Avinash Meetoo

Let us build a Smart Mauritius together

50 Fraz pou 50 an Lindepandans

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“Mo video pou “50 Fraz pou 50 an Lindepandans” ki ti pas lor MBC le 10 fevrie. Mo met laksan lor linportans teknolozi ek inovasion pou ki Maurice vinn ankor meyer.”

In February, I was contacted by the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) to participate in their 50 Fraz pou 50 an Lindepandans (50 sentences for the 50th anniversary of the Independence of Mauritius) programme. I gladly accepted.

Here is a simplified transcript:

From a country which had no experience in computing and technology, Mauritius is today one of the most advanced countries in the region. All international indicators show that technology is used a lot in businesses and at home.

Today, there are different kinds of companies in Ébène Cybercity and, notably, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) companies. There are local and foreign ICT companies which employ about 25,000 people and have the potential to employ still more people, including Mauritians, provided they are trained properly. Young Mauritians are as good as any other young people from any other country and, if they get the proper training, Mauritius will be able to move up a level.

Technology is an enabler. It will allow us to better leverage, for example, our seas (thereby strengthening our ocean economy), to engage in modern agriculture and to allow our hotels to have more clients from more countries. Technology can also allow us to penetrate untapped industries such as the video gaming industry. 1-2% of this industry can have a very positive impact on our economy.

For this to become true, it is essential that we think big and we need to become innovative. For me, innovation is simply being able to do something today which we couldn’t do yesterday. It is necessary to inspire young people to become better than their parents for example. To do that, we could ask innovators in the island to show what they are doing to these young people. Similarly, it should be possible for young students to go throughout the island to discover what is being done.

An innovative Mauritius will also require more collaborative work. People will have to trust each other. People need to understand that it is possible for everyone to win. Winning does not forcibly entail someone else losing.

When this will become true, then Mauritius will become one of the best countries in the world or, maybe, the best one 🙂

What do you think?

My interactive session on Innovation during Infotech / Innovtech 2017

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On 2 December 2017, I did something cool. I gave the microphone to others.

I was supposed to make (yet another) presentation on Innovation as a major enabler in the transformation of Mauritius during Infotech / Innovtech 2017. During the past few months, I have realised that, sitting in our tour d’ivoire, it is impossible for us to have all the answers concerning on how to create a culture of innovation in Mauritius.

Inspired by a similar session by Prof Chinapah during eLearning Africa 2017, I decided to simply ask a few questions during my talk and let the members of the public give answers. My job was then simply to collate everything and share with you all, including the Minister of Technology, Communication and Innovation as well as the administrative staff of the Ministry.

Question 1: How can we inspire (young) people of Mauritius?

  • It is important to explain what innovation is and why Mauritius needs to be innovative.
  • Role models need to be identified and they should come to school to show what they do.
  • Puzzles, kits, robots, etc. need to be given to kids at school so that they can experiment, collaborate and play.
  • Kids need to have more activities and games at school instead of just listening and writing.
  • Kids need to be able to travel to discover new countries, people and cultures (e.g. exchange programmes).
  • Focus at school need be on collaboration and sharing, not competition.
  • There is a need to recognise that there are different kinds of intelligence, not only academic.
  • STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) need to be introduced early and in an interesting way.
  • Proper and sincere recognition need to be given whenever a kid succeeds (in any way).
  • Teachers should impose less on kids, they should even ask kids what they would like to know.
  • The teacher to student ratio need to be as high as possible.

Question 2: How to make the population focus on end results?

This question proved a bit harder for me to explain: my point is that a lot of energy is wasted focusing on details which are not important. I mentioned that we should, as a nation, understand what benefits a project can bring in the medium- and long- term and, if sacrifices need to be made in the short-term, so be it. I got the following answers:

  • Whoever initiates (big) projects need to communicate its intent and benefits as clearly as possible (“good marketing”).
  • The projects need to be explained in the context of the common good and common space that we all share.
  • Success criteria need to be properly identified (someone mentioned that, until the population stops thinking that owning a BMW or a massive house is real success, then this is going to be difficult).
  • Projects need to address issues that are important (e.g. leveraging our territorial waters, solving traffic problems, making our lives better).

Question 3: How to develop reciprocal trust among Mauritians?

It is clear that we, Mauritians, do not trust each other. We love to criticise (la critique est facile, l’art est difficile…) without trying to empathise (i.e. understanding the point of view of the other).

  • We need to be honest (and, dare I say, stop bullshitting each other).
  • We need to learn to say “Bonjour” when we meet others.
  • Mauritians need to collaborate with others and create synergies.
  • Our collaborations should not only be about getting more money.
  • Our mentality should change about “the other” and this needs to start at school.
  • We should introduce a happiness metric (as Bhutan did in the past): are we really happy?

Question 4: How can we challenge the status quo?

Aha. Since I’ve returned to Mauritius 20 years ago after spending five years in France, I have noticed that we love repeating things that don’t work over and over again. I’ve seen that as a consultant (recruit young people, make them miserable, allow them to leave and repeat), in education (recruit bad teachers and unguided students, teach irrelevance, have easy exams, create generations of badly-trained people and repeat) and now in ministries (organise numerous workshops in posh hotels, write reports which no one will ever read, only few recommendation taken into account and repeat).

  • Mauritius is suffering from a massive brain drain and, consequently, the number of remaining people of sufficient caliber is not enough for everything that needs to be done. We need to find ways to encourage the diaspora to come back (better scope, more transparency, better salaries, etc.)
  • We need to favour and better encourage risk takers: they are the ones who challenge the status quo by being leaders, others are just followers.
  • We need to change our mindset towards the success of others: we should stop hating others for their success.
  • We need to have platforms to share ideas and opportunities: it is difficult to innovate alone.

Phew!

Thank you to all those who have contributed their thoughts about how to make Mauritius better. I always tell pretty much anyone that Mauritius can be the best country in the world if we address some fundamental issues. While writing this post, I realised that these issues are obvious and, in some ways, easy to address provided:

  • We stop bullshitting ourselves.
  • We stop hating others for their success.
  • We start working together.

Right now, I am in between two minds about this happening soon. On one hand, we need to or else other countries will quickly overtake us. But, deep inside us, we still have this tendency to hate others for their success. How can this be addressed? How can our mentality change so that we understand that we are all in the same boat and, without collaboration, nothing will happen?

In my opinion, this can only happen at the very top level: the Prime Minister need to make us want to work together for the common good.

Informative and Restrained as opposed to Superficial and Flashy

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Infotech 2017 has started.

And I am happy to notice that, except for one or two stands, things are much more “Informative and Restrained” compared to previous editions where things tended to be “Superficial and Flashy”.

Allow me to explain.

In Mauritius, for the past few years, we have become a nation of seminars, workshops, conferences and exhibitions and, unfortunately, many of them are quite superficial and very very flashy indeed. For the past six months, I have been to many such events where the venue was beautiful (a nice hotel with a beautiful view of the lagoon), the food was excellent, the hostesses out of this world but where, personally, I felt that there was not much to listen to and learn from, except from a minority of the speakers. This is what I call “Superficial and Flashy”.

What I would prefer to have, from a personal point of view, is the kind of chaotic geekish meetup as pictured above. An event where intelligent people of all horizons can meet, exchange views, share ideas and move forward together. Of course, there is a need for a venue and some food but nothing ostentatious. This is what I call “Informative and Restrained”.

The thing is that it is easier to do “Superficial and Flashy” than “Informative and Restrained”. The reason for that is that to be informative, the speakers need to be of high-caliber and need to be properly prepared.

This is your typical Googler. Similar people are changing our worlds everyday at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc. but also in the IT division of most of the companies in the world. And, before you laugh, let me remind you that they run the world.

Pictured above are some of the people who have basically built the world as it is known today. Without them, we would still be waiting for The A-Team to be shown on TV on Saturday night. They are Steve Jobs (Apple), Sergey Brin (Google), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Page (Google), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon). The missing ones being Linus Torvalds (Linux) and Richard Stallman (Free Software Foundation).

Of course, we won’t have Steve (RIP), Sergey, Bill, Larry, Mark, Jeff, Linus or Richard at Infotech. Maybe next year…

But we’ll have the 2nd best thing: the (real) innovators of Mauritius, each on his/her respective “Informative and Restrained” stand and willing to share his/her passion with you.

You just have to put aside your tendency to value the “Superficial and Flashy”, walk toward them and talk to them.

Enjoy 🙂

(First photo, courtesy of Le Méridien. Second photo, courtesy of Concept7. Third photo, courtesy of Business Insider. Fourth photo, courtesy of Youth Connect. Fifth photo, courtesy of PC Risk).