OPINION
Bill Gates
My message to the next
generation of
Africans
I
was 9 years old when Nelson
Mandela was sent to prison
on Robben Island. As a boy, I
learned about him in school,
and I remember seeing reports
about the anti-Apartheid movement
on the evening news. Decades later, I
got to meet him and work with him.
In person he was even more inspiring than I had imagined. His humility
and courage left an impression that I
will never forget.
So it was a special honor to be invited
to give the Nelson Mandela Lecture
in Pretoria, South Africa. I eagerly
accepted the invitation and quickly
began working on my remarks.
38 - CHIEF EXECUTIVE
I decided to share my optimism about
Africa’s future—to explain why I think
the continent has the potential to
change faster in the next generation
than any continent ever has.
It’s because Africa is the world’s youngest continent, and youth can go hand in
hand with a special dynamism. I was 20
years old when Paul Allen and I started
Microsoft. The entrepreneurs driving
startup booms in Johannesburg, Lagos,
and Nairobi are just as young, and the
thousands of businesses they’re creating are already changing lives across
the continent. The potential will only
grow as the digital revolution brings
more advances in artificial intelligence
and robotics.
But positive change across Africa
won’t happen automatically. The real
returns will come only if Africans can
unleash this talent for innovation in
all of the continent’s growing population. That depends on whether all of
its young people are given the opportunity to thrive.
It is still an open question, and it is
the crux of my speech, which I gave
today at the University of Pretoria. It
was an honor to give this lecture, and
I’m grateful to the Nelson Mandela
Foundation and the university for inviting me.