She is a pioneer in numerous fields: an entrepreneur who can recognise a great idea, and a philanthropist by nature who believes in ‘profit with purpose’. She is the quintessential modern woman – and her name is Uneku (Neku) Atawodi. 
Neku is the CEO and founder of Malaik, Africa’s first impact-focused equity crowd funding portal. Malaik was created to connect global and local investors with entrepreneurs raising equity finance. It aims to offer potential investors the chance to participate in Africa’s growth story. 
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“Africa is brimming with entrepreneurs with growing high-impact businesses that could not only positively impact Africa, but the world,” Neku says. 
It is no wonder then that social entrepreneur and presenter of Chivas, Win the Right Way, Audu Maikori, tracked her down to share career insights over a glass of Chivas Regal 12 Year Old Whisky. 
Chivas, Win the Right Way is a TV series on CNBC Africa, featuring Africa’s most inspiring social entrepreneurs who run their business based on profit with purpose and use their shared success to inspire other African entrepreneurs to join a growing movement. 
Neku is one of the few international female polo players in Africa – her non-profit organisation, Ride to Shine, is the first self-funded NPO based in Abuja, Nigeria. Ride to Shine gives orphaned children access to equestrian activities and experiences. The organisation has a strong belief in the power of sports to develop key individual characteristics in a child. 
“Ride to Shine aims to use the sport of polo as a tool to open unimaginable doors for our children, giving them a global reach to develop into responsible individuals that go on to inspire their peers with a strong pay-it-forward ideology,” says Neku.
When she is not working to enrich her community, she is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, an associate fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society and a Clinton Global Initiative Lead mentor. 
In addition, the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) recently scooped her up as General Manager in its Lagos Incubator programme, which provides training, investment and mentoring to aspiring technology entrepreneurs. The programme’s goal is to create globally successful companies that generate wealth and jobs locally in Africa.
“I am a believer in all things that spur innovative disruption across sectors,” says Neku. “Technology is proving to challenge the status quo globally, and is now offering a solid route to empowering Africa’s youth.” 
Neku is living proof that opportunities are plentiful when you are willing to aim high and work hard. For her, the biggest rewards are gained through living a lifestyle that is inclusive and generous, and for Chivas, she is undoubtedly winning the right way. 
Chivas, Win the Right Way is profiling six African social entrepreneurs, and has been airing on CNBC Africa, DStv channel 410, every Wednesday since September 7, 2016. Follow Chivas, Win the Right Way on social media: #WinTheRightWay • www.chivas.com

Africa’s first impact-focused equity crowd funding portal founder shares her career insights

South Africa’s top knitwear designer, Laduma Ngxokolo, credits his inspiration and success to his late mother, Lindelwa, who not only taught him how to hand-machine knit by the age of 16, but instilled in him the importance of his Xhosa heritage. Lindelwa was patron of the Xhosa heritage, who taught her son the impact that comes from involving your inheritance and community in your business. 
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For this reason, fellow social entrepreneur and presenter of Chivas, Win the Right Way, Audu Maikori wants to acknowledge and celebrate Laduma as one of Africa’s finest social entrepreneurs. 
Chivas, Win the Right Way is a television series on CNBC Africa, featuring Africa’s most inspiring social entrepreneurs. The series celebrates entrepreneurs who run their business based on profit with purpose, and use their shared success to inspire other African entrepreneurs to join a growing movement. 
Laduma is a modern gentleman who feels growing up alone played an essential part in his determination to succeed. 
The MaXhosa by Laduma vision was to create a modern Xhosa-inspired knitwear collection that would be suitable for amakrwala (Xhosa initiates), who are prescribed by tradition to dress up in new, dignified, formal clothing. Laduma has undergone the ritual himself and feels strongly that fashion is more than just clothes. “It’s a cultural identity, self-expression, and it’s an art form that informs trends.”
MaXhosa by Laduma does have a choice to source from China but chooses not to. “We have sacrificed a certain portion of profit, to make sure we are supporting local employment.” The reward is greater than revenue as this business model enriches people’s lives and allows for local economic growth; from the Angora goat farmers in Port Elizabeth, to the employees at the Newtown Factory. 
Sourcing locally is one of the most important factors for MaXhosa by Laduma as it extends beyond creating resident employment, but also embeds the ideology Laduma wants South Africans to embrace. “South African designers and social entrepreneurs need to develop their own voices in order for them to represent African fashion and business in their own style. They should not feel the need to appeal to a certain market in order to sell their range. They have to appeal to themselves and then opportunity will find them.” 
Laduma also feels that more private businesses should take on the responsibility of uplifting social entrepreneurs, not necessarily through financial support, but in the form of enterprise development by offering other services such as legal assistance from a law firm.
Laduma truly encapsulates the ‘never-stop-learning’ attitude of a social entrepreneur. His generous spirit is inevitably inspiring and most certainly has him winning the right way. “Working hard is the best recipe, talent is not. With hard work anything can be achieved.” This is evident in the final product range from Maxhosa by Laduma that compromises expectations and surprises with exceptionality through and through.
To find out more visit maxhosa.co.za

SA’s top knitwear designer: Weaving change through design and heritage

This content is sponsored by Chivas 
Ask young Ghanaian social entrepreneur, John Armah, how he’s doing and he’ll reply, “I am blessed”.
This is a modest summing up of Armah’s incredible achievements.
Last year he was listed as one of Junior Chamber International Ghana’s Ten Outstanding Young Persons. He was also ranked 12th Most Influential Young Ghanaian by Avance Media, Ghana’s leading media and public relations agency. And currently the Board Chairman of Junior Achievement Ghana.
Armah is the CEO of the Orios Group, which aims to redefine wealth creation in Africa by identifying, training and supporting scalable, impact-based African start-ups.
Orios has trained over 20,000 youth and businesses in Ghana, formalized over 400 Businesses and has been a key advocate of championing policy in Ghana&#8217;s Start-up Ecosystem also actively matching Investors to Start-ups in Ghana while it raises the Orios Fund.
It focuses predominantly on early and growth stage businesses providing Patient capital, business development, Training and Advisory services to this market, a choice that Armah made critical of the various opportunities, talent, skill in the Ghanaian Economy championed by early stage firms.
Orios calls on social entrepreneurs to ‘elevate their hustle and redefine their dreams’ – then enables them to do so by providing specialised advisory and training services, as well as facilitating patient capital, via its three subsidiary companies – GCEEI, Trade Invest, and the Orios Capital.
Armah’s vision is to enhance the growth potential of start-ups in Ghana.
He uses an interesting approach to mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs, believing that young people who want to be social entrepreneurs should also have a passion for what they do. But beyond the Passion must build relevant Governance structures, Improve product development and move beyond PR to building relevant products that people actually want and will buy.
Instead of dispensing words of wisdom, he believes there are three key questions  aspiring Entrepreneurs should be asking themselves. “Who am I? What am I here for? Who am I doing this for?” Once they can answer these questions he believes they are on their way to building successful businesses or helping others build same.
“The underlying factor for success is having the skill and commitment beyond passion for the social good you want to achieve. That passion helps you determine if you want to be part of a business or not. To be a social entrepreneur you must be driven by motivation, passion, commitment, and have a sense of compassion,” he says.
With a strong Board and Shareholders made up of some astute recognized and celebrated business men in Ghana, a Board chaired by Mr. Kweku Awotwi, Former Head of Ghana&#8217;s Volta River Authority. John Armah and his team of 15 core staff are leading a charge to raise a fund to provide patient capital to some of Ghana&#8217;s most innovative early and growth stage start-ups.
This ethos led to Armah being featured on the CNBC series, Chivas, Win the Right Way.
The show profiles six social entrepreneurs from the continent. Its aim is twofold: to give even more visibility to this movement that uses business as a force for good; and to showcase a new generation of African entrepreneurs.
Series host, Audu Maikori, says Chivas, Win the Right Way celebrates those who not only build personal successes but who also positively impact their communities – a process he calls “profit with purpose”.
Armah echoes this sentiment: “We exist on this Earth to do good, and sometimes we profit from this good, which allows us to create vehicles to do more good.”
Catch episode two of Chivas, Win the Right Way on Wednesday November 2 to find about more about Armah and the work he is doing in Ghana.
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Why this Ghanaian is among Ghana’s Ten Outstanding Young Persons

Joel Macharia, CEO and founder of Kenya-based online investment brokerage Abacus, is a true entrepreneur. His hard work and pioneering spirit were recognised in May 2016, when he was included in Forbes Africa’s 2016 30 Under 30 list. 
Joel will now receive further recognition when he appears in the first episode of Chivas, Win the Right Way – a TV series that showcases African entrepreneurs who use business as a force for good.
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The show celebrates those who build personal successes while also positively impacting their communities. Its host, Audu Maikori, a Nigerian entrepreneur, social activist, lawyer, public speaker and creative industry professional, calls this “profit with purpose”. 
This isn’t the first initiative from Chivas in this area. In 2014, Chivas launched The Venture, a $1-million annual competition, to support and bring together the best young minds in communal development; young minds like Joel, who started managing people’s finances at the age of 19. 
An avid inventor who built gadgets as a schoolboy, Joel is now set on building the largest pan-African investment brokerage. His goal is to grow Abacus’current investor database of around 4,000 to half a million within a few years, and he wants to see the systems that Abacus is building being used to build wealth for the disadvantaged and poor. 
Joel has surrounded himself with staff who see this vision as clearly as he does. 
“My understanding of business is that it has to have value, not just monetary value, but also the intrinsic value of making an impact. You need to build impact into your product, and your people need to believe that they are working for something that is greater than their paycheque,” says Joel.
As an entrepreneur, Joel has sage advice for others: “Be patient, it’s going to take longer than you think. Be prudent, it’s going to cost more than you think. And find support, you don’t know as much as you think.” 
Through all of this, Joel keeps his perspective by focusing on what’s been done – not just what still needs doing. 
For him, “winning the right way” is about the small achievements and the big milestones; it’s about the millionaires he’s set on creating; and it’s about the children who can’t afford their school fees and who benefit from a trust he’s set up. 
In his own words: “For me, ‘winning the right way’ is about living, and working, ethically.”

A Kenyan with a dream to create Africa’s largest investment brokerage

‘Sharing success and winning the right way’ – that’s something Chivas’ founding brothers, James and John, believed since they first began to craft their luxury Scotch whisky – a venture that resulted in an incredible whisky. This venture allowed them to generously support their local community for generations … and although the brothers have long since departed, others are finding that business becomes truly rewarding when people share their success and do good for others. 
Audu Maikori, Nigerian entrepreneur, social activist, lawyer, public speaker and creative industry professional, will present a six-part television series called ‘Chivas, Win the Right Way’, which will air on CNBC Africa from 7 September. The aim of the show is twofold: to give even more visibility to this movement that uses business as a force for good; and to showcase a new generation of African entrepreneurs. The show will profile six social entrepreneurs from the continent and serve as a precursor to the global competition, ‘The Venture’. 
Audu says ‘Chivas, Win the Right Way’ is about celebrating those who not only build personal successes but who also positively impact their communities; a process he calls “profit with purpose”. As the founder and president of Chocolate City Entertainment Group – one of the biggest record labels in Africa, which helps start-up and manage fledgling African artists – Audu is adamant that every enterprise must solve a problem before it can be called a success. “It’s not about the money, it needs to be about the community. Success is defined by helping people to live better. It’s about meeting needs. It’s about boosting employment, and empowerment. It’s about creating value and living ethically.” 
This isn’t the first initiative from Chivas in this area. In 2014, Chivas launched ‘The Venture’, a $1-million annual competition, to support and bring together the best young minds in communal development. ‘The Venture’ also aims to help create global problem-solving platforms. Audu is passionate about the competition’s ability to further accelerate ideas and invigorate these bright minds to find issue-driven social solutions – especially in the African context.
Audu hopes to see even more African entrepreneurs opening doors to even more collaboration, whether through music (as in his life story) or farming, health, technology, or education. It is his dream to see more African finalists in ‘The Venture’ in the future. 
His advice: “If you have a passion for your big idea, the drive to create tangible outputs, the capacity for hard work, and the determination to leave a legacy, then enter the next season of ‘The Venture’. It’s not even about the $1-million prize – it’s about value and purpose, and driving a cause that is worth more than plain profit.”

Embracing the philosophy of Chivas by showcasing Africa’s social entrepreneurs

For South African Doug Hoernle, founding director of Rethink Education, enjoying an excellent glass of whisky has much in common with pursuing social entrepreneurship. For one, both should be shared with people who have a similar passion for life and business. Secondly, when savouring the superb taste of a well-crafted Chivas the same appreciation for detail and quality should be used to embrace opportunities that stand for change.
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These are also the qualities that lead Nigerian entrepreneur and presenter, Audu Maikori to feature Doug in the third episode of the new TV series, ‘Chivas, Win the Right Way’, which will be aired on Wednesday, 4 January 2017 on CNBC Africa.
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The series celebrates social entrepreneurs who run their business in a way that benefits society, and use their success to inspire other African entrepreneurs to join a growing movement.
So ask Doug what success means to him and like most business people he will tell you that it’s partly about making sales but he is also driven, both personally and in his business strategy, by the bigger picture, and pushing the limits of learning.
Doug wants to use technological innovation to revolutionise the way African students learn. The standard of education in South Africa has long raised concern. According to civil rights organization, Equal Education, up to 50% of students who start Grade 2 in South Africa do not end up writing matric with their class. The majority of these learners fall to the wayside between Grades 10 and 12.
In response to this issue, Doug and his team have developed Rethink Education. This data-lite mobile platform uses mobile chat to deliver short, interactive math and science lessons that are fun and effective. It’s easily accessible, and eliminates one of the major barriers to quality education on the continent.
“Today we are still learning from text books and off the chalk on board, yet we have these really powerful devices in our pockets that can open up the world of learning,” says Hoernle.
Doug believes that innovation in education can be fast tracked by allowing people who have never really worked in this particular space to apply their thinking and new ideas.
“This way we can develop new innovative systems to solve the current issues. One cannot look at the old system and say that’s going to solve this [education] problem, it’s not, [and] by using mobile learning we can provide relevant and constructive education to anyone, anywhere, all the time. A number of students have limited access to learning material, because of the limited access to a desktop or internet connection; now they can learn on their phones.”
To date, Rethink Education has distributed maths and science content to over 500,000 South Africans. The team is putting in a lot of work to expand the business to more countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe.
At the end of the day, Doug encapsulates the pioneering spirit of a social entrepreneur who relies on a great team, realises the impact his business can have on his community and Africa, and who uses business for the greater good.
For Chivas, Doug is ‘winning it the right way’ and for Africa it is businesses like Rethink Education that should inspire everyone to be part of solving the challenges that face their communities.
To find out more visit: rethinkeducation.co.za

Using technological innovation to revolutionise the way African students learn

RecyclePoints: rewarding a nation for smart and sustainable acts
Lagos State in southwestern Nigeria generates an average of 9,000 metric tonnes of waste every day –1,200 of that is currently being recycled. For Chioma Ukonu, Chief Operations Officer of RecyclePoints, the old idiom “One man’s waste is another man’s treasure” serves as the foundation of her business, and one that she uses to uplift her community.
Chioma is a people-oriented businesswoman and social entrepreneur who values integrity, success and family.
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“I strongly believe that one has to be surrounded by people who are committed to delivering the same objectives,” she says.
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Inspired by her passion, Audu Maikori – fellow social entrepreneur and host of Chivas, Win the Right Way – tracked her down to share career insights and what it means to win the right way. Chivas, Win the Right Way is a TV series on CNBC Africa, featuring Africa’s most inspiring young social entrepreneurs who run their business based on shared success and profit with purpose.
RecyclePoints operates as an incentive-based structure which collects recyclable materials from consumers and in turn rewards them with ‘points’ that they can accumulate and use to redeem or shop for household items offered through the iRecycle store. The venture was awarded the best waste and recycling innovation at the 2015 Waste and Recycling Awards.
The business supports over 8,000 locals and has changed the lives of over 100,000 people. “We have directly empowered over 1,000 people who, through our programme, now operate within the waste recycling value chain,” says Chioma. “We have over 7,000 subscribers that benefit directly from our model and this has a multiplier effect as most of these subscribers are households and major corporate institutions whose constituents are now practicing recycling as a major culture change.”
For Chioma, RecyclePoints represents more than just a successful and inclusive business model. It is working to cut down on the country’s carbon footprint and benefit environmental sustainability. The business creates employment, especially for the younger generation, as well as empowering women to become independent waste aggregators, supporting their families by selling the aggregated recyclable waste.
One of Chioma’s proudest moments was winning the Chivas “The Venture” competition in Nigeria last December, which has given her the chance to partake in the global competition happening in the US in June this year. The Venture is a global search initiative, supported by Chivas, to reward those who are using business and innovative social business ideas to create positive change.  “It was a sign that our venture can now represent Nigeria on the global stage,” she says. Chioma truly believes that with hard work and clear objectives, anyone can ‘win the right way’.
To find out more visit recyclepoints.com
Chivas, Win the Right Way profiles six African social entrepreneurs. This is the final episode the CNBC series which has been airing on CNBC Africa, DStv channel 410, every Wednesday since September 7, 2016.
Follow Chivas, Win the Right Way on social media: #WinTheRightWay • www.chivas.com

How Nigeria is turning one man’s waste into another man’s treasure

<div class="event-banner"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/events/annual-meeting-of-the-new-champions-2017">This article is part of the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2017</a></div>
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A diverse range of breakthrough technologies, including “artificial leaves” that turn CO2 into fuel, and a technique that harvests water from air, could soon be playing a role in tackling the world’s most pressing challenges, according to a list published today by the World Economic Forum.
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The technologies were selected by the World Economic Forum’s <a href="https://www.weforum.org/communities/expert-network">Expert Network</a> and <a href="https://www.weforum.org/communities/global-future-councils">Global Future Councils</a> in collaboration with Scientific American and its Board of Advisors. Each technology was chosen for its potential to improve lives, transform industries and safeguard the planet. The experts were also looking for indications that the technologies have reached a level of maturity that would enable widespread take-up in the coming 3-5 years.
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“New technologies are redefining industries, blurring traditional boundaries and creating new opportunities on a scale never seen before. Public and private institutions must develop the correct policies, protocols and collaborations to allow such innovation to build a better future, while avoiding the risks that unchecked technological change could pose,” said Murat Sönmez, Head of the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Member of the Managing Board of the World Economic Forum.
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The top 10 technologies to make this year&#8217;s list are:
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1. Liquid biopsies
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Liquid biopsies mark a step forward in the fight against cancer. First, they are an alternative where traditional tissue-based biopsies are not possible. Second, they provide a full spectrum of information compared to tissue samples, which only reflect the information available in the sample. Lastly, by homing in on circulating-tumor DNA (ctDNA), genetic material that routinely finds its way from cancer cells into the bloodstream, disease progression or resistance to treatment can be spotted much faster than otherwise relying on symptoms or imaging.
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2. Harvesting clean water from air
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The ability to extract clean water from air is not new, however existing techniques require high moisture levels and a lot of electricity. This is changing. A team from MIT and University of California, Berkeley has successfully tested a process using porous crystals that convert the water using no energy at all. Another approach, by a start-up called Zero Mass Water from Arizona is able to produce 2-5 litres of water a day based on an off-grid solar system.
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3. Deep learning for visual tasks
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Computers are beginning to recognize images better than humans. Thanks to deep learning, an emerging field of artificial intelligence, computer-vision technologies are increasingly being used in applications as diverse as driving autonomous vehicles, medical diagnostics, damage assessment for insurance claims and monitoring of water levels and crop yield.
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4. Liquid fuels from sunshine
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Can we mimic the humble leaf to create an artificial photosynthesis to generate and store energy? The prospects are looking increasingly positive. The answer lies in using sunlight-activated catalysts to split water molecules into water and hydrogen, and then using the same hydrogen to convert CO2 into hydrocarbons. Such a closed system &#8211; wherein CO2 emitted by combustion is then transformed back into fuel instead of the atmosphere &#8211; could prove to be revolutionary for the solar and wind industries.
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5. The Human Cell Atlas
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An international collaboration aimed at deciphering the human body, called the Human Cell Atlas, was launched in October 2016. The project, backed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative aims to identify every cell type in every tissue; learn exactly which genes, proteins and other molecules are active in each type and the processes which control that activity; determine where the cells are located exactly; how the cells normally interact with one another, and what happens to the body’s functioning when genetic or other aspects of a cell undergo change, among other things. The end product will be an invaluable tool for improving and personalizing health care.
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6. Precision farming
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The Fourth Industrial Revolution is providing farmers with a new set of tools to boost crop yield and quality while reducing water and chemical use. Sensors, robots, GPS, mapping tools and data-analytics software are all being used to customize the care that plants need. While the prospect of using drones to capture plant health in real time may be some way off for most of the world’s farmers, low-tech techniques are coming online too. Salah Sukkarieh, of the University of Sydney, for instance, has demonstrated a streamlined, low-cost monitoring system in Indonesia that relies on solar power and cell phones.
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7. Affordable catalysts for green vehicles
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Progress is being made on a promising zero-emission technology, the hydrogen-fed fuel cell. Progress to date has been stymied by the high price of catalysts which contain platinum. However, much progress has been made reducing reliance on this rare and expensive metal, and the latest developments involve catalysts that include no platinum, or in some cases no metal at all.
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8. Genomic vaccines
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Vaccines based on genes are superior to more conventional ones in a number of ways. They are faster to manufacture for one thing, which is crucial at times of a violent outbreak. Compared to manufacturing proteins in cell cultures or eggs, producing genetic material should also be simpler and less expensive. A genomics-based approach to vaccines also enables more rapid adaptation in the event of a pathogen mutating, and finally allows scientists to identify people who are resistant to a pathogen, isolate the antibodies that provide that protection, and design a gene sequence that will induce a person’s cells to produce those antibodies.
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9. Sustainable design of communities
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Applying green construction to multiple buildings at once has the potential to revolutionize the amount of energy and water we consume. Sending locally-generated solar power to a smart microgrid could reduce electricity consumption by half and reduce carbon emissions to zero if a project currently under development at the University of California at Berkeley Goes to plan. Meanwhile, the same project’s plan to re-design water systems so that waste water from toilets and drains is treated and re-used on site, with rainwater diverted to toilets and washers, could cut demand for potable water by 70%.
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10. Quantum computing
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Quantum computers’ almost limitless potential has only ever been matched by the difficulty and cost of their construction. Which explains why today the small ones that have been built have not yet managed to exceed the power of supercomputers. But progress is being made and in 2016 the technology firm IBM provided the public access to the first quantum computer in the cloud. This has already led to more than 20 academic papers being published using the tool and today more than 50 start-ups and large corporations worldwide are focused on making quantum computing a reality. With such progress behind us, the word on people’s lips now is “Quantum Ready.”
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These are the top 10 emerging technologies of 2017

<div class="event-banner"><a href="http://www.weforum.org/events/annual-meeting-of-the-new-champions-2017">This article is part of the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2017</a></div>
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From the cloud forests of Costa Rica to the deserts of Southern Africa, the great outdoors inspires awe and offers us valuable perspective from our day-to-day grind. Nature also provides us with basic services &#8211; fresh water, clean air, nutritious food and shelter. But it doesn’t stop there.
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Here are four reasons nature is more valuable than you may have initially thought. The common denominator is innovation. The value of the industries described below is in the trillions of dollars. The value of deploying some of these solutions to better protect the planet is priceless.
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Technology that mimics ecosystems
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Nature, through evolution, has been solving problems for billions of years &#8211; far longer than humans have. Natural systems are well adapted to their environment. A close study of how these systems work can help to solve some of the challenges we are facing today. For instance, we can study the swarm logic of ants that never bump into each other as they harvest leaves on the forest floor, to develop an algorithm for self-driving cars.
Let’s ratchet that up a notch. What if we built a city that worked like an ecosystem? <a href="http://www.asphaltpavement.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=359&amp;Itemid=863">Porous pavements</a> evacuate rainwater, while <a href="http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/bioluminscent-trees-could-light-our-streets/">bioluminescent trees</a> light buildings made of <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jun/29/the-self-healing-concrete-that-can-fix-its-own-cracks?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=amp&amp;utm_source=www.weforum.org-RelayMediaAMP">self-healing concrete</a>. Electric cars, powered by renewable energy drive around parks where pollution is captured by <a href="https://www.studioroosegaarde.net/project/smog-free-project/stories/#973">smog vacuum cleaners</a> to ensure clean air is available to all. These innovations exist. These cities have the potential to exist.
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Nature-inspired materials
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What if we could <a href="https://dublin.sciencegallery.com/fieldtest/exhibits/mycotecture-brick-wall.html">grow our own homes</a> using mushrooms? What if plastic disintegrated in <a href="http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/thailand-creates-technology-that-decomposes-plastic-bags-in-weeks/amp?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=amp&amp;utm_source=www.weforum.org-RelayMediaAMP">weeks not decades</a>? Biology can be harnessed to create non-toxic products that are reliable for their use-life and disintegrate seamlessly after use.
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In addition to building products made of natural materials, you could also create new materials inspired by those in nature. For instance, the physical structure and surface chemistry of an <a href="https://evolutionnews.org/2013/10/one_butterfly_i/">Amazonian butterfly’s wing called Morpho</a> could inspire the development of self-cleaning surfaces, industrial sensors and photonic security tags. And that’s just one butterfly in a jungle of an estimated 10 million animals, plants and insects. This is the very same ecosystem that is under threat from illegal logging, poaching and climate change.
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Hacking nature for health
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Studies have shown how mangroves help to protect exposed coastal areas from adverse weather events. As climates change, such natural assets will become invaluable to protecting us from sea-level rise and high-intensity storms.
But nature doesn’t just live in the great outdoors. As a species, our bodies have evolved to improve our health and functioning. Through bio-technological innovations we are increasing the pace and possibility of some of these applications. What if your morning breakfast gave you a read out of your current health state or diagnosed early stage cancer? What if you could grow a new pair of lungs?
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Human enhancement is entering a new era of possibility, and ethical dilemmas. What is clear is that nature’s in-built solutions have the power to radically transform life as we know it.
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Transition to a clean economy
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The very concept of renewable energy is inspired by and relies on natural processes – the sun, wind and water. By harnessing nature, we can generate energy that is perpetually renewable. But nature can take us even further. For example, the same swarm logic from ants mentioned above could be applied to <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/411881/managing-energy-with-swarm-logic/amp/?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=amp&amp;utm_source=www.weforum.org-RelayMediaAMP">smart grids</a> to help to manage the flow of energy more efficiently and reduce peak electrical demand.
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And now to the Holy Grail of energy research: what if we could replicate photosynthesis to capture carbon dioxide and emit hydrogen and water? Researchers at Virginia Tech recently designed <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170602112848.htm">a supramolecule</a> that does just this. The discovery could spell a new era of clean economics inspired by nature.
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Such natural processes could be applied to an entire economy too. A study of how calories move through coral reefs demonstrates that natural systems maximize energy and minimize waste. That is not the case in our current economy, where we will have <a href="https://www.weforum.org/press/2016/01/more-plastic-than-fish-in-the-ocean-by-2050-report-offers-blueprint-for-change/">more plastic in the oceans than fish by 2050</a> if we don’t change our ways. Could we develop a new systems-level approach inspired by nature that re-thinks the way we take, make and dispose of goods and services?
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The planet has the potential to help us to redesign our economic systems and the products we make and consume in novel ways. At the same time, with the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, technology has the potential to transform the way we think about protecting the planet. We can develop big data alliances to better monitor and enforce environmental regulation. We have the possibility to reduce illicit wildlife trafficking by using remote sensing and tracking devices. The blockchain could be used to register innovations from nature and sell this intellectual property to the highest bidder, while ensuring the return of revenues to help conserve the environments from which these innovations originated.
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We are at the gateway of an inclusive bio-economy. What is needed now are strategic alliances to implement a transformation of our operating models and in so doing, protect the nature that inspires us.
This article first appeared on <a href="http://amp.weforum.org/agenda/2017/06/four-reasons-that-nature-is-more-valuable-than-you-thought">WEF’s website</a><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/05/our-world-of-plenty-is-on-the-brink-of-unprecedented-famine"></a> on 21st June and is republished with its permission. 
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<h3 class="list-group__header">Have you read?</h3>
<ul>
<li class="h4"><a href="http://cnbc.africa/zdnl-mc/2017/05/29/world-plenty-brink-unprecedented-famine-must-act-now/">Our world of plenty is on the brink of unprecedented famine. We must act now</a></li>
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Four reasons why nature is more valuable than you thought

On the side-lines of the Afreximbank conference in Kigali &#8211; Morocco and Rwanda expressed their cooperation. Rwanda’s Finance Minister Claver Gatete noted that Morocco’s Banque Centrale Populaire (BCP) is currently in final negotiations to acquire a stake in the country’s largest lender, Bank of Kigali. The Finance Minister also mentioned that negotiations were almost concluded between Rwanda&#8217;s Cogebanque and Moroccan Attijariwafa Bank.

Rwanda’s Bank of Kigali could soon have a new shareholder

Africa’s Richest Man, Aliko Dangote over the weekend took a group made up of key media houses and MBA graduates from the Lagos Business School for a tour around his latest business venture, the largest single train petroleum refinery in the world with a production capacity of about 650,000 barrels per day, see images below. 
The $12 billion Dangote Oil Refinery which is scheduled to open in 2019 will be 40 per cent larger than the current largest refinery which only has a capacity of 450, 000 barrels per day. The plant will also house Africa’s largest urea plant with a capacity of 3 million tons per annum as well as 1,100kms of sub sea pipeline infrastructure to handle 3 billion SCF of gas per day.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DANGOTE-2-IMG_6889.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="960" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-130076" />
“We are bullish on Africa, the Dangote group is driving six major projects which will create about 250, 000 jobs and provide FX earnings and savings of $15 billion. This refinery will create 60,000 jobs with 20,000 of them onsite”, says Dangote. 
[bc_video video_id=&#8221;5486942943001&#8243; account_id=&#8221;1571595826001&#8243; player_id=&#8221;default&#8221;] 
Located in the Lekki Free Trade Zone, the site occupies about 2100 hectares of land, which is about six times the size of Victoria Island, Nigeria’s sprawling cosmopolitan town with the highest concentration of high net worth individuals in the country. 
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“We believe the best time to invest is during a downturn and it is our goal to diversify the Nigerian economy and as a result we have also increased our investment in agriculture and agro processing with projections of producing 1 million MT of milled and parboiled rice”, says Dangote.
The refinery will create its own power which will run on natural gas with a projected supply of 12, 000 MW of power which will be readily available for commercial use and also meet the demand for petrochemical products in Nigeria.

Inside billionaire Aliko Dangote’s $12bn Dangote Oil Refinery

AfDB’s Akinwumi Adesina named 2017 World Food Prize Laureate

In 1992 Kenya held its first multi-party election in 26 years. Since this re-introduction of <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ktnhome/video/watch/2000072282/the-fight-for-multipartism-in-kenya">multipartism</a>, the “<a href="http://www.dw.com/en/the-role-of-ethnicity-in-kenyan-politics/a-37442394">politics of tribe</a>” has been blamed for the country’s political tribulations.
This has led to a system under which leaders channel government resources to their ethnic supporters to ensure their political survival. In turn, their supporters begin to feel entitled to government resources.
The politics of ethnicity therefore becomes an inter-community competition, not merely for representation in governance, but for resources.
This isn’t a problem exclusive to Kenya. <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/african-elections-mbaku-FINAL.pdf">Studies</a> show that many African countries are finding it difficult to manage diversity, and particularly ethnicity.
In other parts of the world such as <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/26506/PN04.02.pdf">Yugoslavia</a>, <a href="https://www.tni.org/files/download/TNI-BCN%20Burma%20policy%20briefing%20no.%205.pdf">Burma</a>, and <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2012/11/28/sri-lanka-ethnic-conflict-and-the-rise-of-a-violent-secessionist-movement/">Sri Lanka</a>, ethnicity has been politicised and has consequently played a major role in triggering violence.
In Kenya, tribal politics has given rise to rampant corruption, marginalisation, disenfranchisement of entire communities, and <a href="https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/root-causes-kenyas-post-election-crisis">full-blown violence</a>.
As the country goes into another general election this August, two questions are frequently being asked. Has anything changed since 2007 when violence broke out after a disputed election? And are there any real ideological differences between Kenya’s two main coalitions?
A stock take of the present ethnic reality shows that tribalism is more entrenched than ever. <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001230127/who-between-jubilee-and-nasa-has-the-numbers%29">The two coalitions</a> are a cluster of parties that represent regional ethnic blocs.
In fact they have split the country down the middle along a clear tribal fault line, with the populous Kikuyu and Kalenjin tribes on one side and the Luo, Luhya and Kamba on the other.
<h2>The history of ethnic loyalties</h2>
But why are there such bitter contests every election cycle? It has everything to do with the possibility of attaining control of state resources and being in charge of their allocation.
Kenya has been governed by <a href="http://www.president.go.ke/the-presidency/former-presidents/">four presidents</a> from two ethnic communities since independence: the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. The 40 other communities now believe that it’s their turn to hold the presidency.
Kenya is home to 42 ethnic groups. The major ones are the Kikuyu, Luhya, Kalenjin, Luo, and Kamba. Combined, they form <a href="http://www.kenya-information-guide.com/kenya-population.html">66%</a> of the country’s population.
The behaviour of Kenyan voters has remained largely consistent over the past five multi-party elections. Regardless of where they reside, <a href="http://epaper.peopledaily.co.ke/?utm_content=bufferac4a5&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer&amp;startpage=12&amp;iid=153479#folio=12">ethnic allegiance</a> has been the most influential motivator at the ballot.
This pattern of political allegiance based on ethnicity has a long history dating back to Kenya’s colonial past.
In Kenya’s first independent general election in May 1963, the two largest indigenous parties <a href="http://www.kanuparty.com/">KANU</a>, formed in May 1960, and <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000083258/how-kanu-kadu-started-election-promises-war">KADU</a>, formed a month later, both assumed an ethnic DNA.
KANU represented the populous Kikuyu and Luo tribes and KADU represented the smaller Masai, Kalenjin, Luhya and Mijikenda communities.
This was partly because <a href="https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/6b093bf4-eed9-42da-8505-60db10cffae0.pdf">colonial policy</a> barred the formation of nationwide political movements. It only allowed the formation of district political associations.
The effect was to encourage ethnically homogeneous political associations to emerge across the country. As a result, parties have drawn their political legitimacy and capital from their respective ethnic bases since independence.
At <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/history/asia-and-africa/african-history/lancaster-house-conference">Lancaster House</a> – where Kenyan delegates held a series of meetings to negotiate Kenya’s independence constitution – KANU and KADU leaders wore their ethnic hats.
And in 1966 when Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13682176">left KANU</a> he retreated to his ethnic backyard and formed the Kenya People’s Union.
So historically speaking, political parties have never really been divorced from tribal affiliations.
But the problem runs much deeper than tribal politics. In Kenya an ethnically diverse society is responding to an imposed political configuration which, thanks to its <a href="http://erepo.usiu.ac.ke/bitstream/handle/11732/3070/chap_10_onyango_the_crises_of_postcoloniality.pdf?sequence=1&amp;isAllowed=y">colonial heritage</a>, is a democratic competition for resources.
<h2>Fixing the problem</h2>
If we regard democracy as elastic rather than rigid, it allows us to recognise that it can be forced – or negotiated. Negotiated democracy can lead to stability whereas forced democracy can lead to instability and violence.
A case in point is Zimbabwe where a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7617731.stm">power-sharing deal</a> was reached between Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe Africa National Union-Patriotic Front and Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change in 2008.
At the time, the deal brought the country’s political and economic crisis to an end. Other African examples of negotiated democracies include <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ippr/journal/downloads/vol3-2/Traniello.pdf">South Africa</a> and <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ippr/journal/downloads/vol3-2/Traniello.pdf">Rwanda</a>.
In Kenya, negotiated democracy can be reached by creating more executive positions beyond the president and deputy president to accommodate feuding tribes: mainly the Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luo and Luhya.
Kenya has tried this model before, and it worked. The <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7269476.stm">power sharing model</a> put in place after the 2007 election quelled the post-election violence.
The <a href="http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2008/04/president-names-grand-coalition-government/">new structure</a>, guided by the <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/NationalAccordandReconciliationAct_No4of2008.pdf">peace accord</a>, created three new executive positions – a prime minister, and two deputy prime ministers. This created a more ethnically inclusive leadership.
Constitutionally, a power-sharing agreement may not be as simple to effect as the 2008 <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/NationalAccordandReconciliationAct_No4of2008.pdf">National Accord and Reconciliation Act</a>.
In that case, a simple Act of Parliament was passed to create the positions of a prime minister and his two deputies. Today the government would need to call a <a href="http://www.kenyalaw.org/lex/actview.xql?actid=Const2010">referendum</a> to create substantive positions.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/77980/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />But that shouldn’t be a deterrent. Changes like this could lead to a realignment of political parties. If representatives of a majority of Kenya’s ethnic groups were guaranteed senior positions in government, politicians would gradually move away from ethnicity as a tool for political mobilisation, and towards ideological campaigns that prioritise socioeconomic development.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/daisy-maritim-maina-378442">Daisy Maritim-Maina</a>, PhD Candidate in Political Economy, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/smc-university-3085">SMC University</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-kenya-could-move-away-from-the-politics-of-ethnicity-77980">original article</a>.

How Kenya could deal with its politics of ethnicity

Life’s unexpected moments of insight can come from anywhere. It could be a chance conversation in an airport, a magazine article that grabs your attention or simply a moment of clarity when you think about something from a different perspective. My own personal insight about tackling neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) wasn’t one of these instant lightning-bolt experiences. Instead, it slowly crystallised into view over a series of months. It began with the Higher Life Foundation’s support for a mass drug administration (MDA) in rural Zimbabwe and culminated in a breakfast at the World Economic Forum sanctioned side event that was organized by private philanthropic initiative, the <a href="http://www.end.org/">END Fund</a>.
READ: <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/special-report/2017/02/17/africas-neglected-disease/">Africa&#8217;s neglected disease 
</a><a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/special-report/2016/12/14/eradicating-neglected-tropical-diseases/">Why this Nigerian multi-millionaire is working hard to eradicate neglected tropical diseases in Africa</a>
In November 2015, I joined the board of the <a href="https://www.higherlifefoundation.com/">Higher Life Foundation</a>, a hands-on philanthropic education initiative created by the founders of Econet Wireless. My job was to help shape its growth strategy. I hadn’t yet made the connection in my mind between the kind of education we were focused on providing and the simple knowledge and information that was needed to battle NTDs. But it was Econet’s part in a public private initiative as the communications partner in an MDA that provided the answer.
Over 500 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa at risk of, and need, treatment for NTDs. These diseases include intestinal worms, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, blinding trachoma, and river blindness. Debilitating symptoms such as blindness, severe pain, and fatigue result in adults being unable to work and children unable to attend school. Without access to education it’s harder to learn about, let alone change behavior that breaks the cycle of these pernicious diseases which reinforce the link between poor health and poverty.
For communities this is a tragedy, but for economies it’s a serious impediment to growth. The latest figures show the profound influence NTDs have on prosperity, with sub-Saharan Africa predicted to save US$52 billion in purchasing power parity by 2030 if it meets the World Health Organization’s 2020 control and elimination goals for the five most common NTDs.
To frame the challenge, how could we combat NTDs to begin the process of protecting people whilst setting the economy on the road to a brighter future? The issue of how to deliver the available treatment to a country’s entire population through an MDA seemed to depend on logistics. But part of the solution for Zimbabwe in this case lay in information, in educating people about what simple steps they needed to take to be rid of these diseases and that it was as easy as turning up to get the free medicine.
Econet enabled its mobile network to be used, via a donation of millions of SMS messages, as part of a larger public private partnership for MDA with the government, NGOs, and pharmaceutical companies. SMS messages letting people know when drugs would be available in hundreds of districts were sent out on a huge scale, supporting other communications about the MDA. Without this means of educating people simply around a few key facts, it would have been hard to reach the 4 million people who ended up being treated.
I recounted this story at a table with leaders from government, the church, the pharmaceutical industry and philanthropy. I was there to represent Higher Life at the END Fund’s World Economic Forum breakfast event. My role was to help everyone present grasp the power of public private philanthropic partnerships in tackling NTDs.  It was in that retelling that I clearly grasped another truth – the importance between education, health, and communication. If we can only keep the channels open, we can help people learn what they need to know to bring about the END of NTDs. If it can start with something as simple as turning up to take a pill in a mass drug administration, then a little bit of knowledge in this case, can be a very good thing indeed.

What you don’t know can hurt you: Why Africa can no longer ignore these diseases…

LONDON, June 21 (IFR) &#8211; Bob Diamond’s African investment vehicle Atlas Mara said it is raising US$200m from Fairfax Africa and existing shareholders to kick-start the bank after a tough three years since listing.
Atlas Mara, which has been buying up banking assets with the aim of becoming the leading bank in Africa, plans to sell US$100m of new shares to Fairfax Africa and existing investors, and sell US$100m of mandatory convertible bonds to Fairfax.
Fairfax Africa will invest at least US$130m and up to the full US$200m, which will give it a stake of between 35% and just below 50% in Atlas Mara.
&#8220;With Fairfax, we are now better positioned to achieve our full potential and to benefit from the long-term trends we see in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa,&#8221; said Diamond, the former Barclays CEO who is executive chairman of Atlas Mara.
http://cnbc.africa/news/special-report/2016/05/19/how-to-make-it-past-your-third-year-as-a-start-up/

Diamond’s Atlas Mara to raise US$200m in revival plan, eyes Nigeria

One of the lawyers who saved Nelson Mandela from the rope and became a millionaire English lord died in his country home of Liddington, in Wiltshire, on June 18, aged 85.
Joel Joffe, the former chairman of Oxfam, was one of three surviving lawyers from the so called Rivonia Trial that ended in 1964 in life imprisonment for Mandela and his comrades on 221 charges of sabotage. He is survived by Johannesburg Human Rights Lawyers George Bizos and Denis Kuny.
I had the pleasure of meeting him at a 50th anniversary reunion of the raid on Liliesleaf, in Rivonia Johannesburg, the hideout where police arrested most of the accused in 1963.
I was struck by how he carried his wealth and title lightly – you wouldn’t have blinked if you saw him shopping in a Johannesburg supermarket. He was made Baron Joffe of Liddington, in 2000, by Labour premier Tony Blair; I asked about his title.
“Ag, just call me Joel,” says he.
At the time the trial began in 1963, Joffe, who wanted out of apartheid South Africa, was packing for Australia. Bram Fischer, who led the defence, asked him to be the instructing attorney.
“He slept on a mattress on the floor with his wife; his furniture had gone to Australia. He was persuaded to stay .They lived on as little as possible so the defence fund could go as far as possible…What Joel showed is that courage takes many different forms, here was a lawyer who wanted out of apartheid and yet stayed to uphold the principles of justice for people who had no hope of surviving, at a time when no other lawyer would take it on. That is courage,” says accused number three Denis Goldberg, aged 84, who lives in semi-retirement in Hout Bay, near Cape Town.
The trial, that lasted nearly a year, cost 29,000 pounds, at 1964 prices, but the defence team chose not to take a penny.
At the climax of the trial, Mandela spoke these words that went down in history: “It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
It was Bizos who added the words “if needs be” into the speech to try to stay the death penalty and Mandela wasn’t amused.
“I read my speech and there seems to be an error, he said. It is my sentence and I want it back!” chuckled Joffe.
On a more sombre note, Joffe recalled the handwritten note by Mandela, now in a museum, in which he wrote his last words, should he hang.
“This handwritten note said ‘I apologise for nothing, I was fighting for justice and there’s no sacrifice I am not prepared to make in the cause of justice’ that was Mandela, faced with hanging, no fear,” smiled Joffe on that warm spring evening back in 2013. He left the country of his birth in 1965 for England where he founded the life assurance Allied Dunbar, in 1970, with seed capital from Hambros Bank. It made him a multi-millionaire, yet he spent much of his time and money helping the poor. He was a little downbeat about the country of his birth when I asked him about it in 2013.
“In South Africa today sadly the majority of the population is living in poverty and unemployment and one believes there is much more that government could do about that and then these problems with corruption, incompetence and inefficiency would disappear.” he says.
Words that ring even truer today.

Joel Joffe: Rivonia Trial lawyer, a man you could bet your life on

Job seekers around the world agree on one thing: Google&#8217;s parent company, Alphabet, seems like an awfully appealing place to work.
The tech giant places first on L<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-top-companies-2017-global-edition-daniel-roth?published=t">inkedIn&#8217;s 2017 Top Companies Global List</a>, which highlights the 25 companies whose teams employees everywhere would most like to join.
To determine this list, LinkedIn&#8217;s data team analyzed billions of searches by the site&#8217;s more than 500 million members, considering views of and applications to job postings, engagement with the company on LinkedIn and the number of employees that stay with the company for at least one year.
LinkedIn did not consider itself, or its parent company, Microsoft, for this list.
As usual, a number of tech industry headliners claim spots in the ranking, but the list also represents a broad range of companies from industries including professional services and consumer goods.
Read on for the 25 most attractive employers around the world:
25. GE 
Number of global employees: 350,000
GE offers eight different leadership programs, which provide recent college graduates training in areas ranging from engineering to human resources. Roughly a quarter of the company&#8217;s current senior management completed one of GE&#8217;s leadership programs.
24. Adobe 
Number of global employees: 15,000
Adobe offers job titles as creative as its products, including Principal Artist-in-Residence, People Scientist and Vice President of Creativity. The company emphasizes that to be successful, employees should have a &#8220;learn-it-all&#8221; attitude.
23. Schneider Electric 
Number of global employees: 144,000
Headquartered in France, Schneider Electric wants to increase sharing of skills and knowledge among its employees. Schneider&#8217;s Global International Mobility Center facilitated 400 employees moving to new countries to work for the company last year.
22. EY 
Number of global employees: 250,000
One of the accounting industry&#8217;s &#8220;big four&#8221; firms, London-based EY currently has a quarter of a million employees, and expects its global headcount to reach 300,000 by 2020. In Germany, the country has introduced a refugee internship, offering four months of training to participants, who work with a mentor and are offered full-time employment following the program.
21. Accenture 
Number of global employees: 401,000
The global professional services firm offers 16 weeks of maternity leave and eight weeks of primary care leave. Further, Accenture provides free breast milk shipping for new mothers who travel as part of their role, or the option of as much as one year of local work following maternity leave.
20. PepsiCo 
Number of global employees: 264,000
PepsiCo brands like Lays, Gatorade and Tropicana are available in upwards of 200 countries around the world. Recently, the company has honed in on creating healthier products, increasing research and development spending 45 percent over the past six years.
19. Deloitte 
Number of global employees: 244,400
Employees of the auditor and consultancy have the opportunity to transfer to 150 countries where Deloitte has offices or teams — more than 6,000 employees took advantage of the option last year. The company&#8217;s leadership training center, Deloitte University, has campuses in the U.S., Singapore, Belgium, France, India and Canada.
18. IBM 
Number of global employees: 380,000
IBM uses its own technology, Watson, to enable the hiring process and pair resumes with relevant open positions.
17. Johnson &amp; Johnson 
Number of global employees: 126,000
Johnson &amp; Johnson is made up of 275 companies around the planet and has nearly 130,000 employees, but the company&#8217;s decentralized structure means that each of its subsidiaries has the independence to develop strategies that best serve its market.
16. The Walt Disney Company 
Number of global employees: 195,000
Disney employees get free passes for themselves and family members to the company&#8217;s theme parks, and trainers on the Disney English team use stories and characters from the company&#8217;s movies to teach English to children in China.
15. Unilever 
Number of global employees: 169,000
Got a taste for tea? The global consumer goods juggernaut employs a &#8220;Tea Expertise Director.&#8221; The role entails leading employee tours through tea plantations and tasting more than 1,000 cups of the beverage each day.
14. Siemens 
Number of global employees: 350,000
Siemens has cracked the code on employee retention: According to LinkedIn data, Siemens workers stay with the company 8.6 years, longer than the average employee tenure of any other company on this list.
13. Oracle 
Number of global employees: 135,000
In August, Oracle broke ground on a public charter high school on the campus of its headquarters, and in the most recent fiscal year, the company reused or recycled 99.5 percent of the electronic waste it generated.
12. Tesla 
Number of global employees: 30,000
Tesla is now the most valuable U.S.-based automaker, with a $62 billion market cap and nearly 2,500 jobs open around the world. The company isn&#8217;t turning a profit yet, so employees miss out on a lot of the perks often associated with the tech industry. But there&#8217;s hope: In an email to staff, CEO Elon Musk recently announced that free frozen yogurt and an &#8220;electric pod roller coaster&#8221; will soon be part of Tesla&#8217;s office landscape.
11. Cisco 
Number of global employees: 73,000
Cisco employees receive five days off beyond their vacation time each year to devote to volunteering, an initiative that&#8217;s clearly been a hit — last year, employees put in 227,000 volunteer hours.
10. Dell Technologies 
Number of global employees: 145,000
Dell offers employees a great deal of flexibility, including working from home, adjustable hours and the option of bringing your dog to work. More than 40 percent of the company&#8217;s hires are referred by current employees, a strong vote of confidence in Dell&#8217;s organizational style.
9. L&#8217;Oreal 
Number of global employees: 83,000
L&#8217;Oreal has 36 brands in 140 countries and has a strong focus on those at the entry level: Roughly one third of the company&#8217;s hires last year were recent graduates, and the cosmetics giant&#8217;s current CEO started as an intern with the company in 1978.
8. LVMH
Number of global employees: 135,000
Nearly three quarters of management positions at the iconic luxury brand — which spans sectors including fashion, perfume, cosmetics, jewelry and wine — are filled with internal candidates.
7. McKinsey &amp; Company
Number of global employees: 25,000
About 40 percent of McKinsey consultants take on at least one international assignment each year. The global consultancy offers employees the chance to take as much as 10 weeks off between projects.
6. Salesforce
Number of global employees: 25,000
Salesforce continuously audits employee pay &#8220;to ensure equal compensation across gender, race and ethnicity,&#8221; and recently introduced six months of parental leave for primary caregivers in the U.S.
5. Apple
Number of global employees: 110,000
Apple offers employee stock grants to all its workers, including part-time and retail employees, and a little more than one-tenth of its retail workforce turns over each year, compared to 80 percent industry-wide. CEO Tim Cook has said that he plans on doubling Apple services like iTunes and Apple Pay over the next four years.
4. Uber
Number of global employees: 12,000
The ride-hailing company has had its share of negative headlines lately, and CEO Travis Kalanick announced on Tuesday that he&#8217;d be taking a leave of absence. Still, though applications dipped slightly after ex-employee Susan Fowler&#8217;s explosive blog post, year over year, views of postings and applications to open positions on LinkedIn are up 35 percent.
3. Facebook
Number of global employees: 17,000
Facebook boasts 1.9 billion active users every month and is constantly on the hunt for the talent to help it grow its reach. &#8220;When you enter our buildings,&#8221; says CEO Mark Zuckerberg, &#8220;we want you to feel how much left there is to be done in our mission to connect the world.&#8221;
2. Amazon
Number of global employees: 341,400
&#8220;The everything store&#8221; collected three Oscar trophies for its programming, introduced Prime video in India and delivered a package in the U.K. via drone — all in the past year. &#8220;We take risks and make big bets,&#8221; Amazon told LinkedIn, &#8220;and when we fail, we apply the lessons learned and keep moving.&#8221;
1. Alphabet
Number of global employees: 72,000
Google&#8217;s parent company keeps employees engaged with cutting-edge opportunities: Upwards of 27,000 of the company&#8217;s employees work in research and development, an area that Alphabet poured almost $14 million into last year. According to LinkedIn, it&#8217;s &#8220;the opportunity and resources employees are given to tackle massive problems, stretching from creating self-driving cars to impeding extremism&#8221; that puts Alphabet on top.
[bc_video video_id=&#8221;5470912226001&#8243; account_id=&#8221;1571595826001&#8243; player_id=&#8221;default&#8221;]
<ul>
<li>Reporting by <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/kathryn-dill/" rel="author">Kathryn Dill</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/@kathryndill">@kathryndill</a></li>
</ul>

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