don’t find it likely that we will stop our consumption soon enough to prevent this from happening. And for Africa, it might already be too late. Rainfall in the area has dropped dramatically, and will keep going down.
Don’t get me wrong: we need to do our best to prevent this — and at least minimize the effect of the climate change. But at the same time, we need to start preparing for survival. The big question is: how to handle the consequences of climate change ethically? How do we take responsibility of the less fortunate instead of just fighting for our own rights?
When the fire breaks, no one will be thinking about anyone except their closest circle of friends.
We must act now, when we still care.
Arming Your Competition
A view from Senegal
The Internet is a funny place where New York and Culebra are just as close to Vantaa as are Jyväskylä or Helsinki.
But on a global scale, it is still an upper class country club for the most fortunate few. Or you tell me: how often do you meet a young pastor from Senegal or a farmer from Afghanistan when surfing on the information highway?
I am a firm believer in that people in the poorer parts of the world have the same intellectual potential as we do to do all the same things and strive for the goals as we do. What is missing is not the ability or will, but means and information.
The main reason why more africans are not making money online is that they don’t know how to get online — or what to do once there.
The biggest failure of the world wide web is that it is not world wide. The technology is there, but access is missing: If you are to use the technology, you need to know how to use it, and what you can do with it.
What does this have to do with preparing to the world after climate change?
Everything.
If we cannot stop the crisis, we need to make sure it doesn’t turn into a genocide. I don’t want my son to have to bear the shame of thinking that his parents and grandparents killed — murdered — the biggest part of the population of this planet.
And I believe the only way to do that is by arming the poor parts of the world to build their future and gather the resources they need to survive the future. This can only happen through fair, international business on free markets without trade barriers.
We need to arm our competition and help individuals in developing countries build businesses that change the world. We need to forget our fears of our jobs being shipped overseas
When one young man from Senegal decides to start an online business, and with our help, gets it off the ground, things start to change for the better. He will be able to bring money to his home country through his own work. He will be able to hire more people to work for him. He will be able to teach others to do what he has done.
And then, when other men and a women join in, the speed of change increases. I don’t know what shape or form Senegalese Internet business will take, but I’m curious to see it. If we hand over the tools and share the ideas we have learned over the years, and give them our support, they will come up with their own, unique ways of changing the world — and in the end, everyone wins.
We just need to take the first step. It is our responsibility, but at the same time, it is our priviledge: because of the Internet, and because of our expertise, we have a chance to make a difference.
What do you think? Is this utopia? Am I missing something? Or would you join me and help me make this happen? Share your thoughts in the comments or get in touch through my contact form.
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I’d be very interested to see what kind of businesses came out of it. I imagine you’d get some thing quite different from what we have now.
Rohan
Jarkko - that is a brilliant post! I typically scan everything, but I read every word and you had me the whole time.
“The biggest failure of the world wide web is that it is not world wide.” ~ from my perspective, the web is not even island wide. Where I live the “haves” have internet while many don’t.
Local business models, reliable technology, and scalable ventures could do wonderous things but providing access and ongoing training is the difficult part. Bill Gates are you listening…?
@Rohan: Yeah, that’s the most exciting part about it… I can’t wait to see what entrepreneurs from Africa will come up with.
@Mark: Thanks, man!
@Bill Gates: If you’re reading, send me a note :) Let’s see what we can come up with.
@Anyone else: I’m all ears for ideas on how to actually make this happen…
Some businesses dedicate a percentage of their income to a fundraising project they find worth helping. Maybe this could be the case with you, too? Maybe a BIG percentage? Say, one third? Or just a small percentage that wouldn’t be missed anyway?
I know some cases in which the supported cause has had a major impact on the client when he was choosing a place to buy. This is one of the reasons I stamp my business as an eco-friendly business - it is a way to choose customers. It’s quite funny actually, as I really get mostly clients who are also concerned about nature preservation. When the client shares the values, it’s much easier to get along.
I might be with you on this. We might even be able to pull off a campaign/brand, something like “Operaatio maa” or Fair Trade.
@Joona: I like that approach a lot. Deciding upfront to use a third of your business income to support an important cause is a great idea.
But in my case, I’d also want to be hands on in making the cause happen… So, while working on my business, I always have this thought on the back of my head: how could I make my business to be about something important in itself.
I haven’t figured that out yet… But that shouldn’t stop me from doing something important already now, and in that the approaches that you suggest really make a difference.
Let’s keep our minds working on this and see what we can come up with!
consider this for a major reason of climate change. too many people requiring more land be paved over with concrete or asphalt. Too many people requiring buildings with lots of high rise steel and glass reflecting heat and sunlight back into the atmosphere. All that asphalt and concrete reflecting heat back into the atmosphere day and night.
Poor atmosphere does not get a chance to cool down like it did 100 years ago. Result GLOBAL WARMING. Stop making more people.
most of the best thoughts are difficult to make come true but that’s what makes them so exciting and brilliant - and why it’s great to share these here so that you have pressure to actually work to get it done. Ideas are great, acting on them is the important part though.
so true about your realisation 20 years later about how you can’t port solutions from elsewhere to Africa. i live in Cape Town, South Africa - and you can see evidence of it everywhere. you can however port the intention behind it and the expertise. thing is that you can’t port the solution because the situation is so different. you have to apply the resources to the situation to make it work.
i think education is definitely the most important part of preventative steps toward stopping climate change for the worse. the resources are there internet wise as you say, we just need to focus the attention on them so they are used and capitalised upon.
I don’t think a Senegalese youth needs our help - it would be a good thing - but he needs his own belief more than anything else. he needs to see that he CAN do it and gain that perspective that he is essentially no different to anybody else, especially with the connectivity of this day and age. engage him, help him, challenge him, embrace him - all necessary but don’t treat him differently, that’s just more marginalization, more of the mentality that keeps him stuck in the first place.
awesome blog.
talk to you soon
alex