Justin Kan

The comments there are a treasure too! :) - Alex

It's as big as all the countries of Africa combined! - Gabe

hotbed of innovation and manufacture within 30 years - Gregory Lent

Alex: spot on. lol reading these comments. A dash of pedantry, a little bit of bigotry, some serious lack of geographical knowledge: so much fun! :) - Mathieu Ayel

beg to differ somewhat with Gregory. It might become hotbed of innovation but not any time soon. Conflicts, political instability, lack of decent governance and underlying infrastructures and institutions will not allow it to resonate in a way to become a hotbed of innovation. In small pockets though, it happens even now, especially in countries like Kenya and Ghana in everything from innovative approaches to private education to inventing incredible devices for water cleaning. - Hayk

Moreover, the size and comparison of African continent with other continents and countries is little more than a nice figure illustrative of geography. - Hayk

30 years, hyak, things will move fast, but i know what you are saying, seems nearly hopeless, impossible .. but the world "vibration" will make it happen faster than is logical (my opinion) - Gregory Lent

Gregory, i did not mean logic. Living on this continent since 1.5 years and seeing their mentality and their potential, I believe that nothing short of dramatic consciousness change, to borrow your term, will turn people on this continent into economic machines of production. I generalize, apparently. - Hayk

me too :-) ... i really have nothing to base this on .. except two things .. the creativity they have with basically nothing, even bricks are rare sometimes .. the way they are doing the cellphone thing is a hopeful sign .. and the other is from african art, every culture made masks with some sort of design feature where the third eye is .. there is an innate plugged-in-ness there, so that when it gets a bit stable, it will flow .. and the gates foundation should only do education, malaria will then take - Gregory Lent

care of itself - Gregory Lent

Also, Africa had this "misfortune" of being on top of all kinds of natural resources which became valued at one point or another. As it said in Blood Diamonds, "every time a precious resource is found on this continent,innocent people die, country is plundered." Pouring money only to sustain lives without any solid self-sustainable policies in education or infrastructure is sort of a band-aid. Tackling malaria is what appeals the most to inner sensitivities of Gates :) - Hayk

Africa is the cradle of our species.. says a lot about how out of touch we have become when we treat our birthplace with such distain. No wonder we're raping and pillaging everything we can. Makes you wonder if the attempts at keeping the African nations as undeveloped as possible is to turn the place into the next middle east when the rest of our resources have been spent. - alphaxion

+1 Gabe - Rebecca Sun