Reflections from Harvard: THE CONTINENT IS IN GOOD HANDS

I discovered this conference 6 days to the event by pure accident. I was on the web stalking the founder of a company I badly wanted to work for this summer, going so far as to search the second page of Google in hopes of, at the very least, finding his email.

But, tough luck. The man had astutely hidden his footprints—not even LinkedIn had his profile.

However, on the second page of Google was a website, zoominfo.com, that detailed all his involvements: founder and Managing Partner, CrossBoundary; Board member, Invest Africa Inc; and then, in the periphery of my vision, I saw the words “Moderator, Africa Business Conference”.

Now, if you know me, you probably know that Business and Africa are my two favourite words. Having them in the same noun—near-orgasmic euphoria. I immediately Googled this conference and learned that it takes place annually at Harvard Business School and, as luck would have it, was happening this year in 6 days.

At that time, I had $13 in my account. There was no way on Earth I was going to miraculously raise $250 for the ticket, let alone transportation of ~$120 and accommodation of God-knows-how-much. But, with the right amount of desire, all impediments morph into challenges to be overcome—rather than legitimate hindrances. So I quickly devised ways I could afford to go: applying to the school for a grant, emailing the conference organisers to have mercy on me and give me a complimentary ticket, and so on. The ideas were endless. And for the next 5 days, I explored any and all avenues that could make my attendance possible.

Interestingly, at no point did I ever doubt that I would go. I knew it was simply a question of “when”. As for concerns about how I would transport myself and where I would stay, I did not think about it too much. I simply knew, deep down, that I would be fine.

The week flew past, and in no time, Thursday had arrived. The conference was one day away. Impeccably so, the dean of students finally yielded to my incessant emails. And just like that, my ticket fee was covered.

Now, the question of transport and accommodation.

I searched everywhere for solutions and had found a colleague with a car who was travelling to see his wife in Boston, but leaving with him meant missing my exam(trust me I was this close). But whatever inkling of sense I had left reminded me that I am, first things first, a student—and one with very lofty academic ambitions. So I chose my exam. Eventually, seeing how much I had struggled for this, a friend of mine offered me a 0-interest loan that I could repay in April to cover my transportation. Transport—check.

The only pending issue now was my accommodation. But for that, I wasn’t too worried. Worst case scenario, I would sleep in the library(wouldn’t be the first time) and shower at the HBS gym("Hey buddy, could you please swipe me into the Gym, I need to take a quick shower"—only a jerk would say no.)

Luckily, I did not have to do that(that story would rock, though). An old friend from Uganda had a double-suite at Hilton Hotel a few blocks away from HBS fully covered by his scholarship program which he was more than willing to host me in. Just like that, my transport, accommodation and ticket had been covered. This was as late as Thursday night.

About freaking time.

My Friday was spent travelling to Boston and I thus missed the first day’s events. But most of the meat of the conference was happening on Saturday anyway.

I arrived in Boston at midnight and took a couple of wrong stops on the subway to Cambridge. After realising my error I had to exit the subway and take an Uber to the hotel. My uber driver was a Chinese immigrant from Wuhan(yes, I did have some second thoughts) who had spent 4 years in the US but did not speak a word of English. It was a real challenge for his day to day operations. For example, whenever a client hailed him, we would drive to the supposed pick up location(I was using uber carpool), and if the client was nowhere in sight, 怡创, rather than dialling the customer to find out their exact whereabouts, would cancel the ride. Nonetheless, it was very inspiring to watch a man who probably came here without a penny to his name, hustle his way through life and make a very decent living(more than $300 a day for sure). It is that blind hope and ambition of immigrants that compels them to risk their lives and dignity in search of a better life and is the foundation of America’s prosperity(that and slavery. Sorry, I had to). While I’m sceptical about Liberal-Democrats’ open border ideals, I can at least concur that America is where it is because of the hopefulness of immigrants.

But that’s beside the point of this essay.

Saturday morning, I made my way to the No. 1 business school in the world to discuss issues of the continent. I had to pinch myself several times. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve gotten many things in life by persisting foolishly to the point that it’s now an impulse. But I can’t help but be pleasantly surprised every time my endeavours bear fruit. It’s a priceless feeling—one that never loses its novelty.

At Harvard Business School, I was greeted with some rather shitty breakfast. We had muffins like the ones that were sold in the Budo canteen, and a cup of coffee. One of the attendants joked that it was a symbolic representation of the poverty and starvation many of us had overcome on the continent. With that insight, I appreciated every bite of my muffin as I would Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Looking back, the shitty breakfast was actually a boon because it forced us to talk to each other. And MY! was I blown away by the credentials of my table-mates. On my left was a Stanford graduate from Ghana that was now a consultant at McKinsey & Co; on my right was a Columbia grad from Nigeria that, after an extensive career building Goldman Sachs’ cloud infrastructure, now ran a non-profit that was leveraging AI to make Nigerian businesses globally competitive, and then there was me who, at the height of his career, was speculating maize options. I felt like such a loser. But, at the same time, I was inspired: here were people, same skin colour, same background—probably overcame the same challenges I did—that were doing amazing things. A clear message from the universe that I, too, was capable.

Following the severely anticlimactic breakfast, we shuffled to the auditorium for a keynote from Dr Frannie Leautier, a Tanzanian lady that had risen from the slums of Moshi to the corridors of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr Frannie, after an illustrious career at the helm of organisations like World Bank, was now the ED of the Trade and Development Bank, financing infrastructure projects and businesses in sub-Saharan Africa. She had a couple of interesting takeaways such as how an African in the diaspora, empowered by world-class education and influential connections, can make the leap back home and make an impact. Here was her answer: Make money first, have an idea(emphasis on idea) and network with people already working on the continent so as to make a smooth transition with a decent support structure. Seems obvious, but I nonetheless saw everyone vigorously writing down this “wisdom”—myself inclusive.

Thereafter, we broke out to panel discussions, and I was, quite frankly, spoilt for choice. I was torn between “The Digitisation of African Agriculture”, “Overcoming manufacturing challenges in Africa”, “A Discussion on How Well-Positioned African Banks are to Finance the Continent's Opportunities” to mention but a few. Clearly, these topics were very riveting, thought-provoking, and most importantly, broached by people that are doing real work—sleeves rolled and hands stained—on the expansive continent.

The day carried on with lunch(yet another symbolic representation of the famine in Africa) and another panel session featuring Roosevelt Ogbonna, the MD of Access Bank—one of the largest banks in Nigeria. While there weren’t any particularly ground-breaking insights I picked from the conference, the true value laid in the networking opportunities. Nowhere else will you have access to such a self-selected group of highly accomplished individuals doing work that’s relevant to your ambitions.

Earlier in July 2018, I had attended the Africa Blockchain Conference in Kampala after unsuccessfully pitching a startup that leveraged blockchain technology to bolster election authenticity(you’re welcome to guess as to why it didn’t fly). At the conference, I was mesmerized by the aggregate level of accomplishment huddled up in Victoria Conference Hall. There were BitCoin billionaires, blockchain entrepreneurs that had made fortunes from their ICO’s—all within arm’s reach. I could sense that, had I been more involved in the crypto space, some of the connections at that conference could have been the breakthrough that I needed. However, at the time, I had no desire to play in the crypto space, so I was the proverbial man with a plate of meat but no teeth.

This time around, however, I was gushing with purpose. I went to Harvard with a goal, and score I did. I exhausted every opportunity to make the right connections, ask the right questions, and learn the right lessons. Needless to say, in one day, I was able to achieve what neither my economics classes or the Career centre had been able to do for me.

Towards the end of last year, I had made an appointment with my school’s career centre to take a look at my resume and guide me towards companies that were doing work on the continent that I was interested in. My career advisor didn’t even know where to start. I could see a look of befuddlement on her face. I was probably the first person in her career to waltz in talking about how I wanted to finance enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa. Had I wanted to work at Google, it would have been a piece of cake. So she tried the best that she could—a few tips on my resume format, and that was it. I think you can appreciate why this conference was a godsend.

We have a continent to build.