0:00:01.235,0:00:04.714 Everything I do, and everything I do professionally -- 0:00:04.714,0:00:08.699 my life -- has been shaped 0:00:08.699,0:00:14.523 by seven years of work as a young man in Africa. 0:00:14.523,0:00:18.044 From 1971 to 1977 -- 0:00:18.044,0:00:21.924 I look young, but I'm not — (Laughter) -- 0:00:21.924,0:00:26.857 I worked in Zambia, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Somalia, 0:00:26.857,0:00:31.074 in projects of technical cooperation with African countries. 0:00:31.074,0:00:34.192 I worked for an Italian NGO, 0:00:34.192,0:00:40.342 and every single project that we set up in Africa 0:00:40.342,0:00:43.786 failed. 0:00:43.786,0:00:47.930 And I was distraught. 0:00:47.930,0:00:52.178 I thought, age 21, that we Italians were good people 0:00:52.178,0:00:55.560 and we were doing good work in Africa. 0:00:55.560,0:01:02.573 Instead, everything we touched we killed. 0:01:02.573,0:01:07.676 Our first project, the one that has inspired my first book, 0:01:07.676,0:01:10.564 "Ripples from the Zambezi," 0:01:10.564,0:01:13.129 was a project where we Italians 0:01:13.129,0:01:19.050 decided to teach Zambian people how to grow food. 0:01:19.050,0:01:23.399 So we arrived there with Italian seeds in southern Zambia 0:01:23.399,0:01:26.879 in this absolutely magnificent valley 0:01:26.879,0:01:30.132 going down to the Zambezi River, 0:01:30.132,0:01:33.760 and we taught the local people how to grow Italian tomatoes 0:01:33.760,0:01:36.551 and zucchini and ... 0:01:36.551,0:01:38.746 And of course the local people had absolutely no interest 0:01:38.746,0:01:41.661 in doing that, so we paid them to come and work, 0:01:41.661,0:01:45.796 and sometimes they would show up. (Laughter) 0:01:45.796,0:01:48.523 And we were amazed that the local people, 0:01:48.523,0:01:51.610 in such a fertile valley, would not have any agriculture. 0:01:51.610,0:01:54.818 But instead of asking them how come they were not 0:01:54.818,0:01:58.840 growing anything, we simply said, "Thank God we're here." (Laughter) 0:01:58.840,0:02:03.508 "Just in the nick of time to save the Zambian people from starvation." 0:02:03.508,0:02:06.968 And of course, everything in Africa grew beautifully. 0:02:06.968,0:02:09.626 We had these magnificent tomatoes. In Italy, a tomato 0:02:09.626,0:02:13.235 would grow to this size. In Zambia, to this size. 0:02:13.235,0:02:16.056 And we could not believe, and we were telling the Zambians, 0:02:16.056,0:02:18.528 "Look how easy agriculture is." 0:02:18.528,0:02:21.539 When the tomatoes were nice and ripe and red, 0:02:21.539,0:02:24.967 overnight, some 200 hippos came out from the river 0:02:24.967,0:02:28.970 and they ate everything. (Laughter) 0:02:28.970,0:02:33.554 And we said to the Zambians, "My God, the hippos!" 0:02:33.554,0:02:39.235 And the Zambians said, "Yes, that's why we have no agriculture here." (Laughter) 0:02:39.235,0:02:45.487 "Why didn't you tell us?""You never asked." 0:02:45.487,0:02:50.575 I thought it was only us Italians blundering around Africa, 0:02:50.575,0:02:53.319 but then I saw what the Americans were doing, 0:02:53.319,0:02:56.055 what the English were doing, what the French were doing, 0:02:56.055,0:02:58.648 and after seeing what they were doing, 0:02:58.648,0:03:02.007 I became quite proud of our project in Zambia. 0:03:02.007,0:03:06.996 Because, you see, at least we fed the hippos. 0:03:06.996,0:03:11.243 You should see the rubbish — (Applause) -- 0:03:11.243,0:03:13.737 You should see the rubbish that we have bestowed 0:03:13.737,0:03:15.537 on unsuspecting African people. 0:03:15.537,0:03:17.113 You want to read the book, 0:03:17.113,0:03:22.044 read "Dead Aid," by Dambisa Moyo, 0:03:22.044,0:03:25.051 Zambian woman economist. 0:03:25.051,0:03:27.421 The book was published in 2009. 0:03:27.421,0:03:31.995 We Western donor countries have given the African continent 0:03:31.995,0:03:36.988 two trillion American dollars in the last 50 years. 0:03:36.988,0:03:40.813 I'm not going to tell you the damage that that money has done. 0:03:40.813,0:03:43.001 Just go and read her book. 0:03:43.001,0:03:51.364 Read it from an African woman, the damage that we have done. 0:03:51.364,0:03:57.331 We Western people are imperialist, colonialist missionaries, 0:03:57.331,0:04:00.645 and there are only two ways we deal with people: 0:04:00.645,0:04:05.034 We either patronize them, or we are paternalistic. 0:04:05.034,0:04:08.138 The two words come from the Latin root "pater," 0:04:08.138,0:04:10.368 which means "father." 0:04:10.368,0:04:14.221 But they mean two different things. 0:04:14.221,0:04:17.582 Paternalistic, I treat anybody from a different culture 0:04:17.582,0:04:23.385 as if they were my children. "I love you so much." 0:04:23.385,0:04:27.892 Patronizing, I treat everybody from another culture 0:04:27.892,0:04:30.290 as if they were my servants. 0:04:30.290,0:04:36.361 That's why the white people in Africa are called "bwana," boss. 0:04:36.361,0:04:39.944 I was given a slap in the face reading a book, 0:04:39.944,0:04:44.911 "Small is Beautiful," written by Schumacher, who said, 0:04:44.911,0:04:47.869 above all in economic development, if people 0:04:47.869,0:04:52.424 do not wish to be helped, leave them alone. 0:04:52.424,0:04:55.251 This should be the first principle of aid. 0:04:55.251,0:04:58.937 The first principle of aid is respect. 0:04:58.937,0:05:01.465 This morning, the gentleman who opened this conference 0:05:01.465,0:05:05.266 lay a stick on the floor, and said, 0:05:05.266,0:05:09.524 "Can we -- can you imagine a city 0:05:09.524,0:05:13.446 that is not neocolonial?" 0:05:13.446,0:05:17.599 I decided when I was 27 years old 0:05:17.599,0:05:21.806 to only respond to people, 0:05:21.806,0:05:26.230 and I invented a system called Enterprise Facilitation, 0:05:26.230,0:05:29.605 where you never initiate anything, 0:05:29.605,0:05:33.827 you never motivate anybody, but you become a servant 0:05:33.827,0:05:37.388 of the local passion, the servant of local people 0:05:37.388,0:05:41.786 who have a dream to become a better person. 0:05:41.786,0:05:46.195 So what you do -- you shut up. 0:05:46.195,0:05:49.907 You never arrive in a community with any ideas, 0:05:49.907,0:05:54.346 and you sit with the local people. 0:05:54.346,0:05:56.538 We don't work from offices. 0:05:56.538,0:06:00.504 We meet at the cafe. We meet at the pub. 0:06:00.504,0:06:03.819 We have zero infrastructure. 0:06:03.819,0:06:07.146 And what we do, we become friends, 0:06:07.146,0:06:11.906 and we find out what that person wants to do. 0:06:11.906,0:06:13.764 The most important thing is passion. 0:06:13.764,0:06:16.004 You can give somebody an idea. 0:06:16.004,0:06:17.626 If that person doesn't want to do it, 0:06:17.626,0:06:21.307 what are you going to do? 0:06:21.307,0:06:25.853 The passion that the person has for her own growth 0:06:25.853,0:06:27.579 is the most important thing. 0:06:27.579,0:06:32.136 The passion that that man has for his own personal growth 0:06:32.136,0:06:33.801 is the most important thing. 0:06:33.801,0:06:36.888 And then we help them to go and find the knowledge, 0:06:36.888,0:06:42.357 because nobody in the world can succeed alone. 0:06:42.357,0:06:45.076 The person with the idea may not have the knowledge, 0:06:45.076,0:06:47.214 but the knowledge is available. 0:06:47.214,0:06:51.073 So years and years ago, I had this idea: 0:06:51.073,0:06:55.239 Why don't we, for once, instead of arriving in the community 0:06:55.239,0:06:59.942 to tell people what to do, why don't, for once, 0:06:59.942,0:07:04.767 listen to them? But not in community meetings. 0:07:04.767,0:07:09.681 Let me tell you a secret. 0:07:09.681,0:07:14.026 There is a problem with community meetings. 0:07:14.026,0:07:17.732 Entrepreneurs never come, 0:07:17.732,0:07:20.904 and they never tell you, in a public meeting, 0:07:20.904,0:07:24.520 what they want to do with their own money, 0:07:24.520,0:07:28.349 what opportunity they have identified. 0:07:28.349,0:07:33.273 So planning has this blind spot. 0:07:33.273,0:07:37.564 The smartest people in your community you don't even know, 0:07:37.564,0:07:45.404 because they don't come to your public meetings. 0:07:45.404,0:07:49.364 What we do, we work one-on-one, 0:07:49.364,0:07:51.077 and to work one-on-one, you have to create 0:07:51.077,0:07:53.752 a social infrastructure that doesn't exist. 0:07:53.752,0:07:56.324 You have to create a new profession. 0:07:56.324,0:08:01.828 The profession is the family doctor of enterprise, 0:08:01.828,0:08:05.399 the family doctor of business, who sits with you 0:08:05.399,0:08:08.524 in your house, at your kitchen table, at the cafe, 0:08:08.524,0:08:12.562 and helps you find the resources to transform your passion 0:08:12.562,0:08:14.955 into a way to make a living. 0:08:14.955,0:08:20.276 I started this as a tryout in Esperance, in Western Australia. 0:08:20.276,0:08:22.528 I was a doing a Ph.D. at the time, 0:08:22.528,0:08:26.851 trying to go away from this patronizing bullshit 0:08:26.851,0:08:30.663 that we arrive and tell you what to do. 0:08:30.663,0:08:35.243 And so what I did in Esperance that first year 0:08:35.243,0:08:39.869 was to just walk the streets, and in three days 0:08:39.869,0:08:42.763 I had my first client, and I helped this first guy 0:08:42.763,0:08:47.308 who was smoking fish from a garage, was a Maori guy, 0:08:47.308,0:08:50.613 and I helped him to sell to the restaurant in Perth, 0:08:50.613,0:08:53.743 to get organized, and then the fishermen came to me to say, 0:08:53.743,0:08:56.729 "You the guy who helped Maori? Can you help us?" 0:08:56.729,0:08:59.893 And I helped these five fishermen to work together 0:08:59.893,0:09:04.029 and get this beautiful tuna not to the cannery in Albany 0:09:04.029,0:09:07.862 for 60 cents a kilo, but we found a way 0:09:07.862,0:09:13.213 to take the fish for sushi to Japan for 15 dollars a kilo, 0:09:13.213,0:09:14.735 and the farmers came to talk to me, said, 0:09:14.735,0:09:17.024 "Hey, you helped them. Can you help us?" 0:09:17.024,0:09:19.950 In a year, I had 27 projects going on, 0:09:19.950,0:09:22.102 and the government came to see me to say, 0:09:22.102,0:09:24.489 "How can you do that? 0:09:24.489,0:09:27.815 How can you do — ?" And I said, "I do something very, very, very difficult. 0:09:27.815,0:09:33.468 I shut up, and listen to them." (Laughter) 0:09:33.468,0:09:41.690 So — (Applause) — 0:09:41.690,0:09:46.295 So the government says, "Do it again." (Laughter) 0:09:46.295,0:09:49.453 We've done it in 300 communities around the world. 0:09:49.453,0:09:52.988 We have helped to start 40,000 businesses. 0:09:52.988,0:09:54.660 There is a new generation of entrepreneurs 0:09:54.660,0:09:57.189 who are dying of solitude. 0:09:57.189,0:10:03.348 Peter Drucker, one of the greatest management consultants in history, 0:10:03.348,0:10:07.900 died age 96, a few years ago. 0:10:07.900,0:10:09.680 Peter Drucker was a professor of philosophy 0:10:09.680,0:10:11.644 before becoming involved in business, 0:10:11.644,0:10:14.521 and this is what Peter Drucker says: 0:10:14.521,0:10:20.185 "Planning is actually incompatible 0:10:20.185,0:10:24.434 with an entrepreneurial society and economy." 0:10:24.434,0:10:30.677 Planning is the kiss of death of entrepreneurship. 0:10:30.677,0:10:33.372 So now you're rebuilding Christchurch 0:10:33.372,0:10:36.853 without knowing what the smartest people in Christchurch 0:10:36.853,0:10:41.511 want to do with their own money and their own energy. 0:10:41.511,0:10:44.709 You have to learn how to get these people 0:10:44.709,0:10:47.706 to come and talk to you. 0:10:47.706,0:10:52.534 You have to offer them confidentiality, privacy, 0:10:52.534,0:10:56.318 you have to be fantastic at helping them, 0:10:56.318,0:11:00.312 and then they will come, and they will come in droves. 0:11:00.312,0:11:03.207 In a community of 10,000 people, we get 200 clients. 0:11:03.207,0:11:05.779 Can you imagine a community of 400,000 people, 0:11:05.779,0:11:08.021 the intelligence and the passion? 0:11:08.021,0:11:11.552 Which presentation have you applauded the most this morning? 0:11:11.552,0:11:17.512 Local, passionate people. That's who you have applauded. 0:11:17.512,0:11:22.783 So what I'm saying is that 0:11:22.783,0:11:25.250 entrepreneurship is where it's at. 0:11:25.250,0:11:28.396 We are at the end of the first industrial revolution -- 0:11:28.396,0:11:31.709 nonrenewable fossil fuels, manufacturing -- 0:11:31.709,0:11:36.166 and all of a sudden, we have systems which are not sustainable. 0:11:36.166,0:11:38.813 The internal combustion engine is not sustainable. 0:11:38.813,0:11:42.134 Freon way of maintaining things is not sustainable. 0:11:42.134,0:11:45.222 What we have to look at is at how we 0:11:45.222,0:11:51.240 feed, cure, educate, transport, communicate 0:11:51.240,0:11:54.791 for seven billion people in a sustainable way. 0:11:54.791,0:11:58.685 The technologies do not exist to do that. 0:11:58.685,0:12:02.053 Who is going to invent the technology 0:12:02.053,0:12:08.551 for the green revolution? Universities? Forget about it! 0:12:08.551,0:12:11.444 Government? Forget about it! 0:12:11.444,0:12:16.698 It will be entrepreneurs, and they're doing it now. 0:12:16.698,0:12:19.593 There's a lovely story that I read in a futurist magazine 0:12:19.593,0:12:21.266 many, many years ago. 0:12:21.266,0:12:23.486 There was a group of experts who were invited 0:12:23.486,0:12:28.114 to discuss the future of the city of New York in 1860. 0:12:28.114,0:12:30.604 And in 1860, this group of people came together, 0:12:30.604,0:12:33.551 and they all speculated about what would happen 0:12:33.551,0:12:35.405 to the city of New York in 100 years, 0:12:35.405,0:12:36.881 and the conclusion was unanimous: 0:12:36.881,0:12:40.822 The city of New York would not exist in 100 years. 0:12:40.822,0:12:43.083 Why? Because they looked at the curve and said, 0:12:43.083,0:12:46.049 if the population keeps growing at this rate, 0:12:46.049,0:12:50.185 to move the population of New York around, 0:12:50.185,0:12:53.050 they would have needed six million horses, 0:12:53.050,0:12:56.405 and the manure created by six million horses 0:12:56.405,0:12:58.784 would be impossible to deal with. 0:12:58.784,0:13:04.414 They were already drowning in manure. (Laughter) 0:13:04.414,0:13:09.463 So 1860, they are seeing this dirty technology 0:13:09.463,0:13:14.281 that is going to choke the life out of New York. 0:13:14.281,0:13:19.410 So what happens? In 40 years' time, in the year 1900, 0:13:19.410,0:13:24.013 in the United States of America, there were 1,001 0:13:24.013,0:13:30.393 car manufacturing companies -- 1,001. 0:13:30.393,0:13:33.999 The idea of finding a different technology 0:13:33.999,0:13:36.361 had absolutely taken over, 0:13:36.361,0:13:41.277 and there were tiny, tiny little factories in backwaters. 0:13:41.277,0:13:46.909 Dearborn, Michigan. Henry Ford. 0:13:46.909,0:13:51.280 However, there is a secret to work with entrepreneurs. 0:13:51.280,0:13:54.674 First, you have to offer them confidentiality. 0:13:54.674,0:13:57.012 Otherwise they don't come and talk to you. 0:13:57.012,0:14:01.322 Then you have to offer them absolute, dedicated, 0:14:01.322,0:14:04.774 passionate service to them. 0:14:04.774,0:14:08.421 And then you have to tell them the truth about entrepreneurship. 0:14:08.421,0:14:11.192 The smallest company, the biggest company, 0:14:11.192,0:14:14.582 has to be capable of doing three things beautifully: 0:14:14.582,0:14:18.833 The product that you want to sell has to be fantastic, 0:14:18.833,0:14:22.657 you have to have fantastic marketing, 0:14:22.657,0:14:26.026 and you have to have tremendous financial management. 0:14:26.026,0:14:28.614 Guess what? 0:14:28.614,0:14:31.028 We have never met a single human being 0:14:31.028,0:14:36.675 in the world who can make it, sell it and look after the money. 0:14:36.675,0:14:39.506 It doesn't exist. 0:14:39.506,0:14:42.256 This person has never been born. 0:14:42.256,0:14:44.748 We've done the research, and we have looked 0:14:44.748,0:14:48.699 at the 100 iconic companies of the world -- 0:14:48.699,0:14:53.280 Carnegie, Westinghouse, Edison, Ford, 0:14:53.280,0:14:55.883 all the new companies, Google, Yahoo. 0:14:55.883,0:14:58.559 There's only one thing that all the successful companies 0:14:58.559,0:15:02.047 in the world have in common, only one: 0:15:02.047,0:15:06.582 None were started by one person. 0:15:06.582,0:15:11.084 Now we teach entrepreneurship to 16-year-olds 0:15:11.084,0:15:14.625 in Northumberland, and we start the class 0:15:14.625,0:15:19.049 by giving them the first two pages of Richard Branson's autobiography, 0:15:19.049,0:15:22.886 and the task of the 16-year-olds is to underline, 0:15:22.886,0:15:26.514 in the first two pages of Richard Branson's autobiography 0:15:26.514,0:15:29.669 how many times Richard uses the word "I" 0:15:29.669,0:15:32.378 and how many times he uses the word "we." 0:15:32.378,0:15:37.118 Never the word "I," and the word "we" 32 times. 0:15:37.118,0:15:40.371 He wasn't alone when he started. 0:15:40.371,0:15:45.415 Nobody started a company alone. No one. 0:15:45.415,0:15:48.521 So we can create the community 0:15:48.521,0:15:51.947 where we have facilitators who come from a small business background 0:15:51.947,0:15:59.444 sitting in cafes, in bars, and your dedicated buddies 0:15:59.444,0:16:03.116 who will do to you, what somebody did for this gentleman 0:16:03.116,0:16:06.357 who talks about this epic, 0:16:06.357,0:16:08.612 somebody who will say to you, "What do you need? 0:16:08.612,0:16:10.551 What can you do? Can you make it? 0:16:10.551,0:16:12.801 Okay, can you sell it? Can you look after the money?" 0:16:12.801,0:16:16.555 "Oh, no, I cannot do this.""Would you like me to find you somebody?" 0:16:16.555,0:16:18.643 We activate communities. 0:16:18.643,0:16:22.687 We have groups of volunteers supporting the Enterprise Facilitator 0:16:22.687,0:16:25.810 to help you to find resources and people 0:16:25.810,0:16:28.799 and we have discovered that the miracle 0:16:28.799,0:16:31.303 of the intelligence of local people is such 0:16:31.303,0:16:35.010 that you can change the culture and the economy 0:16:35.010,0:16:39.191 of this community just by capturing the passion, 0:16:39.191,0:16:42.828 the energy and imagination of your own people. 0:16:42.828,0:16:47.521 Thank you. (Applause)