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