I find this article interesting in that part of what's necessary for successful start-up industry is freedom of which Zimbabwe has none. As a person of African descent and a Latin American living in the U.S. I am constantly struck by leaders who do not understand the world economy or simply dont care. A country like Zimbabwe, if they were to invest in their youth in say OLPC for instance or sending x number of students to study Computer Science or Engineering abroad; they would see an untold benefit societally in 15 to 25 years. Unfortunately we cant account for human greed and corruption which drives the Mugabes of the the world.
The problem is that giving kids laptops does not make them smarter. OLPCs are not magical teachers.
Also, especially in Zimbabwe, if you invest in sending children abroad to study, they will probably never come back. One of their biggest problems for the future is the mass exodus of intelligent, educated people from the country.
I of course was referring to some system where if I pay for your education you come back and work in the country fro x number of years. It cant just be a system where the government pays for the education of a few hundred or thousand people and they move to New York or London. There have to be other factors whereby the government and private industry make it attractive for people to come back and start technology start-ups.
I see this as a knee-jerk solution, but once these educated children see the western world, they will not want to stay in Zimbabwe; to force them to stay is tantamount to indentured servitude.
I've been thinking about possible solutions for Zimbabwe, but there aren't many. The first step is to remove Robert Mugabe from power and, probably with international help, instill some sort of civility and credibility in the government there by appointing a just governor. But there are no protections against what happened to Mugabe happening to the new president/ruler. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Orwell said.
In the short term, Zimbabwe is kind of screwed. They have a hyperintelligent criminal dictator, a mass exodus of their most intelligent and rich people, and inflation so high that conducting business is impossible. And the government there doesn't seem to be doing anything drastic to fix these problems.
It's sad. More than ten million people live there in extreme poverty. And just ten years ago, it had some of the highest standards of living in all of Africa.
You can make it attractive, but trying to force them to stay for x years is probably useless. You have to let people go where their abilities take them. Maybe offer loans to start businesses for those who chose to stay. The mandated stay stuff won't work, I would venture.
