Like many of you here, I am trying to contribute towards a renaissance in Africa. The question of transformation in Africa really is a question of leadership. Africa can only be transformed by enlightened leaders. And it is my contention that the manner in which we educate our leaders is fundamental to progress on this continent. I want to tell you some stories that explain my view. We all heard about the importance of stories yesterday. An American friend of mine this year volunteered as a nurse in Ghana, and in a period of three months she came to a conclusion about the state of leadership in Africa that had taken me over a decade to reach. Twice she was involved in surgeries where they lost power at the hospital. The emergency generators did not start. There was not a flashlight, not a lantern, not a candle -- pitch black. The patient's cut open, twice. The first time it was a C-section. Thankfully, baby was out -- mother and child survived.
像在座的很多人一样，我一直在不懈地 为实现非洲的复兴而努力。 非洲要实现转型的 关键是领导力。 只有开明的领导者才能改变非洲。 我的论点是， 我们教育培养领袖型人才的模式是 这个大陆进步的基础。 我想给你们讲一些故事，来解释我的观点。 我们昨天都听说了故事的重要性。 我的一个美国朋友，今年，到加纳去做一名志愿护士。 3个月后，她得出一个 我用了十多年的时间才明白的 关于非洲的领袖人才的状态的结论。 有两次，她参与的手术过程中 医院停电了， 紧急发电机没有启动， 也没有手电筒，没有手提灯，甚至连一支蜡烛都没有。 漆黑一片！ 两次都是患者的开刀伤口还打开在的时候。 第一次是剖腹产。 谢天谢地，幸好婴儿当时已经出来了，后来母子平安。

The second time was a procedure that involved local anesthesia. Anesthetic wears off. The patient feels pain. He's crying. He's screaming. He's praying. Pitch black. Not a candle, not a flashlight. And that hospital could have afforded flashlights. They could have afforded to purchase these things, but they didn't. And it happened twice. Another time, she watched in horror as nurses watched a patient die because they refused to give her oxygen that they had. And so three months later, just before she returned to the United States, nurses in Accra go on strike. And her recommendation is take this opportunity to fire everyone, start all over again. Start all over again.
第二次手术包括局部麻醉， 停电的时候麻醉逐渐消失，患者感到疼痛。 他哭喊，尖叫，祈祷。 漆黑一片！没有蜡烛，没有手电筒！ 而其实那个医院应该是可以提供手电筒的， 他们有那个钱去买这些东西，但是他们没有。 而且这种现象发生了两次。 另外一次，她无比惊恐地和护士们一起眼睁睁地看着一个病人死去， 因为他们拒绝给病人输氧气，而医院是有氧气的。 因此，3个月后， 就在她回美国前， 阿克拉医院的护士举行罢工。 她的建议是， 抓住这个机会把所有人解雇，从头再来。 从头再来！

Now what does this have to do with leadership? You see, the folks at the ministry of health, the hospital administrators, the doctors, the nurses -- they are among just five percent of their peers who get an education after secondary school. They are the elite. They are our leaders. Their decisions, their actions matter. And when they fail, a nation literally suffers. So when I speak of leadership, I'm not talking about just political leaders. We've heard a lot about that. I'm talking about the elite. Those who've been trained, whose job it is to be the guardians of their society. The lawyers, the judges, the policemen, the doctors, the engineers, the civil servants -- those are the leaders. And we need to train them right.
那么，这个故事和领导力有什么关系？ 你知道吗，这些错误来自于卫生部， 医院的管理人员，医生，和护士—— 而他们是同龄人中的百分之五的精英， 只有他们接受了中学以上的教育。 他们是中流砥柱，是我们的领导者。 他们的决定和行为都举足轻重。 如果他们不行，整个民族，不夸张地说，都受连累。 因此我所说的领导力， 并不是只局限于政界领袖。 那些东西我们已经听得太多了， 我说的是社会精英层人才， 那些接受了教育的人， 那些应该以社会督导为职业的人。 律师，法官，警察，医生， 工程师，公务员…… 他们都是领导， 我们应该正确地培养他们。

Now, my first pointed and memorable experience with leadership in Ghana occurred when I was 16 years old. We had just had a military coup, and soldiers were pervasive in our society. They were a pervasive presence. And one day I go to the airport to meet my father, and as I walk up this grassy slope from the car park to the terminal building, I'm stopped by two soldiers wielding AK-47 assault weapons. And they asked me to join a crowd of people that were running up and down this embankment. Why? Because the path I had taken was considered out of bounds. No sign to this effect.
关于在加纳的领导力问题，我第一次难忘的经历 发生在我16岁的时候。 那时候我们国家刚刚发生了军事政变， 社会上到处都是士兵。 到处都是。 一天我去机场去接我爸爸， 我正从停车场沿着草坡 向航站楼走， 两个拿着AK-47机关枪的士兵拦住了我， 他们命令我加入一群人 在堤坝上跑上跑下。 为什么？因为我刚才走的路是禁止入内的。 而其实并没有禁止入内的标志。

Now, I was 16. I was very worried about what my peers at school might think if they saw me running up and down this hill. I was especially concerned of what the girls might think. And so I started to argue with these men. It was a little reckless, but you know, I was 16. I got lucky. A Ghana Airways pilot falls into the same predicament. Because of his uniform they speak to him differently, and they explain to him that they're just following orders. So he takes their radio, talks to their boss, and gets us all released. What lessons would you take from an experience like this? Several, for me. Leadership matters. Those men are following the orders of a superior officer. I learned something about courage. It was important not to look at those guns. And I also learned that it can be helpful to think about girls.
那时我16岁，很担心 学校的同学会笑话我， 如果他们看到我在山坡上跑上跑下。 我尤其担心女孩儿们会怎么想。 于是我和这些士兵争执。 那确实有点鲁莽，但是，你知道，我才16岁。 我很幸运。 一个加纳航空的飞行员也陷入了同样的困境。 因为他穿着飞行员制服，那些士兵对他说话的态度有点不一样， 还向他解释他们只是执行命令。 所以飞行员拿过他们的对讲机，跟他们的上司讲话， 然后我们都被释放了。 你从类似这种经历当中能领悟到什么？ 对我来说，我领悟到下面几点： 领导才能很重要。那些士兵们是在遵从 一个上级官员的命令。 我还学会了要有勇气。 不被那些枪吓倒是很重要的。 而且我还懂得了想一想女孩儿也是有帮助的。

(Laughter)
（观众笑）

So a few years after this event, I leave Ghana on a scholarship to go to Swarthmore College for my education. It was a breath of fresh air. You know, the faculty there didn't want us to memorize information and repeat back to them as I was used to back in Ghana. They wanted us to think critically. They wanted us to be analytical. They wanted us to be concerned about social issues. In my economics classes I got high marks for my understanding of basic economics. But I learned something more profound than that, which is that the leaders -- the managers of Ghana's economy -- were making breathtakingly bad decisions that had brought our economy to the brink of collapse. And so here was this lesson again -- leadership matters. It matters a great deal.
后来，这件事的几年后，我拿到奖学金离开加纳 去斯沃斯莫尔(Swarthmore)文理学院接受教育， 真是耳目一新。 你知道，那里的教员不让我们去死记硬背， 不像以前我在加纳所习惯的一样。 他们培养我们有辨析批判性地思考， 教我们养成分析的习惯。 他们希望我们关心社会问题。 我的经济学课程得了高分， 因为我对经济学基础的理解。 但是我学会了比那更意义深远的东西： 那些领导，加纳经济的管理者， 做的令人震惊的错误的决定 使我们的经济走到了崩溃的边缘。 所以现在又回到了前面的这个教训——领导能力是重要的。 它真的是非常重要。

But I didn't really fully understand what had happened to me at Swarthmore. I had an inkling, but I didn't fully realize it until I went out into the workplace and I went to work at Microsoft Corporation. And I was part of this team -- this thinking, learning team whose job it was to design and implement new software that created value in the world. And it was brilliant to be part of this team. It was brilliant. And I realized just what had happened to me at Swarthmore, this transformation -- the ability to confront problems, complex problems, and to design solutions to those problems. The ability to create is the most empowering thing that can happen to an individual. And I was part of that.
但是我并不能真正充分地理解斯沃斯莫尔学院对我的影响。 我只有一个模糊的概念， 直到我走出校园去工作才充分意识到。 我去的是微软公司， 成为了团队的一份子——一个不断思考和学习着的团队， 我们的工作就是设计和编程， 在全世界都创造着价值。 成为这个团队的一员是非常棒的， 这个团队非常杰出。 我这才明白了斯沃斯莫尔学院给了我什么， 这个教育改变了我，它让我能够 去挑战问题，复杂的问题， 去设计方案来解决问题。 创造能力是对于个人而言 最能赋予人力量的。 我当时成为了其中的一部分。

Now, while I was at Microsoft, the annual revenues of that company grew larger than the GDP of the Republic of Ghana. And by the way, it's continued to. The gap has widened since I left. Now, I've already spoken about one of the reasons why this has occurred. I mean, it's the people there who are so hardworking, persistent, creative, empowered. But there were also some external factors: free markets, the rule of law, infrastructure. These things were provided by institutions run by the people that I call leaders. And those leaders did not emerge spontaneously. Somebody trained them to do the work that they do. Now, while I was at Microsoft, this funny thing happened. I became a parent. And for the first time, Africa mattered more to me than ever before. Because I realized that the state of the African continent would matter to my children and their children. That the state of the world -- the state of the world depends on what's happening to Africa, as far as my kids would be concerned.
当我在微软的时候，公司的年收入 增长到比整个加纳共和国的GDP还高。 并且，顺便说一句，微软的年收入一直在持续增长， 从我离开微软后，这个差距更大了。 其实，我刚才已经说了为什么会产生这样的现象的一个原因。 我的意思是，是因为在微软工作的人们非常勤奋， 坚持不懈，有创造力，能发挥自己的能力。 但是也有一些外部因素，比如: 自由市场，法律治国，基础设施。 这些东西都是由社会制度提供的， 是我称之为“领导”的人们在运行着这个制度体系。 那些领导不是自然自发产生的， 而是有人培养了他们做现在的工作的。 当我还在微软的时候，有意思， 我成为了父亲。 第一次，非洲比以前对我来说更重要了， 因为我意识到非洲大陆的状态 将影响到我的孩子和他们的孩子。 我意识到全世界的状态 也取决于非洲在发生什么， 至少对于我的孩子是这样的。

And at this time, when I was going through what I call my "pre-mid-life crisis," Africa was a mess. Somalia had disintegrated into anarchy. Rwanda was in the throes of this genocidal war. And it seemed to me that that was the wrong direction, and I needed to be back helping. I couldn't just stay in Seattle and raise my kids in an upper-middle class neighborhood and feel good about it. This was not the world that I'd want my children to grow up in. So I decided to get engaged, and the first thing that I did was to come back to Ghana and talk with a lot of people and really try to understand what the real issues were. And three things kept coming up for every problem: corruption, weak institutions and the people who run them -- the leaders.
当时我正在经历 我自称的“近中年危机”， 非洲也混乱一片。 索马里已经陷入了无政府状态， 卢旺达在种族灭绝的战争中苦苦挣扎。 我认为那是错误的发展方向， 我应该回去帮助非洲。 我不能只是呆在西雅图抚养我的孩子， 住在中上阶级的社区里沾沾自喜。 我不想让我的孩子在这样的世界中成长。 所以我决定行动起来，我做的第一件事 是回到加纳和许多人谈话， 努力去了解真正的问题在哪里。 对于任何问题，三个东西总是浮现出来： 腐败，脆弱的制度， 还有运行制度的人——领导们。

Now, I was a little scared because when you see those three problems, they seem really hard to deal with. And they might say, "Look, don't even try." But, for me, I asked the question, "Well, where are these leaders coming from? What is it about Ghana that produces leaders that are unethical or unable to solve problems?" So I went to look at what was happening in our educational system. And it was the same -- learning by rote -- from primary school through graduate school. Very little emphasis on ethics, and the typical graduate from a university in Ghana has a stronger sense of entitlement than a sense of responsibility. This is wrong.
那么，我有一点害怕， 因为当你想到那三个问题， 他们看起来非常难处理。 他们很可能会说：算了吧，试都不要试。 但是，对我而言，我问了这个问题： “那么，这些领导是从哪里来的？ 加纳是怎样制造出那些 不道德的不能解决问题的领导者的？ 所以我去看看在教育系统里面到底在发生着什么。 我发现，从小学到研究生院校都是一样： 死记硬背， 不重视伦理道德。 你知道吧，加纳的大学出来的典型毕业生 自我感觉享受特权是应该的， 而缺乏对社会负责任的态度。 这是不对的。

So I decided to engage this particular problem. Because it seems to me that every society, every society, must be very intentional about how it trains its leaders. And Ghana was not paying enough attention. And this is true across sub-Saharan Africa, actually. So this is what I'm doing now. I'm trying to bring the experience that I had at Swarthmore to Africa. I wish there was a liberal arts college in every African country. I think it would make a huge difference. And what Ashesi University is trying to do is to train a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial leaders. We're trying to train leaders of exceptional integrity, who have the ability to confront the complex problems, ask the right questions, and come up with workable solutions.
于是我决定针对这个具体的问题来着手。 因为在我看来，每个社会 必须非常认真地规划怎样来培训它的领袖型人才， 而加纳并没有给予足够的重视。 实际上，整个撒哈拉以南的非洲都是这样。 这就是我正在做的事。 我试着把我在斯沃斯莫尔学院体验到的东西带到非洲， 希望在每个非洲国家都有文理学院。 我想这会大大地改变现状。 阿社思（Ashesi）大学正在努力做的 就是训练出一代新的有德行的，企业家式的领导者。 我们努力培养非常正直的学生， 他们能面对复杂的社会问题， 问出正确的问题，然后想出可以实行的措施。

I'll admit that there are times when it seems like "Mission: Impossible," but we must believe that these kids are smart. That if we involve them in their education, if we have them discuss the real issues that they confront -- that our whole society confronts -- and if we give them skills that enable them to engage the real world, that magic will happen. Now, a month into this project, we'd just started classes. And a month into it, I come to the office, and I have this email from one of our students. And it said, very simply, "I am thinking now." And he signs off, "Thank you." It's such a simple statement. But I was moved almost to tears because I understood what was happening to this young man. And it is an awesome thing to be a part of empowering someone in this way. I am thinking now.
我承认有时候觉得好像这是一个“不可能完成的任务”， 但是我们必须相信这些孩子们是聪明的， 如果我们针对他们自身特点来展开他们的教育， 如果我们让他们讨论需要面对的真正的问题—— 我们整个社会都面对的问题—— 如果我们教授他们技巧使他们能在真实的世界里立足， 那么奇迹将会发生。 深入这个项目一个月后，我们才开始上课。 再一个月后，我来到办公室， 收到一个学生的邮件。 信上非常简单地写着“我开始思考了”， 和签名“谢谢你”。 这是多么简单的一个句子。 我几乎感动地流泪， 因为我理解这个年轻人正在经历一个怎么样的改变。 这是非常美妙的事情，能参与到 以这样的方式来发挥挖掘人的才能的项目中。 我开始思考了。

This year we challenged our students to craft an honor code themselves. There's a very vibrant debate going on on campus now over whether they should have an honor code, and if so, what it should look like. One of the students asked a question that just warmed my heart. Can we create a perfect society? Her understanding that a student-crafted honor code constitutes a reach towards perfection is incredible. Now, we cannot achieve perfection, but if we reach for it, then we can achieve excellence. I don't know ultimately what they will do. I don't know whether they will decide to have this honor code. But the conversation they're having now -- about what their good society should look like, what their excellent society should look like, is a really good thing.
今年，我们让学生们 自己起草一个行为准则。 这引起了一场激烈的争论，现在校园里正在进行， 关于他们是否应该有一个行为守则， 如果应该，那它应该是什么样的。 一个学生问了一个问题，让我感到很温暖。 我们能创造一个完美的社会吗？ 她认为让学生起草的行为规则 构成一个对完美的追求，很令人惊喜。 虽然我们不能达到完美， 但是如果我们朝那个方向努力，我们就能达到卓越。 我不知道他们最终会做成什么， 不知道他们是否决定写这份行为规范。 但是她们正在进行的讨论—— 关于一个他们认为好的社会应该是什么样子， 他们认为是卓越的社会应该是什么样子的讨论—— 非常有价值。

Am I out of time? OK. Now, I just wanted to leave that slide up because it's important that we think about it. I'm very excited about the fact that every student at Ashesi University does community service before they graduate. That for many of them, it has been a life-altering experience. These young future leaders are beginning to understand the real business of leadership, the real privilege of leadership, which is after all to serve humanity. I am even more thrilled by the fact that least year our student body elected a woman to be the head of Student Government. It's the first time in the history of Ghana that a woman has been elected head of Student Government at any university. It says a lot about her. It says a lot about the culture that's forming on campus. It says a lot about her peers who elected her. She won with 75 percent of the vote.
是不是没有时间了？哦，还有时间。 现在，我暂时停在那张幻灯片上， 因为它非常重要，值得我们思考。 有一件事情是我的得意之举， 在阿社思大学的每个学生毕业前都要做社区服务。 对于他们多数人而言，那是一次改变一生的经历。 这些年轻的未来的领导们逐渐开始理解 领导力的真谛， 领导者的真正特权， 其实是为人类服务。 去年，有一件事让我更加有感触： 我们的学生团体选举了一名女性 作为学生会的主席。 这在加纳历史上是第一次， 女性被选举为大学的 学生会主席。 这件事情展示了很多关于她， 关于校园里正在形成的文化。 关于选举出她的那些同学们。 她赢得了百分之75的选票。

And it gives me a lot of hope. It turns out that corporate West Africa also appreciates what's happening with our students. We've graduated two classes of students to date. And every single one of them has been placed. And we're getting great reports back from corporate Ghana, corporate West Africa, and the things that they're most impressed about is work ethic. You know, that passion for what they're doing. The persistence, their ability to deal with ambiguity, their ability to tackle problems that they haven't seen before. This is good because over the past five years, there have been times when I've felt this is "Mission: Impossible."
这件事情也给我很大的希望。 后来发现西非公司 也欣赏我们的学生们所经受的训练。 至今为止，我们已经毕业了两个班级的学生了， 他们每个人都找到了工作。 我们也从加纳的企业，西非的企业 得到了很棒的反馈报告。 他们印象最深刻的是学生们的职业道德， 知道吧，他们做事的激情， 坚持不懈，他们解决模糊问题的能力， 解决全新问题的能力。 这很棒，因为，你知道吗， 在过去的五年，有很多时候 我都怀疑这是不可能完成的任务。

And it's just wonderful to see these glimmers of the promise of what can happen if we train our kids right. I think that the current and future leaders of Africa have an incredible opportunity to drive a major renaissance on the continent. It's an incredible opportunity. There aren't very many more opportunities like this in the world. I believe that Africa has reached an inflection point with a march of democracy and free markets across the continent. We have reached a moment from which can emerge a great society within one generation. It will depend on inspired leadership. And it is my contention that the manner in which we train our leaders will make all the difference. Thank you, and God bless.
看到我们以正确地方式培养我们的孩子之后 所展现的晨曦，真是令人鼓舞。 我认为非洲现在的和将来的领导们 有这个难得的机遇 来实现整个非洲大陆的伟大复兴。 这是一个伟大的机遇。 世界上像这样的机会没有太多。 我相信非洲已经到了一个转折点， 整个大陆上下都在走向政治民主和自由市场。 我们已经到了这样一个时期， 用一代人的时间就能创造出一个伟大的社会。 这将依赖于鼓舞人心的领导力。 我的观点是：我们培养领导人的模式和方法 是创造这个伟大变革的基础。 谢谢大家，上帝保佑你们。

(Applause)
（鼓掌）