Hello Sister Ndey
Thanks for the piece and will have time to read the piece. What a communication break down. I was thinking you are back in Norway or are you still in Ghana. I hope sambou is now a big boy. I lost both you and brother Saiks contact. Can you people sent me a private e-mail.
Ndey Jobarteh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I just have to share this experiences.
Please find attached the link to the project i am working on in Ghana at present www.meltwater.com/mest. It is unfortunate that i completely forget to send the link to the L before the deadline for the recruitment of trainers. However we are also recruiting fellows, all these are taking place in the US at present. It will nice to receive the CV's of good and crazy software developer, professional entrepreneurs.
I just got back from ghana last week after a hectic months of setting up the Trainee programme and recruitment of Trainees and local faculty. I must admit i have never been inspired and challenged as i had these past months. Having gone through over 300 applications of young graduates who are changing there own destiny as well as the continent is really inspiring and words cannot express that feeling. Our advert was in the papers in Ghana two weeks before the recruitment process and this is just to say that there are many more young people with potential out there.
I have interviewed young and crazy graduates who don't have a limit. These are young graduates who in their own world developed game soft wares, nutritional technology to solve nutritional problems, database software to address the problems of access to data, search engine for Africa/africans to put Africa in to the net, list goes on. These youths develop these things out of their love for the country and the continent, out of a cry to solve the problems and challenges they face as young Africans. Talking to them they will say "Ndey we want to put Africa in the map, we want to show the world that Africans can do it , we want to proof that you don't need to be in Europe to make it but it is sad that no one listen to us, we never had the opportunity to be listened to and for us to talk about all the crazy ideas we have". These are youths who identify other youth as far as Kenya with the same skills but unfortunately they just can't pull it through due to limited resources.
Talking to these young graduates who are full of energy, potential, drive, stamina and as they tell their stories and achievement that no one knows about with a big smile, i just could not help it. We were only able to recruit 21 of over 300 applicants, it was one of the most difficult recruitment process i have ever gone through. The most inspiring part of this was when they say to me " you know this has been the most inspiring, fruitful and fair recruitment process, after telephone interview, we were put into a group interview and after that we interviewed individually, during this process we have meet with people whom we share a lot in common and we are prepared to work together and see how far we can go. Even if we are not selected we have build a strong network that might change a lot of things and lead us to our goals, we have learn a lot from you guys and we more understanding of who we are and how to go about things in life. This is more than what we can expect"
A lot of these graduates in their small corner they have set up their companies, consulting firms etc but lack the mentorship, finances to really move these companies further in creating jobs, solving critical problems in the continent etc.
The funny part was i remember calling these kids and interviewing them on the phone without any notice they were shock and what they say to me when i meet them was they now know how crazy we are as a company and what to expect. This is fair process because lot of them were sceptical about their chance of getting into the project because of the whole nepotism and favouritism in the system. They said "we have never been to this kind of rigorous interview before". At first when the Team went to Ghana for the recruitment process we were not sure if we can get the best out of the telephone interview because the lines were so poor but to our surprise we use the mobile phone and that works perfect. We were four from the company and recruited a Ghanian, so we were five, three people from the Norwegian office, one from the US office and final part of the interview our CEO flow in to be part of it. It was hectic but inspiring and challenging.
I just want to say that there is a lot happening in the continent, these young people are moving the continent and they need our support and help. These youths are so selfless, they are sick of what is a happening to the continent but what you cannot take away from them is their believe that the continent will make it and they will be part of that process.
I would like to hear from experience and professional African/black business executives, software developers, entrepreneurs because we would like to have you on our database and hopefully be able to fly you in for one or two lectures in entrepreneurship, software development and to inspire these youths that Africans/black people are also making it in the global market space. At a later stage of this project we will fly in mentors who are world class executives and i would like to see Africans/black people as part of this. At present all we have is the world class white executives who have offered their services to this project as mentors.
I work as a Project Developer in the company and I must tell you that this project has been conceptualise from scratch by myself and no alteration was made by the Company board, management or CEO, they all love this project and the CEO was the one who had this idea of giving back to society as way of of transferring the knowledge the company has and he as an engineer, a software developer and an entrepreneur who has successfully build companies worthing millions of dollars in the world market. This man said to me Ndey i have started Meltwater in 2001 with 15000 Norwegian Kroner, a coffee machine, himself and another person. Now Meltwater is a global company with 29 offices world wide and one of the leading software developing and selling companies in the European market and we just entered the US and Asian market.
I could go on and on about this experience because i am still recovering from the energy i received from these young graduates. We were working from 7am to 3am and i never felt tired and how late it was. The whole team was just crazy and challenged by these graduates. Most of these people in the Team, it is there first time in Africa and this has been the best experience and also it change their whole imagine of the potential Africa has. My CEO said to me " I will repeat what you said to me Ndey when we employed you, you said to "If we are not pretending about change in Africa, about giving back to society, about transferring knowledge and seeing development as giving people the opportunity to change their own destiny, then this concept needs no alteration from management". He finally said you are right, there is no other way around it".
As the saying goes
The Struggle Continues!!!!!!!!!!1
Ndey Jobarteh
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