An integrated, decentralized approach can harnesses the efforts of creative problem solving more effectively than top-down framework. Our ELI Fellows program is only the beginning of this new approach. Innovation is at the core of ELI Africa and to that end, we proudly launch our new initiative: The ELI Africa Ideas and Actions sharing Platform.
While it is true that individually many actions and ideas may seem small, together they reinforce each other and contribute to the whole. I invite you to read an excerpt from The Lives of a Cell, written by Lewis Thomas, former dean of Yale Medical School:
“A solitary ant, afield, cannot be considered to have much of anything on his mind; indeed, with only a few neurons strung together by fibers, he can’t imagine to have a mind at all, much less a thought. He us more like a ganglion on legs. Four ants together, or ten, encircling a dead moth on a path, begin to look like an idea. They fumble and shove, gradually moving the food toward the Hill, but as though by blind chance. It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you can observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits.”
We want our new platform to allow people of all ages and backgrounds to reflect and act on their ideas to bring meaningful change, no matter how big or small. Using our abilities to think and communicate and to work in teams and in teams of teams, we can turn this uncertain future into a better tomorrow.
Vedant Seeam