 This century has been described as the Africa century. This may mean different things to different people. But one clear notion that is captured in that description is that Africa is the continent of the greatest material challenges and also the continent with the greatest opportunities and potentials. Take population, for example, I've heard repeatedly how it is that we will, by 2035, have 1.2 billion people. Nigeria, its most populous country, will become the fourth most populous in the world. Over 50% of that number will be young persons. Some will put that at only 60% under the age of 25. Today, 60% of the unemployed in Africa are young people. So the implications of this for social and people are clear, whereas we see them practically every day. Climate change poses special concerns, especially in desertification. The drawing of the leg chart, for example, has had incredible indications for security in that area and, of course, in the lives of livelihoods of so many who live around it. The leg chart used to be almost 35,000 square kilometers. Today, it is under 1,500 square kilometers. And, of course, the implications of that for those who depend on it, for their lives, for their livelihoods. The challenges of health care delivery and education for a large population have also led to the worst human development indices in the world. Our continent has some of the worst of those indices. But these challenges have picked, in my view, and are auspicious that a time when technology and innovation have begun to disrupt older and slower ways of achieving results. And for Africa, a time when it's young innovators, digital scientists, and creatives have emerged with such resourcefulness and creativity. Ain't no question that Africa's future will be determined by innovation. With innovation and technology, Africa will skip or leapfrog, as you've often said. Over many phases of development, certainly, those on other continents and other societies have had to go through. Let me just illustrate very quickly with a few examples. I'm sure there will be so many that you're already familiar. We're all familiar, of course, with the success of mobile phones in Africa. And I think we all understand that there was no other path anywhere to reproduce the fixed-line telephonic system of the 50s to the 80s. This is what development nations had to do. But we simply skipped that phase. And we found ourselves, very quickly, in the mobile telephone era. But on the back of mobile phones have come to some of those remarkable lips. For example, mobile financial transactions, payments, wallets, and all of those very interesting innovations that would have required the whole infrastructure of banks and other forms of infrastructure just to make them up. So today, mobile telephony has opened up businesses in rural areas in Kenya, is in Bagway, Nigeria, and led to great financial inclusion and world creation. The birth of some of the exceptionally successful FinTech companies, some I'm told will be speaking to us today, have been on the back of mobile telephony. And we, by that I mean the federal government, have used mobile telephony to great effect, especially in the area of deepening micro-credits in the rural areas. We've given about 2.4 million now micro-credits loans, especially to the bottom of the pyramid in several other areas. And this has always been on the back of mobile payments, one sort or the other, rather than impossible or too expensive, far too costly. And we had to go and avoid it. Also, healthcare, consider healthcare, what countries have had to move to. The desired ratio of patients we're told is, perhaps 500 to 500, to reach this ratio, would have required 400,000 physicians today in Nigeria. When we are 300 million people, and soon would require another 600,000 to 700,000, if we were not already hemorrhaging physicians to other countries, to create this number of physicians is maybe difficult, if not impossible. The only way we'll be able to deliver quality healthcare to Nigeria is through a system where skilled people are augmented with intelligence innovation and technology, including telemedicine, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, et cetera. Today, we have indigenous countries in Nigeria and Rwanda delivering blood to hospitals using drones. In Medi-Burkia, we're also seeing remarkable innovation. There's a 28-year-old Cameroonian, Arthur Zaghan, who was featured recently in the CNN Innovations Program, who invented a touchscreen heart-monitoring tablet called the Cardiopad, that has the potential to revolutionize medicine, especially remote areas. The Cardiopad provides access to healthcare for heart patients in remote areas without taking long journeys to the cities where heart specialists are located. So the tablet is equipped with four electrodes that can be untouched to the patient's chest to determine whether their heart is functioning normally or not. The data is then wirelessly transmitted to the Cardiopad tablet and sent to cardiologists who can interpret it and make all of the necessary prescriptions. Similarly, a Nigerian, Osh Adyabi, was also featured on the same program. A Nigerian created a device that can detect cancer cells and even explosives. So the system merges synthetic neurology with traditional silicon technology. With the growing threats of security globally, this could even prove to be very revolutionary. But for me, perhaps the most remarkable innovation, especially in the healthcare sector, is that of the work done by our innovation hub in Yola, Adama Hospital, the Northeast Humanitarian Innovation Hub. Just last week, a group of interns designed and printed using a 3D printer. And they assembled processes, they were the processes link for an assistant superintendent of police, Mr. Tumba James, who had lost his arm while on active duty. That was just last week. The interns, Bashir Yaw, Suleiman Hapim Adham and Kabir Adham and their colleagues were trained in Yola. They worked with a number of volunteers with amputated lips. The equipment and materials required for the process were all in Yola and all the work they did was done in Yola. So there is so much opportunity and so much that's been done and I can just go on and on and on. For security is a great area of need for us in Africa and of course, Nigeria. We can only feed our huge populations with improved productivity from our tens of millions of farmers in Nigeria. But this will require access to inputs but also to accurate information about what to plant, when to plant, how to cultivate. So geospatial and satellite data and access to mechanization on an as needed basis will be crucial. Also new ways of increasing productivity are just, you know, we're just going to need all kind of new ways of reducing and of increasing productivity. How about three or four examples of that? But I just take the one. Angela Dela, I'm sure some of us here are familiar. She was also recently featured on the VBC World Hacks. She runs a farm called Fresh Direct. The farm uses stacked containers with a focus on supplying premium organic vegetables using hydroponics and vertical farming technology. So Angela is solving the problem of traditional farming using technology and bringing solutions to people's doorsteps, modular farming for African cities. So, and there are, as I said, so many different examples of what people are doing, especially in the area of technology and many of these young people have so much, have done so much just in terms of creating disruptive technology in their cultural center in particular. It's also clear that our power problems, the power problems that we have will be solved by multiples of disruptive innovation. The days of the traditional model of a large grid fed by large power stations are undoubtedly numbered. The smarter and more scalable options are using renewable sources of power, solar, wind, biomass, and waste to power. And the possibilities are limitless. Recently at the Nigerian Climate Innovation Center, which is also another innovation center, backed by the federal government, it's located at the LDS, the De Rosemez School. They recently concluded their climate launchpad and some very innovative ideas were unveiled. One of them, an innovator company called New Digits, generates power from water. The product uses water and conforms solar cells to generate energy for electricity and cooking. So it works by connecting water automatically from any piping channel in the house and breaks down the water and its whole hydrogen, which is used to cook and power the entire house without any need for batteries. So they have the power stove energy founded also by OK, Abdul Aziz, and Lord. It produces a low-cost, clean, smokeless cook stove. Power stove energy is the first clean stove to be fitted with self-powered and self-powered cloud system to monitor in real time a single day of cooking, any amount of cooking, and of course, any amount of CO2 and biomass that is saved. Black carbon is entered and total electricity is generated. Suddenly Africa is leading the way in a new way of thinking as innovators figure out how to produce power in situ. New-story technologies also mean that power is going to be important for Africans. Of Nigeria's 180 million people, over 20 million households have no power at all. As parts of efforts to diversify power sources, we started a program of providing solar power in 20,000 homes in rural villages. And we started that project in a village called Wuna. We now have them in over 20,000 of these homes. Wuna is the village just outside of Wujia. But it's an agrarian community, and it's not, of course, on the national page. And they have no other social path to charge their phones in Wuna village and enter with a small generator runs itself. So you take your phone to the shop once a day. You pay a small fee for charging. And this interpreter charges your phone using his generator. Life in Wuna used to shut down at exactly 7 p.m. Until daylight. But we worked out a PPP model, and the government owned NDPC, partnered with Azuri Technology, a private company, to provide a domestic solar solution. So Azuri provided the same end-to-end service that is done in East Africa that done a previous model in East Africa, a solar home system, including a payment system. So the solar equipment, all of that solar equipment cost 1,900 a month to pay. About, you know, and every home has one that's mounted on their roof. And as I said, the total cost of it, that includes the cost of running, you know, a daily business, which starts just under 2009. For the first time in its existence, the village now has running water, the solar power. The school has power. The school hall is now used as a community hall in the evenings. Each home has four points of light. And children, of course, can now stay up and do some studying at night. Many of Wuna's women can also process their millet and yams at night. New jobs have been created for solar installers, maintenance, management of the payment system, et cetera. Only one guy has lost his job. That's the phone charger. Every household can now, of course, charge their own phone. But in much larger scale, we've facilitated a private solar power supply to markets across Nigeria using new extra power ify themselves. So we have solar power now in the Subongari market in Kanu, the Mariera market in Napa, in the Sura market in Lagos, Isiko in Ongo, the two other markets in Ongo, and the banking market in New York State. All of these are now in economic clusters powered by solar, using solar power. But also all private, and everyone is happy today, everyone is happy, and of course, it's so much bigger. Than fuel powered generators and all that. Algeria, for example, has also been over, I mean, talking again about innovations in Africa, has created over 3,500 jobs in the construction of just a 14 grid connected solar PV project. With 700 per million jobs that are expected to come into operation once the project is completed. Kenya has built Africa's largest wind farm at Lake Tokant, providing 310 megawatts of palm, reliable palm, low cost energy, and all of that. And this, of course, they put on their national grid. 15% of the country's installed capacity is solar power now. It's construction is created about 2,000 local jobs. So there are all manner of opportunities around innovation. Education, of course, offers new opportunities for innovation. Our median age is about 18. This means 100 million young people, 1,800, need to get educated. And higher quality, of course, than we are providing today. They also need relevant training for new opportunities being created by technology and innovation. The only way to deliver education on this scale is through technological innovation that can deliver the best curriculum by the best teachers to the highest number of young people. And there is no other way of doing it on scale except with technology. We've experimented with how to use technology on scale in this way. With our MPAR program, we engage 500,000 graduates who work as teachers, some as farm extension workers, some as public health workers. About the first 250 of them, 250,000 of them take their part. Half tablets, such as this one that I'm holding here. And the tablets have a huge number of training material. Training material from entrepreneurship, training to co-deriving, programming, et cetera. But also, we have a local portal for all of the beneficiaries of the MPAR program. So they can actually get onto that open portal and take a lot of the material that they need. But we were also able to do practically everything concerning this 500,000 people online, particularly from recruiting them, to paying them every month, and also to monitoring what they're doing. All of it is done online. So it is entirely possible for us to train hundreds of thousands of people now and we're adapting this to training of teachers, to teacher training, and we're training. We also see that innovation is bringing us so many other advantages. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the teacher training and all that, so I don't keep you here for my threatened one. I see that a few people already know about it. Trust me, I will not stop until the last man falls asleep. Because technology allows information that is spread to more and more quickly. We see, of course, that it's also helping governance. I mean, technology helps governance, no matter what anyone says. And I'm not talking about computerizing the whole of government facilities or digitalizing it in any way. I'm talking more about just holding people to a camp. Because now it's very difficult to do anything without being caught on camera somewhere. And being posted up to one platform or the other. And I think this is good. I think this is a good thing. Every day at least, some of us, I included, get insulted practically every day on Twitter for stuff that you did wrong and many times stuff you don't even know anything about. But it's all good. I think it's better that I'm not being able to hold politicians broke out. I'm sure that there will be a lot of talk about blockchain technology. And this is something that we are already seeing in Nigeria which I think is incredible. And it's already here. The other day, I think, both Dan Gote and the, remember the name of him, of the company, both Dan Gote and the name of that payment company is. I've already started innovating in blockchain technologies but before financing supply chain, for supply chain financing in particular. So we're already seeing a lot of innovation around that. It's interest, which is the name of the company. So they're already doing quite a bit of work. So here today, we have, I'm told, several innovators from agro-tech, from medical healthcare, to think-tech, et cetera. So you really will see, I think, that there's just an enormous impact that innovation is already making in Nigeria, of course, in Africa. And I'm no doubt that this cultural innovation in Africa and Nigeria will be the game changer and that it will set, in what will make the real difference, in meeting the challenges that Africa and indeed Nigeria has faced. And I'm sure that just by looking at what is going on already and I've paid quite a bit of attention as I've passed on to you all, so many of the different things that are going on everywhere. And I think that there is no question at all that just given the right environment and even some encouragement, a lot of what we are seeing today will see in multiples and a great deal of the problems that we talk about as if they have no solution will be very, very quickly solved indeed. Finally, let me commend the founders of the Africa Institute for very hard work and sacrifices to get the Institute locked. As you heard, the Africa Institute is dedicated to provide skills development to managers, to policy makers, and to leaders in government, in techniques of good governance in the context of the African society. And I'm particularly delighted that the Institute has made a notation, a core pillar. I also understand that this second pillar of the African Institute is a moral foundation for our public sector leaders, both politicians and civil servants. And I would extend that to all private sector players as well, who are not the only sinners in this business, politicians, everyone certainly needs a moral foundation. Innovation and moral foundation are two powerful forces that will not just propel Africa forward, but will ensure that our progress will end here. Congratulations to the Africa Policies, to especially Dr. Andrew Nelly and Mr. Yamika Doso. And Mr. Yamika Doso. On this first, very many Kali Spurs human gatherings. Thank you all very much.