My Beauty Best Teacher

Boniface Mwangi was joined by a half-dozen artists on a quiet Tuesday night in downtown Nairobi as they worked on painting their inaugural mural. A piece this size would usually take days, even with a large crew. They did it in seven hours. A blank wall in a filthy, abandoned lot near the city market was illuminated by floodlights as various crew members traced a 30-meter tall mural that tells the story of corruption in Kenya.

Photos by Andre Epstein

“We’re using images of a vulture MP stomping on a face, of protests and Parliament, to tell Kenyans that when you sell your vote, you’re mortgaging our future,” he said.

If you’re interested in education (which means you’re thinking abou the future), you should watch JSB’s keynote from the DML conference this week. “Entrepreneurial Learning isn’t about creating entrepreneurs. It’s about people having an entrepreneurial way of learning.” “Entrepreneurial Learners are Makers and Tinkerers.” Tinkering is a way of dealing with constant change.

Upon reviewing the current upheavals in North Africa and elsewhere on the continent, I felt it is necessary for us – African academics, scholars and intellectuals – to take stock and a fresh look at ourselves: What role have we played in advancing the cause of liberty and improving governance in post colonial Africa. Our record is not very good. Sometimes, self-criticism is necessary in order for us to make progress. You do not have to agree with what I am going to say – diversity of opinion is healthy. There have been outstanding individuals among us who risked death to champion the cause of freedom in Africa. However, as a group we have let Africa down badly by not providing intellectual leadership to the democratic struggle.

“He who doesn’t know where he came from doesn’t know where is going,” says an African proverb. We of the intellectual community are lost; we don’t know where we are going. The recent upheavals in Africa caught us completely off guard. We did not see it coming because we were pre-occupied elsewhere. It seems we are way behind the curve, late to the struggle for democracy in Africa and are now only playing “catch-up.”...[continue reading]

Image via wikipedia

The political structure of the Yoruba Kingdom in the 18th century when it was in its heyday, resembled that of the Asante and Zande Kingdoms. Its development also bore a close resemblance to that of the Zulu kingdom as well, suggesting strong similarities in the constitution of African kingdoms.

According to Yoruba traditions, the original founder of the kingdom, Oduduwa, settled in IleIfe at some time in the 14th century. Before his arrival, about 13 semiautonomous settlements had organized themselves into a loose confederacy. Oduduwa settled among them and subsequently subjugated them, imposing his authority over them. The preexisting groups organized themselves into a resistance group known as the Igbo and harassed Oduduwa and the new settlement until accommodation was reached around the middle of the 14th century.

Michael Karnjanaprakorn CEO of Skillshare

Education is changing, and it’s changing fast. Anyone can put together a personalized educational experience via digital textbooks accessible by iPad, video learning from top university faculty, or peer-led discussion. People of all demographics are gathering their own seeds of education and cultivating lush sets of hybrid tools to deal with the rapid knowledge replenishment that’s essential in an economy where massive career specialization and constant innovation reign.This is the first piece in a Collaborative Fund-curated series on creativity and values, written by thought leaders in the for-profit, for-good business space.What we’re witnessing is a bottom-up revolution in education: Learners, not institutions, are leading innovation. This is an era of plenty. I like to call it the Education Harvest.

Starting on a small scale, training just a few boys on a dust pitch in Accra, the Right to Dream Academy has grown to the point at which it is today; a hugely successful fully residential international school, offering scholarships to talented children drawn from all over Ghana.

Image courtesy of Candace Feit

The focus and guiding principle of the Academy is that every talented child has the right to dream of a better, brighter future and can reach their full potential when nurtured through a carefully structured programme in a safe and healthy environment.

In March 2010, we officially opened the new RtD Academy, a US$1.5million purpose built facility, located 20km south of Akosombo in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The new Academy provides a home for our expanding programme, with specialist facilities and resources located onsite, to ensure our students can reach their true potential in life...[more]

Igbo Ukwu pot courtesy of Chika for Africa

Fifty years after Independence, Africans have refused to deconstruct and reconstruct the foundations of its colonially bequeathed knowledge. There is no one for Africans to blame, but themselves. The blame goes to African intellectuals who would rather write in ways that would please the West. To African medical doctors who despise indigenous medicine and healing systems, opting completely for Western medical knowledge – the origins of acupuncture, yoga and other acclaimed Eastern medical practices notwithstanding. To African historians bent on analyzing and presenting African history to their students from the Euro-American point of view. To African graduate students unconcerned with applying themselves to objective and critical studies and research on African issues. To African parents who refuse to speak their native languages to their wards, constricting their children’s world, their thoughts and their expressions to the limited vocabulary of the English language. To African religious leaders who have not espoused Africans to love themselves as Africans, before loving their European and American neighbors, just as the Holy book admonishes. Yes, all Africans are to blame for the situation of Africa today. Not one person is exempt, not one.

Image via interior-zine

Design is all around is. Try and black out everything that has been designed and you will be left with a black hole. It is the building block of our society, culture and even the most humble existence, past and present and will be the pacemaker and indicator of progress and changes to come...Design education should be a catalyst for prosperity for all, not just for a talented or elitist few

Prioritising design education and including design thinking in general and business education will have a far-reaching impact than just addressing challenges and obstacles that the design world is currently facing.

The advocacy and importance of the creative industry as a vital building block of any society and contributor to the economy should never be underestimated and asks for serious consideration and inclusion. Life skills identified to be lacking in society should be fostered from a young age. As a school subject, Design is not only relevant as a viable career option for talented creative learners, but it is also vital for the development and growth of a new generation who are strategic thinkers, creators and thought leaders in other fields – providing them with a mindset for entrepreneurship and innovation.

..."[Winning the award] gave me a huge push forward to write research proposals, mentor new graduate students and spend more time in the lab," Lubna Tahtamouni, chair of the department of biology and biotechnology at the Hashemite University in Jordan, and a recipient of an OWSD award, tells Times Higher Education.
She says that, in Jordan, smart women are "labelled as unattractive, not feminine enough or even masculine," and told to prioritise their family and household, adding that "many times over the years I thought of leaving academia because of the frustrations".

"It is important to highlight that women, even from developing countries, are doing great things: making breakthroughs, contributing to advances in medicine, science, chemistry and engineering — becoming leaders and experts in their fields," says another researcher honoured in the 2011 awards, Denise Evans from South Africa.

Image of James Pinson Labulo Davies &  Sarah Forbes Bonetta (Victoria's godchild) via Shadow and Act

They wanted good education for their children to be "refined," and so they frequently sent them to England. These children had to be in the smart circles of Lagos, so thay went into the right professions--law, medicine and the Arts. Educated Lagosians wanted to associate themselves with the usual recreations of a sophisticated Europe, and so went to the Races, to Fancy Dress balls, to the Gymkhana games, and to cricket.

Meiji Restoration

Whenever I try to apply logic, critical reasoning and scientific temper to issues during public debates, I am often accused of not thinking like an African. I am always told that I think like a white man or that I have a western mentality. As if critical thinking or the scientific outlook is for westerners alone or that critical thinking can only be exercised by people from a particular race or region. No, this is not the case.Surprisingly, nobody has ever stepped forward to tell me how an ‘African’ thinks. For me it is either this ‘African mode of thought’ is one which nobody knows about or is one that does not exist or qualify to be called a thinking pattern. Nobody has tried to let me know if Africans think at all. Because this misguided view that one is unAfrican or western in outlook is often employed to block or suppress critical reasoning or inquiry particularly when it is used to challenge traditions, positions and opinions informed by blind faith or dogma.

While holding on to beliefs and outlooks informed by superstition and primordial thinking is often glorified as African. Even in this 21st century, reason and science are still perceived as western, and not African values. I have yet to understand how we came about this mistaken idea. Hence, it is often portrayed as if the African does not reason and dare not reason or that the African does not think or cannot think critically. It seems thinking like an African means suspension of thought, logic or common sense. Thinking like an African means not thinking at all- thoughtlessness or thinking in spiritual, occult or magical ways.For instance, whenever I try to challenge or question the irrational and absurd claims of witchcraft, juju and charms, and other ritualistic and religious nonsense that dominate the mental space of Africans, I am often reminded that my mentality is western. And you know what, whenever in the course of a public debate, somebody alleges that a position is western, it means that it is unacceptable though it may be reasonable or may have a superior argument. Is that not unfortunate?

Most academics work alongside other academics in the same field to arrive at the deepest possible understanding of a particular subject. At the MIT Media Lab, researchers focus on breadth, not depth, of knowledge.“The world is full of expertise,” says Joi Ito, Executive Director. “What it lacks is agility and context.” Watch here:The mission of the Media Lab - symbolized by its glass walls - is to mitigate the isolating effects of specialization by creating a common space where brilliant people in every field can share ideas, English major to mathematician.

The new African middle class will flourish in knowledge centers that are connected to the global economy. The seeds of such growth can be found in places like Ikeja, the nascent computer-based industrial district of Lagos, and emerging knowledge-based industries such as Nigeria’s movie production network (“Nollywood”) will produce a new crop of entrepreneurs ready to shape the character of the next generation of middle-class Africans.

"When you're winning, you keep doing what you're doing until it doesn't work any more."

It began as an annual festival to host local poets in and around Cape Town but thanks to the power of technology the ancient art of African story-telling is spreading around the world.A poetry collective decided to set up Badilisha Poetry Radio, which in Swahili means change. Its aim is to celebrate the spoken and written word through online radio and live performance.Broadcasting from South Africa, poet Malika Ndlovu and her colleagues are spreading their reach far beyond this corner of the continent...[more]

The Agro Mindset organisation was founded with a clear mission to advocate the youth in the diaspora to pursue agriculture and related sciences, its entrepreneurial excellence and rural development. One component of this work is to train new interdisciplinary generation of agriculturist who think innovatively about the challenges that lie ahead in this field…
The future of agriculture relies on the younger generation coming through to provide succession, add enthusiasm, bring fresh ideas and drive innovation. To us, as long as agricultural growth in Sub-Saharan Africa remains below 3% annually, Food Security is wishful thinking.
The vision of the Agro Mindset Organisation is to build the green revolution where the youth having attained academic skill and knowledge relating to agribusiness can develop the knowledge and skill towards career requirements and industry expectation, apply and transfer the knowledge, skill and technology in a variety of settings.

image courtesy of IMLS

Science centres have grown rapidly in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe, as the value of hands-on experiential learning in science has been recognised. But Africa has yet to see a similar expansion. Of 54 African countries, only four have science centres, and these are not as advanced as elsewhere.

quoting Mohamed Hassan, formerly of the Academy of Sciences...who

called for establishing science centres in every African country, especially those lacking scientific capacity, and linking them with academic institutions."[Science] academies are usually the homes of the grandfathers and grandmothers," Hassan said. "Science centres are the places that delight the young. Linking these is key to creating solutions that will sustain us across the generations."