http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/206935 however, altogether the result of being industrious.
Thousands of persons work hard who never grow wealthy.
Others with much less effort, acquire wealth.

Seeing possibilities is another step toward acquiring
wealth. A person may be as industrious as he can possibly
be, but if he does not use his mental forces, he will be
a laborer, to be directed by the person that uses to good
advantage his mental forces."



---------

PRIME your imagination and put it to work for you. You'll
be amazed at what YOU can achieve.

---------

]]> Sat, 19 May 2007 05:51:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/206935 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/202161

"The world is filled with cowards who dare not attempt
big things. Convention, ridicule and "what will people
say?" are the ghosts which take the starch from them.

Forget the bugaboos. Kick em' into the scrap heap. The
best successes are open to you if only you take the
heaviest risks - ever balanced by cool, discerning
judgment."

Then the author continues:

"Dare what no other person will dare. Seek to accomplish
what no other person would attempt, is the very way to
display yourself as a superior being in your own and in
other's eyes."

Powerful words.

Listen, YOU have so much power and greatness inside of you.
You have no idea what you could do.

Accomplishments more than you ever dreamed of are available
to you.

I want you to go for what YOU Want.

I want you to be the best you.

I see no reason for you not to be, do you?

Take that step. Stretch yourself. YOU can do it!
]]> Fri, 11 May 2007 11:09:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/202161 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/185955 Enjoy the reading.


Welcome to Bill Gates Personal History
Bill Gates was born on 28th October, 1955 at Seattle. His father was an attorney in Seattle. Bill has two sisters - Kristi and Libby. Bill was highly influenced by his mother who died some years ago.
Bill married at a very late stage in life, 38 to be precise. His wife's name is Melinda and she manages his charities besides his two children , daughter Jennifer and his son Rory, who was born in 1999 .


Bill Gates Qualities of Success
1. Workaholic :-
Bill Gates use to work very hard since his childhood. Bill Gates along with his friends use to work all night besides the computer. Bill Gates , during his stay at Harvard sometimes used to sleep on the tables of the computer lab. Bill Gates was never absent from office during the early years of Microsoft. For years he slept for only six hours a day. Bill Gates even married in his 30s. Bill Gates is always conscious of his time. Having more time to work has been Bill Gates's wish for many years. Bill Gates success can be attributed most to this quality.
Bill Gates believes in the words of Thomas Edison - " Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

2. Ambitious :-
Bill was ambitious since his childhood. Gates always said that he could perform any task on which he applied his mind. At the age of fourteen Bill was confident that he could be a millionaire by the age of thirty. Gates still wants to achieve leadership in every thing he performs. Being ambitious is one of the greatest of Bill Gates Qualities

3. Entrepreneurship Skills :-
Bill had all the qualities of great entrepreneurs. He wanted to change the world. Bill was and still is financially very conservative. Bill had confidence in what he was doing. Gates is a perfect workaholic as mentioned above. He has a good brain for figures. He even has a good memory and aptitude for the learning. Bill Gates always learns from his past mistakes. He possesses a highly creative mind. He also devotes full concentration to his work.

4. Self Confidence :-
Bill always believed in himself and wasn't afraid of any body. Bill continually pursued his interest in computers despite the suggestions by the people to concentrate on his study. Gates was always confident of achieving success one day. Bill Gates took on IBM at a stage when it was hundreds of times bigger than Microsoft. Bill Gates still has confidence of coming unscathed from the recent Anti-trust case.

5. Technologist :-
Bill possessed a highly creative mind since his childhood. At the age of fourteen he learned BASIC. Bill has successfully learned the art of blending technology with the needs of the people. He is currently concentrating on this art in his present job as the Chief Software Architect and the Chairman of the Microsoft Corporation.

6. Good Manager :-
Bill has made it a point to constantly re-innovate the company on the basis of changing markets and superior management techniques . Microsoft has constantly been rated as one of the most admired companies. The concept of stock options owes a part of its popularity to their successful implementation at Microsoft. His company has enjoyed the current stock market boom thanks partly t
to his good management.

7. Excellent Sales Man :-
Bill is a master at making deals. He possesses superior bargaining skills. His life has been full of successful deals. He converted DOS into a hot selling product although Microsoft had bought it for just a few thousand dollars. Microsoft list of successful products is nearly endless, this fact partly owes itself to him.

8. Successfully predicting future trends :-
Bill successfully predicted future trends and positioned the products of the company in such a manner that they became instant hits. Although he has his fare share of failures but even when he fails in his predictions he doesn't give up.
]]> Fri, 20 Apr 2007 13:07:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/185955 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/184797

A:
"Always will I strive to be greater than I am. I must
SURPASS MYSELF. In each successive act, test,
encounter, thought, I will be GREATER than in the one
previous. I am what I am now, but in an hour I must
be MORE than I am now. In everything must I exert
more power to surpass myself."


B:
"From now on I vow I will try to act the part of a person
TEN TIMES bigger than I am now, for by so doing, I
construct greater powers in my own brain which will
actually build me into such a leader. I refuse to longer
be confined by the shadowy walls which heretofore have
cramped me into a narrow sphere. From this day forth
the word "limit" is banished from my mind.


C:
"You and I are architects of the minutes.

We build ourselves every moment.

What you are this minute is the result of what you were
building during the thousands of minutes that already
have passed."



]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:55:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/184797 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/160623 How to make money
By Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe
Saturday, February 3, 2007
•Dangote
Photo: Sun News Publishing

* Mores Stories on This Section



He is a money-spinning machine—a man who wins lottery everyday! He has been called “Nigeria’s richest man,” a man whose financial worth has been put conservatively at $4 billion, making Aliko Dangote probably the richest man in Africa’s richest country.

Everyday the Dangote business jackpot rings, the sound is loud enough to make King Croesus the fabled richest man ever, turn green with envy.

In Nigeria the name Dangote has become a brand that means many things, from rice to sugar to cement. The list goes on and on. Currently, his pet project is building a super factory where raw sugar would be refined.

On November 16, 2006, he went to the Stock Exchange to seek three billion shares from the public and before he could blink his eye, the project had been oversubscribed reportedly by over 300% and over N54 billion had landed in his pocket as part of the N180 billion sugar refinery project which is projected to be the biggest in Africa, second only to Brazil—the world’s leading sugar producer.

Dangote’s world is a sweet world of money, money, money. By his own admission, he makes a daily turnover of N300 million. And that is only in the sale of sugar. With N300 million, you could live a lifetime of affluence. But for Dangote, N300 million is just chicken feed. A drop in his ocean of affluence.
Mention Dangote and what comes into the mind is the man who owns Benue Cement put at $1 billion and Obajana Cement in Kogi put at $2.5 billion. Then there are other businesses like Dangote Textiles, Dansa Food Limited, Executive Jets Limited and an oil bloc to crown it all.

Aliko Dangote makes money with the ease of Michael Jordan defying laws of gravitas. For him, money making has become so routine that it has ceased to excite him. What really excites him these days, he says, is when he creates the opportunity for others to make millions.

He told us recently during a meeting at his posh but modest home in Victoria Island district of Lagos: “In Benue Cement, we have created over 4,000 millionaires. Because people that had bought N3.50k shares at N6.50k, some of them have sold the shares at N45.
“At a point, people that invested N100 million in Benue, they came out with a profit of N1.4 billion. So if you have invested N10 million, you might have made about N140 million. This is the kind of thing that people would now, when somebody wants to mess you up, they can rise against any such person and say: ‘Don’t touch this person.’

“Making money right now means something to me but not very much, in the sense that what I enjoy doing now is wealth creation than just making money. Because it would reach a point where what really gives you satisfaction is how many people you have given employment to, how many people depend on you, that if something happens to you, they are in trouble. This one would give you a lot of joy.”
In two of our books, 50 NIGERIA’S CORPORATE STRATEGISTS and NIGERIA’S MARKETING MEMOIRS, we missed the opportunity of interviewing this rich, humble man and sharing in his secrets of business success. Now, when the opportunity came, we seized it firmly with both hands. He had only 45 minutes to share with us. But within that limited time, we were able to distill what can be called the essential Dangote business credo. Here are 10 of them:

1) Manufacture something. Don’t just trade.
Dangote says: “The biggest move where our organization moved at a supersonic speed was when we moved from trading to manufacturing. We thought trading would give the most money. But honestly, trading doesn’t give money. There is more money in manufacturing. When many people understand, I am sure they would try and move into manufacturing. There is more money in there, but industry also has a lot of risk.

The risks were more then when we started. Right now, they are actually mitigated because government don’t rampantly come and change laws. They have been stable. Exchange rate has been stable. And that is what you need. In the eighties, we brought in goods, but the exchange rate moved dramatically from six or seven naira to twenty-one naira per dollar. And also during Abacha’s time from that twenty-one when they cancelled the different exchange rate to eighty-something. So you could see that the risks were there. Right now there are less risks. Policies are spelt out and government don’t really always come out and say: ‘Okay, we have changed this, we have changed that.’ Right now, you want to go and borrow money outside Nigeria, you can do so because they have given a band of three percent maximum up, three percent maximum down. So you can’t lose. You know your worse case scenario and you can work on your worse case scenario. If it gives you a good margin, you work on it, if it doesn’t give you a good margin, you say, ‘no, I am not going to go with this.’

“When we went into manufacturing, we started with salt. We went into building eleven factories at the same time. We had a lot of cash. We didn’t have any teething problem, because we went into goods that we were already importing and trading on. We didn’t really create something new. We were importing pasta, so we produced pasta. For us, it was just to convince the consumers or the Nigerian public that the one we are producing here is as good as the one we were importing. And also to hide under that name Dangote, because it is a very good brand.

That is why whatever we sell today under the brand, it sells very well. We were importing sugar, so we decided to manufacture sugar. That is what we did.
The major reason why we shifted was that we realized that we had actually reached the end of the road, because if you are going to import say rice, you would be crazy to go and import ten ships. Because people would only consume what they need. And it was really difficult for us to turn around our money. Because at the end of the day, we look at the whole thing and asked: How much capital did we invest? And how much return do we have on that capital? If we have maybe ten billion naira, there is a limit to what we can turn around, because we won’t go and buy ten billion naira goods at once. If you go and buy ten billion naira worth of sugar, rice and all these, people would not just go and buy these things from you.

If the market consumption is ten ships in a year, you cannot go and bring twenty ships and expect to sell all of it. We realized that we had more cash than we needed for that trading business. We were not able to turn around our money more than one-and-a-half times in a year. And that is very bad. So we needed to find form for the excess cash that we had. Once you are a trader, it is difficult for you to go into industry. Because in industry, when you sink money, you don’t even see anything for four, five years. And this is a society where interest rate was about forty, fifty and even sixty percent at the time. So it was difficult to go and borrow money and do an industry.

But we were lucky we had a lot of cash and we had good support and established good rapport with our bankers. So what we did was to build eleven factories. Fortunately for us, everything worked out fine because our goods were accepted by the market. They were all accepted at that time. And it gives us a lot of hope. When we used to import EEC sugar and Brazilian sugar, people weren’t buying the EEC sugar at all. Everybody went for the Brazilian sugar. It was what was accepted in the market. The EEC sugar was much, much refined but it did not outsell the Brazilian sugar. The people who sell sugar in the market sell by measure, by weight.

So they would never touch European sugar. They touched always Brazilian sugar. We thought over this and when we started producing local sugar, our challenge was how to convince the market that our sugar is better than Brazilian sugar which is the biggest in the world in terms of sugar production. But we took the risk. And we were lucky. Within four, five months, our sugar started selling at a premium than the imported Brazilian sugar. That’s how we broke into the sugar market in Nigeria. That’s how we did it. Otherwise today, we would not be able to have a turnover of N300 million per day on sugar. It would have been almost impossible. But it’s one of the success stories that we have. And our distributors have really helped us quite a lot. Because they are the one doing the marketing. We don’t have branches. The only few branches we have is just to market and monitor what they are doing. But they supported us all through. There is nothing that we have done that they have not supported us. Our story is a success story.”

2) Build a brand and don’t destroy it
“We didn’t create a brand until 1981 or so. We have built this brand for 24, 25 years—and we have never had any accident. When I say accident it means bringing a bad quality product under that brand. Nigeria is a brand conscious market. If today you go and remove my bags of sugar and you put in Dimgba or Awoyinfa’s brand, you won’t be able to sell. Even if I put my name on newspaper, I would sell more than some newspapers. The secret of this brand is that we give good service to the customers, we make sure that the product is very good. Any time we go out, we make sure that we put in the best quality of any product—whether it’s rice or sugar. Even with sugar, we never really cut corners.”

3) Sell cheap, give quality and don’t kill the competition
“We make sure that we make our money on volume business. We never really want to charge a higher price. People often say that wherever we go, we kill the competition. It is not about killing our competitors, but that we want to make money. If we are big, if I have one million bags of any product to sell—because we are big in terms of size—and you have only 50,000, why do I want to kill you? Because I have one million and you have only 50,000. So if I drop ten naira per bag, you only lose ten naira for the 50,000 bags. I will lose ten naira times one million.

I can make ten naira and survive also and make good margin, you cannot make ten naira and survive because you have a lower quantity than me. And the customers that you have, we don’t have that customer base. So majority of these things, we try as much as possible to have affordable prices, quality product with presentable packaging. You have to package a product well before you can give it to consumers. And these are things that we really work so hard on. There is never a time somebody would come and pay for goods and the goods are not available. We have created that confidence in people’s minds that this is the right company to deal with. And that has helped us quite a lot. And that is why I say that today, it’s not the same. It is not easy. Once somebody wants to now come and start something. It doesn’t work like that. You cannot just come and take over the market. You can try, but if the market is tough, that is when you know who the big guys are and who the smaller guys are.

4) Start small
“There are certain businesses you wouldn’t like to do because your name is So-and-So. And this has happened to a lot of my relatives who will see a small business where they can make money but they would not do it. Instead they may say something like: My name is Dangote. Or my name is Dantata, this kind of business is too small, I am not going to get myself involved. And once you start having those kinds of ideas, it is very difficult for you to make inroads. Because you have to start from somewhere. No business is too small to do. As they say, Rome was not built in a day.

For me, I started as small as a trader in cement. Then I left cement around 1978. Because there was this armada and cement was very difficult to get at that time. I had my own money which my grandfather gave me free, but then he gave me also an additional loan of 500,000 naira which was big money in those days. With 500,000 naira in those days, you could buy yourself ten Mercedes Benz cars. Mercedes then was 5,000 naira. I am talking about Nigeria in the year 1978. Volkswagen Beetle was sold for 900 to 1,000 naira. It was a substantial amount of money then. It was a loan that I was supposed to pay whenever I was okay—probably after three years or four years. But I paid the money within six months.

To start with, I realized I didn’t need that much capital. Because it was during the era of cement scarcity and people would come and pay us and tell us: ‘We would wait for six months. Just guarantee me you would give me when you have it.’ An average deposit was three months to four months. So, people would now come and pay. So I realized that was the only business I was doing and I didn’t need capital, because people were paying me well in advance. At that time, when you had one truck of cement alone, your profit was almost 1,400 naira. With that you could buy a Lada car in those days and still put a change in your pocket. That was for one truck. And I was getting about four trucks every day. So my income was sort of like I was making money for one Mercedes Benz every day. That was quite a huge amount of money. I started with a bit of hard work and luck.”

5) Have connections and pray for a big break
I had an uncle who was in cement business at that time. He was one of the nominated agents. You know it was controlled by government at that time. And you had names like Yinka Folawiyo, Dantata Holdings in the business. So I was getting allocations from Dantata. I bought once in a while from Yinka Folawiyo through an agent. We did also a lot of business during President Shehu Shagari’s time. But the problem at that time was that it was an import license era. You had to be well-connected but I wasn’t really up to that level of being well-connected. Obviously there were people who had license but didn’t know what to do with it. So we normally take over their company, open a letter of credit under their company and then import the goods. So we had to buy over the company, because the license was not transferable. So we started with that. One of the biggest breaks that we had was when Buhari came into power.

Majority of the people who were actually in business at that time, a couple of them went to prison. So there were very few importers. Because the import business was mainly done by few people here and majority of them were from the north. We were importing commodities—mainly sugar, rice and stuff like that. During Buhari’s government there was controlled pricing. And majority of the people that got involved with this Presidential Task Force on rice issues and whatever, almost everybody went to jail, apart from myself and an uncle of mine. But he too lost a ship of his rice. We did quite well at that time. And we continued to do well when Gen. Babangida came in and liberalized the whole thing by canceling all import licenses.

When they cancelled the import license, we were lucky because we had been keeping our money, we did not embezzle money, and we worked so hard to make sure that we use that cash we had to leverage in terms of our imports. We started importing two, three, four ships at a time. First of all, there weren’t too many players at the time. Secondly, we didn’t need that import license anymore. Because it was the biggest barrier. Even when you had the money then, you couldn’t import. So we had a big break. Any serious person had a big break at that time, because there was no barrier in terms of entry. The entry then was that even if you had the money, you didn’t have the import license. But now, they took the import license in 1986 and that gave us a really good break.

6) Believe that there is money to be made in Nigeria
The best business advice I ever got was from Mr. Felix Ohiwerei, the former managing director of Nigerian Breweries. I remember one day we had a retreat, when we really wanted to move into industry. And we invited Ohiwerei and he was telling us that the potentials in Nigeria are too great. That we have not even scratched the surface. And I took that one up as a challenge that in Nigeria the potentials are great, we would hammer on those potentials to make sure that we achieve them. But going to Brazil also, I took an advice from a company called Arisco.

It was somebody that started just before they changed their currency. And he was telling me how difficult their environment was. But he said that when things started working out fine, they just found that all of them they became billionaires in dollars overnight. During their era of hyper inflation, prices were changing per second. If you queued up to buy something, by the time the man queuing behind you wants to buy in the same shop, prices may have changed to a higher price all in a matter of seconds. All their computers were connected to the banks, because prices were changing every second. They had about 1,500 percent inflation. So when I see the kind of challenges that they had and how they overcame it, I find that in Nigeria we don’t have these challenges. We were ready to work.

7) All work and less play makes Jack a rich man
I believe in hard work. Hard work is the key to success in life. Once you are ready to work and you are consistent, you would make money. The other point is that people are making a lot of mistakes. Two things don’t go together. Enjoyment and money-making. These things don’t work together. You must choose one. And follow that one aggressively. You must reach a point before you start that enjoyment. These two things don’t go together at all. For anybody who wants to enjoy himself too much: going to parties, buying this one, buying that one, impressing the society people—let me not say girls—and you want to also work hard and make money, they don’t work together. You make sure you give up one and concentrate on one.

8) Give back to those who made you
“Making money right now means something to me but not very much, in the sense that what I enjoy doing now is wealth creation than just making money. Because it would reach a point where what really gives you satisfaction is how many people you have given employment to, how many people depend on you, that if something happens to you, they are in trouble. This one would give you a lot of joy. For example in Benue Cement, we have created over 4,000 millionaires. Because people that had bought shares at N3.50k, some of them have sold the shares at N45. At a point, people that invested N100 million in Benue, they came out with a profit of N1.4 billion. So if you have invested N10 million, you might have made about N140 million. This is the kind of thing that people would now, when somebody wants to mess you up they can rise against any such person and say: “Don’t touch this person.” Because you mean a lot to the society. We have a lot of programmes we want to implement. Programmes like taking over some few hospitals. We would be doing a lot of foundation work. Because we believe we have to pay a lot back to what we got from the society.”

9) Obey the laws of Nigeria
“The person I truly see as my father is my late grandfather, Sanusi Dantata. I learnt a lot from his hard work, from his simplicity. People always talk about my humility but nothing can compare with him. When you see him you would think he doesn’t have anything. But he used to be one of the richest people in the north. His humility is the type I have never seen anywhere. He was a very humble person. He never looked down on anybody. He is always a respecter of authority. He always advises us that: No matter what you do, you must always respect the authority of the day. Do not fight government. You must be an obedient person. And that’s something I learnt and took seriously.”

10) Have business in your blood
“I inherited my business skills from my grandfather. They were also business people—the Dantatas. Having come from a rich family doesn’t give you an automatic license to riches. You just have to create your own idea and work hard. I have never seen any Nigerian that has really made money from inheritance. It is very, very difficult. And that is why I would always encourage my own children to work very hard. Especially when it comes to making their own money. I am not saying that they shouldn’t rely on the fact that yes, they come from a rich home. But sometimes, it can be a great disadvantage.” ]]> Sat, 03 Feb 2007 09:10:00 EST http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/160623 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/77793


First, if you APPLY this principle, your life will change.

Your finances will change.

How do you know for sure?"

Easy, this LAW, this PRINCIPLE always works.

Always.

Ready?

***I gave away what I had, to get what I wanted.

Read that again.

You see, most people focus on the 'get'.

I need to 'get this', 'get that'...no - no - no.

That's the hard way. The slow way.

The way to GET is to FIRST give.

Success is about service.

Whatever you want more of, start to give it away.

You want more time? Volunteer

You want money making ideas? Give them away first.

You want better knowledge? Give away some books.

Want more money? Donate money.

Life is based on LAW. What you sow, you'll reap, why do many people fail?"

Because they hold onto what they have, tightly.

Take a piece of what you've been given. Knowledge, time,
money, etc...and give it away.

What you have left will multiply and grow.

I didn't make this up. This goes back thousands of years.

Maybe tens of thousands.

Have a story to tell? Give of yourself the time to
write it, turn it into a book, what happens next?

People pay you to read it.

You must give before you get.

Oprah gives of herself before she gets.

Tiger has planted (given) thousands of HOURS into learning
how to play golf.

What does a farmer do?

He plants a seed and a harvest is created.

Take an inventory of what you have to give away.

What about a smile, insight, time, money.

Stop holding on tight and start opening up and
putting yourself in the FLOW of life.

Giving and receiving. It makes the world go round.

Work the principle and reap the results. (or enjoy working
hard)]]> Sun, 10 Dec 2006 09:55:00 EST http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/77793 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/58927 Bill Gates, co-founder and chairman of the world's largest software company, Microsoft Corporation, is also the world's richest man. His personal wealth has been estimated at $50 billion (Rs 225,000 crore).
Interestingly, he has been ranked the world's second most influential management guru just behind the legendary Michael Porter, who heads Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, and just ahead of our very own C K Prahalad. Amazing for a man who does not have a college degree, having dropped out of Harvard to establish Microsoft.

Chairman Gates has always interesting things to say and we present some memorable Gatesian observations:

"I wish I wasn't (the world's richest man). There's nothing good that comes out of that. You get more visibility as a result of it."

At a chat show for a television channel in New Delhi in December 2005, he shared the platform with Infosys Chairman N R Narayana Murthy. When the mike was handed over to Murthy to test, he said, "One, two, three..." into it and gave it to the Microsoft czar, who promptly said, "One billion, two billion, three billion..."

"I certainly will never be a politician. For every reason. I wouldn't like it, I wouldn't be elected. I'm better at what I'm doing."

"My success, part of it certainly, is that I have focused in on a few things."

"I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around smart people who are trying to figure out new things. I like the fact that if people really try they can figure out how to invent things that actually have an impact."

"I find golf very relaxing. It's a way to get away from work and get outside. It's a lot of fun, and once you get going it's almost kind of addictive."


'Success is a lousy teacher'
"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."

"If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure."

"Life is not fair; get used to it."

"Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many chances as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself."

The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

You will not make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

'When the Internet came along, we had it as 5th or 6th priority'
"Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana."

"In this business, by the time you realise you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone."

"Competition is always a fantastic thing, and the computer industry is intensely competitive. Whether it's Google or Apple or free software, we've got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes."

Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.

Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

"Sometimes we do get taken by surprise. For example, when the Internet came along, we had it as a fifth or sixth priority."

"As I look forward, I'm very optimistic about the things I see ahead. As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others."


'Kids are taking PCs to new heights'
"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."

"There will be 'two societies' in the future: high-paid knowledge workers and low-paid service workers."

"There are people who don't like capitalism, and people who don't like PCs. But there's no one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft. People everywhere love Windows."

"Every day we're saying, 'How can we keep this customer happy?' 'How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will.'"

"Kids are taking PCs and the Internet to new heights. They're the ones that are designing the cutting-edge web sites. They're the ones that are pushing forth things like digital music, digital photos, instant messaging; and they will take this tool in directions that we don't even expect."

'Spam will be a thing of the past in 2 years'
"Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren't so irritating."
"Does the e-mail say it's about 'enlargement' -- that might be spam. Spam will be a thing of the past in two years' time."

"Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more user-friendly... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old brochures, and stamp the words user-friendly on the cover."


"Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight."


suppose I could comb my hair more often'
"Microsoft is not about greed. It's about innovation and fairness."

"Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we'd want to get involved."

"As you improve health in a society, population growth goes down. You know, I thought it was... before I learned about it, I thought it was paradoxical."

"AIDS is a disease that is hard to talk about. The ideal thing would be to have a 100 percent effective AIDS vaccine."

"I have drifted away from thinking about these philanthropic things. And it was only as the wealth got large enough and Melinda and I had talked about the view that the wealth wasn't something that would be good to just pass to the children."

"I'm serious when I do my work. I'm not serious when I'm home with my kids."

"If you're asking whether I intentionally mess up my hair, no, I don't. And certain things, like my freckles, they're just there. I don't do anything consciously. I suppose I could get contact lenses. I suppose I could comb my hair more often."



]]> Sat, 28 Oct 2006 16:00:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/58927 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/58925

On Innovation and Design...

1. Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

2. At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top - I'm afraid that's not quite right.

3. The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

4. Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.

5. People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn't they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines. There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters. The two areas that are changing are information technology and medical technology. Those are the things that the world will be very different 20 years from now than it is today.

6. The internet will help achieve "friction free capitalism" by putting buyer and seller in direct contact and providing more information to both about each other.

7. Make it just like a Mac.

8. Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.

9. I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

10. We are not even close to finishing the basic dream of what the PC can be.

11. So we do software for watches, for phones, for TV sets, for cars. And some of these take a long time to catch on.

Greatest Sales Lines Ever...

12. I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

13. In the decade ahead I can predict that we will provide over twice the productivity improvement that we provided in the '90s.

14. Some people read off of their Palms and Pocket PCs, but the real immersible reading experience takes a full-screen device.

15. People everywhere love Windows.

16. Windows 2000 already contains features such as the human discipline component, where the PC can send an electric shock through the keyboard if the human does something that does not please Windows.

17. We're responsible for the creation of the PC industry. The whole idea of compatible machines and lots of software.. that's something we brought to computing. And so it's a responsibility for us to make sure that things like security don't get in the way of that dream.

18. When the PC was launched, people knew it was important.

On Life's Lessons...

19. Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.

20. Capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it's really let us down.

21. I do think this next century, hopefully, will be about a more global view. Where you don't just think, yes my country is doing well, but you think about the world at large.

22. If you show people the problems and you show people the solutions they will be moved to act.

23. As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

24. Life is not fair; get used to it.

25. The U.S. couldn't even get rid of Saddam Hussein. And we all know that the EU is just a passing fad. They'll be killing each other again in less than a year. I'm sick to death of all these fascist lawsuits.

26. Let's face it, the average computer user has the brain of a Spider Monkey.

27. I have 100 billion dollars... You realize I could spend 3 million dollars a day, every day, for the next 100 years? And that's if I don't make another dime. Tell you what-I'll buy your right arm for a million dollars. I give you a million bucks, and I get to sever your arm right here.

28. Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.

Taking the Fight to the Enemy...

29. In this business, by the time you realise you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless you’re running scared all the time, you’re gone.

30. I'm sorry that we have to have a Washington presence. We thrived during our first 16 years without any of this. I never made a political visit to Washington and we had no people here. It wasn't on our radar screen. We were just making great software.

31. About three million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.

32. There are people who don't like capitalism, and people who don't like PCs. But there's no one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft.

33. Microsoft is not about greed. It's about innovation and fairness.

34. To create a new standard, it takes something that's not just a little bit different; it takes something that's really new and really captures people's imagination — and the Macintosh, of all the machines I've ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.

35. The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and fished out listings of their operating system.

36. We will never make a 32-bit operating system, but I'll always love IBM.

]]> Sat, 28 Oct 2006 15:55:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/58925 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/58923 Read more...




- US multi-billionaire Bill Gates has promised to assist Nigeria in fighting HIV/ AIDS in talks with President Olusegun Obasanjo.


During the meeting in Obasanjo's southwestern Ota farm Saturday, the president discussed the state of the Nigerian economy and his government's achievements in agriculture with Gates, who was accompanied by his wife, presidential spokeswoman Oluremi Oyo told journalists, according to official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Sunday.

Gates assured Obasanjo that the Bill and Belinda Foundation, founded by him and his wife, would give more assistance to Nigeria in the fight against poverty and disease, Oyo said.

The Foundation would help Nigeria battle tuberculosis, polio and HIV/AIDS, she said.

During their two-day visit, the Gates were to monitor progress Nigeria has made in the fight against HIV/AIDS and poverty.

According to officials, more than 3.5 million Nigerians carry the HIV virus or have full-blown AIDS.

Obasanjo, a former African Union chairman, has a long-standing relationship with Gates, who had in recent times shown tremendous interest in Africa and made funds available for the fight against poverty and diseases on the continent, NAN said.

Early this year, Gates and Obasanjo were among guests at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa were discussed.

]]> Sat, 28 Oct 2006 15:24:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/58923 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/33004
It's true I was dispirited for a while that's why I was not motivated to keep updating my stuffs. But I think I'm back. Full Alive!!!

But if I'm still obsessed with some stuffs it is how Poverty can be a story. There should be balance of wealth,It's an equation that needs to be balanced.]]> Sun, 11 Dec 2005 13:32:00 EST http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/33004 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/30920 Think through it.

BBC Network Africa: What can technology do for Africa in the new millennium?



EMEAGWALI: A few millennia ago, Africans were the first to enter the Agricultural Age. The first to build in stones. The first to pioneer in technology.
Today, Africa is behind every continent in technology and as a result is the poorest continent. Technological knowledge can be used to create wealth and alleviate poverty in Africa.

Kwame Nkrumah also said: "Socialism without science is void." Therefore, we cannot reduce poverty in Africa without scientists and engineers.

The lack of technological knowledge is the reason for the wide disparity between the rich and the poor nations. The 500 richest people on Earth has more money than the 3 billion poorest people on Earth. Because the rich nations are getting richer much faster than the poor nations, the gap between the rich and poor will continue to widen.

This gap can be closed African nations focusing on developing an economy that is knowledge and technology based, instead of one that is based on the export of natural resources.

MEDICINE
The present life expectancy in Africa is 50 years. By the end of this 21st century, medical science will make it possible for an African to live up to 150 years. Today, it is impossible for a person to live beyond the age of 125 years.

A child born today could live long enough to see the middle of the twenty-second century. In a sense, African children of today will be time travellers that will live in and connect the twentieth (20th), twenty-first (21st) and twenty-second (22nd) centuries.

Unfortunately, we will find that long life will be a mixed blessing because many Africans will be working to support their grand parents, great grand parents and great-great grand parents.

Therefore, we need to have retirement taxes and will be used to fund social security payments for the elderly. And if life expectancy increases to one hundred years, we will be forced to raise the retirement age to 90 years.

In this century, we expect to make medical discoveries that will cure AIDS and save the lives of 22 millions of Africans that are threatened by HIV/ANDS.

We expect to eradicate malaria and tuberculosis. We expect to eradicate Guinea worm by providing safe drinking water to all Africans.

POPULATION
It is the technology of the 20th century that increased food production, reduced infant mortality rate and increased the population of Africa. A century ago, less than 100 million people lived in Africa. Today, 800 million people live in Africa. Africa cannot ignore to implement family planning.

In this 21st century, Nigeria could become the third most populous country in the world. Only China and India will be larger than Nigeria and the population of Nigeria will be three times larger than that of Russia.

I am the oldest of nine children. Because my parents could not afford to raise my siblings, I brought all my brothers and sisters to live in the United States. If my siblings and I were to have nine children for nine generations while non-relatives of mine have two children, the descendants of Emeagwali in America could form the third largest nation on Earth, behind only China and India.

Five hundred years ago, there were 500 million people on Earth and five million people in Nigeria. It took 10,000 generations for Nigeria's population to reach five million. Yet from my great-grand-father's generation to mine, Nigeria's population has increased from five million to 120 million.

The human species emerged 160,000 years ago. If our ancestors had an average of nine children, the Earth will be so overcrowded that they will have been no room for forests and animals to co-exist with the human race. This means that we would have run out of food a long time ago.

I believe that the main reason the quality of life has not improved in Nigeria, despite our great natural resources, is that our population is increasing faster than our natural wealth. Put differently, if we want the quality of life we see in American television, we must have fewer children than even the Americans.

On the other hand, if we insist that our wives must have six or seven children, then we should make fathers to prepay for their child's education. We should write it into our constitution that the percentage of our national budget devoted to education should be proportional to the percentage of our population that is of school age. One in two Nigerians is in school. Therefore, one in two petrodollars should be invested in education.

Having a large labor force will not be an advantage in the new global economy of the 21st century. The wealth of the future will be created largely by knowledge and technology and not by natural resources and a large population. Therefore, it does not make sense to have a large family of seven children who will grow up uneducated and unemployed.

Since the African economy does not have enough jobs, it will be difficult for the next-generation to afford education, health services, housing and food. Reducing the number of children per family is a requirement for reducing poverty in Africa.

Family planning must be part of the school curriculum in Africa. The best way to alleviate poverty is for each family to have one child and invest heavily in that child's education.

INFORMATION AGE
The rich nations use knowledge and information to create wealth. Africa tries to create wealth by exporting raw materials to the more affluent nations. The lesson we learned from Nigeria is that a massive inflow of petrodollars will not bring an economic prosperity. In exchange, Nigeria spent its petrodollars on aircrafts, cars and swiss bank accounts.

What Africa needs to do is to acquire technological knowledge so that it can export technological products to Europe and the United States.

Africa should reduce its investments in agriculture and industrialization and make long-range plans to leapfrog into the Information Age in which knowledge is the most valuable commodity.

It happened in Ireland. Malaysia plans to do so. Similarly, Africa can leapfrog into the Information Age by having fewer children, investing in education and eliminating military spending.

In the Information Age, millions of good paying jobs will require computer literacy and it Africa should start preparing by focusing on education and technology.

The Internet now makes it possible for an African to be employed by an American company. Many companies will rather pay $15,000-a-year salary to an African professional than pay an American $60,000 a year.

Africa can attract these high-technology companies by investing heavily in technical education, introducing lots of computer courses and producing one million scientists and engineers a year. There are still opportunities in computer programming.

In terms of future employment, the implication of the Internet is that an African contract programmer will not need an immigration work permit to work in the United States.




BBC Network Africa
What kind of technology is appropriate for Africa's development needs?


EMEAGWALI: The kind of technology that creates the most wealth. However, I will like to caution that understanding how to use technology is more difficult and of far greater importance than acquiring. It is dangerous to acquire hunting gun technology without an understanding of the restrict hunting. In Nigeria, all the big game animals have been hunted to extinction. The Nigerian rainforest has been completely destroyed by unrestricted logging for timber. Nigeria cannot have eco-tourism in the future. The only thing left is petroleum and a few minerals. With reckless abandon, we issued unrestricted license to oil companies and "foreign investors" exploit, extract and export our natural resources so that it will be used to further develop the more developed nations. Officially, we claim that we are developing our natural resources. It is a misnomer to claim that we are developing our petroleum resources that were formed millions of years ago. An oil field becomes dry after about 20 years. We can extract and exploit our oil fields but we cannot develop it. The harvest of tomorrow is purchased with the seed corn of today. By mining and exporting our natural resources, Africa is eating the seed corn of tomorrow.
Education and understanding of how to use technology is more important than acquiring the technology itself. Medical technology will give us information about how to reduce infant mortality. But it is education that gives us the understanding that reducing infant mortality without practicing family planning will result in overpopulation and an increase in the level of poverty.

Going back to your original question: What kind of technology is appropriate for Africa's development needs? Africa has been encouraged to focus on low technologies such as the development of solar, hydro and wind energy. Solar panels and wind mills have been and will always be inefficient technology. These low technologies didn't work in the America and will not work in Africa.

As a former civil engineer, I know that hydroelectric dams and reservoirs has negative impacts on the environment and in some instances resulted in the flooding and destruction of historical relics, as in Aswan Dam in Egypt.

Also, low level agricultural technology has not contributed much to food production in Africa. We need to shift from sustainable agricultural technology into computer information age technology.

Since high technology creates more wealth than low technology, Africa should focus on high technology. Sixty percent of the wealth in the developed nations is created from technological knowledge. Since the wealth of the future will be created from technological knowledge, Africa must invest in technological development or risk being left behind.

Computing, communications, Internet are the physical infrastructure of the Information Age. If Africa fails to invest on the latest technology it will be find itself isolated from the global community.

In the global village, nations have to specialize. What we have today is a situation in which Africa provides the raw materials while Europe and America provides the technology, manufactured goods, and capital. By the end of this century, the natural resources of most African countries will be exhausted and Africa will have nothing to trade in the global economy. Africa has to plan for the rainy day when all its natural resources are gone.

Africa must leapfrog from low agricultural technology to high information age technology. Because of high birth rates, Africa has 350 million school children. Like new languages, children can understand computer language faster than their parents, it makes sense to invest in computer education.





BBC Network Africa:
One of our listeners has predicted that an African will be the first person to land on the planet Mars - do you think that might happen?





EMEAGWALI: Yes, an African can be among the first crew of astronauts to land on the planet Mars. I have applied to become an astronaut and NASA sent me a note last week, informing me that my application will be reviewed in January. Even if I don't get selected as an astronaut, I expect an African to be selected in the future and to travel to the planet Mars by the middle of the 21st century.
Space of exploration is now a co-operative project which several countries contribute money and astronauts. The international space station is jointly owned and operated by the United States, Japan, Russia and other nations.

It will cost a trillion dollars to send a person to the planet Mars and the United States cannot afford to make that voyage alone. Therefore it is conceivable that the first astronaut crew to land on the planet Mars will include an African, Asian and a female. In the 21st century, Africa could contribute money and astronauts that will travel to the planet Mars.

We don't go to a planet because we want to be the first race to get there. Americans won the lunar space race by landing the first man on the Moon. The astronauts returned with lunar rocks. When we discovered that the Moon is the most expensive and most useless piece of real estate in our solar system, we cancelled all trips to the Moon.

The exploration and development of the planet Mars is not as important as improving the quality of life on Earth. Landing on Mars is not as important as finding a cure for AIDS or saving the rain forests.

We should be looking towards the Earth in the 21st century and not towards the planets. The Earth is the best place for the human race to live in. Compared to the Moon and Mars, the Earth is a paradise.

Unfortunately, Mother Earth is ill. Her lungs, the tropical rain forests are disappearing. The African rain forest is a paradise and the birthplace of humanity

When the rain forests are gone, many species will be extinct. Since the human race is connected to other species, whatever happens to the trees and animals of the rain forests will happen to the human race. We are merely custodians of the rain forests. We did not inherit the rain forest from our ancestors. We borrowed it from our children.



BBC Radio Producer: Can you see yourself, and other Africans who've been successful overseas, returning to live in Africa in the new Millennium?



EMEAGWALI: The brain drain is a historic as well as a recent phenomenon. Over four centuries, the slave ships brought the ancestors of 200 million Africans now living in the United States, Brazil, Jamaica and in the diaspora. These 200 million diasporan Africans have the highest standard of living and possess the education and skills that can be used to develop Africa but it will be impractical for them to return to Africa.
Today, one in three African university graduate now live and work outside Africa. There are more Sierra Leonean medical doctors in the city of Chicago than in the entire nation of Sierra Leone. Africa's most important export to Europe and the United States is trained professionals, not petroleum, gold and diamond.

It seems like there are more African intellectuals living abroad than within Africa. African officials come to the United States to seek technical assistance from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

According to the United States Census Bureau, Africans are the most educated ethnic group in the United States. Therefore, our leaders can seek technical assistance from Africans living in the United States. Sixty-four percent of Nigerians in this country has one or more university degrees. There are one million Africans living in the United States.

We came to America to study. We planned to return home. But things got worse at home and we decided to remain in America.

It wasn't always like this. When Nnamdi Azikiwe and Kwame Nkrumah arrived in the United States in 1920s and 30s. Back then there were about 20 sub-Saharan Africans in the entire United States. A hundred percent of those that came to the United States returned home. In fact, up till about 1980, most African students returned home.

The widely held myth is that Africa is only exporting raw materials to the west. Africa is also exporting talented human resources to Europe and America. One million Africans are working outside Africa.

At the same time, Africa spends four billion dollars a year on the salary of 100,000 foreign experts. Yet, African nations are unwilling to spend a similar amount of money to recruit one million African professionals working outside Africa.

The problem is getting worse. One in three African university graduate live and work outside Africa. In effect, we are operating one third of African universities to satisfy the manpower needs of western nations.

One third of the African education budget is a supplement to the American education budget. In effect, Africa is giving developmental assistance to the United States.

There are more Sierra Leonean medical doctors in Chicago than in Sierra Leone. At the rate medical doctors are leaving Nigeria, we could eventually have more Nigerian doctors working outside Nigeria than within it.

We also need engineers to help provide constant electricity, clean water and safe roads.

We also need scientists. We use science and technology to discover and recover petroleum. We use medical science to reduce infant mortality rate.

We world has changed a lot in the last fifty years. In today's world knowledge creates wealth. Therefore, we need people with brains, not muscles. Unfortunately, it is the best and brightest that can obtain visas to the United States. What is left behind is the weak and less imaginative. It means that Africa will be getting poorer while the United States gets more affluent.

Put simply, Africa is exporting both natural and human resources. In the end, there will be no resources left within Africa. It means a slow death for Africa.

How can we reverse brain-drain?

We build a data bank of Africans abroad. Then we offer them meaningful employment and compensation that will entice them to return home.

Medical doctors cannot live on a salary of fifty (50) dollars a month. To make ends meet, some medical doctors raise poultry or manage beer parlor.

We need to change our national priorities.

We should stop spending one million dollars a day in fighting in Sierra Leone. One million dollars is greater than the daily salary of one million school teachers. While we are keeping peace in Sierra Leone, some teachers have not been paid their salaries for six months.

We must change our priorities be reducing our defense budget and increasing our education budget.

We must increase our investment in science, technology and education.

As we approach the end of this century, it is appropriate that we reflect on our legacy for our children. In the next century, it will be technological knowledge that will create wealth. Therefore, our legacy to our children will be the investments that we made on their education.


]]> Thu, 20 Oct 2005 09:26:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/30920 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/30916
These are part of the quotes that I love so much and it will updated almost everytime,enjoy it.

-A genius is a talented person who does his homework.
-The roots of true achievements lie in the will to become the best that you can become.
Re-evaluate your,your personal standards of quality.Whatever you thought was good enough for now,add 10% more.
-To many engineers,weekly progress reports are among the most disliked tyrannies that have nevertheless managed to remain one of the most valued devices of the profession.
-Mathematicians describe and define,scientists discover and predict,engineers create and solve,but first they have to discover,predict and describe.
-Persistence is stronger than resistance.
-Everyman who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself,to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full,significant,and interesting.
-Thinking is a factory where destinies are made or marred.Thinking is the force behind every outstanding invention.
-The world belongs to those who can think tyhe unthinkable thoughts,see where no one is looking and take action before it is obvious.
-The mind is either a factory or a prison based on how we use it.If you wish to know where you are likely to be five to ten years from now,read the thoughts that are dominant in your mind presently,because with time,you are going to be transformed to be one with those thoughts and images.
-It is in doing small things well that we fix great things right.
-Every big problems was a small problems that wasn't handled on time.
-If you want success in life you must decide what success means to you and set some goals.Make each act of the day successful.This produce a successful day;a series of successful days produce a successful week;a series of successful weeks produce a successful month;a series of successful months produce a successful year;and a series of successful years produce a successful life.Just think of it,It all starts with one successful acts.
-You are the same as you are
going to be in the next five years except for two things:The type of books you read and the people you associate yourself with.
]]> Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:46:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/30916 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/30663 the Information Age?


Philip Emeagwali

As prepared for delivery at the 1997 World Igbo Congress in New York

With letters from the Nigerian Internet community




Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I thank the organizers of this convention for inviting me to share my thoughts with you. On a personal note, I appreciate the invitation to be speaker and guest of honour. But more importantly, I believe that inviting a scientist to speak at this convention is a recognition of the potential role of technology in improving the standard of living in Nigeria and Africa. I would like to share with you my thoughts on how to formulate a strategic plan to launch Nigeria and other African countries into the Information Age, in order to achieve economic development and prosperity. I am particularly interested in the Nigerian Vision 2010 which I believe should have been used as a blueprint for leapfroging our nation from the Agricultural Age into the Information Age. Later, I will propose a three-track approach that will enable Nigeria to invest evenly in agricultural, industrial and information sectors.

For a better understanding of where we are going, we need to retrace our steps. About 10,000 years ago, Africans in the valley of the River Nile entered the Agricultural Age when they discovered that cultivating the soil for crops and shepherding herds of animals would provide more food than just hunting animals and gathering fruits. This leap into the Agricultural Age motivated Africans to develop mathematics, chemistry, astronomy and medicine as tools for the new age. Our advanced technological knowledge enabled us to build majestic pyramids, the tallest buildings in the world for 3,700 years. These pyramids withstood all types of desert storms and still stand today, like the Rock of Gibraltar.

Europeans learned our technology, used it to enter the Industrial Age and became more prosperous than we are. They learned to put capital together and mass-produce consumer goods. Unless Africa leapfrogs into the Information Age, the economic gap between Europe and Africa would widen because Europe is about to enter the age. In other words, to catch up, Africa must take two steps for every step Europe takes.

Many Nigerians believe that our country takes one step backward when other countries such as South Korea, Malaysia, and South Africa take one step forward. This belief is substantiated by the World Bank which now ranks our oil-producing nation as the 13th poorest country in the world; and has declared that the standard of living in pre-independence Nigeria was higher than what exists today. We have indeed, taken several steps backward. While acknowledging that we squandered and mismanaged our petroleum revenues and that we are no longer the "Giant of Africa," we must accept that now is the time for a new Nigeria.



Already we have a master plan --- "Vision 2010," to work with. If we succeed, that will create a better society for our children and future generations.

The Nigerian Vision 2010 was inspired by the six-year-old Malaysian Vision 2020 plan. Shortly after her independence in 1957, Malaysia sent people to Nigeria to learn how to grow palm trees. Today, Malaysia employs Nigerian oil palm experts, produces and exports more than half of the world’s palm oil, and sells palm oil to Nigeria. This is one example of how the best Nigerian minds are helping other countries achieve significant economic growth.

In fact, Malaysia has become so prosperous that its prime minister has projected that the Malaysian Vision 2020 could enable his country to become a developed nation by quadrupling its $9,000 per-capita income by the year 2020.

How did Malaysia, a multiracial nation of about 20 million people, become so prosperous? What lessons can Nigeria learn from Malaysia? What does Malaysia have that Nigeria does not?

Malaysia invested in manpower development through education, while Nigeria invested in a strong military, a new capital city of Abuja, and continues to maintain unprofitable state-run enterprises such as the Nigerian Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), the Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the ill-conceived $6 billion Ajaokuta steel complex, and oil refineries that have not solved the problem of fuel scarcity even inside of Nigeria.

Malaysia was thinking long-term while Nigeria was thinking short-term. After comparing the Malaysian Vision 2020 to the Nigerian Vision 2010, I have come to the conclusion that Malaysia is still thinking long-term whereas Nigeria is still thinking short-term.

The Malaysian Vision 2020 includes the development of a $40 billion Multimedia Super Corridor, a 750 square-kilometre (468-square-mile) technological city that will replace its vast oil palm plantations. The Nigerian Vision 2010 yet has no plan to build its technological city. Put differently, Malaysia plans to enter the Information Age by the year 2020 while Nigeria plans to remain in the Agricultural or Industrial Age.

The Malaysians have recognized the emerging Information Age and are poised to enter it based on a strategy that is similar to the one used to send astronauts to the moon. Because the moon is constantly revolving around the Earth at a speed faster than a bullet, astronauts select their flight path so that their spaceship and the moon will arrive at the same location at the same time. Like astronauts, Malaysians have calculated that the Information Age will arrive by the year 2020 and their goal is to bypass the Industrial Age and leapfrog directly into the Information Age by the year 2020.
Similarly, the flight plan for Nigeria should be to land us in the Information Age in the least amount of time. This is important because 60 percent of the wealth of many countries is presently derived from knowledge-based goods and services. In contrast, Vision 2010’s goal is for Nigeria to derive its entire wealth from agriculture and industry. Vision 2010 will make Nigerians the hewers of wood and fetchers of water for those nations that have arrived in the Information Age. My recommendation is that we should not put all our eggs in two baskets, namely agriculture and industry. Since, it is not necessary to become fully industrialized before entering the Information Age, Nigeria should use a multi-pronged attack strategy to enter the Information Age. Therefore, I propose a Vision 2020 for Nigeria in which a greater emphasis is placed on education and technology. Vision 2020 should be a supplement to Vision 2010 and should: (1) be formulated by the year 2000 to help improve the standard of living of Nigerians by the year 2020; (2) enable Nigeria to catch up with Taiwan, Malaysia and South Africa in 50 years; and (3) enable Nigeria to catch up with European countries in 100 years.


How can Nigeria take a quantum leap into the Information Age and catch up with the four Asian tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan)? We must realize that we do not have the resources to do everything we desire. Therefore, we must specialize and focus on doing a few things well.

The 1996 defence budget of Nigeria was greater than its education budget. Fifteen billion naira was spent to maintain an 80,000-man army. Less than fifteen billion naira was spent to educate 60 million Nigerian school children. Money can be saved and military coups discouraged by replacing our career soldiers with an all-volunteer citizen-soldiers or elite part-time National Guards. We should direct 40 percent of our budget to education and 10 percent to technology development.

After the United States defeated Japan in the Second World War, it forced Japan to redirect its resources to non-military areas. The result: Japan became one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Nigeria should never have built a massive army after its independence in 1960 and should have reduced its military strength, as soon as possible, at the end of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70). Germany, Costa Rica and many other nations have done well without a sizable army. Imagine where Nigeria will be today if all the military budgets since independence had been spent to educate our children.

Our students are taught how to read and write by uninspired teachers who are porly paid. Nigeria’s one million unemployed graduates should be retrained and offered attractive salaries to become primary- and secondary-school teachers.

Education at the primary school level may be considered more important than university education for the simple reason that “Learning Builds on Learning” or “One Thing Leads to Another." A child who did not learn much in primary school cannot learn much in secondary school or at the university level. This is why the developed nations invest heavily in their children’s primary school education.

Since it is unquestionably a better investment to educate a great number of young students rather than a few elite university students, Nigeria should invest more in pre-university education. Adopting a compulsory period of 12 years of formal education will reduce the internal education gap between northern and southern Nigeria and make each one of us more useful and productive to our society.

Where can we find the good leaders for tomorrow? Where can we find the medical doctors to care for us tomorrow? Where can we find the civil engineers to repair our roads?

Education is a life-long process and Nigerians must continue their education at the public libraries. Most Nigerian students can only afford to buy books required to pass their examinations. Nigerians who do not read widely will not be politically aware nor concerned about reducing the moral decay, corruption and injustices in the country and in the world. They will not understand that it is a crime for a police officer to request bribes and a crime to offer bribes to a police officer.

Our 21st century vision should plan for every community to have a well-stocked public library so that our children can expand their mental and geographical horizons. Every library should be equipped with computers and have access to the Internet.

Our 21st century vision should recognize that technology is the engine that drives a nation’s economic growth and that science should be compulsory in Nigerian schools.

Although we live in the Information Age, most of our high school graduates do not understand how dinosaurs lived, how atoms are split, how microchips are built, the importance of DNA, and the pros and cons of exploring outer space. How can we compete in a Information Age when our students cannot differentiate between a television and a computer monitor?

Our 21st century vision should call for the increased funding of science education at the post-graduate level. Nigeria should spearhead the formation of a pan-African Institute of Technology comparable to the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. This new institute should (1) be operated on a cost-sharing basis by African nations, (2) have campuses in various African countries, and (3) conduct research relevant to Africa and have research hospitals that make it unnecessary to travel to Europe for medical treatment.

Sponsoring students at the pan-African Institute of Technology would conserve foreign exchange, such as the $40 million a year that was paid by the Nigerian government to American universities in the 1970s. If each African nation were to contribute $40 million a year, we would have $2 billion a year to operate a pan-African Institute of Technology that would be as good as the best universities in the United States, Britain and Canada.

Thousands of Nigerian scholarship recipients, who could not find employment in Nigeria, are making contributions to the United States economy. In 1979, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimated that each African professional between ages of 25 and 35 contributes $184,000 each year to the United States economy. Based on United Nations’ estimate, 50,000 Nigerian-American professionals are contributing $9 billion a year to the United States’ economy.

At the same time, 100,000 foreign technical experts are working in Africa. These foreign experts are paid higher salaries than their African counterparts. The foreign coach of the Nigerian Super Eagles was paid $100,000 a year while well trained professionals are paid $600 a year. In other words, “monkey dey work, baboon dey chop.” This low salary is one reason many Nigerian engineers and doctors have fled to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. No nation in the world has been developed by foreigners.


Nigerians are homesick and would like to return home and use our talents, experience, and expertise to develop Nigeria. However, they would like to be offered a salary that reflects their contributions to the nation. Many Nigerians would even relinquish their permanent residency or U.S. citizenship to return home. In Hakeem Olajuwon’s words: "There's no place like home. I will always be from Nigeria."
is morally and politically unacceptable that half of Nigeria’s population will be excluded in the affairs of the nation. Nigeria cannot become as developed as other countries if we continue denying educational and career opportunities to our women. Since Nigeria’s leaders are disproportionately men, it will be difficult for them to build a society that can nurture and utilize the talents of our daughters and sisters.

The contributions of Buchi Emecheta, Onyeka Onwenu and Chioma Ajunwa has proved that when we invest in our daughters’ education we grow as a nation.

Our 21st century vision should plan for Nigeria to compete in the high-tech fields. China launched satellites into space. India is the second leading exporter of computer software in the world. Yet, the average Indian is no more educated than the average Nigerian. Nigeria must get rid of its complex and realize that we can accomplish as much as China or India, if we set our focus in the right direction.

When and how did India get ahead of Nigeria in technology?

During the past 50 years, India invested heavily in technical education, introduced lots of computer courses and produced 250,000 scientists and engineers a year. The large pool of skilled computer programmers attracted many foreign companies, which would rather pay a $15,000-a-year salary to an Indian than pay a $60,000-a-year to an American. Today, India has its own Silicon Valley.

There are still opportunities in contract programming. Over 50,000 computer-related jobs with average salary of over $50,000 a year were created in Manhattan, a borough of the city of New York. That is over $2 billion a year pumped into the economy of Manhattan alone. Similarly, billions of dollars will be pumped into the economies of many cities.

We can pump $2 billion a year into the economy of Nigeria when we start selling our computer expertise the way we now export our soccer players to Europe. The reason is simple. Unlike natural resources, the high-technology industry is man-made and can be located in those countries that had the foresight to produce the best scientists and engineers. Information and knowledge are more valuable than money, automobiles, or petroleum. Brain-power, not natural resources, will be the basis for the economy of the 21st century.

Computers and the Internet will increase the productivity of African workers and therefore create wealth for the society. Why travel to Taiwan to purchase goods that can also be purchased over the Internet? Better still, why import from Taiwan what we can manufacture in Nigeria?



Computers and the Internet have already enabled Nigerians living abroad to form a virtual community called naijanet whose one thousand members live in the United States, Australia, Japan, Finland, United Kingdom, South Africa, Namibia, and even Nigeria. At naijanet, we hold daily discussions on Nigerian-related topics. In the latter instance, the e-mail effectively removes national boundaries. In fact, ideas generated within naijanet are now published in Nigerian newspapers.

In terms of future employment, the implication is that a Nigerian contract programmer will not need an immigration work permit to work in the United States. Conversely, Nigerians living abroad who are not yet ready to return home can lend their expertise to Nigerian communities, without being there.



You might wonder “Why have an Internet in a continent where telephone and electricity services are unreliable?” First, the $1.3 billion Africa ONE project will directly connect Lagos to Europe with ultra fast fiber optic cables buried underneath the Atlantic ocean. The copper wire used in the Nigerian telephone system can transmit 48 conversations simultaneously. A fiber optic cable can transmit 10 million conversations simultaneously. When this project is completed, it will be unnecessary to use Nigeria’s unreliable telephone system to access the Internet. Nigerians can use the Internet by making a local telephone call.

Second, communicating by Internet is less expensive than communicating by telephone. It is sometimes faster and cheaper to travel by road, in spite of our bad roads, than to make a telephone call between two Nigerian cities. Thus, sending e-mail messages would reduce the need to make frequent trips and telephone calls.

An e-mail message is 20 times cheaper than a fax message and 100 times cheaper than a telephone conversation. The low cost of e-mail can put it within the reach of many Nigerian families, business, and government.

Subscribers pay a flat monthly rate of $5 (and free from some providers) for an unlimited amount of e-mail to any country. In contrast, telephone owners pay 250 naira, about $3, naira a minute to call the United States.

It is even much faster to send an e-mail message than mail a letter. The e-mail arrives a few seconds later. A letter from Nigeria takes up to two months to arrive, if it arrives at all.

The Internet can be used for other things besides e-mail. I receive Japanese radio broadcasts from the Internet. I read Zambian newspapers on the Internet. I spoke to a friend in England on the Internet. I read books on the Internet. The list of things that can be done on the Internet is a very long one.

The Internet contains more information than the world’s largest libraries. Therefore, Nigerians with access to the Internet can retrieve information from the world’s largest information database. Since it is cheaper to get connected to the Internet than to buy a television, Nigerians cannot afford to be left out.






African cities that will be fully connected to the Internet when the Africa ONE project is completed in 1999.





Why should Nigeria invest in the software industry? Because that is where the development, empowerment and money is. Computer industry is a trillion-dollar (yes, that is a “T”) market. Today, the richest companies in the world are in the computer industry.

Half of the ten richest men in the United States made their money from computer related-industries. Bill Gates, a 42-year-old computer entrepreneur, is worth $40 billion. In fact, Mr. Gates has enough money to cover 1996 Nigeria’s national budget twenty times over!

The United States has hundreds of unknown computer programmers who are wealthier than Moshood Abiola. Sanjiv Sidhu, a 39-year-old Indian immigrant computer entrepreneur, is worth $716 million and employs many Indian computer programmers earning a $65,000-a-year salary.

How can Nigerians at home and abroad make a living in the computer field? We must make 20-, 50-, and even 100-year-plans. It is impossible to get rich overnight in this field.

First, since we do not have the money to properly educate our children to compete in a modern high-technology world, we must implement a disciplined family planning that advocates and encourages each family to have only one child. An only child will receive far better education than a child with five brothers and sisters.





Second, we must overhaul our universities and polytechnics to enable them to produce 200,000 well-trained scientists and engineers each year. These engineers should be hired by NEPA to bring us constant electricity, NITEL to bring us reliable telephone services, and NNPC to discover and recover more oil.

Third, the computer industry rewards creativity and penalizes conformity. We must encourage creativity and produce an entrepreneurial work force. Nigerian culture encourages conformity, deference and respect for elders, teachers, and leaders. Outspoken journalists have been imprisoned for expressing their political beliefs. As a result, Nigerian editors are afraid to write the truth for the people. Nigerian politicians lack the courage and conviction of Nelson Mandela and are afraid to probe military officers for corruption. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti sang: “Awa people dey fear too much. We dey fear for dey thin we no see.”


Fourth, we must have a technological Cyber Corridor, an approximately 300-square-mile region allocated for information industry workers such as computer programmers, video-games designers, and Web-site developers. Nigeria should collaborate with OAU and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in developing the proposed Cyber Corridor.

We should entice the big multinational infotech companies such as Microsoft, Netscape, IBM, Sun Microsystems, British Telecom, Motorola and Sony to Cyber Corridor by developing the infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables, good roads, safe water, constant electricity, reliable telephones, good schools, modern hospitals, quality housing, leisure and entertainment facilities. In addition, we should permit foreign information technology companies to operate tax-free, bring in highly trained foreign workers, liberalize our laws to allow foreign investors to repatriate some of their profits with less protocol, assure the personal safety of both indigenes and foreigners, rectify our image as the most corrupt nation on earth, ensure political stability by eliminating coups d’etat, and train the workforce for the new Information Age.

The Cyber Corridor could become the Hollywood of Africa, where information technology is used to produce educational and entertainment shows. Today, most movies, television game shows, documentaries and dramas shown in Africa are produced in Hollywood or Beverly Hills. They do not reflect Afrcan tastes, values and culture. Information technology will enable African producers to enrich our lives by weaving our glorious history, legend and folklore into movies.

The African Cyber Corridor could be the technological capital of the continent, the regional headquarters of major infotech companies, and a source of cheap labor that could draw jobs away from California’s Silicon Valley. Other nations want to want to build their technological city. India has built its Information Technology Park. Egypt is building its Pyramid Technology Park. Israel, Taiwan and many other nations are planning to build their technology cities.

We must connect major cities to the Internet with at least a 10-gigabyte digital optical fiber backbone which would simultaneously allow us to place more reliable telephone calls and avoid Nigeria’s unreliable telephone system. Ten gigabytes would allow us to e-mail a copy of the Nigerian national anthem to every African by the time you say “Arise, O compatriots.”

The list of things to do is actually longer. I have discussed a few that Vision 2010 did not address adequately. These should be included in the proposed Vision 2020.

Again, we Africans were the first to enter the Agricultural Age. The first to build in stones. The first to pioneer in technology. The Greeks learned our technology and taught it to the western world. Two thousand years later, the West is leaving us behind as it prepares to enter the Information Age and the third millenium. We must hurry to enter the Information Age.

Let us not be the last country to live in the Agricultural Age and poverty. We must soar with the wind of good fortune, like the eagle, to where the real wealth of nations is. We must adopt a quantum-leap strategy to catch up with Europe.

Vision 2010 should be more than an economic blueprint. The lesson we learned from the 1970s and the 1980s is that a massive inflow of petrodollars will not bring an economic prosperity that will spread and permeate to all levels of our society. Vision 2020 should include those intangible but precious elements that will enable a Nigerian to live a satisfying life. Thus, we must grow along several dimensions.

One, we must grow politically by eliminating the army and coups d’etat while empowering the people to choose their leaders.

Two, we must grow democratically by creating a society in which the emphasis will not be on individuals or leaders but on building and developing our communities.

Three, we must grow psychologically by restoring the faith and confidence of the Nigerian people in our leaders.

Four, we must grow spiritually by having a society in which African traditionalists, Christians and Moslems can practise their religions with mutual respect for each other’s.

Five, we must grow socially by reducing crime and corruption, creating a new Nigeria in which government officials do not demand bribes from citizens.

Six, we must grow morally by encouraging honesty and not singing praises to embezzlers.

Seven, we must grow artistically by leaving a legacy comparable to the carvings from the Benin Empire, the terra cotta sculptures of the Nok culture, and the bronze vessels of the Igbo-Ukwu civilization.

Eight, we must grow culturally by creating a less repressive society in which women are encouraged and empowered in all areas of education and society.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must ensure that Nigerian children are properly educated. When we invest in our children, we will find that our standard of living grows, too. We should invest in education and technology not because it is easy, but because our children will be the beneficiaries tomorrow of the decisions, we adults, make today. Investing in education and technology will be our legacy to our children; because it will bring the best out of them as well as all Nigerians and enable us to reach our potential as individuals, as communities, as a nation.

Thank you very much.

]]> Wed, 12 Oct 2005 04:59:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/30663 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/29201
But have you ever asked yourself whether you are contributing to this stuffs by being a dynamic Member.
It was discovered by the brains practicing medicine that God blessed each human with billions of brain cells and it will take trillions of dollars to build a computer commensurate to the working capacity of human brain, but it's quit unfortunate that very few percentage of individual make use of their brain cells. Is this true?

One of the ways to develop mental power is when you learn and develop the habit of asking yourself questions,when you learn and develop the habit of using pencil and paper to write down your questions,ideas and answers.
Pa Albert Einstein developed an habit of thinking time and action which made him one of the reknown Genius and inventor that has contributed largely to the growth of human needs.
You have to learn thinking,study time and planning. Learn to acqure and store knowledge to get results not as an encyclopaedia.

You have to know that to be among the best,you have to always transfer those goodwill,knowledge,ideas and intelligency with brilliancy etc. into actions.Also believe that "A genius is a talented person who does his home work"
If the spider webs can unite they will surely tie a lion.Let's think much to reach our environs more via this opportunity.
See you guys at the other side of the channell
]]> Thu, 01 Sep 2005 06:41:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/29201 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/26258 Think Like a Millionaire
By: Brian Tracy

The most important attitude for financial success is long-term thinking. Successful people think a long way into the future and they adjust their daily behaviors to assure they achieve their long-term goals. In a longitudinal study done at Harvard University in the 50s and 60s, they studied the reasons for upward socio-economic mobility. They were looking for factors that would predict whether or not an individual or family was going to move upward and be wealthier in the future than in the present.
They studied factors like education, intelligence, being born into the right family, or having the right connections. In every case, they found individuals who had been born with every blessing in life who did poorly. They also found individuals who had been born or come to this country with no advantages at all who had been extremely successful. What was the distinguishing factor?
They finally determined that there was only one key attitude that mattered. They called it "Time Perspective." Time perspective refers to the amount of time that you take into consideration when planning your day-to-day activities and when making important decisions in your life.
People with long-time perspective invariably move up economically in the course of their lifetimes. When you spend weeks, months and years developing your skills and ability and expanding your experience in order to be successful, you have long-time perspective. The average professional person has a time perspective of 10, 15 and 20 years.
Begin to see that everything that you are doing today is part of a long-time continuum, at the end of which you are going to be financially independent or financially unfortunate. People with short-time perspective think only about fun and pleasure in the short term. They have what economists call "The inability to delay gratification." They have an irresistible tendency to spend every single penny they earn and everything that they can borrow.

When you develop long-time perspective, you develop the discipline to delay gratification and to save your money rather than spending it. The combination of long-time perspective and delayed gratification puts you onto the high road to financial independence.

Now, here are two things you can do to develop the attitudes of financially successful people:
First, think long-term about your financial life. Decide exactly how much you want to be worth five years, ten years and twenty years from today. Write it down. Make a plan. Take action on your plan every single day.

Second, develop the ability to delay gratification. Instead of buying something on impulse, put off buying decisions for a day, a week or even a month. Decide in advance to "think it over" before you buy anything. This can change the way you spend money almost immediately.







]]> Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:19:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/26258 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/25490 by Isao Inokuma
I started learning judo at the age of fifteen, intent on becoming another Sanshiro Sugata, the great master of judo who has been depicted in Japanese novels and movies and on television. Since then, I have spent my life involved in judo and have learned many lessons from the sport.

I believe I can roughly divide my career as a judoist into three periods. The first period sees me entering Riichiro Watanabe-sensei's dojo in the city of Yokosuka, still a boy and intent on becoming a strong judoist. The second period includes my first participation in the All-Japan Judo Tournament. I broke the jinx that said a newcomer would never win the tournament, and in so doing also established a important record as the youngest man ever to win the title of judo champion of Japan. This second period also includes my winning the heavyweight-class judo championship in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games and the open-division title in the Fourth World Judo Tournament in 1965. The third period covers the days up to the present and my work as an instructor developing promising young judoists. In each of these three periods I have concentrated all of my efforts and enthusiasm on judo.

But when I was a child I was rather sickly and did not have much of a physique. Also, I was not very agile or dexterous. The only weapon I had at my disposal, then, was a fighting spirit-a spirit which gave me the confidence that I would not be defeated by anyone. And I think it fair to say that it is this fighting spirit which 100 k characterized my judo throughout my career. I had good ippon seoi nage and tai otoshi but it was because of my fighting spirit that these techniques proved effective against my opponents.

As a boy, as an active judoist, and as an instructor, I have experienced a great many things, all of which I can hardly relate here. Based on my experiences. however, I will jot down some of my observations about judo.

Never Give Up
Judo is a combative sport. It is a martial art aimed at defeating your opponent. Other purposes of judo involve developing physical strength and mental spirit. But when you are up against an opponent, you must never forget the combative aspect of the sport. You fight against your opponent, throwing him down to the mat to achieve victory. At the same time, you fight against yourself. If you think your opponent is stronger than you and get the jitters, or if you are in a difficult position and feel that you must give up, then it will be impossible for you to win. You must not give up the bout until the last second, no matter how strong your opponent may be. You must have a fighting spirit which will urge you on to attack and attack again to the very end. Fighting spirit, to put it simply, is the first thing a judoist needs.

Of course, I cannot deny that you may feel anxiety or uneasiness before a fight. Feelings like "I don't want to be beaten," "I just want to run away," or "I'm frightened" are always felt to a certain degree. Also there is loneliness. But what is important during these times is not to be afraid of loneliness, anxiety, or weakness of the will but to overwhelm these feelings with a fierce fighting spirit and confront your opponent with your intention to defeat him.

I experienced such anxiety and overcame it when I participated in my first All-Japan Judo Tournament.

It was 1959. I was a senior at Tokyo University of Education and was unknown as a judoist. Furthermore, I was the smallest man in the tournament, weighing only 83 kilograms and standing 173 centimeters tall. As I mentioned, there was a belief that no newcomer could ever win the tournament. My opponent in my first preliminary bout was Yuzo Oda, a giant of a man -- 193 centimeters tall and weighing 100 kilograms. Because Oda had been touted as a sure winner of the tournament, no one believed I had any chance of beating him.

Before I fought Oda I was deep in thought for a long time. After considering it over and over, I decided that the best strategy would be to launch an attack against Oda time and time again, relentlessly. My idea was to "do or die": and I hoped to discover a way to win by hammering away on the offensive, as is suggested in the old Japanese saying, "Attacking is the best defense."

In order to carry out this strategy it was necessary for me to have the stamina to continue my attacks, as well as the fighting spirit that would enable me to generate such stamina. By nature, I disliked being beaten by the other fellow, and since I had built up my stamina during practice sessions, I attacked Oda without fear. As a result, my strategy proved successful, and after fighting for the full time I won the bout with yusei gachi (judge’s decision). This was a very important victory for me and signified the first step toward the maturation of my judo. Also, from this victory, my confidence increased considerably in regard to my notion that one must always go on the offensive in judo.

After winning my first bout with Oda, I won all my other matches up to the finals. And by defeating my opponent in the finals my confidence in my judo increased even more. My opponent here was Akio Kaminaga another man thought to have a held a good chance of winning the tournament. He, too, had won all of his matches up to the finals.

By the time of my bout with Kaminaga, all of my stamina was depleted and I was resting in a very exhausted state in the dressing room, muttering words to the effect In that I couldn't possibly win. Hearing these words, Watanabe-sensei scolded me time sharply. Encouraged by his scolding. I went up to the judo arena. My match with Kaminaga proceeded with him in a superior position, but about one minute before the end the big clock in the arena caught my eye as I returned to the mat.

I thought to myself. I must beat him with my favorite ippon seoi nage before the time is up. As soon as I grabbed hold of Kaminaga. I pushed him backward to get bled him into position. Up to then, Kaminaga had thwarted all such attempts of mine. But this time, when I pushed him backward, he moved forward together with my push; taking advantage of this, I made the throw. The hall was in an uproar, and after several moments the chief referee declared my seoi nage a waza ari (half point) Thus I had managed to come from behind to win the title of the All-Japan Judo Tournament.

My victory was the result of my never giving up the match until the very end. There are some judoists who are quite strong during practice sessions but who fail to live up to their expectations in competition. There are also judoists who in a match are unable to execute the techniques that they are actually in full possession of. The problems here lie in the attitudes of these men before the fights begin: They defeat themselves before they enter the judo arena. Only by using all your energy and spirit until the very last can you win a bout. I become more certain of this each time I watch Yasuhiro Yamashita.

Yamashita is one of my protege’s. He is also the one who broke my record as the youngest judoist to win the All-Japan Judo Tournament. Yamashita is not only a big man, but also a fighter who likes to train very hard. During the Jigoro Kano Cup International Judo Tournament held at the Nippon Budokan (Tokyo) in November 1978, Yamashita exhibited fully a fighting spirit that simply overwhelmed his opponents on his way to winning the open-class title. The open-class bouts were held on the fourth and last day of the tournament. Aside from Yamashita, those participating were Novikov of the Soviet Union, winner of the open-class title in the Montreal Olympics, Rouge (France), Adler (the Netherlands), and other top-flight judoists of the world.

In his second bout, Yamashita met the big Russian Turin. Yamashita had a hard time getting his techniques to work because Turin continued to take strong defensive positions. Yamashita was taken for a koka (two steps below a waza ari) when Turin countered with a technique after Yamashita had attacked. The spectators in the hall gasped when the koka was proclaimed and everyone thought that the seemingly invincible Yamashita would go down to defeat. But Yamashita redoubled his attacks against Turin, who maintained his defense with his long arms. Several seconds before the match was over, Yamashita unleashed o-uchi gari to pick up a yuko (between koka and waza ari) and a victory.

During the finals, Yamashita met Rouge of France, and although the techniques of the two men were ineffective, it was clear that Yamashita was the more aggressive and that the bout was in his favor. Yet Yamashita continued his relentless attack against Rouge and just before the end of the match he caught him with o-soto gari to gain a yuko and the title as well. It was a brilliant strategy on the part of Yamashita.

The spirit of a combative sport is that one does not give up until the very end and keeps up a relentless attack against the opponent. Always take a bold, forward posture and sweep away your fears. No matter what the situation may be, as long as you have a fighting spirit and the desire to win you will always discover a way to won to victory.

Build Up Your Body and Your Techniques
You may have fighting spirit, but if you don't combine it with excellent techniques and in you can't win a bout. It is often said that shin-gi-tai (spirit, skill, and power) is necessary to win in judo. You have to train hard so that these three elements will be in harmony with each other when you face your opponent in the judo arena. Hard training will not only dispose of your anxieties, but it will also create physical strength and fighting spirit, thus enabling you to fight with everything you have.

I have often noted when viewing international judo tournaments in recent years that Japanese judoists are inferior to their foreign counterparts in basic physical powers and, as a result, lose their bouts without being able to apply their techniques to the fullest. There is a saying which gets to the heart of judo: Ju yoku go o seisu (Softness overcomes hardness). There are some who, hearing this, believe that even without strength they can defeat their opponents. But this is false. How can a man who has not trained diligently or who has not built up his physical strength defeat his opponent? Adages like "Softness overcomes hardness" or "A small man can defeat a big man" only apply when your basic physical powers are on a par with the opponent's; in such a situation, power is not the issue, and it is here that we first glimpse the importance of the smooth working of shin-gi-tai in a match.

It is my opinion that the techniques of Japanese judoists today are more varied and on a higher level than those of their foreign counterparts. But in order for these techniques to be truly effective, Japanese judoists have to develop basic physical powers that are in no way inferior to anyone else's.

Many foreign judoists on the scene today possess not only excellent basic physical powers but also strong techniques that have overwhelmed their Japanese will opponents time and time again. Among the foreign judoists with brilliant shin-gi-tai are the Soviet Union's Nevzorov, the victor in the light-middleweight class in the Montreal Olympics, Dvoinikov of the Soviet Union, who was runner-up in the middleweight division at the same Olympics, and Lorentz of East Germany, who won the 95-kilograms-and-under class in the Jigoro Kano Cup International Judo Tournament held in Tokyo in 1978.

Because I was small physically, I took up weight training during my boyhood in order to overcome this handicap and strengthen my body. With my new power, and in combination with my favorite technique seoi nage and tai otoshi - I built up my own judo. I believe that a small man like me was able to beat bigger men because I was able to back up my favorite techniques with basic physical power.

A judoist's strongest and best techniques become his weapons during a contest. Being strong, the more authority in their execution the more effective the result. But it takes a long time and some very hard practice to develop techniques that you can truly call your own. My favorite techniques were seoi nage and tai otoshi. Both involve heaving up the opponent from below. I learned them from Watanabe-sensei, who often used to tell me that if a small man is to defeat a big man, the small man must practice and master katsugiwaza, or carrying techniques.

I was never one for exhibiting brilliant judo techniques. But as far as my ippon seoi nage was concerned, I was always sure I could bring down my opponent, no matter who he was or what the situation, as long as I caught him in exactly the position I wanted him.

Power, speed, and stamina are going to be particularly important in judo from now on. Becoming able to win a judo match will involve adding basic physical training to your daily practice to develop these qualities as well as working to master techniques of devastating effectiveness.

Don't Stop Learning
Let us say that you have mastered a certain technique and are meeting an opponent. If you depend only on your favorite technique, the time will surely come when it will not work and you will find it difficult to win. This is because your opponent has thoroughly studied your technique as well as the flow of your matches and has devised countermeasures to neutralize you.

During the All-Japan Judo Tournament held in 1959, I concentrated on seoi nage to win, but in the championship of the following year I tasted a bitter defeat. The reason for this is that my opponents had studied my seoi nage thoroughly and were on their guard from the very start. I managed to win up to the finals by virtue of my determination, but in my bout with Akio Kaminaga, the man I had defeated the previous year, all my seoi nage were thwarted and I ended up in defeat. This showed me that you can't win by always fighting with the same pattern of attack, technique, and strategy. In order to win and continue winning, you must study and work much harder than your opponent.

I realized then and there that I must perfect a technique other than seoi nage. This was to be tai otoshi. Unlike in seoi nage, in tai otoshi you do not throw your opponent directly in front of you but twist your body a little to the side. You have to unbalance the opponent with good timing first. In seoi nage, there is the fear that and our opponent may thwart you by hugging you and then countering with his own technique. But in tai otoshi this fear is slight. I thought that if I perfected tai otoshi and mixed it with seoi nage I could execute either one of them as the occasion demanded and keep the opponent from knowing which one I planned to use. As a result, the opponent would not know how to best guard himself against me. Naturally I worked at o uchi gari and ko uchi gari strenuously until they also became techniques I could use. By using these leg techniques to get the opponent off-balance, I established several attack patterns that could lead into seoi nage or tai otoshi.

I also practiced my mat techniques very hard. My goal was to execute them quickly in combination with my standing techniques to ensure victory. By studying and strengthening my work on the mat, I managed to eliminate the anxiety I had felt about it and could thus carry out my standing techniques boldly and without ever any apprehension.

In 1961 I hurt my hip and had to spend some time recovering from the injury. When I got well, I practiced mat techniques diligently. As a result, I succeeded in hug winning the AII-Judo Tournament for the second time in 1963.

My strategy in the tournament was to concentrate on mat techniques after executing a standing technique. Also, when the opponent attempted a technique, I would counter him and drag him down on the mat so that I could grapple with him there. Because I was confident in my mat techniques and because I was sure that I could fight on a par with my opponent even if I was the one thrown down to the mat. I was able to attack with my favorite seoi nage purposefully and without fear.

I always studied my opponents far in advance, and when an opponent was bigger than me I would hold him so that his eyes would be at the same level as mine. The results of my study bore fruit in the first International Judo Tournament held in Moscow in March 1961 when I fought Kiknadze of the Soviet Union.

This tournament was kind of a preliminary to the soon-to-come Tokyo Olympics of 1964, when judo was to be included in the competition for the first time. The tournament was also a good opportunity for me to see whether my tai otoshi would be effective against foreign judoists. The favorites in the tournament were Kiknadze and myself. Kiknadze was an enormous man, capable of firing an automatic rifle with only one hand or lifting me clear up off the ground. I met him twice, once in the preliminary league and once in the finals. In the preliminaries I defeated Kiknadze in a matter of 30 seconds with ippon seoi nage. I couldn't have been more astounded at the victory. However, Kiknadze managed to win all of his other bouts and I had to confront him again in the finals. It seemed that he had been studying my ippon seoi nage, for when I pushed him backward, he would not push back at me. He would instead block the movement of my right hand with his left hand. I got pretty flustered and, breaking my customary rhythm, I attempted ippon seoi nage just as Kiknadze was stepping back. He seemed to have been waiting for just this opportunity, because he hugged me tightly and executed a strong back throw. It was judged a waza ari.

You can imagine my disappointment. I was bound to lose if I did not make use of everything I had been studying up till then. I decided to attack with a mixture of seoi nage and tai otoshi. This proved effective. After five minutes, I attempted a seoi nage in the same pattern as before, and, like the previous time, Kiknadze tried to hug me. I took this opportunity to lower my body and switched to tai otoshi. Kiknadze fell to the mat from his right hip down. It was a waza ari. We were now equal. Kiknadze put caution to the wind and came forward voluntarily. He was in a position to be caught with my seoi nage and changed to tai otoshi. It was a perfect ippon. If I had not studied tai otoshi I would probably have lost to Kiknadze in his bout.

In Judo you will meet many kinds of opponents. The types of techniques they use are also very different, depending on their physiques. In order to continue winning against such a wide variety of opponents you must study and train harder then they do. A person who engages in the same type of training every day, who fights the same type of contests every day, and who loses the same way every day will never be able to develop a winning pattern. I hope everyone who reads this essay will keep this in mind.

Use Judo in Your Daily Life
In the Tokyo Olympics held in October 1964, I won the heavyweight title. The following year I won the open-class title at the Fourth World Judo Tournament held in Brazil to end my career as an active judoist. I am now retired from competition. While I am concentrating on developing promising young judoists, I am also trying to lead the life that shows how the spirit of judo can be brought into one’s daily behavior. I am trying to apply to society the same judo spirit that I acquired during my years of training. My attitude at my place of work is the same as when I was practicing at a dojo or was engaged in contests in the arena. I am putting all my enthusiam and fighting spirit into my current work and keeping up on my studies. Judo is not a sport to be engaged in only at the dojo.

Jigoro Kano-sensei trained on the principle that one can attain his objective by getting both his spirit and body to work together productively. And he said that one of the major objectives of judo training was to become able to apply this principle to all aspects of life in society. With "fighting spirit" as my motto, I am even now, in the dojo that is society, drawing from my past judo experience to pursue my studies further. "Fighting spirit" judo is, for me, a life-long endeavor.


"The techniques of Judo are limitless and the spirit of Judo is sublime."
--Isao Inokuma



]]> Wed, 22 Jun 2005 12:33:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/25490 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/25489






To be sincere this is one of the most inspiring article I have ever read since I came to existence and I will like anybody who really want much for himself and his community to join me in digesting it,especially Nigerian Youths.

Keynote speech by Philip Emeagwali at the Pan African Conference on Brain Drain, Elsah, Illinois on October 24, 2003.

Bengali and German translations provided by High I.Q. for Humanity. French translation by Abdoulaye CAMARA of AfricaMaat.


Thank you for the pleasant introduction as well as for inviting me to share my thoughts on turning "brain drain" into "brain gain."

For 10 million African-born emigrants, the word "home" is synonymous with the United States, Britain or other country outside of Africa.

Personally, I have lived continuously in the United States for the past 30 years. My last visit to Africa was 17 years ago.

On the day I left Nigeria, I felt sad because I was leaving my family behind. I believed I would return eight years later, probably marry an Igbo girl, and then spend the rest of my life in Nigeria.

But 25 years ago, I fell in love with an American girl, married her three years later, and became eligible to sponsor a Green Card visa for my 35 closest relatives, including my parents and all my siblings, nieces and nephews.

The story of how I brought 35 people to the United States exemplifies how 10 million skilled people have emigrated out of Africa during the past 30 years.

We came to the United States on student visas and then changed our status to become permanent residents and then naturalized citizens. Our new citizenship status helped us sponsor relatives, and also inspired our friends to immigrate here.

Ten million Africans now constitute an invisible nation that resides outside Africa. Although invisible, it is a nation as populous as Angola, Malawi, Zambia or Zimbabwe. If it were to be a nation with distinct borders, it would have an income roughly equivalent to Africa's gross domestic product.

Although the African Union does not recognize the African Diaspora as a nation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledges its economic importance. The IMF estimates the African Diaspora now constitutes the biggest group of foreign investors in Africa.

Take for example Western Union. It estimates that it is not atypical for an immigrant to wire $300 per month to relatives in Africa. If you assume that most Africans living outside Africa send money each month and you do the math, you will agree with the IMF that the African Diaspora is indeed the largest foreign investor in Africa.

What few realize is that Africans who immigrate to the United States contribute 40 times more wealth to the American than to the African economy. According to the United Nations, an African professional working in the United States contributes about $150,000 per year to the U.S. economy.

Again, if you do the math, you will realize that the African professional remitting $300 per month to Africa is contributing 40 times more to the United States economy than to the African one.

On a relative scale, that means for every $300 per month a professional African sends home, that person contributes $12,000 per month to the U.S. economy.






Emeagwali at the Pan African Conference
Delivering the keynote speech
[Principia College (prin.edu), Elsah, Illinois, October 24, 2003]


Of course, the issue more important than facts and figures is eliminating poverty in Africa, not merely reducing it by sending money to relatives. Money alone cannot eliminate poverty in Africa, because even one million dollars is a number with no intrinsic value.

Real wealth cannot be measured by money, yet we often confuse money with wealth. Under the status quo, Africa would still remain poor even if we were to send all the money in the world there.

Ask someone who is ill what "wealth" means, and you will get a very different answer than from most other people.

If you were HIV-positive, you would gladly exchange one million dollars to become HIV-negative.

When you give your money to your doctor, that physician helps you convert your money into health - or rather, wealth.

Money cannot teach your children. Teachers can. Money cannot bring electricity to your home. Engineers can. Money cannot cure sick people. Doctors can.

Because it is only a nation's human capital that can be converted into real wealth, that human capital is much more valuable than its financial capital.

A few years ago, Zambia had 1,600 medical doctors. Today, Zambia has only 400 medical doctors. Kenya retains only 10% of the nurses and doctors trained there. A similar story is told from South Africa to Ghana.

I also speak from my family experiences. After contributing 25 years to Nigerian society as a nurse, my father retired on a $25-per-month pension.

By comparison, my four sisters each earn $25 per hour as nurses in the United States. If my father had had the opportunity my sisters did, he certainly would have immigrated to the United States as a young nurse.

The "brain drain" explains, in part, why affluent Africans fly to London for their medical treatments.

Furthermore, because a significant percentage of African doctors and nurses practice in U.S. hospitals, we can reasonably conclude that African medical schools are de facto serving the American people, not Africa.

A recent World Bank survey shows that African universities are exporting a large percentage of their graduating manpower to the United States. In a given year, the World Bank estimates that 70,000 skilled Africans immigrate to Europe and the United States.

While these 70,000 skilled Africans are fleeing the continent in search of employment and decent wages, 100,000 skilled expatriates who are paid wages higher than the prevailing rate in Europe are hired to replace them.

In Nigeria, the petroleum industry hires about 1,000 skilled expatriates, even though we can find similar skills within the African Diaspora. Instead of developing its own manpower resources, Nigeria prefers to contract out its oil exploration despite the staggeringly high price of having to concede 40% of its profits to foreign oil companies.

In a pre-independence day editorial, the Vanguard (Nigeria) queried: "Why would the optimism of 1960 give way to the despair of 2000?"

My answer is this: Nigeria achieved political independence in 1960, but by the year 2000 had not yet achieved technological independence.

During colonial rule, Nigeria retained only 50% of the profits from oil derived from its own territory. Four decades after this colonial rule ended, the New York Times (December 22, 2002) wrote that "40 percent of the oil revenue goes to Chevron, [and] 60 percent to the [Nigerian] government."

As a point of comparison, the United States would never permit a Nigerian oil company to retain 40% of the profits from a Texas oilfield.

Our African homelands have paid an extraordinary price for their lack of domestic technological knowledge.

Because of that lack of knowledge, since it gained independence in 1960, Nigeria has relinquished 40% of its oilfields and $200 billion to American and European stockholders.

Because of that lack of knowledge, Nigeria exports crude petroleum, only to import refined petroleum.

Because of that lack of knowledge, Africa exports raw steel, only to import cars that are essentially steel products.

Knowledge is the engine that drives economic growth, and Africa cannot eliminate poverty without first increasing and nurturing its intellectual capital.

Reversing the "brain drain" will increase Africa's intellectual capital while also increasing its wealth in many, many different ways.

Can the "brain drain" be reversed? My answer is: yes. But in order for it to happen, we must try something different.

At this point, I want to inject a new idea into this dialogue. For my idea to work, it requires that we tap the talents and skills of the African Diaspora. It requires that we create one million high-tech jobs in Africa. It requires that we move one million high-tech jobs from the United States to Africa.

I know you are wondering: How can we move one million jobs from the United States to Africa?

It can be done. In fact, by the year 2015 the U.S. Department of Labor expects to lose an estimated 3.3 million call center jobs to developing nations.

In this area, what we as Africans need to do is develop a strategic plan - one that will persuade multinational companies that it will be more profitable to move their call centers to nations in Africa instead of India.

These high-tech jobs include those in call centers, customer service and help desks - all of which are suitable for unemployed university graduates.

The reason these jobs could now emerge in Africa is that recent technological advances such as the Internet and mobile telephones now make it practical, cheaper and otherwise advantageous to move these services to developing nations, where lower wages prevail.

If Africa succeeds in capturing one million of these high-tech jobs, they could provide more revenues than all the African oilfields. These "greener pastures" would lure back talent and, in turn, create a reverse "brain drain."

Again, we have a rare and unique window of opportunity to convert projected American job losses into Africa's job gain, and thus change the "brain drain" to "brain gain."

However, aggressive action must be taken before this window of opportunity closes. India is a formidable competitor.

Therefore, we need to determine the cost savings realized by outsourcing call center jobs to Africa instead of India. That cost saving will be used as a selling point to corporations interested in outsourcing jobs.

A typical call center employee might be a housewife using a laptop computer and a cell phone to work from her home. As night settles and her children go to bed, she could place a phone call to Los Angeles, which is 10 hours behind her time zone.

An American answers her call and she says, "Good morning, this is Zakiya." Using a standard, rehearsed script, she tries to sell an American product.

Now that USA-to-Africa telephone calls are as low as 6 cents per minute, it is economically feasible for a telephone sales person to reside in Anglophone Africa while virtually employed in the United States, and - this is important - paying income taxes only to her country in Africa.

I will give one more example of how thousands of call center jobs can be created in Africa.

It is well known that U.S. companies often give up on collecting outstanding account balances of less than $50 each. The reason is that it often costs $60 in American labor to recover that $50.

By comparison, I believe it would cost only $10 in African labor (including the 6 cents per minute phone call) to collect an outstanding balance of $50.



Earlier, the organizers of this Pan African Conference gave me a note containing eleven questions.

The first was: Do skilled Africans have the moral obligation to remain and work in Africa?

I believe those with skills should be encouraged and rewarded to stay, work, and raise their families in Africa. When that happens, a large middle class will be created, thereby reducing the conditions that give rise to civil war and corruption. Then, a true revitalization and renaissance will occur.

The second question was: Should skilled African emigrants be compelled to return to Africa?

I believe controlling emigration will be very difficult. Instead, I recommend the United Nations impose a "brain gain tax" upon those nations benefiting from the "brain drain."

Each year, the United States creates a brain drain by issuing 135,000 H1-B visas to "outstanding researchers" and persons with "extraordinary ability."

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), working in tangent with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), could be required to credit one month's salary, each year, to the country of birth of each immigrant.

Already, the IRS allows U.S. taxpayers to make voluntary contributions to election funds. Similarly, it could allow immigrants to voluntarily pay taxes to their country of birth, instead of to the United States.

The third question was: Why don't we encourage unemployed Africans to seek employment abroad?

Put differently, if all the nurses and doctors in Africa were to win the U.S. visa lottery, who will operate our hospitals?

If we encourage 8 million talented Africans to emigrate, what will we encourage their remaining 800 million brothers and sisters to do?

The fourth question was: Should we blame the African Diaspora for Africa's problems?

Yes, the Diaspora should be blamed in part, because the absence it's created has diminished the continent's intellectual capital and thus created the vacuum enabling dictators and corruption to flourish.

The likes of Idi Amin, Jean-Bedel Bokassa and Mobutu Sese Seko would not be able to declare themselves president-for-life of nations who have a large, educated middle class.

The fifth question was: Should we not blame Africa's leaders for siphoning money from Africa's treasuries?

It becomes a vicious circle: the flight of intellectual capital increases the flight of financial capital which in turn increases again the flight of intellectual capital.

Leadership is a collective process, and "brain drain" reduces the collective brainpower needed to fight corruption and mismanagement.

For example, the leadership of the Central Bank of Nigeria did not call a news conference after Sani Abacha stole $3 billion dollars from it.

The bank's Governor-General did not go on a hunger strike. He did not report the robbery to the police. He did not file a lawsuit.

Had they the intellectual manpower to counter corruption, the results would have been very different.

The sixth question was: Is it possible to achieve an African renaissance?

Because by definition, a renaissance is the revival and flowering of the arts, literature and sciences, it must be preceded by a growth in the continent's intellectual capital, or the collective knowledge of the people.

The best African musicians live in France. The top African writers live in the United States or Britain. The soccer superstars live in Europe. It will be impossible to achieve a renaissance without the contributions of the talented.

The seventh question was: For how long has the "brain drain" problem existed?

A common misconception is that the African "brain drain" started 40 years ago.

In reality, it actually began ten times that long. Four hundred years ago, most people of African descent lived in Africa. Today, one in five of African descent live in the Americas. Therefore, measured in numbers, the largest "brain drain" resulted from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Contrary to what people believed, Africa experienced a brain gain during the first half of the 20th century. Schools, hospitals and banks were built by the British colonialists. These institutions were the visible manifestations of brain gain.

At the end of colonial rule, skilled Europeans fled the continent. Skilled Africans started fleeing the continent in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The result was the widespread rise of despotic rulers.

The eighth question was: Is "brain drain" a form of modern slavery?

By the end of the 21st century, people will have different sensibilities and will describe it as modern day slavery.

In the 19th century, which was an Agricultural Age, the U.S. economy needed strong hands to pick cotton, and the young and sturdy were forced into slavery.

In the 21st century, which is an Information Age, the U.S. economy needs persons with "extraordinary ability" and the best and brightest are lured with Green Card visas. Africans who are illiterate or HIV-positive are automatically denied American visas.

The ninth question was: Do you believe that the "brain drain" can be reversed?

As I stated earlier, "brain drain" is a complex and multidimensional problem that can be reversed into "brain gain."

India is now reversing its "brain drain," and turning it into "brain gain;" I believe Africa can do the same. But unless we reverse it, the dream of an African renaissance will remain an elusive one.

The tenth question was: Can we blame globalization as a cause of brain drain?

Globalization began 400 years ago with the trans-Atlantic slave trade that brought the ancestors of 200 million Africans now living in the Americas. It has accelerated because the Internet and cell phone now enable you to communicate instantaneously with any person on the globe.

Overall, globalization is a force that is denationalizing the wealth of developing nations. Economists have confirmed that the rich nations are getting richer while the poor ones are getting poorer.

We also know that the globalization process is increasing the foreign debts of developing nations, accelerating the flight of financial and intellectual capital to western nations.

The economics of offshoring will force multinational corporations to outsource to developing nations where lower wages prevail.

To remain competitive and profitable, companies will be forced to reduce costs by hiring five-dollars-an-hour computer programmers living in Third World countries and lay off expensive American programmers that demand $50 an hour.

In the long term, offshoring will reverse the flight of financial and intellectual capital from western nations to the Third World.

The eleventh question was: Why have I lived in the United States for 30 continuous years?

Africa has bitten at my soul since I left. My roots are still in Africa. My house is filled with Africana - food, paintings, music, and clothes - to remind me of Africa.

I long to visit the motherland, but I must confess that when Africa called me to return home, I couldn't answer that call.

The reason is that I work on creating new knowledge that could be used to redesign supercomputers. The most powerful supercomputers cost $120 million each and Nigeria could not afford to buy one for me. I created the knowledge that the power of thousands of processors can be harnessed; this knowledge, in turn, inspired the reinvention of vector supercomputers into massively parallel supercomputers.

New knowledge must precede new technological products and the supercomputer of today will become the personal computer of tomorrow.

And so to answer your question: even though I reside in the U.S. the knowledge that I created is now materializing into better personal computers purchased by Africans.

Finally, millions of high-tech jobs can be performed from Africa, but may instead be lost to India. We must identify the millions of jobs that will be more profitable when transferred from the United States to Africa.

Doing so will enable us to create a brain drain from the United States and convert it to a brain gain for Africa.

Thank you again.


]]> Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:43:00 EDT http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/25489 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333 http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/22941 Can we wake up from the slumber and do something? This we really get us moving and from there we can gather more momentum on what we really want for our society. ]]> Sat, 19 Mar 2005 10:20:00 EST http://dat2k2.tigblog.org/post/22941 6.4333333 7.48333336.43333337.4833333