 When someone asks you where is your Tiosan, it means where are you from and not just like the place but the culture behind it, the people behind it, the history behind it, all of that. So for me that's what Senegal is, it's my Tiosan, it's my identity. Africa is very rich in so many ways, starting with its demographic, you know we have such a young demographic and in my mind youth is richness. So the quality of our people, we have amazing people as well. So yes it is true, everywhere you look it feels rich, it's because it is rich. Yet a lot of folks in Africa have not been able to accomplish a form of prosperity like we could see in other parts of the world, despite offering so much to the world. So to me it has been a puzzle for a very, very long time. How do countries prosper? My name is Magatwade and I'm the founder of Skinny Skin. We like to say that we are born in Austin, Texas, United States and made right here in Make a Senegal. I never woke up one day and be like oh I'm an entrepreneur, no never. And I think what happened for me is what happened to a lot of entrepreneurs, to a lot of business people. I think a lot of founders all the way they get into starting a business is they see something that sucks or they get inspired by something that's awesome and they're just like you know what I'm going to bring this to the rest of the world. I was born in Senegal in Burr which is 80 kilometers south of Dakar, a little fisherman's village, you know not too many people back in the days, raised mainly by my grandmother because my parents I think as soon as I was done breastfeeding I guess that's when my parents emigrated to Europe and my grandmother was really, really good to me. My memories of her are someone who really empowered me. Do as you wish and do as your heart desires and so I think I learned a lot of freedom from her. I learned to be a free spirit and a free person. It's only later that I started to realize when I was in Europe seeing what surrounds you in Europe on a daily basis and then when we would go to Senegal on vacation it's like you know something is something is strange here you know how come here we have this and over here we have that so that's when I started to feel like there's something kind of awkward and not quite balanced. Because I'm someone who really always tries to understand what's happening it's very important for me. I started getting more entrusted into how do countries prosper it has been one of my big questions. I was very interested in understanding why is it that a couple decades ago you know China for example where it's the same level as most African countries and yet today the completely I mean they have done this. Countries like Singapore made it, countries like Hong Kong made it, even a place like Dubai, bare land of sand, desert sand and all of a sudden within 12-15 years Dubai one of the financial centers of the world and you're like what what happened here and these are very different cultures right you know so very different cultures yet they're all able to accomplish the same type of of growth and prosperity despite starting from very much at the bottom right and then you look at two countries where normally people their people are very similar but then very different outcomes and I'm talking about North Korea, South Korea, Eastern Germany, Western Germany, I mean day and night day and night we have similar countries that end up different in a different situation and we have very different countries that can end up in the same situation in terms of prosperity what's going on so please don't tell me that it has to do with the type of people all of a sudden I'm thinking has nothing to do with the people has nothing to do with people something else is at play something else at play and so when you start digging into all of this one thing that started to jump for me was how free were people to enterprise or not because we're talking about prosperity versus poverty how much economic freedom does a any country offer its citizens the reason why these countries are poor it's due to the fact that they are overwhelmingly over-regulated let me give you some examples you know I just came back from Senegal three weeks ago I now spend half my time in Senegal half my time here in the United States because my business we produce our products back home we just finished setting up the manufacturing facility we make skincare products let me give you an example as to the type of idiocy that I'm dealing with on a daily basis there to make these beautiful creams for you these beautiful lip balms for you I need the best ingredients that the world has because I happen to be a very picky person and a very proud person if I want to show you that us Africans are as worthy as anybody else I also need to raise my bar right because of that I need to source my products from anywhere I see them in the world where they happen to be the best so it turns out that right now in Senegal out of all the ingredients and packaging that goes into my less heavily bomb that we're launching in September only two ingredients for now I can get from my country because they match the standards that I'm looking for everything else has to come from somewhere else and you know how that goes where it's a global world you know we we source from wherever we can and where we find what suits us well did you know that anything that I import in my country to make my product gets a tariff of 45% so my country's like yeah okay yeah that's right that kind of sucks so okay you jump through these hoops fill out all of this paperwork do this do this do that and then we will come and do all of these controls at your site and everything and then we'll give you an exoneration for three years and if you're being a good citizen then maybe we're extended for another two years that's what we have to do right now do you see the disadvantage that I have compared to a woman who is here in America and starting her business herself one nonsense man my mosa gay you make a big deal key to one be voilà in a company is familial the said a grandparent and put if it's not enterprise be said a grandparent and put if it's Once you reach a root problem, the root of a problem, from there the solution you're working on also starts from the root and that's the surest way to try and solve something once for all. To me it's very simple, you know, people are poor because they have no money, have no money because they have no source of income. No source of income for most of us is a job. Where do jobs come from? Comes from businesses, mainly small and medium sized enterprises. If you have a country that doesn't make it easy for a business to be, there would be no businesses and if there is no businesses then there are no jobs and if there are no jobs, people have no income. People have no income means they're poor and as a country you're poor. We're in Yof, Yof village, I used to live here before, this is the street I used to spend every day, I lived here for 14 years, this is the room I've always lived in, I lived here, I lived here for 5 years, before I was in the neighborhood, and this was the biggest room I used to have. And this room here is bigger than the room I used to have, and I used to live here with my 5 children, so he used to sleep here with his wife and maybe the baby and at night the kids would play, stuff on the floor and sleep. This is the main activity of the fishermen here, that's it. I know Magat, it's the miracle that we know each other, we've known each other for 8 years. It's a long story because I knew Magat, I wanted to tell you right away, it's just a beautiful human story, you know, the people that I value in my life, you realize that there's nothing about money, it's not about money, it's about their, how rich they are, and he's just an amazing man. In Africa, it's not because people don't want to work, but they don't want to work. In the future, it's better for everyone to go to school, to study, to have a job and earn their life honestly. With him and his family, yes, they do matter a great deal to me. You don't choose your family, but you choose your friends, and in my case, I like to say that with him, I was very blessed to be able to choose my family, actually. The way a country offers its citizens economic freedom is through its set of legal infrastructure, most of the time. It's through telling them, yes, I want you to create, and because I want you to create, I'm going to make it easy for you to create. I'm going to make it easy for you to create companies, I'm going to make it easy for you to associate with your employees and or your business partners. We're going to make it easy for you to create. If you look at the Doing Business Index ranking, only you will see that it is harder to do business anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa than it is in any Scandinavian country. It is easier for anyone in any part of Scandinavia to start and run a business than it is for almost anyone in Sub-Saharan Africa. And then you ask me, why? Why, despite its richness, its mind-blowing richness, why is it that its people do not seem like they're living, the prosperity that they should be living, given how rich they are? I'm not a mother, I'm a mother MCC. I'm a mother MCC. I'm a mother MCC, so I want to be able to work in the same way as I would. I would be able to work in the same way as I would, to work in the same way as I would. We're going to make it easy for you to create a company that would be the one that provides our business. And I don't have to say that we're from a different country. We're from a different country. We're from a different country. I like to talk to people, because my parents are pretty. I'm not very good at talking to people, so I'm not good at talking to them. I'm a content creator, and I'm good at talking to people. I'm not good at talking to people. I don't want to end up with any problem but for me, my first step is getting out of the world but to end up like this, the first step is not going anywhere I'm happy I am happy I just want to be successful I want to succeed I can't continue I want to be able to do my work I want to be successful in the future. There is this amazing man who has left a very comfortable life behind to come and see what he could do for his city and for his country and beyond that for his continent. And for that, I have the highest, the utmost respect. I'm very committed to work with my population. I am very committed to use as a showcase. I'm very committed to add something special, innovative in the context of promoting development in Senegal. Magat is also in Meke since 2014. It was not easy to get an entrepreneur from Africa established in the US, succeeding in the international area, coming back to Senegal in the rural area and trying to develop something. The real challenge is being able to be in a rural area where people are not well educated in business and implementing a successful project. And today, we are very proud to get first products of Skins and Skins. She corrected me all the time. And we are ready to provide more land, more support to get this company to be among the biggest in the world. But with the name, one day, the story will say that it was from Meke. I'm very proud and happy to be working hand in hand with him. And I must say, him and his wife and his community have made it so, so joyful for me to be here and to do what I do. So they have become another part of my community here. For job creation, we need to promote women entrepreneurs. If you educate women, you are educating a nation. It's why they have to get access to education, to resources, and to know also to involve in policy making. But sometimes you can't change the word in one click. You have to adapt and to change the mindset. People tend to think that I'm against NGOs. I am against NGOs that give people fish, right? And they all tell you, oh, no, it's better. Yeah, we know it's better to teach someone to fish than to give them a fish. But I am emphatically against NGOs that give people a fish. What if I started a shoe company? And every time I sold a pair of shoes, I gave a pair away. And that way, if as long as I continue to keep selling shoes, these kids will have shoes for the rest of their life. Thank you for giving us this pair of shoes, and we really appreciate that. If you want to run a nonprofit, can you just try to make sure you ask yourself, am I running or supporting an NGO that's helping people be productive? What does poverty mean for me, my gateway from Senegal? Poverty in my case, poverty of my people means that we have countless, countless young people, some of my most entrepreneurial people who are right now serving as fish food at the bottom of the ocean. Just two weeks ago, we had a boat tip over somewhere in the Mediterranean. And you hear about these stories, you see these pictures. We grew up with the stories of people dying at sea. Why? Because they had to leave their country because there is not enough jobs. And why there is not enough jobs? Because the business climate sucks so much that people like me can't do their work of creating companies and jobs. So they pack themselves into a little fisherman's boat, try to cross to make it to Europe to find a job so they can feed their families back home. Most of them don't make it. Just two weeks ago, in a, again another boat. Babies in it, babies. Fish. Fish is the economic activity of the community. But also, you know, our governments have signed a fishing agreement with the European Union. You see here in the sea, where we live mainly, there are boats that have lost our fish stock. My son was called Alunemar. He was 27 years old. He was a good fisherman. He made thousands of fish from the community. And you know, here, in March, we don't have any fish. They left for Mauritania for a four-month fishing campaign. When he came back, he brought a lot of money for the family. But in 2007, they left for Mauritania in Nwadibu. They didn't have any fish. And they said, we can go to Europe to still have work. And they left for Europe and they disappeared from the Mediterranean. On our, on our calculation as an association, we had almost 1450 young people who disappeared from our community. The day that I sat down with her and I heard the story from her, of all of these young people who went to sea in Charoilles-sur-Mer and her explaining the stories of how her own son passed away and how to this day, she yet has to see his body because obviously decomposed at the bottom of the ocean and how they had to do this mass, you know, burial in Spain and with nobodies, I guess. But you know, I looked at this woman and I'm just like, there's got to be something that people like me have to do. And that's when I guess I became very resolved in understanding the mechanics behind why some countries are poor and others are rich. That's when I became really, really motivated to understand. To know a country where all young people have access to a formal education where all young people have access to education and a decent job to stay in the country. It seems so simple to me and yet so few people just stop for a second to think about it. And that to me is the irony of today. And you would think that these ideas should be mainstream and they're not. And it drives me nuts. Nuts. I have people who sit out there and tell me that they would love to see me prosper. They would love to see my country prosper. They are sick and tired of seeing babies dying, you know, child mortality. They tell me that they don't want to see some of my young people dying at sea on their journey to go finding a job. They tell me that they don't, but they see me as an equal, that they would like for me to prosper just like anybody else. But I hear the same thing from the same people who the minute you address the fact that business is the solution, then they start running for the hills because you know what, their entire business philosophy and attitude is much stronger than supposedly, in this case I would like to say, maybe they're love for me or they care for me. So you tell me which it is because you can't tell me that you care about me and you care about the rest of the, but you care about the global poor, yet you look down and you have no respect and no consideration for the most basic tool that exists that we know of and it has proven itself time and time and time again and the entrepreneurial value creation is a way out, is a way from poverty to prosperity for individuals and countries.