Focused on international students returning to their home, Efosa Ojomo, author of the book, “The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty,” observed, “We teach them how to swim and then we send them back to a place where there is no water.”
Ojomo spoke to an audience of students and faculty in the McKay Auditorium on Feb. 21. He is currently a senior research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
“We live in a future-oriented world. We don’t have a future based on data. God has given us the ability to develop theory,” he said. Ojomo explained we need to ponder the cause and reason of a situation and start to think about the power and potential to improve it.
Gale Pooley, a BYU–Hawaii economics associate professor, said the purpose of the lecture was to help international students understand how to improve and serve their nations.
Innovation
According to Pooley, innovation is a way to escape poverty. He said, “The emphasis is not how to get someone out of poverty but how to bring them into a thriving and prosperous life instead.”
About the nature of entrepreneurship, Ojomo said, “Innovation used to be the weirdos when we lived in an aristocratic government. It depended more on what family you were born into. Understanding the role in entrepreneurship in nation building and what drives economics is so important.”
Pooley clarified why nations have poverty. He said, “Corruption is a feature by way that it can reduce innovation. Many investors would not invest in a country with corruption. But there is corruption because there is no innovation, and this changes corruption.”
“We can educate capital providers of the onset and you don’t need a significant amount of money. Know where not to look,” Ojomo answered as student entrepreneurs sought advice for international investment.
Pooley said, “We push things on a country such as highways or electrical plants. We can put money into lots of different things, but the problem is when people cannot act on their ideas. The argument stands if the person can start a business that creates value for the lives of those in challenged communities, then it can build. Innovation is what creates the environment to allow change to happen.”
Bringing others up
“How do you become prosperous?” Pooley asked the audience. He said, “I thought about the word ‘prosperous’ and I realized the word occurs so many times in the Book of Mormon. It’s related to this idea and these Christian principles. Obedience to those principles will create this prosperity and the fundamental principle… that I always look to is how do we treat each other.
“When we go into a place that’s poor, we can help people escape spiritual and economic poverty. Their lives and their principles are going to change. You will become a different person and create value around them. This innovation creates a market and a value for everyone.”
Creating jobs out of thin air
“I had no intent of going back to Nigeria,” Ojomo said, recalling his background. “I had stayed in the United States for eight years and focused on economic development.” Ojomo said he committed to himself to create change in his community.
“To help people in these differences of capitalization and innovation we must study the path of development,” Ojomo explained. “Markets create simple affordability, new consumers, jobs and enables development. Sustaining, performance, improving existing consumers, creates few jobs.”
While recognizing the lack of access to clean water for Africans, Ojomo raised more than $300,000 to build wells in the villages. Although the construction was successful within a few months, the wells needed repairs, and the service was not sustainable in the communities. Ojomo said capitalization and innovation change the market in a community and expands at a macro level in a country.
“The key,” Ojomo paused, “is to create the market.”
Pooley added, “How can we create value for one another? That’s really what economics is about. How can we create something that creates value for both of us? Poverty is not necessarily a lack of resources, it’s a lack of imagination, and in many cases, it’s a lack of rights.
“The PCC represents what the books describe how you create something from nothing. When we have this vision and persist, we can do the work,” said Pooley. Ojomo noted he was impressed with the development of the PCC.
Pooley said he and administrators are trying to turn the book, “The Prosperity Paradox,” into a full course to study. He said studying this book’s theories deeper allows students to return home to their countries better equipped to serve and have a positive affect if they can understand and become innovators.
After listening to Ojomo, Juna Polidario-Mango, a senior majoring in business management from the Philippines and the founder of her company, Moms-Cool, said, “It makes me feel empowered. It encourages me to have these thoughts and to make an anchor for my business.”
Polidario said Ojomo’s experience was touching as he remembered and acted for his community. “I realized that I can do it here and now. It starts simply, but the point is to start now. It doesn’t start when you return to your home.” Polidario plans to begin her company in Laie instead of wait when she returns to the Philippines.
According to Polidario, her business focuses on teaching students and children about domestic skills such as making the bed and doing the dishes.
“If I had one word to summarize my impression of the lecture, I would say to keep [innovation] simple.”
Writer: Geena DeMaio