Chris Anderson: So two months ago, something crazy happened. Can you talk us through this, because this caught so many people's attention? Gwynne Shotwell: I'll stay quiet for the beginning, and then I'll start talking. (Video) Voices: Five, four, three, two, one. (Cheering) Woman: Liftoff. Go Falcon Heavy. GS: So this was such an important moment for SpaceX. With the Falcon 9 and now the Falcon Heavy, we can launch into orbit any payload that has previously been conceived or is conceived right now. We've got a couple of launches of Falcon Heavy later this year, so this had to go right. It was the first time we flew it, and the star of the show, of course, brother and sister side boosters landing. I was excited. (Laughter) Thanking my team. By the way, there's maybe a thousand people standing around me right there. And Starman. Starman did not steal the show, though -- the boosters did. CA: (Laughter) CA: There had to be some payload -- why not put a Tesla into space? GS: Exactly. It was perfect. CA: Gwynne, let's wind the clock back. I mean, how did you end up an engineer and President of SpaceX? Were you supernerdy as a girl? GS: I don't think I was nerdy, but I was definitely doing the things that the girls weren't doing. I asked my mom, who was an artist, when I was in third grade, how a car worked, so she had no idea so she gave me a book, and I read it, and sure enough, my first job out of my mechanical engineering degree was with Chrysler Motors in the automotive industry. But I actually got into engineering not because of that book but because my mom took me to a Society of Women Engineers event, and I fell in love with the mechanical engineer that spoke. She was doing really critical work, and I loved her suit. (Laughter) And that's what a 15-year-old girl connects with. And I used to shy away from telling that story, but if that's what caused me to be an engineer -- hey, I think we should talk about that. CA: Sixteen years ago, you became employee number seven at SpaceX, and then over the next years, you somehow built a multi-billion-dollar relationship with NASA, despite the fact that SpaceX's first three launches blew up. I mean, how on earth did you do that? GS: So actually, selling rockets is all about relationships and making a connection with these customers. When you don't have a rocket to sell, what's really important is selling your team, selling the business savvy of your CEO -- that's not really hard to sell these days -- and basically, making sure that any technical issue that they have or any concern, you can address right away. So I think it was helpful for me to be an engineer. I think it was helpful to my role of running sales for Elon. CA: And currently, a big focus of the company is, I guess, kind of a race with Boeing to be the first to provide the service to NASA of actually putting humans into orbit. Safety considerations obviously come to the fore, here. How are you sleeping? GS: I actually sleep really well. I'm a good sleeper, that's my best thing. But I think the days leading up to our flying crew will probably be a little sleepless. But really, fundamentally, safety comes in the design of the system that you're going to fly people on, and so we've been working for years, actually, almost a decade, on this technology. We're taking the Dragon cargo spaceship and we're upgrading it to be able to carry crew. And as I said, we've been engineering in these safety systems for quite some time. CA: So isn't it that there's one system that actually allows instant escape if there's a problem. GS: That's right. It's called the launch escape system. CA: I think we have that. Let's show that. GS: We've got a video of a test that we ran in 2015. So this simulated having a really bad day on the pad. Basically, you want the capsule to get out of Dodge. You want it to get away from the rocket that had a bad day right below it. This is if there was an issue on the pad. We also will be doing another demonstration later this year on if we have an issue with the rocket during flight. CA: And those rockets have another potential function as well, eventually. GS: Yeah, so the launch escape system for Dragon is pretty unique. It's an integrated launch escape system. It's basically a pusher, so the propellant system and the thrusters are integrated into the capsule, and so if it detects a rocket problem, it pushes the capsule away. Capsule safety systems in the past have been like tractor pullers, and the reason we didn't want to do that is that puller needs to come off before you can safely reenter that capsule, so we wanted to eliminate, in design, that possibility of failure. CA: I mean, SpaceX has made the regular reusability of rockets seem almost routine, which means you've done something that no national space program, for example, has been able to achieve. How was that possible? GS: I think there's a couple of things -- there's a million things, actually -- that have allowed SpaceX to be successful. The first is that we're kind of standing on the shoulders of giants. Right? We got to look at the rocket industry and the developments to date, and we got to pick the best ideas, leverage them. We also didn't have technology that we had to include in our vehicle systems. So we didn't have to design around legacy components that maybe weren't the most reliable or were particularly expensive, so we really were able to let physics drive the design of these systems. CA: I mean, there are other programs started from scratch. That last phrase you said there, you let physics drive the design, what's an example of that? GS: There's hundreds of examples, actually, of that, but basically, we got to construct the vehicle design from, really, a clean sheet of paper, and we got to make decisions that we wanted to make. The tank architecture -- it's a common dome design. Basically it's like two beer cans stacked together, one full of liquid oxygen, one full of RP, and that basically saved weight. It allowed us to basically take more payload for the same design. One of the other elements of the vehicle that we're flying right now is we do use densified liquid oxygen and densified RP, so it's ultracold, and it allows you to pack more propellent into the vehicle. It is done elsewhere, probably not to the degree that we do it, but it adds a lot of margin to the vehicle, which obviously adds reliability. CA: Gwynne, you became President of SpaceX 10 years ago, I think. What's it been like to work so closely with Elon Musk? GS: So I love working for Elon. I've been doing it for 16 years this year, actually. I don't think I'm dumb enough to do something for 16 years that I don't like doing. He's funny and fundamentally without him saying anything he drives you to do your best work. He doesn't have to say a word. You just want to do great work. CA: You might be the person best placed to answer this question, which has puzzled me, which is to shed light on this strange unit of time called "Elon time." For example, last year, I asked Elon, you know, when Tesla would auto-drive across America, and he said by last December, which is definitely true, if you take Elon time into account. So what's the conversion ratio between Elon time and real time? (Laughter) GS: You put me in a unique position, Chris. Thanks for that. There's no question that Elon is very aggressive on his timelines, but frankly, that drives us to do things better and faster. I think all the time and all the money in the world does not yield the best solution, and so putting that pressure on the team to move quickly is really important. CA: It feels like you play kind of a key intermediary role here. I mean, he sets these crazy goals that have their impact, but, in other circumstances, might blow up a team or set impossible expectations. It feels like you've found a way of saying, "Yes, Elon," and then making it happen in a way that is acceptable both to him and to your company, to your employees. GS: There is two really important realizations for that. First of all, when Elon says something, you have to pause and not immediately blurt out, "Well, that's impossible," or, "There's no way we're going to do that. I don't know how." So you zip it, and you think about it, and you find ways to get that done. And the other thing I realized, and it made my job satisfaction substantially harder. So I always felt like my job was to take these ideas and kind of turn them into company goals, make them achievable, and kind of roll the company over from this steep slope, get it comfortable. And I noticed every time I felt like we were there, we were rolling over, people were getting comfortable, Elon would throw something out there, and all of a sudden, we're not comfortable and we're climbing that steep slope again. But then once I realized that that's his job, and my job is to get the company close to comfortable so he can push again and put us back on that slope, then I started liking my job a lot more, instead of always being frustrated. CA: So if I estimated that the conversation ratio for Elon time to your time is about 2x, am I a long way out there? GS: That's not terrible, and you said it, I didn't. (Laughter) CA: You know, looking ahead, one huge initiative SpaceX is believed to be, rumored to be working on, is a massive network of literally thousands of low earth orbit satellites to provide high-bandwidth, low-cost internet connection to every square foot of planet earth. Is there anything you can tell us about this? GS: We actually don't chat very much about this particular project, not because we're hiding anything, but this is probably one of the most challenging if not the most challenging project we've undertaken. No one has been successful deploying a huge constellation for internet broadband, or basically for satellite internet, and I don't think physics is the difficulty here. I think we can come up with the right technology solution, but we need to make a business out of it, and it'll cost the company about 10 billion dollars or more to deploy this system. And so we're marching steadily along but we're certainly not claiming victory yet. CA: I mean, the impact of that, obviously, if that happened to the world, of connectivity everywhere, would be pretty radical, and perhaps mainly for good -- I mean, it changes a lot if suddenly everyone can connect cheaply. GS: Yeah, there's no question it'll change the world. CA: How much of a worry is it, and how much of a drag on the planning is it, are concerns just about space junk? People worry a lot about this. This would a huge increase in the total number of satellites in orbit. Is that a concern? GS: So space debris is a concern, there's no question -- not because it's so likely to happen, but the consequences of it happening are pretty devastating. You could basically spew a bunch of particles in orbit that could take out that orbit from being useful for decades or longer. So as a matter of fact, we are required to bring down our second stage after every mission so it doesn't end up being a rocket carcass orbiting earth. So you really need to be a good steward of that. CA: So despite the remarkable success there of that Falcon Heavy rocket, you're actually not focusing on that as your future development plan. You're doubling down to a much bigger rocket called the BFR, which stands for ... GS: It's the Big Falcon Rocket. CA: The Big Falcon Rocket, that's right. (Laughter) What's the business logic of doing this when you invested all that in that incredible technology, and now you're just going to something much bigger. Why? GS: Actually, we've learned some lessons over the duration where we've been developing these launch systems. What we want to do is not introduce a new product before we've been able to convince the customers that this is the product that they should move to, so we're working on the Big Falcon Rocket now, but we're going to continue flying Falcon 9s and Falcon Heavies until there is absolute widespread acceptance of BFR. But we are working on it right now, we're just not going to cancel Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy and just put in place BFR. CA: The logic is that BFR is what you need to take humanity to Mars? GS: That's correct. CA: But somehow, you've also found other business ideas for this. GS: Yes. BFR can take the satellites that we're currently taking to orbit to many orbits. It allows for even a new class of satellites to be delivered to orbit. Basically, the width, the diameter of the fairing is eight meters, so you can think about what giant telescopes you can put in that fairing, in that cargo bay, and see really incredible things and discover incredible things in space. But then there are some residual capabilities that we have out of BFR as well. CA: A residual capability? GS: It's a residual capability. CA: Is that what you call this? Talk about what the heck this is. Oh wait a sec -- GS: That's Falcon Heavy. That's worth pointing out, by the way. What a beautiful rocket, and that hangar could just fit the Statue of Liberty in it, so you get a sense of size of that Falcon Heavy Rocket. CA: And the fact that there are 27 engines there. That's part of the design principle that you, rather than just inventing ever bigger rockets, you team them up. GS: It's exactly this residual capability. We developed the Merlin engine for the Falcon 1 launch vehicle. We could have tossed that engine and built an entirely new engine for the Falcon 9. It would have been called something different, because Falcon 9 is nine Merlin engines, but instead of spending a billion dollars on a brand new engine, we put nine of them together on the back end of Falcon 9. Residual capability: glue three Falcon 9s together and you have the largest operational rocket flying. And so it was expensive to do, but it was a much more efficient path than starting from scratch. CA: And the BFR is the equivalent of how much bigger than that, in terms of its power? GS: BFR is about, I believe, two and half times the size of this. CA: Right, and so that allows you -- I mean, I still don't really believe this video that we're about to play here. What on earth is this? GS: So it currently is on earth, but this is basically space travel for earthlings. I can't wait for this residual capability. Basically, what we're going to do is we're going to fly BFR like an aircraft and do point-to-point travel on earth, so you can take off from New York City or Vancouver and fly halfway across the globe. You'll be on the BFR for roughly half an hour or 40 minutes, and the longest part -- yeah, it's so awesome. (Applause) The longest part of that flight is actually the boat out and back. (Laughter) CA: I mean. Gwynne, come on, this is awesome, but it's crazy, right? This is never going to actually happen. GS: Oh no, it's definitely going to happen. This is definitely going to happen. CA: How? (Applause) So first of all, countries are going to accept this incoming missile -- (Laughter) GS: Chris, so can you imagine us trying to convince a federal range, Air Force bases to take the incomers? Because we're doing it now, regularly, right? We're bringing the first stages back, and we're landing them on federal property on an Air Force base. So I think doing it, I don't know, 10 kilometers out from a city, maybe it's only five kilometers out from a city. CA: So how many passengers can possibly afford the fortune of flying by space? GS: So the first BFR is going to have roughly a hundred passengers. And let's talk a little bit about the business. Everyone thinks rockets are really expensive, and to a large degree they are, and how could we possibly compete with airline tickets here? But if you think about it, if I can do this trip in half an hour to an hour, I can do dozens of these a day, right? And yet, a long-haul aircraft can only make one of those flights a day. So even if my rocket was slightly more expensive and the fuel is a little bit more expensive, I can run 10x at least what they're running in a day, and really make the revenue that I need to out of that system. CA: So you really believe this is going to be deployed at some point in our amazing future. When? GS: Within a decade, for sure. CA: And this is Gwynne time or Elon time? GS: That's Gwynne time. I'm sure Elon will want us to go faster. (Laughter) CA: OK, that's certainly amazing. (Laughter) GS: I'm personally invested in this one, because I travel a lot and I do not love to travel, and I would love to get to see my customers in Riyadh, leave in the morning and be back in time to make dinner. CA: So we're going to test this out. So within 10 years, an economy price ticket, or, like, a couple thousand dollars per person to fly New York to Shanghai. GS: Yeah, I think it'll be between economy and business, but you do it in an hour. CA: Yeah, well, OK, that is definitely something. (Laughter) And meanwhile, the other use of BFR is being developed to go a little bit further than Shanghai. Talk about this. You guys have actually developed quite a detailed, sort of, picture of how humans might fly to Mars, and what that would look like. GS: Yeah. So we've got a video, this is a cropped video from others we've shown, and then there's a couple of new bits to it. But basically, you're going to lift off from a pad, you've got a booster as well as the BFS, the Big Falcon Spaceship. It's going to take off. The booster is going to drop the spaceship off in orbit, low earth orbit, and then return just like we're returning boosters right now. So it sounds incredible, but we're working on the pieces, and you can see us achieve these pieces. So booster comes back. The new thing here is that we're going to actually land on the pad that we launched from. Currently, we land on a separate pad, or we land out on a boat. Fast, quick connect. You take a cargo ship full of fuel, or a fuel depot, put it on that booster, get that in orbit, do a docking maneuver, refuel the spaceship, and head on to your destination, and this one is Mars. CA: So, like, a hundred people go to Mars at one time, taking, what, six months? Two months? GS: It ends up depending on how big the rocket is. I think this first version, and we'll continue to make even bigger BFRs, I think it's a three-month trip. Right now, the average is six to eight, but we're going to try to do it faster. CA: When do you believe SpaceX will land the first human on Mars? GS: It's a very similar time frame from the point-to-point. It's the same capability. It will be within a decade -- not this decade. CA: In real time, again, within a decade. Well, that would also be amazing. (Laughter) Why, though? Seriously, why? I mean, you've got a company where this is the official stated mission. Has everyone actually bought into that mission, given that, I mean, there's a lot of people around who think, come on, you've got so much talent, so much technology capability. There are so many things on earth that need urgent attention. Why would you have this escape trip off to another planet? (Applause) GS: So I am glad you asked that, but I think we need to expand our minds a little bit. There are plenty of things to do on earth, but there are lots of companies working on that. I think we're working on one of the most important things we possibly can, and that's to find another place for humans to live and survive and thrive. If something happened on earth, you need humans living somewhere else. (Applause) It's the fundamental risk reduction for the human species. And this does not subvert making our planet here better and doing a better job taking care of it, but I think you need multiple paths to survival, and this is one of them. And let's not talk about the downer piece, like, you go to Mars to make sure all earthlings don't die. That's terrible, actually, that's a terrible reason to go do it. Fundamentally, it's another place to explore, and that's what makes humans different from animals, it's our sense of exploration and sense of wonderment and learning something new. And then I also have to say, this is the first step in us moving to other solar systems and potentially other galaxies, and I think this is the only time I ever out-vision Elon, because I want to meet other people in other solar systems. Mars is fine, but it is a fixer-upper planet. There's work to do there to make it habitable. (Laughter) I want to find people, or whatever they call themselves, in another solar system. CA: That is a big vision. Gwynne Shotwell, thank you. You have one of the most amazing jobs on the planet. GS: Thank you very much. Thanks, Chris. I was not one of those kids that knew exactly what they wanted to do when they were growing up. In the last 15 years of my career, I've been an English teacher, attorney, video game creator and now, a toilet paper salesman, selling millions of rolls of toilet paper a year. [The Way We Work] Life is about finding the intersection of what you really, really love with what you're really, really good at. As simple as it sounds, it's really not that easy to find. After a brief stint as an English teacher, I went to law school and ended up becoming an attorney at a big law firm here in New York City. Like most Americans, for the next two, three years, I was holding on to my job for dear life, working really late hours at a job that I thought maybe I was good at but certainly not one that I really loved. I then came upon the epiphany that it takes years if not tens of thousands of hours to get really madeline68@example.org. I really didn't have a lot of time to waste. This talk isn't for those looking to quit their job because they don't like their boss or they had a long madeline68@example.org. This is for those that are ready to make the completely scary leap into a brand-new career. So as you think about making a career change, here are a few tips I hope you consider and a few things I've picked up along the way. First, there's three things to think about before you're ready to move on. Number one: professional life is about learning. If you're not even interested in learning anymore, that's a huge red flag that there might not be a future for you in that industry. Number two: career changes are often gut-driven. If you constantly have sleepless nights where you're wide awake staring at the ceiling thinking, "Oh, man. I can't live with myself if I never try to make this change or if I don't even actually investigate it," then trust your gut. It might be time for that career change. On the flip side, one reason to not move on is short-term pain. If you don't like your boss or people at the office are grating on you, that's actually not a good reason to absolutely change your career, because when you do change a career, you generally have to start from the bottom, and you'll probably feel a lot of short-term pain, whether it's through a lack of salary or lack of a title. Pain at any job is inevitable. So now you're convinced that it's time to change your career. Then there's three things to do immediately. First: network, network, network. No one ever builds a career without a good mentor or a good support network. What I mean by networking is getting all the great advice that you can possibly get. Technology has made it so simple to reach out to new people to say, "Hey, I'm thinking about making a career change. Do you have just five minutes to chat with me?" That passion and that hunger and that ability to be a sponge really attracts awesome mentors and people willing to give you their time to give you some good advice. So go out there and meet new people. The second thing you need to do immediately is shore up your finances. The reality is, when you change your career, you'll either start with a job with a lower title or lower pay or maybe even no pay, especially if you're starting your own business. So going out there and making sure your finances are in order to make the transition less painful is really, really important. For me personally, as I made the transition from being an attorney over to a video game creator, I wanted to have at least six to 12 months of personal runway in the bank. Six to 12 months might not be the right number for you, but be honest with yourself on what that number should be. Number three, if you're not ready to make the full jump right at this moment, then get your side hustle on. Side hustles could be anything from volunteering with an organization that's in the new industry you want to go into, could be starting your business part-time on the weekends. It's a free way to get a taste to see if you really love something. So you're ready to make the move or maybe you already made the move. Here are three things you should think about doing, right now. One: do not -- I repeat -- do not burn bridges. You spent years building those bridges, why burn them now? The world is such a small place, especially with all these online platforms, that, believe me, you will see these people again and probably in the most inopportune times. Number two: take stock of what you've learned in your previous career or careers. Most likely, a lot of those things are really applicable to your new job and your new career, whether it's interacting with people, playing on a team or dealing with jerks and assholes. All those things are really universally applicable. You'll find jerks no matter what industry you're in; no one's immune to it, everyone's got to figure it out, and you probably know how to do it already. Lastly, when you start your new job, you're going to be nervous. But don't worry, take a deep breath, because this is what I want to tell you: you're part of a new team now, and everyone around you is rooting for your success, because your success is their success. So welcome to your new career. There are currently hundreds of thousands of people on transplant lists, waiting for critical organs like kidneys, hearts, and livers that could save their lives. Unfortunately, there aren’t nearly enough donor organs available to fill that demand. What if instead of waiting, we could create brand-new, customized organs from scratch? That’s the idea behind bioprinting, a branch of regenerative medicine currently under development. We’re not able to print complex organs just yet, but simpler tissues including blood vessels and tubes responsible for nutrient and waste exchange are already in our grasp. Bioprinting is a biological cousin of 3-D printing, a technique that deposits layers of material on top of each other to construct a three-dimensional object one slice at a time. Instead of starting with metal, plastic, or ceramic, a 3-D printer for organs and tissues uses bioink: a printable material that contains living cells. The bulk of many bioinks are water-rich molecules called hydrogels. Mixed into those are millions of living cells as well as various chemicals that encourage cells to communicate and grow. Some bioinks include a single type of cell, while others combine several different kinds to produce more complex structures. Let’s say you want to print a meniscus, which is a piece of cartilage in the knee that keeps the shinbone and thighbone from grinding against each other. It’s made up of cells called chondrocytes, and you’ll need a healthy supply of them for your bioink. These cells can come from donors whose cell lines are replicated in a lab. Or they might originate from a patient’s own tissue to create a personalized meniscus less likely to be rejected by their body. There are several printing techniques, and the most popular is extrusion-based bioprinting. In this, bioink gets loaded into a printing chamber and pushed through a round nozzle attached to a printhead. It emerges from a nozzle that’s rarely wider than 400 microns in diameter, and can produce a continuous filament roughly the thickness of a human fingernail. A computerized image or file guides the placement of the strands, either onto a flat surface or into a liquid bath that’ll help hold the structure in place until it stabilizes. These printers are fast, producing the meniscus in about half an hour, one thin strand at a time. After printing, some bioinks will stiffen immediately; others need UV light or an additional chemical or physical process to stabilize the structure. If the printing process is successful, the cells in the synthetic tissue will begin to behave the same way cells do in real tissue: signaling to each other, exchanging nutrients, and multiplying. We can already print relatively simple structures like this meniscus. Bioprinted bladders have also been successfully implanted, and printed tissue has promoted facial nerve regeneration in rats. Researchers have created lung tissue, skin, and cartilage, as well as miniature, semi-functional versions of kidneys, livers, and hearts. However, replicating the complex biochemical environment of a major organ is a steep challenge. Extrusion-based bioprinting may destroy a significant percentage of cells in the ink if the nozzle is too small, or if the printing pressure is too high. One of the most formidable challenges is how to supply oxygen and nutrients to all the cells in a full-size organ. That’s why the greatest successes so far have been with structures that are flat or hollow— and why researchers are busy developing ways to incorporate blood vessels into bioprinted tissue. There’s tremendous potential to use bioprinting to save lives and advance our understanding of how our organs function in the first place. And the technology opens up a dizzying array of possibilities, such as printing tissues with embedded electronics. Could we one day engineer organs that exceed current human capability, or give ourselves features like unburnable skin? How long might we extend human life by printing and replacing our organs? And exactly who—and what— will have access to this technology and its incredible output? It's very, very difficult to speak at the end of a conference like this, because everyone has spoken. Everything has been said. So I thought that what may be useful is to remind us of some of the things that have gone on here, and then maybe offer some ideas which we can take away, and take forward and work on. That's what I'd like to try and do. We came here saying we want to talk about "Africa: the Next Chapter." But we are talking about "Africa: the Next Chapter" because we are looking at the old and the present chapter -- that we're looking at, and saying it's not such a good thing. The picture I showed you before, and this picture, of drought, death and disease is what we usually see. What we want to look at is "Africa: the Next Chapter," and that's this: a healthy, smiling, beautiful African. And I think it's worth remembering what we've heard through the conference right from the first day, where I heard that all the important statistics have been given -- about where we are now, about how the continent is doing much better. And the importance of that is that we have a platform to build on. So I'm not going to spend too much time -- just to show you, refresh your memories that we are here for "Africa: the Next Chapter" because for the first time there really is a platform to build on. We really do have it going right that the continent is growing at rates that people had thought would not happen. After decades of 2 percent, we are now at 5 percent, and it's going to -- projected -- 6 and 7 percent even. And inflation has come down. External debt -- something that I can tell you a long story about because I personally worked on one of the biggest debts on the continent -- has come down dramatically. You know, as you can see, from almost 50 billion down to about 12 or 13 billion. Now this is a huge achievement. You know, we've built up reserves. Why is that important? It's because it shows off our economies, shows off our currencies and gives a platform on which people can plan and build, including businesses. We've also seen some evidence that all this is making a difference because private investment flows have increased. I want to remind you again -- I know you saw these statistics before -- from almost 6 billion we are now at about 18 billion. In 2005, remittances -- I just took one country, Nigeria skyrocketing -- skyrocketing is too dramatic, but increasing dramatically. And in many other countries this is happening. Why is this important? Because it shows confidence. People are now confident to bring -- if your people in the diaspora bring their money back, it shows other people that, look, there is emerging confidence in your country. And instead of an outflow, you are now getting a net inflow. Now, why is all this important, to have to go really fast? It's important that we build this platform, that we have the president, Kikwete, and others of our leaders who are saying, "Look, we must do something different." Because we are confronted with a challenge. 62 percent of our population is below the age of 24. What does this mean? This means that we have to focus on how our youth are going to be engaged in productive endeavor in their lives. You have to focus on how to create jobs, make sure they don't fall into disease, and that they get an education. But most of all that they are productively engaged in life, and that they are creating the kind of productive environment in our countries that will make things happen. And to support this, I just recently -- one of the things I've done since leaving government is to start an opinion research organization in Nigeria. Most of our countries don't even have any opinion research. People don't have voice. There is no way you can know what people want. One of the things we asked them recently was what's their top issue. Like in every other country where this has been done, jobs is the top issue. I want to leave this up here and come back to it. But before I get to this slide, I just wanted to run you through this. And to say that for me, the next stage of building this platform that now enables us to move forward -- and we mustn't make light of it. It was only 5, 6, 7 years ago we couldn't even talk about the next chapter, because we were in the old chapter. We were going nowhere. The economies were not growing. We were having negative per capita growth. The microeconomic framework and foundation for moving forward was not even there. So let's not forget that it's taken a lot to build this, including all those things that we tried to do in Nigeria that Dele referred to. Creating our own program to solve problems, like fighting corruption, building institutions, stabilizing the micro economy. So now we have this platform we can build on. And it brings us to the debate that has been going on here: aid versus private sector, aid versus trade, etc. And someone stood up to say that one of the frustrating things is that it's been a simplistic debate. And that's not what the debate should be about. That's engaging in the wrong debate. The issue here is how do we get a partnership that involves government donors, the private sector and ordinary African people taking charge of their own lives? How do we combine all this? To move our continent forward, to do the things that need doing that I talked about -- getting young people employed. Getting the creative juices flowing on this continent, much of what you have seen here. So I'm afraid we've been engaging a little bit in the wrong debate. We need to bring it back to say, what is the combination of all these factors that is going to yield what we want? (Applause) And I want to tell you something. For me, the issue about aid -- I don't think that Africans need to now go all the way over to the other side and feel bad about aid. Africa has been giving the other countries aid. Mo Ibrahim said at a debate we were at that he dreams one day when Africa will be giving aid. And I said, "Mo, you're right. We have -- no, but we've already been doing it! The U.K. and the U.S. could not have been built today without Africa's aid." (Applause) It is all the resources that were taken from Africa, including human, that built these countries today! So when they try to give back, we shouldn't be on the defensive. The issue is not that. The issue is how are we using what has been given back. How are we using it? Is it being directed effectively? I want to tell you a little story. Why I don't mind if we get aid, but we use it well. From 1967 to '70, Nigeria fought a war -- the Nigeria-Biafra war. And in the middle of that war, I was 14 years old. We spent much of our time with my mother cooking. For the army -- my father joined the army as a brigadier -- the Biafran army. We were on the Biafran side. And we were down to eating one meal a day, running from place to place, but wherever we could help we did. At a certain point in time, in 1969, things were really bad. We were down to almost nothing in terms of a meal a day. People, children were dying of kwashiorkor. I'm sure some of you who are not so young will remember those pictures. Well, I was in the middle of it. In the midst of all this, my mother fell ill with a stomach ailment for two or three days. We thought she was going to die. My father was not there. He was in the army. So I was the oldest person in the house. My sister fell very ill with malaria. She was three years old and I was 15. And she had such a high fever. We tried everything. It didn't look like it was going to work. Until we heard that 10 kilometers away there was a doctor, who was looking at people and giving them meds. Now I put my sister on my back -- burning -- and I walked 10 kilometers with her strapped on my back. It was really hot. I was very hungry. I was scared because I knew her life depended on my getting to this woman. We heard there was a woman doctor who was treating people. I walked 10 kilometers, putting one foot in front of the other. I got there and I saw huge crowds. Almost a thousand people were there, trying to break down the door. She was doing this in a church. How was I going to get in? I had to crawl in between the legs of these people with my sister strapped on my back, find a way to a window. And while they were trying to break down the door, I climbed in through the window, and jumped in. This woman told me it was in the nick of time. By the time we jumped into that hall, she was barely moving. She gave a shot of her chloroquine -- what I learned was the chloroquine then -- gave her some -- it must have been a re-hydration -- and some other therapies, and put us in a corner. In about two to three hours, she started to move. And then they toweled her down because she started sweating, which was a good sign. And then my sister woke up. And about five or six hours later, she said we could go home. I strapped her on my back. I walked the 10 kilometers back and it was the shortest walk I ever had. I was so happy -- (Applause) -- that my sister was alive! Today she's 41 years old, a mother of three, and she's a physician saving other lives. Why am I telling that? I'm telling you that because -- when it is you or your person involved -- you don't care where -- whether it's aid. You don't care what it is! (Applause) You just want the person to be alive! And now let me become less sentimental, and say that saving lives -- which some of the aid we get does on this continent -- when you save the life of anyone, a farmer, a teacher, a mother, they are contributing productively into the economy. And as an economist, we can also look at that side of the story. These are people who are productive agents in the economy. So if we save people from HIV/AIDS, if we save them from malaria, it means they can form the base of production for our economy. And by the same token -- as someone said yesterday -- if we don't and they die, their children will become a burden on the economy. So even from an economic standpoint, if we leave the social and the humanitarian, we need to save lives now. So that's one of the reasons, from a personal experience, that I say let's channel these resources we get into something productive. However, I will also tell you that I'm one of those who doesn't believe that this is the sole answer. That's why I said the debate has to get more sophisticated. You know, we have to use it well. What has happened in Europe? Do you all know that Spain -- part of the EU -- got 10 billion dollars in aid from the rest of the EU? Resources that were transferred to them -- and were the Spanish ashamed of this? No! The EU transferred 10 billion. Where did they use it? Have you been to southern Spain lately? There are roads everywhere. Infrastructure everywhere. It is on the back of this that the whole of southern Spain has developed into a services economy. Did you know that Ireland got 3 billion dollars in aid? Ireland is one of the fastest-growing economies in the European Union today. For which many people, even from other parts of the world, are going there to find jobs. What did they do with the 3 billion dollars in aid? They used it to build an information superhighway, gain infrastructure that enables them to participate in the information technology revolution, and to create jobs in their economy. They didn't say, "No, you know, we're not going to take this." Today, the European Union is busy transferring aid. My frustration is if they can build infrastructure in Spain -- which is roads, highways, other things that they can build -- I say then, why do they refuse to use the same aid to build the same infrastructure in our countries? (Applause) When we ask them and tell them what we need, one of my worries today is that we have many foundations now. Now we talk about the World Bank, IMF, and accountability, all that and the EU. We also have private citizens now who have a lot of money -- some of them in this audience, with private foundations. And one day, these foundations have so much money, they will overtake the official aid that is being given. But I fear -- and I'm very grateful to all of them for what they are trying to do on the continent -- but I'm also worried. I wake up with a gnawing in my belly because I see a new set of aid entrepreneurs on the continent. And they're also going from country to country, and many times trying to find what to do. But I'm not really sure that their assistance is also being channeled in the right way. And many of them are not really familiar with the continent. They are just discovering. And many times I don't see Africans working with them. They are just going alone! (Applause) And many times I get the impression that they are not really even interested in hearing from Africans who might know. They want to visit us, see what's happening on the ground and make a decision. And now I'm maybe being harsh. But I worry because this money is so important. Now, who are they accountable to? Are we on their boards when they make decisions about where to channel money? Are we there? Will we make the same mistake that we made before? Have our presidents and our leaders -- everyone is talking about -- have they ever called these people together and said, "Look, your foundation and your foundation -- you have so much money, we are grateful. Let's sit down and really tell you where the money should be channeled and where this aid should go." Have we done that? The answer is no. And each one is making their own individual effort. And then 10 years from now, billions will again have gone into Africa, and we would still have the same problems. This is what gives us the hopeless image. Our inability to take charge and say to all these people bringing their money, "Sit down." And we don't do it because there are so many of us. We don't coordinate. We've not called the Bill Gates, and the Soros, and everybody else who is helping and say, "Sit down. Let's have a conference with you. As a continent, here are our priorities. Here is where we want you to channel this money." Each one should not be an entrepreneur going out and finding what is best. We're not trying to stop them at all! But to help them help us better. And what is disappointing me is that we are not doing this. Ten years from now we will have the same story, and we will be repeating the same things. So our problem right now is, how can we leverage all this good will that is coming towards our way? How can we get government to combine properly with these private foundations, with the international organizations, and with our private sector. I firmly believe in that private sector thing