Africa Dialogues

Concept

Frequently we get discussion of the form - Why aren't you doing this in Africa? I respond, Why aren't we doing it in America?

Peter Schwartz

Contact

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I’m listening to your BBC interview.

I’m living in Malawi this year… doing many different things. If you’re curious, please see the blog link below.

I’m thinking about what you do and how it may be hard to get any traction in a land that is obscenely wealthy. In Malawi, your innovations would be really really appreciated.

I don’t have any specific proposal, but I’m reaching out now to see what might happen.

The ball’s in your court now.

Peter

Peter V. Schwartz Fulbright Scholar at: Mzuzu University, MZUNI, Malawi, Africa

MJ Response

On my side it's same old same old, but getting ready for scale. Yes, obscenely hard in a land of obscene wealth. I am not sure how to do any better in Africa - your question comes up all the time. Requirement is substantial resources. Unless it's Gates style top down in Africa, how to gain the resources for tangible change? If we talk about our work, it is leapfrogging by building in sufficient infrastructure to make regenerative production real, with open source. Nobel grade endeavor, essentially full open source tech transfer to the have nots. But for Nobel-grade solution of the wealth distribution problem - we need resources. Our current mental model on that is cross subsidization, which at scale can produce the requisite trillion dollar value to move the needle far. That is possible in the US, not in Africa. Our goal currently is billion scale in a few years, with replicable education-production campuses as the vehicle. Definitely the cold start problem is real, but I don't see another way outside of bootstrap-centric. And of course this starts with developing humanity, not technology, so the education part must be there. Do you have a better suggestions for acquiring the necessary resources for fundamental transformation as opposed to prolonging human suffering?  Take Malawi - how would you see open source tech transfer that gets people closer to modern flourishing, meaning not in the stone age but with cultural, economic, and scientific progress? For us, bottom line is once we have raw economic power of transformation, then we can apply and replicate. I see Africa as a replication phase, not development phase. Because you may be assuming that we have all the tech already - which I identify as the Zero Marginal Cost Fallacy. To get to zero marginal cost replication, significant open source infrastructure is prerequisite. Marcin

Response

Marcin,

I think you’re starting with an environment where your product isn’t wanted. You’re going to educate Americans that your product is better? Maybe you should also educate them that boobs are not important considerations in choices of sexual partners?

My answer is to get on the ground and appreciate the challenges of the people who would visibly benefit from your technological interventions.

But I might also consider that me trying to change you may be as futile as you trying to change the economic choices of a human population. But the discussion process is illuminating and provocative.

Peter

Discussion

A fascinating case of talking past one another. Let's expose the assumptions and dynamics to clarify what was said between the lines - and propose these Learnings from Peter