The President’s Forum with Young African Leader and #youngafrica
President's Forum with Young African Leaders (source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/af/pfyal/index.htm)
The President’s Forum with Young African Leaders took place yesterday and I was able to catch it streaming live from the website. It was very inspiring. In addition to watching the actual forum, I’ve also been keeping my eye on the twitterfeed #youngafrica. This feed has been active over the past few days leading up, during and following the President’s forum.
For a continent that is often invisible when it comes to discussions on tech/digital media/internet etc. there were a lot of reactions and discussions happening from all over the continent and expats of various countries living or studying abroad discussing not just what was being said, but also what was being left out. There was also a lot of pride in the young leaders. If you watch the video, I am sure you will understand why.
What the #youngafrica twitterfeed made very clear is that countries in Africa are connecting to the world wide web and using/engaging in social media conversations. Also, even if we often ignore what is happening there stateside, they are acutely aware of what is happening stateside. If we want to have a successful future we will need to meaningfully engage the various countries and populations that were previously left out, both at home and abroad, in a two way conversation about the future. I am still convinced that there is no way these conversations can exist without the use of digital media. This forum was a big first step. Now we have to keep the conversation going and with policy and processes, research and action.
The one thing that I took from all these conversations and the forum was this: #youngafrica is moving from the past and looking towards the future. Are you?
