Philip Emeagwali

Visit emeagwali.com for more information Where is Africa Going Wrong? Out-of-the-Box Thinking in an In-the-Box World by Philip Emeagwali emeagwali.com Keynote speech by famed supercomputer pioneer [University of Alberta, Canada, September 23, 2006] I once believed that capital was another word for money, the accumulated wealth of a country or its people. Surely, I thought, wealth is determined by the money or property in one’s possession. Then I saw a Deutsche Bank advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that proclaimed: “Ideas are capital. The rest is just money.” I was struck by the simplicity of such an eloquent and forceful idea. I started imagining what such power meant for Africa. The potential for progress and poverty alleviation in Africa relies on capital generated from the power within our minds, not from our ability to pick minerals from the ground or seek debt relief and foreign assistance. If ideas are capital, why is Africa investing more on things than on information, and more on the military than on education? Suddenly, I realized what this idea could mean for Africa. If the pen is mightier than the sword, why does a general earn more than the work of a hundred writers combined? If ideas are indeed capital, then Africa should stem its brain drain and promote the African Renaissance, which will lead to the rebirth of the continent. After all, a renaissance is a rebirth of ideas. And knowledge and ideas are the engines that drive economic growth. When African men and women of ideas, who will give birth to new ideas, have fled to Europe and the United States, then the so-called African Renaissance cannot occur in Africa. It can only occur in Paris, London and New York. There are more Soukous musicians in Paris, than in Kinshasha; more African professional soccer players in Europe, than in Africa. African literature is more at home abroad than it is in Africa. In other words, Africans in Europe are alleviating poverty in Europe, not in Africa. Until the men and women of ideas — the true healers of Africa — start returning home, the African Renaissance and poverty alleviation will remain empty slogans. After all, the brightest ideas are generated and harnessed by men of ideas. The first annual report by J.P. Morgan Chase, a firm with assets of 1.3 trillion dollars, reads: “The power of intellectual capital is the ability to breed ideas that ignite value.” This quote is a clarion call to African leaders to shift purposefully and deliberately from a focus on things to a focus on information; from exporting natural resources to exporting knowledge and ideas; and from being a consumer of technology to becoming a producer of technology. For Africa, poverty will be reduced when intellectual capital is increased and leveraged to export knowledge and ideas. Africa’s primary strategy for poverty alleviation is to gain debt relief, foreign assistance,

About the keynote speaker, Philip Emeagwali Over the past 15 years, many U.S. and Canadian college campuses have asked famed pioneer of the Supercomputer and Internet, Philip Emeagwali, to speak on Africa Night, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and during Black History Month. Last year, he delivered a dozen high-profile keynote addresses at colleges and high-tech conferences around the United States. His speeches can be found on YouTube and are known to provoke an avalanche of commentary and debates on blogs, in newspapers and magazine articles, and in letters to editors around the world. Speaking Style Philip Emeagwali's high-content presentations will be customized to fit with your event theme. Regardless of the type of event, you can count on Emeagwali to use his unique skills of creativity, metaphor and innovation, and the hard-won lessons learned from them, to align his presentation closely with your goals. He will also assist listeners as they learn how to create innovative strategies for success in life. Emeagwali brings abstract ideas to life with his energy, emotion and passion. His lectures on incisive contemporary, technological and futuristic issues that affect the African Diaspora receive standing ovations and have a sense of longevity that finds expression in newspaper headlines and rave reviews on thousands of Web sites long after they are delivered. Please review the materials on emeagwali.com or contact me for additional information. Regards, Donita Brown Booking Secretary 202-203-8724 801-640-9971 (fax) Donita Brown donita@emeagwali.com

How Do We Reverse the Brain Drain? Keynote speech by Emeagwali [emeagwali.com] delivered on October 24, 2003, at the Pan-African Conference on Brain Drain, Elsah, Illinois USA. The entire transcript, letters and photos are posted at http://emeagwali.com/speeches/brain-drain/to-brain-gain/reverse-brain-drain-from-africa.html. Permission to reproduce is granted. Thank you for the pleasant introduction as well as for inviting me to share my thoughts on turning “brain drain” into “brain gain.” For 10 million African-born emigrants, the word “home” is synonymous with the United States, Britain or other country outside of Africa. Personally, I have lived continuously in the United States for the past 30 years. My last visit to Africa was 17 years ago. On the day I left Nigeria, I felt sad because I was leaving my family behind. I believed I would return eight years later, probably marry an Igbo girl, and then spend the rest of my life in Nigeria. But 25 years ago, I fell in love with an American girl, married her three years later, and became eligible to sponsor a Green Card visa for my 35 closest relatives, including my parents and all my siblings, nieces and nephews. The story of how I brought 35 people to the United States exemplifies how 10 million skilled people have emigrated out of Africa during the past 30 years. We came to the United States on student visas and then changed our status to become permanent residents and then naturalized citizens. Our new citizenship status helped us sponsor relatives, and also inspired our friends to immigrate here. Ten million Africans now constitute an invisible nation that resides outside Africa. Although invisible, it is a nation as populous as Angola, Malawi, Zambia or Zimbabwe. If it were to be a nation with distinct borders, it would have an income roughly equivalent to Africa’s gross domestic product. Although the African Union does not recognize the African Diaspora as a nation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledges its economic importance. The IMF estimates the African Diaspora now constitutes the biggest group of foreign investors in Africa. Take for example Western Union. It estimates that it is not atypical for an immigrant to wire 00 per month to relatives in Africa. If you assume that most Africans living outside Africa send money each month and you do the math, you will agree with the IMF that the African Diaspora is indeed the largest foreign investor in Africa. What few realize is that Africans who immigrate to the United States contribute 40 times more wealth to the American than to the African economy. According to the United Nations, an African professional working in the United States contributes about 50,000 per year to the U.S. economy. Again, if you do the math, you will realize that the African professional remitting 00 per month to Africa is contributing 40 times more to the United States economy than t

How Do We Reverse the Brain Drain? Keynote speech by Emeagwali [emeagwali.com] delivered on October 24, 2003, at the Pan-African Conference on Brain Drain, Elsah, Illinois USA. The entire transcript, letters and photos are posted at http://emeagwali.com/speeches/brain-drain/to-brain-gain/reverse-brain-drain-from-africa.html. Permission to reproduce is granted. Thank you for the pleasant introduction as well as for inviting me to share my thoughts on turning “brain drain” into “brain gain.” For 10 million African-born emigrants, the word “home” is synonymous with the United States, Britain or other country outside of Africa. Personally, I have lived continuously in the United States for the past 30 years. My last visit to Africa was 17 years ago. On the day I left Nigeria, I felt sad because I was leaving my family behind. I believed I would return eight years later, probably marry an Igbo girl, and then spend the rest of my life in Nigeria. But 25 years ago, I fell in love with an American girl, married her three years later, and became eligible to sponsor a Green Card visa for my 35 closest relatives, including my parents and all my siblings, nieces and nephews. The story of how I brought 35 people to the United States exemplifies how 10 million skilled people have emigrated out of Africa during the past 30 years. We came to the United States on student visas and then changed our status to become permanent residents and then naturalized citizens. Our new citizenship status helped us sponsor relatives, and also inspired our friends to immigrate here. Ten million Africans now constitute an invisible nation that resides outside Africa. Although invisible, it is a nation as populous as Angola, Malawi, Zambia or Zimbabwe. If it were to be a nation with distinct borders, it would have an income roughly equivalent to Africa’s gross domestic product. Although the African Union does not recognize the African Diaspora as a nation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledges its economic importance. The IMF estimates the African Diaspora now constitutes the biggest group of foreign investors in Africa. Take for example Western Union. It estimates that it is not atypical for an immigrant to wire 00 per month to relatives in Africa. If you assume that most Africans living outside Africa send money each month and you do the math, you will agree with the IMF that the African Diaspora is indeed the largest foreign investor in Africa. What few realize is that Africans who immigrate to the United States contribute 40 times more wealth to the American than to the African economy. According to the United Nations, an African professional working in the United States contributes about 50,000 per year to the U.S. economy. Again, if you do the math, you will realize that the African professional remitting 00 per month to Africa is contributing 40 times more to the United States economy than t

Keynote lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali on April 18, 2007 at Michigan State University in commemoration of: 1. Proclamation of April 18 as PHILIP

Keynote lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali on April 18, 2007 at Michigan State University in commemoration of: 1. Proclamation of April 18 as PHILIP

Keynote lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali on April 18, 2007 at Michigan State University in commemoration of: 1. Proclamation of April 18 as PHILIP

Keynote lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali on April 18, 2007 at Michigan State University in commemoration of: 1. Proclamation of April 18 as PHILIP

Keynote lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali on April 18, 2007 at Michigan State University in commemoration of: 1. Proclamation of April 18 as PHILIP

Keynote lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali on April 18, 2007 at Michigan State University in commemoration of: 1. Proclamation of April 18 as PHILIP

Keynote lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali on April 18, 2007 at Michigan State University in commemoration of: 1. Proclamation of April 18 as PHILIP

Keynote lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali on April 18, 2007 at Michigan State University in commemoration of: 1. Proclamation of April 18 as PHILIP

Looking into the future can be like setting our brains on fire; new knowledge is often counter-intuitive and prone to rejection. It is a mystical, poetic experience to stand on the edge of unknown knowledge, a place that has no