epats, expats and experts: How the diaspora will reinvent Africa
Within this new era of knowledge economies, where the internet has flattened the world and digital entrepreneurs are building companies on the backs of binary codes and software modules, members of the African diaspora can play very unique roles in re-inventing Africa’s future and catalysing the growth and development of entrepreneurial ecosystems in their home lands.
Some of these homelands have been long forgotten by a generation of diaspora who were fed up with socio-economic ills and the lack of local leadership to guide their version of 21st century Africa. Another generation of diaspora couldn’t be bothered by the subjectively slow pace of incremental change, while fully engulfed in their day-to-day lives, careers, family and worldly distractions.
Over the last decade, governmental agencies, multilateral institutions, diaspora organizations, and other civil-society groups with an interest in Africa have stepped up their collective efforts to re-engage the diaspora and re-invigorate the continent. A continent that is bursting at the seams withentrepreneurial actors, and poised for an innovation renaissance that will dwarf our most recent economic revolutions as a human race. The signs are everywhere, and African diasporans are urged to pay attention and join the movement to positively influence the sociocultural perceptions of entrepreneurship.
