 A very good morning and welcome to this conversation with architect and 2024 crystal award honoree Guembero Francis Carey. My name is Nzinga Kuntan. I'm so pleased to be hosting this conversation that's going to take a look at Carey's approach to design, his cultural sensitivity and the work of the Carey Foundation. To those of us in the room and those watching us online, please remember that you can add to the conversation by using the hashtag WEF24 with 24. Francis, congratulations on your crystal award 2024. It's such a pleasure and a privilege to be speaking to you. It's a very long way from Gandor to Davos. Take us through what happened in between that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Indeed, from Gandor to Davos is a very, very long way, but it's a way that I enjoyed a lot. Very much. And it's a way where you realize your privilege to look back and see that I have been one of the very few and the first one to attend education and then being happy to be able to attend higher education and to learn how to build and to come back and be able to work together with the community to create a building. An effort that I have always seen as a matter of heart in my place. Every member of the community has to contribute to the growth of the community and have been very far away in the world that was not known to my people. Germany is so far away. What is doing there? So especially your mom will be attacked and saying, get him back. He should come and help to work on the field. His father was stupid enough to let him go, the first son, and then not to contribute and doing agriculture. So it was a way full of experience. But then looking back, I say, sitting here, I feel very, very privileged. I created the school as a student. I was a student because let's say three years after I started to study architecture in Berlin, I suddenly feel, wow, I know a lot. I know a lot. I will go back and work with the community. And so I built a first school when I was a student. And then before Priska that you mentioned, in 21, the school has been selected as one of the 21 most influential buildings in the world since the Second World War. Zika, can you imagine what that means to an architect like me? Beautiful. And the way the reason that there were so much accolades around your work, particularly with the school and beyond, is because you operate, you look at the context in which people are operating, and then you build things to suit them, not impose your beliefs. And I think your story about how your father insisted on sending you to school, even though people were saying that he shouldn't, is also about understanding what context you're operating in, but having a vision for the future and having a vision for something beyond yourself. Yeah. No, I left the school, my family when I was seven, and so back I was thinking, what can I do? What can I do to keep the kids home by their community, by their families, but then to attend education? Education is so highly needed. And so after this, and then after I got the scholarship and started to study architecture, I grew the idea, so you could solve these and creating a school yourself. But this school should be within the reality of the people, the social context, the economical context, the cultural context. And this context was people used to work together. If it came to building, you need the entire community. And that's what I've done. What's the importance of architecture in society? Often when we think about architects, we think about people erecting a building and then leaving, but it goes beyond that. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I can see the work of an architect as those often social urges, you know. You're trying to shape people's life, by the way. It is in the house where we share our intimacy. This is where we rest. That is where we spend most of our time. So we work in buildings. And so I think that is the role of an architect is caring, shortly said, is caring for humanity. And it's about caring means to think about solutions where you could create comfort for people to really stay and then spend that time and, you know, fulfill their dreams. When we speak about the work that you do, it's celebrated in part because it makes sure that it uses sustainable materials. It caters to people. I thought it was beautiful that even the way that you design light, especially for children, evokes feeling of hope and a feeling of the future. But you don't like using the word sustainability, why? Not because when I start to do, in my mind, I was thinking like my family, my community was thinking, just take as much as possible what nature is giving to you, just what you need to make sure that it's healthy to the community but to the users. And so I was looking back and say, okay, what is the most available in the village was clay and there was traditional law lectures and I tried to apply these and just work. And they start to say, okay, we had not a lot of money. What can I do? I will try to get everyone in the community to be involved. So everything that I did came out of sheer necessity. And so then I won a prize, Agakana Award in 2004, and the word of sustainability came out. It was German, nachhaltigkeit. At that time I was speaking German, but it was a new word to me. And then within the context of architecture, I started to think, oh, wow, my gosh, what is it? You have to know that in daily when I received the Agakana Award, I couldn't speak English. And so I put my word right to be able to push, to pull out my message. I just concentrated. And then I started to speak in front of His Highness, Agakana. And then the Prime Minister of India and bigger people, even kings, and I get stuck. Where are my words? So I turned it very quickly to French. And 10 seconds later I found my text back and I turned it again. So that is my context. And now you heard big words, sustainability. Oh, my gosh. Could you stand and start to talk about it? Honestly, I didn't give a shit. I was just doing my work. And then, yeah, good people realize, okay, there is more than just words around what He's doing. That is a debt. And that saved me. I didn't need to really use the word properly, but to be able and to be able with the people and to use the resources, I believe will open a future to, will open a future to my community. And that is it. And now I'm here. I know you're very focused on your community and giving back and constantly working there. You've also done work in Germany and beyond. What kind of a perspective does that give you on the other work that you do? Just tell us about that work as well. So Germany is like many Western countries, a place where substantially you could reach high quality in terms of construction. So that is something to learn, especially if you look back. At nowadays, construction is over complicated, regulation, and even the, you know, how do you apply material? Everything is so complex and you cannot innovate anymore. This is what I have seen. And what I do is to try every time when I have a chance to build in the West and to gather with professionals to make sure we will be able to come out with quality. So first, I have a big vision and I try to put as much as a lot of insight in that, knowing if they try to, you know, to decompose it, to take away elements, like taking away clothes. At the end of the day, a core will remain. That is quality. That is one thing. But now it goes outside, somewhere else. I'm trying to use the opportunity that in other places in the world, construction can still be innovative. And there, a push just to use a chance to innovate and then back, bring this back to Germany. And that's what I'm doing, what I have learned from that place. And that's what I'm trying to do. We have the World Economic Forum's annual 2024 meeting and there's people from all over the world gathered here from different sectors, private and public. What's the importance of this kind of gathering and working together with people who have different perspectives from you learning and listening? It's a big chance. It's a big chance. If you met, you learned a lot. If you have a chance to listen to people, to discover their journey through their profession in the world and from that place, you learn a lot. And it's a sort of encouragement. You know, you gaining new ideas, but also encouragement. And then to know that you're not alone and ideas of other people can help you make your own ideas stronger. Here, let's say or repeat the words of Mr. Schwab who said yesterday, we are in the global village. There's so many people from diverse horizons and also professionals and we could learn from their, from their experience and to be able to do our own work, to make our own work better. Tell me about the work of the Francis Kerri Foundation. I don't know how much time we have. No, the Kerri Foundation is something that was born out of senior necessity. I was a student. I had a big heart for my community. I wanted to give them a school. I was a student. I could design, but where to get the money? You know, and so that is personal. People try to start to advise you to people that could be potential donor. Really. And that time, except to the very extremist party that I didn't meet in Germany, I met every political party looking for, oh, I have an idea to build a school in Africa. And oh, wow, in Africa, you're so naive. It's so corrupt. What can you do that? You think you could do something? I didn't give up. I met NGOs in Germany running, running, running, trying to explain why that is a need for me to build a school. And then there is a rejection, why you are not the government and you are a student. Why should you do that? Why you don't wait? I have been facing all of that. And one day I stopped. Everyone that was advising me to someone else, I say, hey, what about yourself? You could support. So I honestly started to push my colleague to smoke less or drink less coffee, but found my project. And so out of this idea, people start to put money in a box that I designed for the school, like a mock-up of the school has been used as a box to collect money. And then suddenly someone said, oh, it's illegal to collect money like this in Germany. And I said, oh, wow, illegal. Okay. So you cannot give me money. I found a way to get money. And you say it's illegal. No, no, it's not forbidden. You need a structure. And so we created the foundation called Schulbau Steine Fugando FV, which means construction bricks for the school in Gando, which is very, very long. And, yeah, but it was the structure that allowed me to raise money. Honestly, I got $50,000 that time and I started to build a school. So the Kerri Foundation is a non-profit structure that I founded as a student to be able to do my work here, to build a school. Later, the school was so successful and that you couldn't escape. So it remains. But then with the growing success of my architecture, there was still struggle to get the money. And friends of mine started six years ago to say, you know, you're famous. I said, who are famous? What means famous? You know, come to Gando and you will understand that I don't give a shit of these things like this. There is still a lot to do. No, no, Francis. It's important that you connect the name with the success of your architecture, the name of your foundation with the success of your architecture. And they said, why you don't call it Kerri Foundation? And so we call it Kerri Foundation. It is English. It's very cool. But now the fact is there's still a struggle, but I have to say I'm very privileged now. I have like a client that are really looking forward to support this structure. So this is a structure that I will still use in the future to share my work to the world, you know, to my fellow Africans, but to the world. And you know it, I'm obliged to use this success to gain more. And I will use this through the Kerri Foundation. If we're talking about the world and a little bit earlier on, you and I were talking about context. With the geopolitical tensions and challenges that we see, there's a lot of uncertainty even when it comes to climate, increment weather as well. What's the role of architecture in cities, in helping communities, cope with these risks and also adapt to the changes that we are seeing on so many fronts? Well, this is a big question, Zynga, very big. I think in the time we're leaving now today, it's very difficult to be able to find a solution or to show a way to go through. In that way, I will try to stack in that what I'm doing. Because I believe that everyone in his field can do something that helps make a difference. If I'm looking back to the work that I have done, my work is capable of giving a job to minimum 100 to 200 young people. Few people know that because I have created a workshop. The beginning of my career, there was no company that will trust himself to build the design that I was doing. So I tried to train young people. So why is this relevant? So if you give a job to young people from our place, young people are looking for opportunities. They try to leave and to go somewhere else. They don't leave because they want to leave. They leave because their life conditions are worse, are bad. That's why they're leaving. And so with my modest workshop that I'm doing, since 20 years now, I can tell you that I have more than 500 young people in Burkina Faso that really earn money and could make a living and they will never take the road to the Sahara to come to the West. And that is something that we can see and say. If we develop community, we make them stronger, enabling the use of the community to build a better future for generations to come, we will heal our places and contribute to peace in the world. So this is what I can say through my modest work and not more. We've been speaking about community a lot. There is a small community inside. I know we have about 10 minutes to go before we wrap up. I wanted to check if there are any questions from the floor. I don't know if I'm allowed to do that, but I'm going to do it. There are questions to the floor. If you do have a question, please can you raise your hand to let us know where you're from and we'll try and get it answered. Is it okay? I think so. Good. Thank you, Kerry. My name is Gerald Abila. I'm a winner of this year's Schwab Award for social entrepreneurship. I'm a lawyer, a statistician and I like to think of myself as a futurist because I like to think, unfortunately, where I come from, there are no places to think. I see so many of them in Europe, but so few of them in Africa. For me to go with my team to think about AI or something like that, we need to go to a hotel, book a conference center somewhere. Mine is more a comment, perhaps if you have some time. In fact, just today, today I got land about 20 acres that I intend to put a center like this and I want to build it using natural architecture, using natural earth to represent the people that it intends to serve and I would like to share your thoughts on this. Maybe we'll get time after this meeting, but thank you. Thank you for being an inspiration to everyone else. Thank you. That sounds like a consultation. No, but I think the continent has learned from those people like you traveling that really learn so what we have elsewhere and what we can take back to the continent and so to be really honest to you is how I am. Now you have your architecture. He in the room, we have people that have created infrastructure around New York where people gather. So if you, you know, not just to do advertisement, but like to grace farms, so indeed those things are and what we really need is an elite, an elite that is aware about the need to create that kind of spaces and I can tell you this is coming, you know, in the past you see some of the work that commission that I have done in the West has been so inspiring and nowadays we have like a lot of people in Africa that are coming to me and looking for a project. So and they don't look just they have even the private people having their resources and wanted to really create things for their own communities and private houses. In the future you will hear about House Nikema, House Widarogo, House Kotor, you know, there are things that we don't know in the Western language because in our places we didn't pay attention to architecture but nowadays it is time, it is our time. Francis, thank you, inspiring thoughts. In India I trained as an architect in the 80s, started work and then fell out, got into development. In those decades, the 70s and 80s we had quite a few people right from Laurie Baker to many others who were, you know, practicing the kind of architecture that you stand for and over the last 30 years driven a lot by urbanization and also, you know, the economics of land and I think just the need for a return on capital invested in buildings, quite unfortunately I think we've moved very much in the direction of, you know, what you'd see in Western countries or, you know, even in China. Looking ahead, do you see those kind of challenges coming up in Africa or somehow in a much more urban context, do you see those challenges inhibiting what an architect can do? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. It's like a short question but very complex. I think if we, like we are lucky today in Africa because there is a big, big need but lucky means we could learn from what is happening outside and what has already been done to really be a model for the future, not to repeat the mistakes. I mean it will be arrogant if I say I don't want to do a competition, really I need to know you and to know what do you want to do with me and if I really, you convince me and I see that inside there is something that can benefit not just yourself as a client but the world by bringing out ideas that can be shared with others will go. And that is what should be and of course climate change and material limitation and ethic, all of these will play a major role in shaping Africa with architecture that can really become a catalyst. Francis, congratulations for the inspiration. I'm actually a social entrepreneur from Brazil and curiously I'm an architect by education. I had classes with Paulo Mendes-Dahosha. Oh well. Yeah, but I never worked with architecture because I became a teacher so my life has been in the education sector. You mentioned yesterday and today about being privileged and I was curious about throughout your career you mentioned that many people helped you. Who were your mentors or sources of inspiration? You are at a point where your architecture is widely recognized, your work with the foundation. Who are your sources of inspiration? So Mendes-Russia I admire these architects so great and I have a lot of friends in Brazil and so I want to use these to say if I'm looking to the work of Nimaia, Mendes-Russia or whatever, I want to say don't feel sorry for me or PD because I'm working in the social I have to warn you I love fantasy. I love to put fantasy in my work really no matter what it is if I met a client I try to understand what this person is expecting from me and I go because seeing what Nimaia is doing is like wow freeing you just go ahead and do it. So now to your question if I may be honest and assured my mother was a role model to me. Over already a year I've been working my mother will say if it was hard like leaving the village my mother will say yeah just go it is just a while and it will be shown better. So if it was hard and you want to go she will say you know think about it so it won't last your entire life and I will come back at the beginning we had no money and my mother will do share not butter to sell it and just compensate it and pay the vision of my father because we needed to buy paper. So the resilience of these women who is still alive is still has built a foundation for me a very solid foundation of course in the world you had the chance to discover these incredible architects that are still looking to and to be honest I will not name a living architect but all still living architect are heroes to me when they succeeded in their places seeing the fight the struggle we all have to come out with quality there but so Luis Karen so Mies van der Rohe with the rationalism so there are people that I'm really looking to you know really they have given us great ideas and he's up to us to work on and I did it. Okay just checking if we have any more questions on the floor before we wrap up the Q&A session. Hello Francis congratulations on your award as well I'm Sharon Prince from Grace Farms Foundation and what we know now about building materials that you've so eloquently described as being having that expertise from the place that you're in right using those materials clay and so forth. Building materials are set to dominate climate change and the building materials that material it says is you know me short enough are also fraught with slave labor and there's an opportunity like you said to really supersede what has already been a labor transparency pass. Do you have some thoughts on that? Yeah I think in in the field of the build this is where we do a lot we employ a lot of labor and I think it's fundamental to make sure so no exploitation should happen and it is not easy because if you need to be able to follow the chain from material and to construction to the source of labor and to make sure that it is not and I think so what your foundation is doing is a great job and we all need to start to really think about it. In my little place I'm now involved in you know in huge buildings and you try to be involved and warn the client and say make sure that we don't try to do something good by abusing and exploiting the most vulnerable. It is not easy task. In the small kale like in Gandor that is great because we know each other and then the work there is like a is like a celebration. If I have a little project now everyone wants to be part of it I make sure that no one gets harmed. Thank you so much thank you for your interventions from the floor and helping me moderate the conversation it's very appreciated. Thank you for just giving us insight about using what we have when people are thinking about building operating within a context but also looking beyond what people say is possible and the importance of people being conscientized. Really appreciated having discussion with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much.