That’s amazing.
It’s amazing.
You are the minister of digital economy?
Have you met some African Ministers, digital economy ministers?
You know that in Africa we don’t have any sign language, one of the things I’m trying to get people to invest. You know that we don’t have our own...
Yeah. I went to Brazil, and I met...some of the girls came to our hackathon. They don’t have the normal sign language so they use different sign language. We are leaving people behind, because they cannot understand...
They can’t understand, so they can’t...I’m just going to show you. They can’t understand anything, because they don’t have actually the right software. People are not even including them in the conversation, so they’re left behind in Brazil.
My girls are using...They came to the hackathon, they’re using all these sign languages, but they’re being left behind.
So interesting, ADHD.
How do you read that?
Where are they based?
All right, because I know them all.
Which country?
Addis Ababa. There are key organizations right now who are working on SDGs. I was going to show you this. There are key organizations, hundred percent you should speak to, and then I’m happy to make the connections for you.
They are the data people. I don’t know if you know, but what iamtheCODE does on the data side is tracking the data for some of the part of the data.
Their organization is built around the data. It’s the data...how do you measure all the impact of SDGs or how do you create your national roadmap. I know at Taiwan you guys are being advancing in doing that.
We have key Africans in Kenya who are really amazing, super amazing. From the data collection to the visualization of it. You absolutely need to speak to them, and if you do any funding or anything, you can see the impact because they are there for them.
In where?
In Tanzania?
I know Swaziland.
I know the minister of ICT in Swaziland.
Really?
From Swaziland?
Why did you choose Swaziland? You can choose my country, Senegal.
This is the foundation. It’s called the ADHD Foundation, and so they help children with ADHD, and they’re based in the UK. They’re super amazing. They just won an award, and so they help children with ADHD.
They give them superpower. They don’t call it disability. They call them superpower, and so they are smart, and so right now, they want us to do a hackathon with the smartest people in the room.
I think they will be interesting in your program, but for Swaziland, I know people in Swaziland, but Swaziland, Lesotho, all those small countries are very interesting in partnering.
Taiwan is a country that Africa likes, but the Chinese government have scared them a lot about Taiwan, and so many African governments are scared in taking Taiwanese money because they’re scared of Chinese withdrawal.
We’re not scared because we don’t get any funding from China. [laughs] It’s a bit political but people like Jeff Sachs, they don’t have a good brand in Africa. Their aid is very top-down, talking down to Africans, and so now you have Africans, people like us who are coming and saying, "We’re the intellectuals."
We’re setting it now. We have really amazing people but I think you need to speak to Philip Thigo. I don’t know if he’s here. I’m going to see today. He’s from Kenya. The president of my country is great. The president of Ghana is also good. He’s here.
They’re countries where you can really find a small partnership, and iamtheCODE could be the route for you, a small route. Usually, they don’t like doing...The way Japanese work in Africa, I think that’s how you guys should work.
Japan, they don’t like big publicity, but they are doing, for example, they invest into small organizations, and then they will let everything spread slowly, like TICAD, they have a big fund for Africa, but they don’t give the money.
The money is not yet into the African government bank account, but what they do, they will find a partnership with UN Women, or iamtheCODE, or things like that to help those people with specific projects. That’s how the Japanese, very serious people, that’s how they work.
I think that’s a good idea.
17th.
What is good about what you’re saying is important because the Europeans and Americans what they do, and this has been the big mistake they’ve made for the last, I will say 15 years, they haven’t educated data scientists. They haven’t created a pipeline for data scientists.
We want to create...We have 75 people who are data scientists in Africa today, so when they come to Africa, they want to talk about data collection, but Africa has got a data, plenty of data. They have metadatas everywhere. Africa is data. Everywhere. I was data when I was young.
The data exists but what doesn’t exist is, who’s going to teach them? Who’s going to teach people Excel? Who’s going to make the open data for people? Who’s going to help them understand what data is? They own information. We don’t have these sorts of schools.
I know, but I’ve been saying this to people. I’ve been saying Taiwan. They say, "Taiwan." I said, "Yeah, Taiwan."
This is fascinating. I don’t know if you know, but I sit on the board of the World Wide Web Foundation?
One of the biggest work right now we’re thinking about is how do you get Africa connected in the next 12 years to the SDGs. Citizen data scientists, that is why we organize hackathons, to help them understand how do you collect the data.
The biggest issue for us, in Africa, is how do we make sure the national statistics of government -- all the national statistics in 54 countries, Africa -- how do you educate them to understand data collection, number one? Number two, how do you have them open the data so they don’t feel scared?
Like in Uganda, in some countries, they see data information, fake news, all of this, because no one has done a workshop or training, even send them to Taiwan for five days for you to teach them about...
Nobody has ever done that. We have some data conferences now and then, but it’s just telling. It’s not like teaching them.
Yeah, it’s just empowering. I think one of the things we should think about is to have even a hackathon, or an event in Taiwan, or somewhere in Africa. Ethiopia is good or Swaziland, where we have an event, and where we invite Africa data champions -- I know them a lot -- to come. That would be something great.
[groans]
No, but you have me now. Don’t worry.
The reason why they cut ties, sometimes, is because they’re scared. There’s no representative for you. Because I know Taiwan. I know how to talk about Taiwan in a more scientific and technologic way. That’s what I do.
African government, they haven’t been to Taiwan. I don’t want them to see Taiwan as just like a funding country...
