Fred Swaniker

I came across this video of Fred Swaniker on TED. He is a very interesting speaker. His goals are very admirable.  

 

Fred was born in Ghana but at the age of 4 moved to Gambia due to war. 6 months after arriving in Gambia a military conflict happened. They were able to escape the conflict. Eventually at the age of 8 his family moved to Botswana. He enjoyed Botswana. He noted that he used to watch South African news because Botswana didn’t have a national news channel. He would watch Nelson Mandela and admired his fight and leadership.

 

At the age of 12 his family moved to Zimbabwe. He attended high school there. He really enjoyed Zimbabwe and thought it was a prosperous country. After high school he went to the US to attend college in Minnesota and California. After college he returned to Zimbabwe. He couldn’t believe how much had changed in 6 years. He felt as if the country was in shambles. He realized at that time that bad leadership was to fault for the failure of Zimbabwe.

 

At that point he dedicated his life to making Africa great. He realized the one main failure in Ghana, Gambia, Zimbabwe was the weak leadership. In order for African countries to survive they need strong leadership like Botswana or South Africa.

 

Africa relies on good leaders and one good leader can make in Africa because Africa has such weak institutions. Since there are weak institutions they are in need of very strong leaders to make a difference.

 

In America we have strong institutions which are stronger than the leaders. In the US the president cannot just make a law. It has to be agreed upon by the House and Senate first. The US government relies strongly on their institutions.

 

In Africa because of the weak institutions the leads can make any decisions they want. They have all the power, so they need strong leaders to lead them to success.

 

Fred decided to develop African Leadership Academy to grow young leaders in Africa. It is a top of the line school. The students that are accepted are accepted not by their test scores but by the amount of potential they have to transform Africa.  If the students agree to stay in Africa after graduation they can even have tuition waive.

Here is a photo of Fred.

 

Here is a link to some additional information about Fred.

 

Here is the African Leadership Academy website.