While his mates
scrambled for an opportunity to escape from Africa in search of 'greener
pastures', Ghanaian millionaire, Patrick Awuah who is among the few that stay
true to the saying 'Charity Begins At Home, dumped his job at Microsoft and
returned to establish a university in Accra with the sole aim of raising
leaders through educating young Africans.
Prior to his
relocation, Awuah earned millions as a Program Manager with Microsoft in the
United States where he lived for almost two decades.
Ghanaian millionaire,
Patrick Awuah quits Microsoft to build university that Educates young Africans.
(Photo Credit: CNN)
In his view, “If the
current leadership core was educated a certain way, if they were problem
solvers, if they had deep compassion for society, we would be in a different
place.”
Awuah built Ashesi
University in Accra and barely one year after its establishment, the
institution still maintains its innovative curriculum, high tech facilities,
and strong emphasis on leadership among other unique qualities.
In his TED Global talk in
2007, Patrick Awuah explains his call to educate Africa’s future leaders, and
why he believes this is very important.
At the age of 16 in
Ghana, Patrick Awuah had his first memorable experience of leadership. At the
airport to meet his father, he is stopped by two soldiers wielding AK-47
assault weapons.
“They asked me to join
a crowd of people that were running up and down this embankment. Why? Because
the path I had taken was considered out of bounds. No sign to this effect,” he
noted.
Typical of teenagers,
Patrick was quite concerned of what his peers, especially girls, would think if
they saw him running up and down the hill. So he argued with soldiers. Luckily
for him, a pilot falls into the same predicament.
The soldiers addressed
him differently because he wore a uniform; they explained that they were only
following orders.
The pilot takes their
radio, talks to their boss, and gets everyone released. Patrick learnt
several things from that experience. “Leadership matters – those men are
following the orders of a superior officer. I learned something about courage –
it was important not to look at those guns.”
A few years after that
event, Patrick left Ghana to attend Swarthmore College in the United States.
“The faculty there
didn’t want us to memorise information and repeat back to them as I was used to
back in Ghana. They wanted us to think critically. They wanted us to be
analytical.
They wanted us to be
concerned about social issues.” At Swarthmore, Patrick got high marks for
his understanding of basic economics in his economic classes, but the deeper
lesson was that, the leaders, the managers of Ghana’s economy were making
really bad decisions, some of which had fuelled the near-collapse of the
country’s economy. “
And so here was this
lesson again – leadership matters. It matters a great deal,” he explained.
In spite of Patrick’s
Epiphany at Swarthmore, it wasn’t until he started working at Microsoft
Corporation that he realised it. “I was part of this team, this thinking,
learning team whose job it was to design and implement new software that
created value in the world….
And I realised just
what had happened to me at Swarthmore … The ability to confront problem,
complex problems, and to design solutions to those problems. The ability to
create is the most empowering thing that can happen to an individual.”
At Microsoft, Patrick
became a parent. The thought of his children’s perception of Africa in
comparison to the rest of the world instigated a desire to return home and
change the overwhelming narrative that portrayed the dark continent. He was
determined to contribute his quota towards the continents development.
On his return 14 years
ago, he found out that for every problem three things kept coming up;
corruption, weak institutions, and the people who run them – the leaders.
Patrick asked two very
important questions: where are these leaders coming from? What is it about
Ghana that produces leaders that are unethical or unable to solve problems?
In search of answers,
he scanned the country’s educational system and realised that nothing had
changed during his time away.
“It was the same
learning by rote, from primary school through graduate school. Very little
emphasis on ethics … and the typical graduate from a university in Ghana has a
stronger sense of entitlement than a sense of responsibility. This is wrong.”
Patrick’s resolve to
address this problem resulted in the conception and birth of Ashesi University,
an institution launched to develop young African leaders.
“Every society must be
very intentional about educating its leaders … so this is what I’m doing now.
I’m trying to bring the experience I had at Swarthmore to Africa.
What Ashesi University
is trying to do, is to train a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial
leaders. We’re trying to train leaders of exceptional integrity, who have the
ability to confront the complex problems, ask the right questions, and come up
with workable solutions.”
Ashesi started with 30
students in 2002 in a rented building. Today the university campus is set on a
100 acre land near Aburi, an hour’s drive from Ghana’s
capital, Accra, with over 500 students. The academic curriculum is a
blend of Liberal arts and Sciences.
“We’re going to
educate computer science students who’ve also done philosophy, and leadership, and
ethics … we’re going to educate business majors who’ve studied literature and
have also done computer programming because we think that broad perspectives
are important,” a bullish Patrick told the audience at the TEDEx talk.
The university has an
Honour Code, where the students pledge to be honest and to hold each other
accountable. The students of Ashesi University take ownership of their ethical
posture on campus.
“This is a huge break
from the norm in most African universities, where corrupt practices run free.
“While the Honour Code
may constitute a reach for a perfect society, which is unachievable, we cannot
achieve perfection, but if we reach for it, we can achieve excellence.”
This is a wakeup call
to young Africans who have lost hope in their continent to look homewards and
contribute their own quota towards making the continent great.
No comments:
Post a Comment