Our population is small. It's not like in 25 years a quarter of the world will be African. So it's a completely different ball game that we're talking about here. However, in the first boys high school right now, the QPSD, which is going to be our future vocational school, where we hope to export our curriculum globally for countries who are asking for our expertise in helping them develop the creative economy. Currently we have an exhibition curated by OMA led by Ram Koul House called Countryside: A Place to Live Not to Leave, and it talks about a lot of our agriculture projects and also we work with the psychiatric hospital adjacent to the school where we use agriculture as a form of healing and art therapy. Art healing has become a very important component of any society, which reflects the importance of culture as a neutral space and an inviting open space for anybody to participate and become better than when they left it. Many of the projects that Mr. Gates is doing with Qar Fund for Development are presented there. So not only do you go and see a beautiful exhibition, but you learn about facts on agriculture, farming, and the importance of it, and you go home and start to imagine how you can contribute as an individual to the larger scheme of things.
Right. And so the prestige is there of course, but how do these cultural investments, some of which you've led, how do they actually translate into industrial capacity and economic empowerment for the global south? We keep talking about culture. Even recently, you were described as the queen of soft power, culture as being a soft power. What are we underestimating about the economic power of culture? Because I think people still see arts and creative industries as soft power and not necessarily something that could lead to economic transformation in the global south.
I think it's soft power because it leads to economic transformation. For us, at least, everything we did was completely organic. When I was put in charge, I didn't really realize the impact we would receive because simply when I started, culture was the least interesting sector. Creative economy was something you had to do, nice to have but not must have. Now the perspective has completely shifted, not just in the region but the whole world. If you ask any country trying to redevelop its identity, the first thing they do is look at culture because it brings everybody together. It unites a country. It unites an identity and gives you a reason to believe in your power and your identity and your human dignity. So I think there's the prestige, but also the very organic. If you go to Lewan, which I think you have been, our oldest girls school or first girls school, it's a design lab. It's very organic. It's very simple. There's no prestige there, but the quality of work that comes out of there is very empowering. People go there, set up their own businesses. They go globally and represent whichever country they come from, as you know it's a very diverse nation, and they represent themselves globally. The same with the film institute. When we started 15 years ago, nobody believed there could be a film industry. Today, nobody can deny Doha's importance in the film industry. All of Hollywood was here last week simply because they want to set up the regional headquarters here. That tells you it takes time when you talk about culture and creative economy to get credibility, but it requires a long-term vision and consistency.
Mr. Gates, thank you so much. Her Excellency Sheikha Al-Mayassa talked about infrastructure being one of the barriers to economic empowerment on the African continent, which is true even though the African Continental Free Trade Area is being set up to try and improve that and remove those bottlenecks. What do you see as a barrier today to economic empowerment not just on the African continent but in the global south as a whole? There's technology innovation going on around the world but it's uneven. Would you say that is the biggest barrier today?
If you look at the first stage of economic development, along with health and education, the key part of the economy is going to be agriculture, and the majority of Africans are farmers. Ironically, even so many people work in agriculture in Africa, the continent is a net importer of food and it faces headwinds in the agricultural sector. You've got very high population growth, degraded soils, and the impacts of climate change. It might be surprising that I believe if we innovate by empowering those farmers, giving them an AI that gives them advice, understanding about their soils and how to improve them, giving them new seeds and new livestock, the opportunity for that sector is to more than overcome those headwinds and turn this into the primary area of economic growth and make Africa not only self-sufficient to help solve malnutrition problems but also a significant net food exporter. We start where an average farm in Africa per hectare has about 20% the output of a rich world farm, and that shouldn't be the case. This AI advisor that will understand weather, prices, seed varieties, and diseases will be one of the key elements along with much better seeds and animal genetics to achieve a great vision, and that will continue to be the biggest part of the African economy for the next 20 years.
Okay, thank you so much for that. But on AI, Mr. Gates, there's a lot of talk about it, but how do we prevent it from becoming the new digital divide, especially on the African continent? I know you've been doing a lot of work on AI in Africa. How are we going to keep it from becoming this new divide between north and south that's existed in other fields?
One of the great things about AI is that because it's able to use human language, anyone who has a cell phone will have the ability to dial a number or connect through an application and simply talk to a doctor, a virtual doctor driven by AI that remembers everything they've ever said about their health, every complaint, every diet, every advice they've ever gotten. It will be available to them 24 hours a day and this will be provided as a free service. You don't have to build new infrastructure. The infrastructure being built today for digital connectivity in Africa, getting the price of internet connectivity down, getting cell phones into the hands of women in remote villages, it's taking place, though much more to do. Places like India are much further along, which means we'll pilot some of the AI stuff in India, but we want to get it out in Africa as quickly as we can. So it's not a new infrastructure. The only thing that's new is the cloud piece that is actually running that virtual doctor, tutor, or agricultural advisor. Rich countries working together with groups like the Gates Foundation should be able to donate the rather modest cloud cost for that AI. So it's just free. You pick up your phone, you talk as much as you want to the doctor, to the tutor, to the farm advisor, and you pay nothing for it.
Mr. Dangote, Aliko Dangote, your thoughts about that? There are those who say as we talk about AI, what Africa needs today are more factories and not necessarily more startups. What are your thoughts on that? And what do you think are the biggest barriers today to economic empowerment on the continent? Is it infrastructure? Is it governance? What are your thoughts?
Well, I think both. I think the infrastructure and also the governance. When you look at it today, using AI, especially what Bill said in agriculture, is going to help us a great deal because Africa has 60% of the world's arable land. We have no reason to be importing what we consume. We should actually feed the rest of the world. Anybody who tries to do agriculture without technology will just be losing money or wasting time. I think it will help us. Naturally, if you ask me, would I like to be in agricultural business, I'd say no, but we got into it so we can help give freedom to our population because that is the next area of growth. Despite population growth, Africa has the most vibrant population. We have 30% of the world's mineral resources. What we are trying to do as Dangote Group is to drive and make sure our minerals are not taken away just like that, but processed before they are exported. This is one of the drivers that's still not happening. We keep talking about processing them on the African continent. Quite a lot has happened in the last seven years. As Dangote Group, we've invested $25 billion at scale, but a lot of our raw materials on the African continent are still being processed elsewhere. I agree with you, but at scale, nobody from outside Africa will come and do it for us. We have to lead. If we lead, people will come. It's like a restaurant: you never hear advertising once the food is good; you see people trooping in. That's what we want to do. In Africa, we Africans start first, and then other people will partner with us because nobody will come and do it for us.
