Sixty African students studying at some of the world's most prestigious universities converged in New Hampshire this weekend for the Harambe Endeavor's second annual Bretton Woods symposium, which focused on facilitating innovation and collaboration to address the issues faced by nations in sub-Saharan Africa.
The symposium centered on developing Harambe's "Virtual Platform," according to Amma Serwaah-Panin '10, a native of Swaziland and one of three Dartmouth students who helped organize the event. The Platform's developers envision an online network for African college students and professionals that will help them connect their projects and interests to those of their peers and discover work, internship and volunteer opportunities that support African organizations.
"Members of the African diaspora often want to connect to Africa and Africans, but don't have a way to uncover all the opportunities that might be available," Serwaah-Panin said. "Harambe's Virtual Platform engages them with the opportunities to plug in their skills and talents."
Harambe co-founder and President Okendo Gayle, a member of Southern New Hampshire University's Class of 2007 and a current graduate student at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, said that the goal of the conference, and his organization, is to encourage highly educated African students, who he termed "Africa's human capital," to stay involved "on the ground" in Africa.
The sixty students who participated in the conference had to apply to attend, and then had to lobby their schools for funding, according to Gayle and Serwaah-Panin. Participants came from all of the Ivy League universities, along with several other institutions including Wellesley College, Smith College, Stanford University, the London School of Economics and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Students from schools in Australia and Japan also participated. Gayle said that over 200 students have participated in Harambe events and activities, but that this event's 60 attendees represented some of the organization's most active members.
Participants represented countries from all corners of the African continent, according to Serwaah-Panin.
Guest speakers included Walter Fauntleroy, a civil rights leader and associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Mo Ibrahim, the founder of Celtel, an African telecommunications company; Obiageli Ezekwesili, Vice President of the World Bank's Africa division; and Jendayi Frazer, former U.S. assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, who currently serves as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
"I was struck by what [Fauntleroy] told us," Serwaah-Panin said. "He said that we were some of the most talented students, but that now we have a debt to repay."
The conference affirmed the participants' view that the Virtual Platform is needed and has support from African students, Gayle said. He said that their next step is to develop the site and secure funding. Blue State Digital, the online strategy company that created President Barack Obama's highly successful online campaign network, is helping them in that effort.
Gayle said he was inspired to create Harambe with fellow SNHU student Prince Soto after then-Senator Obama spoke at the university's 2007 commencement and told graduates that "it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential."
Gayle, who at the time was the university's first black student body president, spoke before Obama the ceremony.
Afterwards, he met Obama and his personal aide Reggie Love, who later connected Gayle and Soto with Blue State Digital.
"Our goal with the Platform is to effectively capture, inform and engage students to go beyond minimal engagement in Africa," Gayle said. "It's incredible that [Blue State] is going to help us do that."
The weekend's events began Friday with a dinner and panel discussion about the role of technology in Africa's future. On Saturday, participants drove to Bretton Woods, N.H., where they spent the rest of the weekend at the Mount Washington Hotel. The hotel is already associated with international development because, in 1944, it hosted the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, where delegations from the World War II Allied nations created the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which later evolved into the World Bank, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the International Monetary Fund.
Three Dartmouth students -- Serwaah-Panin, Christabell Makokha '11 and Motema Letlatsa '12 -- helped organize this year's event.
"None of this spectacular event could have happened without our Dartmouth organizers," Gayle said. "They took care of the all the event logistics, so that Wellesley students could focus on the applicants from other schools and [Harambe workers] could focus on speakers."
Both Serwaah-Panin and Gayle expressed their surprise that Harambe had come so far in two years.
"It's surreal that this was just an idea two years ago," Gayle said. "Already, we have so much support, the World Bank is thinking of co-hosting the next symposium. We had people from as far away as Australia come this year. It's really been a miracle."
