Dayo Olopade's opening talk was a credit not only to her own principle and overall philosophy as a journalist and author, but to TED's insight and knack for spot-on pragmatism. She was, on stage, as she is in person, the very essence of an idea worth spreading.
Having met her at Baba Dogo last year - where we both volunteered during the Kuweni Serious 125/100 project - it seemed only fitting that her presentation on lighting the dark continent had the onus of opening the forum. She did not disappoint.
Projected behind her was the picture of a row of children, bare-foot, in blazers and shorts. Their torsos appeared headless, the picture having been cropped to their shoulders; an illustration, Dayo commented, of the story the world seems to want to tell about Africa. It brought back a quick flash of the #SomeoneTellCNN debacle, where meanings and messages seem to deliberately get lost in translation.
 |
| Dayo's Twitter Profile: Happy Belated Bday |
Shifting mindsets is the only way forward, not only away from the victim mentality, but also from the copycat ideology that innovation seems to take in Africa, where we focus less on our own problems, and more on innovative ideas from the West:
'The African focus should shift [from formal systems] to informal systems [such as] JuaKali...'This is the story we should be telling. One of advancement for all, and positive ethnicity; of fair, smart politics, oxymoronic as that may sound.
TED Fellow in the making, this Dayo...and that's only the beginning. |
| An array of Responses to Dayo's Talk |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments are highly appreciated.