Where is Africa Going Wrong?-- Out-of-the-Box Thinking in an In-the-Box World (by Philip Emeagwali)

I once believed that capital was another word for money, the accumulated wealth of a country or its people. Surely, I thought, wealth is determined by the money or property in one’s possession. Then I saw a Deutsche Bank advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that proclaimed: “Ideas are capital. The rest is just money.”

I was struck by the simplicity of such an eloquent and forceful idea. I started imagining what such power meant for Africa. The potential for progress and poverty alleviation in Africa relies on capital generated from the power within our minds, not from our ability to pick minerals from the ground or seek debt relief and foreign assistance.

If ideas are capital, why is Africa investing more on things than on information, and more on the military than on education?...

( to read the rest of this thought provoking article, please follow the link below...)

http://emeagwali.com/speeches/africa/where-is-africa-going-wrong.pdf