The Lecture and Debate at Eckernforde University

24 April

The CSC team went to Eckernforde University Tanga on 24 April to deliver a lecture. Eckernforde is a private university with students mostly taking courses in education, business and technology. A university lecture is normally part of the CSC experience so participants have a chance to share their work and their experiences with students while also helping promote their CSC projects. The team delivered a lecture on the following topics: IBM and its expansion in Africa, the future of technology and how IBM is making the planet smarter, lessons learned from the career experiences of IBMers from growth markets, and communication skills for the first interview. In my speech, I emphasized how privileged they were to be in college as less than 1% of students in Tanzania ever reach tertiary education and that they should take this as a responsibility to lead and be successful so that they might create the same opportunities for their countrymen.

The day before the lecture, the team had a big debate in the conference room about the simple question of whether to keep the students in the lecture hall once we open the floor for questions or to divide the students into groups so they could interact more closely with the team. In the end, it was much ado about nothing. The premise for the proposal to divide the group was a false assumption that the students would be too timid to ask questions. As it turned out, that assumption could hardly be further from the truth. Shy they were not, the students of Tanga!

As soon as we opened the discussion, questions began pouring in. It was a large lecture hall with over five hundred students, but those who wanted to ask questions were undeterred. In addition, they were also sending scores of written questions. We were unprepared for the kind of questions they asked. We were expecting questions about jobs in IBM or career advice in general. Instead, they began peppering us with questions about the dangers of globalization, the role of multinational corporations in emerging markets, and IBM's position on key issues of international relations.

There was one student whose line of questioning made us squirm. Instead of welcoming us as guests and thanking us for our effort, he questioned the motives of IBM in visiting the university for a second time without bringing any material things. He suggested we were there to take pictures and nothing more.

I knew the mindset that led them to ask the questions they asked. It was a mindset that continues to blame the white man for all their troubles and remains distrustful of free enterprise and globalization. I knew exactly how to rebut them with the facts and the experience of other emerging economies who face exactly the same problems. So instead of being angry at the cheeky questions, I decided to rebut them point by point. They were, after all, college students still steeped in ideology and eager for an intellectual exchange.

They asked questions about what material things we were bringing to Africa. I told them it was not helpful to keep thinking the white man will bring gifts to them and that the white man will bring them out of poverty. I told them that China and India are growing the way they are because young men like them started taking responsibility and began building businesses and creating jobs. They asked questions about the dangers of globalization including brain drain. I told them that while globalization has its dangers, it was important to take advantage of its benefits. Globalization actually enables countries to reduce brain drain because technology now enables engineers in India and accountants in the Philippines to provide the same service without moving to the United States. They asked about how corporations like IBM are training Africans to make machines instead of selling machines to them. This was the old underdevelopment thesis about developing countries being exploited for raw material and becoming the market for finished goods. They said it was only the white man who makes machines. I told them that if he insisted on talking about skin color, then it is not the white man, but the yellow man from China who is making all the machines now! Furthermore, manufacturing is no longer the only path to growth. India grew so fast in the last few decades because of services. They became the back office and IT helpdesk of the world. I then reinforced the point that in today's knowledge economy, it is not material things that matter but their ability to educate their workforce and build human capital.

It was easy for some to think of IBM as another American company that has come to exploit the resources of a Third World country. I believe we helped dispel that notion by answering their questions with candor and competence, but also simply because most of us actually come from emerging economies like Tanzania. It was hard to argue IBM was a mzungu company when most of its employees are not even white anymore. Most of us, especially my colleagues from Argentina, Brazil, China, India and Mexico were actually like them and we were on a shared journey to take our economies out of poverty and improve the lot of our countrymen.

We were expecting to give basic career advice; we forgot that Africans are still grappling with older and deep seated, even outdated, questions of history. I can only we made a little difference in their thinking. I hope they have begun thinking of themselves not as victims of history but as agents of change. As Marta so beautifully put it, if we continue to blame others for our problems, then we believe the solutions are outside us and not within us. But if we believe the solutions are within, then we have the power to act.

#IBMCSC Tanzania 10