But Where Were the Hippos!?
But Where Were the Hippos!?
There were notably few of the hard-knuckle African politicians who often run the interior or defence ministry or act as kingmakers, sometimes bankrolling rotten presidents.
The backstory here is from George Ayittey’s brilliant speech in Arusha, where he likened the TED Fellows and other entrepreneurs present as the “Cheetahs” willing to do anything, regardless of government help, to succeed and make Africa better. Whereas the “Hippos” were the old guard of politicians and big business who were happy to wallow in their role as victims of colonialism and poverty.
Ethan takes it a step further, where he poses that the World Economic Forum could be labeled Hippocon, while TED was where the Cheetah generation could be found.
My question is why was this person from the Economist so fixated on there not being enough hippos? Is it because that’s the only way he sees things getting done in Africa? If he believes that is so, then he’s missing the bigger picture. The message at TED was that regardless of the hippos, the cheetahs will find a way to make change happen.
The story wasn’t that there weren’t any hippos at TED, it’s that they are becoming irrelevant.
But Where Were the Hippos - To learn more about this author, visit Erik Hersman's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
A recent article in the Economist about there not being enough hippos at TED Global is pretty interesting. Actually, scratch that, it’s not very interesting at all, in fact it’s disappointing that this is the best article about the recent conference in Tanzania to come out of a magazine like the Economist.
There were notably few of the hard-knuckle African politicians who often run the interior or defence ministry or act as kingmakers, sometimes bankrolling rotten presidents.
The backstory here is from George Ayittey’s brilliant speech in Arusha, where he likened the TED Fellows and other entrepreneurs present as the “Cheetahs” willing to do anything, regardless of government help, to succeed and make Africa better. Whereas the “Hippos” were the old guard of politicians and big business who were happy to wallow in their role as victims of colonialism and poverty.
Ethan takes it a step further, where he poses that the World Economic Forum could be labeled Hippocon, while TED was where the Cheetah generation could be found.
My question is why was this person from the Economist so fixated on there not being enough hippos? Is it because that’s the only way he sees things getting done in Africa? If he believes that is so, then he’s missing the bigger picture. The message at TED was that regardless of the hippos, the cheetahs will find a way to make change happen.
The story wasn’t that there weren’t any hippos at TED, it’s that they are becoming irrelevant.
But Where Were the Hippos - To learn more about this author, visit Erik Hersman's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. |
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Erik's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | |||||||
|
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 Get Ready for The Recovery Think Networking Winning Sales Letter 100 Success Tips Leadership Assessment |
|
 | ||
 |
More PR Resources
Press Release Builder | |
 |
Top 50 Blogs For Startups
Top Blogs To Watch In 2009 | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
| ||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||