Making the Impossible Possible

It's expensive to keep people poor!" Those are the words of Bill Strickland, CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporatio​n. His business aims "to create empowering educational environments for adults-in-transition as well as urban and at-risk youth, enriching Southwestern Pennsylvania and, eventually, the world." In particular he has built the Bidwell Training Center in Pittsburgh, an adult career training institution that offers horticulture, pharmaceutical and culinary art studies. But Bill believes in bringing art and business practices together, so his educational centers also teach orchid care, real estate, music and ceramics.

As described on his website, Bill Strickland is indeed a "visionary leader who authentically delivers educational and cultural opportunities to students and adults within an organizational culture that fosters innovation, creativity, responsibility and integrity." He calls himself a "wild dreamer" and says "life is about exposure - if exposed to opportunity, you can start to conceive them." He also says his dream is constantly evolving - it's a process. What is sure is that Bill has given opportunity and hope to a multitude of disadvantaged people and a second chance to those who want to seize the opportunity he offers.

His book is Make the Impossible Possible.

"We Need to Start Telling the Good News from Africa"

At the World Economic Forum on Africa 2010 that is underway in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, several participants - including both Africans and outsiders - have called for a rethinking of perceptions about the continent. Too much focus is placed on what is going wrong - disease, poverty, corruption, poor infrastructure, among other problems - with too little emphasis on positive developments, they said. The world should hear about how many African economies have weathered the global economic crisis and are set to contribute to global growth over the next decade, how countries have managed to resolve longstanding military and political conflicts, and how business, government and civil society are working together to address public health threats.

"We need to change the stories that we tell about Africa," said human rights activist and social entrepreneur Hafsat Abiola-Costello, 36, the founder of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND), an organization that promotes civil society and democracy in her native Nigeria, and the CEO of China-Africa Bridge, a group aimed at boosting mutual cooperation between China and Africa. (She is the daughter of Chief Moshood Abiola, the Nigerian businessman and president-elect who never took office and died in prison in 1998.) "We need to start telling new stories about the opportunities in Africa, the good news from Africa. Enough about the problems. We all know them. If we start telling the stories about the opportunities, who wouldn't want to take advantage and come to seize an opportunity?"

Hafsat is right. Despite all its progress in recent years, Africa still has an image problem. Perhaps the World Cup in South Africa this summer will help change people's perceptions of the continent. Watch Hafsat and other so-called Young Global Leaders (YGLs) of the Forum who are attending the meeting discuss the enormous potential of Africa in a press conference. And why not post your good news about Africa and tell us about the many opportunities that it has to offer?

Watch live streaming video from worldeconomicforum01 at livestream.com