Going the extra mile - where scarcity means opportunity | Alisee de Tonnac | TEDxDanubia

"Choose the less obvious and search for something else", suggests Alisée de Tonnac in her compelling speech at TEDxDanubia 2016. Convinced that the future of technology does not lie in the developed world and stressing the dynamism of so‐called 'emerging' countries, her aim is to find the best entrepreneurs and connect them with corporations and governments, develop businesses with public and private partners and invest in the top high‐growth companies. Let’s make the world a better place!

After travelling around the world for a year to set up the first edition of Seedstars World, a global seed stage start‐up competition focusing on emerging markets, Alisée is now managing the company, the flagship brand of the global organisation, which has activities in 65+ emerging markets such as Nigeria, Colombia, Morocco and the Philippines. Alisée graduated from the University of Lausanne in Management and Economics and obtained her MSc in International Management at Bocconi University with the highest honour. She travelled extensively from Singapore to Italy, California to France and Switzerland, She started her career as a product manager for luxury brands at L’Oreal Group, and was a part of the Italian team at Voyage Privé, a leading European start‐up. She was also a member of the Harvard Model Congress Europe, where she won the Award of Excellence and has recently been nominated for Innovation Fellow at WIRED UK.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

One year ago I moved from this
beautiful 'postcard' Switzerland

to a much more chaotic reality,
which is that of Lagos, Nigeria.

Lagos is the economical
capital of Nigeria,

representing 20 million people.

Nigeria actually is the biggest
country in Africa,

in terms of population and GDP.

Which is estimated
to have 118 million people,

which means that 1 out of every 5
African is Nigerian.

How does my day today compare to yours?

Just to give you another idea,
the roads look more like this.

When raining season comes around -
which is right now -

it gets very chaotic.

To get here today, it took me 4 hours
from the island to the mainland,

which is a route which should have
only taken me around 40 minutes.

If you are lucky,
you have your own generator.

Because unfortunately,
the grid is not spread out,

and we only have a few
hours of electricity per day.

So you have a generator
for the rest of the day.

But even with the generator,
you have to count on average

10 power cuts per day and night.

Imagine what this means
for every equipment that you use,

such as your refrigerator.

So they usually come with external
batteries to withstand the power cuts.

This still shocks me.

In a country of oil, Nigeria,
there is still -

this is when this thing, fuel shortage -

we have big issues on average
2-3 times per year.

And it is happening right now.

The problem is that
everything is powered by fuel.

So quickly banks, offices,
telcos will shut down,

employees will not be able to go to work,
and business will take a major hit.

We will wait tens of hours
in line to get some fuel.

In terms of communication,
we all, those with smartphones

the penetration rate is quite high,

we have the possibility
to put several sim cards.

The brands that we have there,
are more Dubai and Chinese brands.

And why several sim cards?

Because as soon as one operator
malfunctions or saturate,

we can automatically
go to the next operator.

So it is not uncommon
that you see several,

three, four, five numbers
on a Nigerian business card.

But this is one reality.
It is true that when I said Nigeria,

you probably thought of
Boko Haram and corruption.

These are realities and they are horrific,
but it is not the only reality.

There is actually something much
bigger happening in these markets.

One is a very vibrant, dynamic
and young ecosystem

that is changing the status quo.

For every pinpoint that
I cited earlier on,

there are entrepreneurs in Nigeria,
but like Columbia or Indonesia,

they are changing the status quo
and elevating the lives of their citizens.

So you have an idea and an understanding
of what Emerging Markets means.

By 2030, 87 percent of the population
will be in Emerging Markets.

By 2020, a couple of years from now,
over 80 percent of old smartphones -

not simple feature phones, smartphones -
will be located in Emerging Markets.

2015 was the year when Emerging Markets
took half of the global GDP.

Internet penetration is getting faster
and faster in all these regions.

If we just look at a social network
we all know of - of Facebook -

actually the cities with the
highest number of users

are found in Emerging Markets,
cities like Bangkok and Jakarta.

This is how we see the world map.

In terms of market opportunity,
usually one indicator is GDP per capita,

because it gives us a good indication

of the purchasing power
of our potential consumer.

As you can see, what we call
the western world, is green.

This same region suddenly becomes red.

Because this is how I like to see
the world through different lenses.

That is the percentage
of people without internet.

Because this means for me an opportunity.

Today there are over 4 billion people
without access to the Internet.

This means 4 billion opportunities,
4 billion potential consumers,

and more importantly
4 billion citizens to connect.

No wonder that big technology companies,
such as Facebook or Google,

are taking it seriously and investing
heavily in building an infrastructure,

a sustainable one to bring Internet
to those without in these regions.

Only in the next four years,

430 million new users will go online
thanks to these markets.

So what is the opportunity?
Technology.

Technology is changing the game.

We are seeing that adaption
is getting faster and faster.

The speed of current breakthroughs
has no historical precedent.

For example remember that
it took us over one hundred years

to get to one billion users
for the telephone,

and less than ten when
it came to the smartphone.

It is getting faster and faster,
and technology has an impact.

But does this have to do
with emerging markets?

What we are seeing for the
past years at these markets,

is that actually they are leapfrogging
an existing technology directly

to a more efficient,
less costly, more modern,

and more importantly, many times
more sustainable technology.

The most famous example is skipping
landlines directly to mobile phones.

Let's look at payments.

It all started in 300 BC,
during the Roman Empire with checks.

Then we massively adopted
cash and credit cards,

and today in Europe we are finding
the first solutions to pay by mobile,

mobile payment solutions
using technology,

such as near field communication
or cryptocurrency.

But mobile payment
has been happening way back in 2004

with a company GCash in the Philippines.

Why? Because Philippines have
a population of 19 million people,

spread out in over 7 thousand islands.

It was a major issue to be able
to transfer money

from one island to the other.

So from that emergency
they built the technology,

so that they can make the payments
through mobile phones.

Today mobile phone market
has completely saturated,

so there are approximately 110 mobile
phones for every hundred Philippinos.

But this same population still
represents 80 percent unbanked.

Or let's look at M-PESA in Kenya,

another major success story
of Sub-Saharan Africa.

So again, the technology
of using the simple airtime,

to be able to use normally
for calls and converting to data,

but now we can use it to pay back loans,
fuel and any product and service.

81 percent of all mobile money services
in developing markets

are actually found in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Who would have thought?

This is how we have
powered cities in Europe.

When in countries like Brazil,
Indonesia or South-Africa,

we have entrepreneurs
who are finding innovative solutions,

micro grid solutions
with a more sustainable technology

to bring electricity to those without.

Check out this entrepreneur,
who has actually understood

that the end life cycle of a battery
for an electrical car in Europe

can actually still withstand 5 years
and generate schools in India or Kenya.

Or we have Juabar from Tanzania,
which is a smart low-tech technology,

a solar-powered kiosk, which
allows you to charge your phone.

Why? Because fortunately
everyone has a mobile phone

but not everyone can charge it.

Finally a solar-powered water heater
coming out of Mexico,

promising to reduce by 80 percent
the consumption of gas.

So what if...

What if we have drones
flying over Costa Rica

to help farmers optimize their crops?

What if we had intelligent binds
that help maximize routes

more efficiently
in the cities of Istanbul?

What if in these same regions
we had solar-powered roads,

and what if in a country like Rwanda,

we had the first ever
drone airport in the world?

Where the government would
actually change the regulations

to allow these aerial
vehicles to fly over,

and would collaborate
with international companies

to help transport blood supply
from one hospital to the other.

The 'what if' is actually already
a reality in these markets.

It is because our entrepreneurs,
women and men,

that are redefining each industry
and the status quo in their region.

Entrepreneurship and technology
is the game changer.

Thank you very much.