The people who are really going to change Africa are going to be the young people with the ideas, with the energy, the time and the will. So, you still have all that energy and all those ideas to make a difference, and that’s great. When we look at how our population is going to grow over the next 20 years, we’re going to double. So, if you can think of a city like, let’s say Johannesburg, is going to be double.
In my opinion being an entrepreneur today is looking for improvements and making the best use of the knowledge and information that is already available. It is to be deep in analysis and demanding in the outcome. To innovate, in turn, is to want the best solutions that respond to unarticulated needs or problems in the existing market.
As a woman and an entrepreneur, I am all for female potential in leadership and management. It is so rewarding to see so many women all over the world growing their careers and achieving their professional goals. But many of them are facing major challenges in their endeavour to attain leadership positions.
We live in promising times, in terms of the growing awareness of the role of women in society. From the family to the business world, in politics, entertainment or sciences, the contribution made by women in all walks of life has reached an unparalleled force. And it is this strength that has to be fostered, for the good of a fairer, better balanced and more complete society.
To create a business is to generate value and, with that, to build a better world. Each time we set up a well-structured project that generates positive results we are moving the world one step further along, and all our lives with it. I believe that Africa will be the next great stage of business development. It could not be any other way.
We have to look what are the different strengths that African countries have and how can we position our countries in a way that we can be collaborative. So it’s about recognising which is going to be our role within Africa and which will be our role within the world. Then us businessmen translating into real opportunities of business.
We need to have people that are educated, who now realize that agriculture is a money maker, is an opportunity and that we can make money out of it. The tendency for local business, once they have a guarantee to off-take, is to grow. If these are good entrepreneurs, active and full of energy, they should be growing their business.
The vision for Luanda’s future should start now as a city whose population will double in ten years’ time and reach 13 million inhabitants. In this matter it is key to listen local communities.
This is the question: how does this all this happening here makes a difference in our everyday lives? I think there were a lot of great contributions that came through. A very strong one was the issue of policy: can we have policy alignment?
There is a clear message that I want to leave which is: one thing is your family life, the people who raised you, that give you values, that educate you, that make sure that you go to school.