Met Mr. Ajay Banga The New Head Of World Bank, His Passion For Africa By (Strive Masiyiwa)

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Met Mr. Ajay Banga The New Head Of World Bank, His Passion For Africa By (Strive Masiyiwa)​

Hope for Africans as Strive Masiyiwa, an African renowned entrepreneur and philanthropist recently had the opportunity to meet Mr. Ajay Banga, the new head of the World Bank. As one of the most influential African businesspeople of our time

Mr. Masiyiwa was impressed by the passion that Mr. Banga had for Africa, Afric entrepreneurs, and the development of the African continent. In this thread, Masiyiwa has discussed his expectation from Mr. Ajay Banga the New head of World Bank

Strive Masiyiwa writes: Did you hear the news?​

__This could be a game changer for Africa and its entrepreneurs.

When I used to post regularly across Social Media as part of our entrepreneurship senior class, I urged you to keep an eye on the big events domestically in your own country, continentally, and globally that could impact what you do.

One of the big events of the last two weeks was the announced retirement of the head of the World Bank. Since it was not expected, it sent shock waves around the world as we all waited to see who would be the successor. America as the largest single shareholder of the bank makes an appointment.

The US was quick to announce its nominee for the position, a seasoned business leader and former executive chairman of MasterCard, Mr. Ajay Banga. To be honest with you, I’m very pleased with this choice, because I happen to know Ajay Banga and have always been impressed by what he did at MasterCard.

Anyone who can take a $20bn company and grow it 10X to over $200bn is always going to get my attention. But that isn’t all; Ajay Banga, who was born in India, has a real passion for Africa and that is how we first met.

He helped set up the MasterCard Foundation, the only global foundation to focus almost exclusively on Africa, and has moved its headquarters to Kigali. During the Pandemic, when we were desperately trying to raise billions of dollars to buy vaccines, Mastercard Foundation chipped in with $500m for vaccines and almost $2bn to support the Africa Center For Disease Control.

After hearing about his nomination, I reached out to Ajay almost immediately, as approachable as ever.

Ajay said, “Strive I want to hear your thoughts about how I can help Africa realize its vast potential”. Since I was actually in New York we agreed to meet right away.

“Ajay, I want to talk to you about Africa’s young entrepreneurs and how they can help transform our continent”, I told him, also published on Africa SOSO Social Media

He beamed broadly, and said, “I'm keen to hear from you about this. Remember I’m from business and I know you.” “We need to help Africa’s young entrepreneurs get better access to venture capital and to ensure proper infrastructure that supports economic activity," I continued.

“Africa needs real investment to support growth. We get less FDI than Singapore which has a population of 4m compared to our 1.3bn.” You guys know me; I made my pitch using all the data, and he listened intently because we speak the same language.

And so we talked.

I’m not saying he will deliver but it’s not every day that we get a candidate for this job who has his credentials. Let’s give him a chance. It could be a game-changer.

Why don't you introduce yourselves? Some of you have been entrepreneurial #SolutionSeekers on this platform here for almost a decade now. "From rising temperatures to rising inequality, we are facing some of the most trying challenges of our time, and none of us will succeed unless we all can succeed". Ajay Banga


#SolutionSeekers
#EntrepreneurIt
#EaglesInAStorm

Source: also Sign Up to worldofrumLIVE.com, view the Marketplace for more incentives, and read further the afterthoughts 1,2 and 3 by strive Strive Masiyiwa

 

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Afterthought 1.
"We have the Internet of Everything but not the inclusion of Everyone". Ajay Banga

 

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Afterthought 2.
Last year I was invited to take part in a podcast series called "Faith Driven Entrepreneur" where I was interviewed by entrepreneurs Henry Kaestner [USA] and Ndidi Nwuneli [Nigeria].

For those of you who may be interested, here's a link 'Episode 2 - Cultivating a Faith Stronger Than Fear' to the podcast or you can just read the transcripts. Have a blessed day, every day.

 

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Afterthought 3.
I will try to share more with you on this here soon, but today I wanted to let you know about a new #Partnership with Microsoft that we launched together in the past week.

"Liquid Intelligent Technologies, a business of Cassava Technologies, announced a new collaboration to deliver internet access to 20 million underserved people in Africa by the end of 2025, with Microsoft Corporation.

Working together through Microsoft’s Airband initiative, the new collaboration will initially target regions that include but are not limited to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Zambia. Additionally, the partnership will allow for increased proliferation of high-speed connectivity to the farthest parts of Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa" You can read more about it here. As shared by Strive Masiyiwa

 

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Afterthought 4.
I trust many of you are busy upskilling yourselves, and I'm interested to hear how it's going. I have already shared information about this ALXAfrica program here before but wanted to share again because it's a valuable [though very rigorous] 12-month program for you to consider if you want to learn a tech skill very much in demand.

Please share this on other platforms, as well as about any other useful online skills programs you know about or have participated in as a learner [or even as a teacher]. ALX is just one and I'll share more about others later on. We have some we run with our own companies, too.