TED Global Day Two (or at least half of it)

Only half because I got sick for the second part of the day and had to go lie down. Sorry guys, but I was in no shape to even pay attention. I will try to be coherent, but I am trying to do this quickly so I can get back to bed.

OK, let's start this post with a puzzle from Jay Walker: What job could a person perform with only a cell phone and a fluency in English? Jay posed this question to the group by way of talking about capital tools. If you have a bicycle, you have a job. If you have a sewing machine you have a job. Bicycles and sewing machines are capital tools. So is a cell phone. If you have a cell phone you have a job, but what is it? Sure you could make calls for people and charge over what your minutes cost you, but that isn't really a job. Jay believes that if we solve this problem we can create 10,000,000 new jobs. Taking all entries. I'll be happy to pass them along to Jay.

Some very strong speakers this morning starting with Eleni Gabre-Madhin who in her bio states that her goal is transform the lives of millions of small farmers in Ethiopia so that they may empower themselves and lift themselves out of poverty through the market  – establishing the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange. Eleni was a great example, I think, of classic principles brought to bear on a large scale problem, taking advantage of available technology. She started by saying that markets don't happen by accident and to have an agriculture market that is more than subsistence farming you need to build an infrastructure designed to equalize the swings between harvest time when farmers are forced to sell low and the lean times when they are forced to by high. Eleni talked about the beginnings of the Chicago Board of Trade as a similar situation, but she went further, integrating through technology (V-SAT) all of the pieces of information necessary to build a system of warehousing and futures trading so that farmers "won't go to market blind."

Idris Mohammed, a private equity pioneer, who said that energy is the next big job in Africa. Idris had a lot of charts that were small and hard to follow. But he started with a great statement about language. "Language is a problem. We use words like poverty reduction instead of wealth creation. I'm interested in making Africans rich." Some of the numbers that I was able to follow: average African electricity usage is 150 kilowatt hours vs. 14,000 kilowatt hours in the US (that's per week I think). The investment needed is 70 billion. Currently Africa receives 2 billion in private equity and 35 billion in aid. Idris said that Bono should be talking to the G8 to create a fund to create jobs around bringing energy to Africa. I had the opportunity to ride to the hotel from the airport with Idris. I asked him what form of power (fossil fuels, wind, hydro), he said that most likely it would be fossil fuels. It seems we can't avoid creating problems even when we are solving them. Both options are grave.

The first TED Tuesday when I get back will be Jacqueline Novogratz from a few years ago. After that we'll discuss her eloquent and passionate talk here "The Education of a Patient Capitalist." I found Jacqueline to be the most moving speaker so far and frankly I just don't have the energy to do it justice, so for those of you in Detroit, look forward to that.

That's it for tonight.

Love and kisses,
Don