Ethioguide.com
Printer Friendly Version
Back to Ethioguide News Page
Remarks by Noah Samara, CEO of WorldSpace at the African Enterprise Networks Millennium Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 14 October 2000
Prime Minister Zenawi, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow entrepreneurs, good morning. I want to thank the organizers of the Enterprise Networks' Millennium Conference for inviting me to a gathering of such creative men and women. I am honored to be here, and I will be brief.
What is the essence of an entrepreneur? I believe two familiar quotations get to the core of what we entrepreneurs are really about.
The first is from a leader, known for his boldness and originality, who said, "I don't want people who want to do business. I want people who have to do business."
The second is from a famous commentator who wrote, "No great entrepreneur sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an entrepreneur."
Photo: WorldSpace Corp.
True entrepreneurs are spirits who possess great desire and great creativity.
Now a confession: I took some liberties with these quotations.
The first is from the legendary choreographer George Balanchine, who actually said, "I don't want people who want to dance. I want people who have to dance."
In truth, the other comes from playwright Oscar Wilde, who wrote: "No great artist sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist."
Business is an art. This view was expressed by no less an authority than Andy Warhol, who painted images of soup cans and made a fortune. "Making money," Warhol said, "is art and . . . good business is the best art."
The question is: what kind of art is business?
Politics has been described as "the art of the possible."
Let me suggest that business is the art of the impossible.
Like artists, entrepreneurs don't simply create that which does not exist. They also defy common notions of what can be done.
There is no such thing as a blue horse. You have never seen a blue horse-not one that is alive and kicking that is. But that does not stop a painter from envisioning a vibrant sky-blue cobalt stallion. It is a creature the likes of which no one has ever seen in the natural world. But what others see and think matters not at all to the artist. She sees a blue horse in her mind, and then she makes it real on canvas.
Today, we take tiny wireless phones, inexpensive fax machines and personal computers for granted. But at one time - not so long ago - all of these devices were as outlandish as a bright sky-blue horse. But an entrepreneur like you had the creativity, the desire, the abandon and the persistence to make it happen.
This success enriches the entrepreneur and his or her family. It also enriches the nation. And it enriches the lives of countless people, by giving products or services that give individuals greater convenience, effectiveness or ease.
Entrepreneurs shape our world. As personal computers and cell phones have gotten less expensive, they have become more common. It is not just a matter of adding PCs and cell phones to today's society. These devices have helped produce different societies, transforming the way we work and live. By doing the impossible, we entrepreneurs change the equation of entire societies.
Hindsight is always 20/20. After an entrepreneurial creation becomes real, it can seem the achievement was destined to occur, that it was preordained and inevitable. After an entrepreneurial creation you often hear others remark:
· He had the foresight to see this and he made tons of money, or
· She was at the right time, at the right place. Wasn't she lucky?
You would have had a hard time convincing Paul Galvin that success was preordained. The only thing that seemed inevitable to him was going broke, something he did three times. But he was an entrepreneur. He had the foresight to envision a product that would serve a real need. And he had character, intelligence, courage and wit. And, yes, at some point he received fate's elusive smile. Chances are that you don't know the name Paul Galvin and that you probably don't know he devised the first mass-produced car radio.
But all of you know the company he founded.
It's called Motorola.
In a sense, an entrepreneur is not a person so much as it is a spirit. This spirit touches different people at different times for different reasons. When this spirit stirs the right soul, remarkable things happen. One day spirit, soul and character come together and a guy gets up to create Intel, or Microsoft or Ford.
One morning, over a decade ago, I got up and opened the morning newspaper. It contained an article about how AIDS was spreading rapidly through Africa because the continent lacked infrastructure to alert people about the epidemic. The article predicted a catastrophe of holocaust proportions. Reality has surpassed the predictions!
Africans were not just dying of disease. They were dying of ignorance.
I became convinced of the urgent need to create a platform to deliver information to vast areas efficiently, economically and practically.
At the time, I was an attorney and advisor to a US company that was using satellites to send digital data to small terminals mounted on trucks. If it was possible to send digital data to satellite terminals on trucks in the USA, why not broadcast digital audio from satellites to directly to small receivers in African homes, schools and hospitals? Why not, indeed. A satellite-based platform to deliver information to all of Africa would be efficient, economic and practical. Most of all, it was doable.
The question was: who would do it?
I took this plan to government agencies and NGOs. They said the system was a brilliant way to advance social and economic development in Africa. I took the idea to corporations. They said the system was a great way to capitalize on Africa's underserved markets. All of them said the nicest things. But none of them were willing to step forward to make it happen.
I took the idea to many people and institutions, but no one would run with the ball.
I didn't matter to me who would build it. The important thing was that Africa absolutely had to have it. To make this happen 1) A New Technology had to be created; 2) Governments around the world had to be convinced to allocate scared radio frequencies for the service; 3) Industrial Partners had to be secured: 4) Financing had to be obtained. And many other things had to be done - each task as daunting as the other!
In the words of an old African-American saying, I realized if it's going to be, it's up to me.
So, my friends, I became an entrepreneur because I had to.
In 1990, I founded WorldSpace. It was, at the time, an idea, a mere dream.
There is an old and wonderful proverb that says "If you want your dreams to come true, don't sleep." We have worked very hard, and lost lots of sleep.
To make short the story of a long and arduous struggle, in October 1998, WorldSpace launched AfriStar, the first satellite in our constellation. More significantly, AfriStar is the first satellite expressly designed, built and launched to serve Africa. More recently we launched our second satellite to cover Asia.
In October 1999, AfriStar began commercial service, making Africa the first place on Earth to experience satellite-direct audio and multimedia broadcasting. Today - right now - you can get nearly 40 channels of digital audio here in Addis Ababa directly from AfriStar. It's first-rate content: music, news and entertainment - much of it available only via WorldSpace. You can hear it in Addis and all of Africa, everywhere from Dakar to Djibouti, Cairo to Cape Town.
WorldSpace will mean a choice of quality programs for millions of households across the continent. It will mean larger audiences for African broadcasters, greater reach for Africa's advertisers. It will also mean a lifeline of information for villages that have been bypassed by other communications systems. It means we now have a practical and economical way to reach and educate the 80 million African children who are out of school.
For Africa, the WorldSpace infrastructure ultimately means information affluence, the essential precursor to material affluence.
After great effort, our enterprise is now poised to generate wealth and deliver value. Like you, we have had to fight so often and in so many ways to advance our business. We accept this as our lot. The art of the impossible will never be easy.
You will hear more about WorldSpace and how you can be involved at tomorrow's session. Please, also visit our stand on the ground floor.
But even with all its burdens and risks, being an entrepreneur is worth doing. And for the economic well-being of communities and nations, it is crucial that this activity is done. And so it is imperative that governments do all they can to treat entrepreneurs in a way that is rational, clear and fair. Above all, governments have to be objective.
Governments must be adamant about creating a level playing field for all businesses. Free markets deliver value through competition. And for competition to function effectively, it must be fair.
There are real consequences when a government economically favors one group over another. It makes competition a travesty, squanders trust and feeds cynicism.
And when bureaucrats use public office for private gain, entrepreneurs suffer, as does the nation. There is hard evidence that corruption is detrimental to many aspects of economic development. Research has proven that a decline in corruption results in rising economic growth. Corruption stifles investment by raising the risks that investors must bear. Even education - the cornerstone of economic growth - can become a victim of corruption when dishonest officials divert funds away from schools and students toward large-scale projects that are harder to manage and thus easier to perpetrate graft and fraud.
Prime Minister Zenawi, distinguished government officials, I ask you - I implore you. Please do all you can to ensure that entrepreneurs receive treatment that is fair, rational and transparent from government. Such treatment will empower entrepreneurs to create great things. By doing so, they will create wealth that will be the foundation for sustainable development and prosperity.
This is a remarkable occasion. Entrepreneurs from the East, South and West of Africa have gathered here in Addis Ababa. While this is a conference, we have the chance to do more than just speak and listen. We have the chance to do what entrepreneurs do best: create.
Why can't we create, right here and now a pan-African Enterprise Network? Why not?! I ask you, my fellow artists, is this impossible enough to interest you? Is this horse a bright enough shade of blue for you to want to get up and ride it, here now! Or are you scared to launch such an enterprise right here and now? Some thoughts about making this network real and profitable.
If we intend to create a pan-African Enterprise network, it must be entrepreneurial. The opportunity is clear. In this room we command remarkable resources of information. You, my friends, are experts in how to do business in Africa. You know how to structure enterprises on this continent, how to save money, where to cut and where to add. And if you don't know it, you know exactly whom to ask.
If we put our hearts and minds and spirits and discipline behind it, our network could become the perfect one-stop shop to serve companies that want to enter the African market.
Who would turn to the pan-African Enterprise Network? WorldSpace Corporation will be your first customer. Right now, WorldSpace has launched marketing efforts in only a handful of African countries, but we want to be everywhere on the continent. To build up organizations on our own in every African country could take years and cost a great deal of money.
Working through the pan-African Enterprise Network, WorldSpace could do the same thing, only better, faster and cheaper.
We can make it happen in our own way, in an African way. There's no reason for the organization of this network to be another import from the industrialized world. This can be a true reflection of our minds and hearts.
What you make out of this opportunity is up to you. We can start it today, or we can think about it and talk about it and talk and think some more.
You can either choose to ride a horse, or you can ponder the ponies and wonder what it must be like.
As for me, my dear colleagues, I choose to always ride! And I would ask that you put my saddle on that big, sky-blue stallion that I know is out there!
My friends, fellow entrepreneurs, artists who use human intelligence, technology and capital to create impossible works on limitless canvas of our world, I thank you for letting me join you on this special occasion.
As entrepreneurs, we want to be on the cutting edge.
But this morning I would like to leave you with words written more than 700 years ago.
"Art is simply a right method of doing things," wrote St. Thomas Aquinas. "The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces."
May success crown your excellence. And may your impossible creations change the world.
Above all, may you find your own blue horse to get you to your goals! Individually and collectively.
Thank you.