Embracing Creativity and Innovation in Africa

Foreign. Hi, I'm Natalie Bitatore and welcome back to Uncommon Perspectives. Today we are going to be tackling an interesting topic, creativity and innovation. So this is a contentious issue in many African families because everyone is encouraged to get doctor, lawyer, engineer, get a professional degree. This is the only path, it's the only way to succeed. Yet there's so many different options these days. There's so many creative paths, there's so many different careers. And we need creativity, we need innovation. Especially as Africa, we need to start to value these things, I think. But I know that this is a very difficult position for parents and for the older generation. And it's something that is not really encouraged. So I think it would be interesting to hear your views, my perspective.

Okay, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be back and to share with the generation, the other generation, the younger ones, our points of view, our perspectives. Now, traditionally we have the mainstream education. Education meant from our days, and that is pre colonial and colonial era. Those who are born in that era, you have to get a good qualification to get a job. And it began from being a teacher to being a lawyer, an engineer, a doctor, whatever. But it was a very narrow mainstream and that's where jobs were for outside that first circle. The next circle would be a job in the government, in administration, because they need administrators. So this mindset was inculcated in us early. So you've got to study hard, be obedient, follow the rules, and eventually you'll get a job. When you graduate, you are promised a job. They used to recruit. The days when I was at Makeray University, they were recruiting you. By the time you graduate, you've got a placement of some kind. Unfortunately today at that time we were about 600 students when I was at Makere. And that's quite some time ago. 1979, 1980. So today there are 100,000 students graduating out of the 40 universities in Uganda. And there are not enough placements for these young people. And outside the graduates, 100,000. There's almost 800,000 young people about that age who are coming of age now who need to start working. And there are simply not enough jobs in the narrow mainstream. So we've got to look outside the box, so to speak. And what do I mean by outside the box? What we'd call the gig economy, where people use their talent. Unfortunately, not enough attention is being given to people to use their talent and nurture it because it just can't be raw talent. You could be a gifted painter, a gifted speaker, A gifted writer, a gifted craftsman, but you need to nurture it. Even if your parents were carpenters, unless they trained you to be a really good carpenter, to make a very good. To get that, to feel the grain of the timber and to feel that you're in harmony with it, you won't get excellent results. And that's why I think many of us fall short in Africa, because we still have this colonial mindset that you must get a good job and the job will pay your salary and the salary will pay your mortgage and your car, and you get married and you'll live happily ever after. The world has moved on. The world order has changed. When I say it has changed from the industrial revolution, that's when people are doing those rote jobs. You go in, do your job, go home, you're paid. The world is not about that much as Uganda is not properly industrialized. And we're just going into that phase. The knowledge society, the knowledge economy. We've got to do the creative industry. Look at the creative industry. That's where a lot of jobs can be obtained and that's where sustainable jobs can be found. And that's where, if we nurture those people, they can make real money. And that will bring wealth to them, prosperity to them and to the country eventually. What am I talking about? I'm talking about people who have got some talent in drawing, whether it's cartoons, in painting, just paintings, in writing books. So many people have made fortunes doing that, making movies, making music. The music industry has picked up in Uganda. Ten years ago, no one was listening to Ugandan music. Were largely listening to Congolese music, Lingala, or Tanzanian music. Some of those songs that were coming out of Tanzania, believe it or not, Swahili, and they were ahead of Ugandans. But lately the Ugandan industry has really taken off in that area. But the creative industry doesn't stop there. You've got to bring in the others. Our crafts are extremely poor quality. There are very few that are good. We need to improve on the quality of our crafts. People that do things with their hands, quality of painting. There's such a big demand for paintings all over the world. When you're doing a hotel like I was doing, building a hotel, and with 140 rooms, you need at least 200 wall paintings because some are in the bathrooms, some are in the main room, some are in the dining room, some are in the corridor. So you need this demand now. If every hotel has to have a few hundred paintings, and this is a global phenomenon, there are many More hotels, so they need this. But we're bringing our paintings from Turkey, from China, because it's just an industry that's cut and paste, they're prints. So we need to get our people to appreciate the value the furniture we make here. Most of the hotels are importing their furniture. We need to make good quality furniture. I don't blame the people imported because they want quality, they want compromise, but because we have not nurtured that talent to take it to the level where the quality is good enough for home consumption and for export, because we have a lot of raw material. And when you look at raw material, I'm talking about the timber that we have lost in these last 25 years that has been burnt. Timber could have been used for value addition, making good quality products that give you a return that would be at least fairer, though we need the timber now more to manage climate change. So we need to move away from timber. But we have so many other resources. I look at the oil Uganda has recently found, everyone's looking at the oil. But the jobs that will be created, 15,000, 20,000 at most. Maybe the ancillary jobs, that's the secondary jobs, maybe got 50,000, 100,000. We have a million people coming into the job market every year. We need to get them somewhere else. And it can't be agriculture. I love agriculture, but it can't be everybody talking about agriculture. Yes, we'll be the breadbasket for the region. But imagine if these people could harness their talents, could be supported to take it a notch or two above. And now that the DRC has joined the East African community, we have a community, a market of 400,000 people here. And because it's connected to Ethiopia, much as it's not yet completely part of the East African community, with Ethiopia, you have 550 million people. If you look at the Great Horn, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, that's a captive market. We can buy and sell goods and services. And also because of the E commerce platforms, today you sell goods online. There's a big market for crafts, for paintings, for people who can write well in Canada, in the usa, in Europe, they appreciate these, the masks. We make the African masks telling the stories of what it is. Uganda's got so much talent. We've been. We've had probably some of the oldest paintings on the rocks and people don't know about them. Our people did that, our ancestors did that long time ago. So the talent is there, the innate talent, but it's got to be nurtured. Enough of my perspective Back to you. Why do you think we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing? What's holding you, the young generation, back? We suffered that paradigm shift. We were stuck with the colonial mentality. But you, the young people, should get out of the box, harness the Internet, harness the power of the Internet and sell your products and services. What do you think?

I think the big challenge that young people have in these areas, these talent, there's the enthusiasm, there's the interest. And now with the Internet, there's access to information, but the system doesn't support you. Your family will not support you. How many families are going to pay for someone to learn about art or music or design or sports or something that's not traditional? And then how are you supposed to grow in this system? You need to have mentors, you need training, you need support, you need to have peers, you need a community, you need to have exhibitions now. Then once you have actually grown in the field, you need access to a market. Like you're saying, there are all these countries which want these crafts, which want these things that are high quality. How is a Ugandan craftsperson supposed to get them there? How are they going to be shipping that? If you have one order, two orders, three orders on a website, it's expensive. Are you going to start paying DHL to ship your painting to Germany? Do you pass that cost on to the other person in the other country? Because it becomes expensive, they won't want the product yet they can get something locally in their country. So that's the challenge. I feel like young people have. How are you supposed to succeed? And the ecosystem is not supporting them in this. There's no pathways. It needs to be easier. You see, if you're a young person who wants to be a doctor or a lawyer, an engineer, it's easy. You know the steps you have to take, work hard at school, get your degree. There's associations, there's training, there's mentors, there's support, there's jobs. You're going to get a good sign salary, you'll get placed. But if you're working in the creative field, it's a jungle out there. You're struggling, it's difficult, you don't feel the support. It's hard for you to succeed. And then it's a vicious cycle because you're not making money as an artist or a painter. And now you have to go back to your same family who told you, don't be a painter, you're not going to succeed. We're going to have to keep giving you money. Why don't you get a real job? These are the challenges young people have. How are you supposed to break that cycle and become, become successful without leaving Africa? We have so many talented Africans now, but they work abroad. There are African communities in all the big cities around the world. There are African actors who are winning Oscars, who are winning Grammys. We are capable. The talent is there. Once you're in a supportive environment where you're going to get practice, you're going to get pushed, you're going to get mentorship, you're going to get opportunities, you're going to be put in these movies, put in these things, you're going to have the chance to compete on a global stage. But you need that pressure, you need that support and you need to be paid what it's worth. So I don't know how we're supposed to encourage young people to do this. And innovation falls under here because we need African solutions to African problems. We can't just keep copying and pasting and trying to learn from other countries only. But how are you supposed to succeed? Even in technology, we have unreliable Internet, unreliable electricity. Who is going to pay for you to make your app? Who is going to buy your app? How many people have smartphones? How are you supposed to succeed? How are we supposed to innovate? The energy is there, the interest is there, the talent is there, but we're not sharpening each other and we're not being supported in the system. So I, I also don't know how we're supposed to change all this, how we're supposed to influence this, because like you said, there are so many of us. If you're talking about that, how many ugandans are turning 18 each year and need to be entering the job market, need to be earning a living and we have the access to the market of 550 million people just in our region now as East Africa. But it's not connecting. There's a lot of gaps in the way and I don't know who is supposed to now step in and make these pathways happen.

Who did it for the usa? Who did it for Europe? You start somewhere, I have no doubt in the demographics of Africa or the demographics of Uganda. They are going to kaboom explode will be so many people. And many people can be a market, a huge market. And if their income levels are coming up by however means, then there's more of demand for whatever product or service you're providing that is coming. The challenge is, I don't have that confidence in their ability. And that's where there's a problem. Now. I can't say what should the policymakers be talking about? We, when you talk about an environment, what do you want the government to do? The government can't say, come here, we've provided an environment. It's not like that. The government steps aside, they give you space. They do not over regulate you. Then it's you to show that the good ones will come out, the good ones will succeed, some will fail along the way, but they'll see why they failed. It's like running a race. You're not strong enough. You won't go up the hill, some will give up. Then they see other guys coming and overtaking them and, and then they'll start running again in the race. So you've got to find a way to get people having that mindset that we've got to sort our own problems out. We've got to take responsibility for our destiny, for our lives. Once you begin that and stop blaming the government and stop blaming other people, then you've turned the table on yourself. You've got to get things going and that's how things happen. Every school should be doing coding today. That's what I think. There's no school here that talks about coding. None of the government schools talks about coding. Coding is the future. That's the language. People have got to talk. Just like we were all taught English when we're young. You have to learn English because that's the language for communication. The future in this digital era is supposed to be coding, and it's not that complicated. Within nine months, young people can understand the basics of coding. And then you start specializing in which jargon you're going to go, what languages you're going to go into within the coding sphere. But it's a basic language. Just like if we have to learn Swahili, and it's a must, everybody learn, but there's no incentive. They feel we don't have to learn Swahili, but Kenyans and Tanzanians, Congolese, they are fluent. And this market will not really thrive until we are all speaking one common language somewhere or the other. And now with Congo coming on board with almost 90 million people, I think it's skewing the scales towards more Swahili. We've got to have English and Swahili. I'm glad Rwanda switched from French to English. I don't know if DRC will do the same. But we've got to embrace one another. We've Got to embrace these different cultures and learn them and accept them and respect them. And where we don't agree with some people respectfully say, okay, you speak your French, we speak our English. Where we can communicate, what trade we can do, we shall do. We'll find a middle ground. But back to basics. When I talked about the creative industry, I was playing at the higher level, talking about art painters, because my mind was on painters. But the most basic things, like plumbers, we don't have plumbers. Training someone to be a good plumber is not that complicated. Six months, 12 months, they have learned the basics of plumbing. And then on the job training, they start working and get better as they work. And then you have so many plumbers, because we need plumbers. Every house needs a plumber, every hotel, every office, office building needs a plumber. Plumbers throughout the world are paid so much more. But here, a plumber is paid nothing because he doesn't really have the skills. All he has is a spanner and says, I'm a plumber, I'll have a go at it. And that just won't cut it. But if they are trained as a carpenter, trained as a plumber, as a mason, as a wallpaper fitter, as an electrician, all these skills, I call them gigs. And you don't have to be employed in a particular company. You just got to be able to reach a market. How do you reach a market? The power of the Internet. Today, I know that in some countries, like South Africa and Nairobi, you find all these stickers on trees. Carpenter. If you want a carpenter, dial this number. You want a plumber, you want someone to collect your garbage, they go putting stickers on trees. That era is gone. You've got to reach people through their phone. Nearly everybody's got a phone. And what you've got to do is get people to start thinking digitally. Now, the pandemic accelerated that because people now are delivering your vegetables, your groceries, the most, the smallest thing, even worth a couple of dollars, 7,000 shillings. You place an order, the guy will deliver it on a border. Border. Or find some, walk his way on a bicycle. He'll deliver the product to you. Because we've learned now service begins at the bottom. Then you work your way up. Begin by doing those small things. We have to start somewhere. We are a young country, and we are young in that space. We are very small. We've got to grow the that period, that space. Then with a bit of entrepreneurial flare, with a bit of marketing, that ability to see what gives you an edge. How do you get your message across to the other side? Because wealth is largely created when goods and services exchange hands. You can't sit in an office and say, I'm just going to create wealth unless you're selling a service or good, whether it's online or physical. That's how wealth is created. So the emphasis on selling a service, packaging it well, whether it's a person selling his plumbing services, talking about his experience, showing what record he's got, that is packaging your service, your profile, and that's what people buy. So we've got to shift people slowly into that direction now as we talk to so many of these young people. I hope the young people that are following this are paying attention. This is where they've got to go. And never mind us, the older generation who wanted you to be a teacher, who wanted you to get a government job, move on. We slowly will accept. When the money starts coming, we'll accept whatever it is you're doing, especially if it is a good ethical job. Go and be a plumber, a carpenter, provide a service and you will always be a winner.

I think that's the other challenge. It's also there's a lot of stigma. You know, in Finland, they start dividing from when you're children about 15, to vocational or academic, because they understand as an economy you need both. Right. So there's no stigma. And there's also, like, respect. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, you're all respected in your profession, you're all paid well. But here we still have a stigma. Some jobs are better than other jobs. Better to be in an office than to be a plumber. Yet in other countries, like, think about how much you pay plumbers in the UK or in America, electricians, it's so expensive. You can build an entire business and look after your family very well, but here you still don't have the value. Like you're saying it's because the talent is not yet there and the skills are not as developed. But there's also a lot of stigma around these things. The same way there's stigma around the creativity and the arts. There's stigma if you don't want to go to university, or stigma if you don't want to get a job. How many parents pay school fees? And then when their child says, I want to be an entrepreneur, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. That's something we've talked about a bit, but we have to sort of get past that. It's easy to say, we'll accept. Once you're Making money. But like I said, it's challenging to get to that point. And it's demoralizing and it's hard. And it's hard enough being a young person and trying to find your way. Now how can we adjust that and shift that? Because everyone needs to earn. Everyone needs to have dignity and respect and have a way to feel that in their jobs, to create that value. But to change the mindset, I think is a difficult thing, because it's not just that. It's the older generation and it will die out on its own. The older generation influences the younger generation, and the younger generation now passes that on to the next generation. So if that's what you've grown up hearing and thinking, that's what you believe. And to change those beliefs is so challenging.

Now, if you think it's hard and that's bad, then you've got a problem. Hard is good. Things that are hard to do are what deliver results. Climbing a hill, not going down it, it's hard. But that's where you feel you get a better view. Imagine China's problem with a billion people. Where would they get the jobs for these young people? They had a problem on their hand. A billion people. Today, they're 1.3 billion people. So they had to go back and make a plan, provide an environment that was enabling. They believed in socialism or communism, I think what they called it, but they realized it could only get so many jobs and get people motivated. So they kept at the core their communism, but they opened up the market to capitalism. They freed the market. They didn't regulate that part. There's some regulation, some oversight, but they open up that space and they became the factory of the world, the engine of the world. And that's transformed China. Now Africa's got to go through that transition. We have a billion people, young people mainly, and they are growing very fast. Today they are 1.1 billion. The next 50 years, they are 2 billion people. Now we will have a real crisis unless we can create opportunities for these young people. And the opportunities are going to be in this space, the gig space, where they are doing their own job, whether it is uber border, border. Those are starting points. But they've got to learn that you don't stop there. They are stepping stones to the next thing and keep trying to improve, keep trying to fly. If you can't fly, run, you can't run, walk, you can't walk, crawl, but you got to keep moving. That's what somebody said. I think it was Martin Luther King. So you've got to keep pushing and don't stop there. Your destiny is in your hands. So I think we shall end on that note. I hope it's been useful to the viewers. Those of you who like, please subscribe. Give us a thumbs up. Follow us on social media. I will be taking questions in the next session. We're about to come to the end of this session. We'll probably do one more episode and then the next session will be having live chats where you ask me questions and if I have the answers, I will have a shot at responding to you. I'll try to take as many questions. I'm responding some of you right now on social media, but I hope we can do much better when we do a live chat. Thank you very much. And we look forward to seeing the next episode.