Want to work, if we major skills that we do. My card is filling up at d. C. This fall. We will have you back to ctu at that important subject. You have to catch tammy, buster, bob and one do not break and not been for the names of those leaders. Were up against our time here. This is the nature of the panel and ask you to think bob woodson, tammy bruce. [applause] and we will have more for the western conservative Senate Annual conference night, including their marks in South Carolina senator tim scott and the Freedom Coalition founder, ralph reid. That is at 8 00 eastern over on cspan. I was after president obama authorize the use of military action against extremist forces in iraq, u. S. Armed forces carried out several airstrikes against the militant group, isis. During a 90 minute briefing with reporters, White House Press secretary on the josh earnest discuss u. S. Military action in iraq, including this mornings airstrike in the town of your real. As we have seen the isis and make a memory space, the military advisors. You have said there is no military solution to that and the United States should not be dragged into a war. What is to stop that from happening and what is to stop the Islamic State forces terminating further . But may start that. You ask a couple different questions here but may take up individually. The first one, which is most important for the American People to understand and the president said this clearly mr. Marks last night and in fact i have been here. Let me repeat them. As commanderinchief the president said, will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in iraq. So even as we support iraqis, if they take the fight these terrorists, american combat troops will not be returning to fight in iraq. So that is a pretty clear expression for the commanderinchief about what our intentions are and what the limit of any sort of military action would be. That is a clear enunciation of the kind of principle that is at stake here, which is disbelief that there are in iraq right now. Its the view of the president that those challenges cannot be solved by the American Military. They can only be solved through an inclusive government of the people of iraq. And it made progress in trying to form that government and we are hopeful that once the government is formed that they will pursue the kind of inclusive governing agenda that is required to unite the country and its threat today that exists in the country right now. If there is a rule for the American Military to play in supporting the iraqi people and that inclusive government in an integrated Security Force capable of defending the country, then we will use that American Military prowess in pursuit of that goal as well. It is after all the clear National Interest in the United States for there to be a stable Iraqi Government that can preside over a stable iraq and a Security Force that is necessary capability to address to the security situation is in this country. These are all difficult challenges and i dont mean to minimize time. But you know, we have a very clear point of view. That is based on our recent experience about the limit of american involvement in that kind. And what that means is this is a situation that is a very difficult challenge. But its not a challenge that can resolve by the American Military. There is support that can be provided by the American Military, but this is a situation solved by the iraqi people and a government that reflects the reviews of the population. Is the president hope authorized effectively will buy time so the iraqi people organize their government and their Defense Forces to reptile isis . I dont think i would describe it that way and i do think the president would either. Again, the primary goal of the mishnah president authorized last night was the protection of the american personnel in iraq gave the president authorized military action to address an urgent, even dire humanitarian situation. More generally, a willingness on the part of the American People to stand with the people of iraq as they pursue a future that is reflective of the diverse population of the nation of iraq. And that future is under grave threat by isil extremists making advances across the country and our desire and a clear interest of American National security for us to support the iraqi people a say confront that threat. But again, this is a threat that we cannot confirm for them. It is a threat that can only be met and defeated day you unified iraq in support of an integrated, capable iraq Security Force. If that requires the support of the American Military, better support we are ready to offer, but not in a military conflict that involves the United States of america and it will not involve american troops returning to iraq in a combat role. You can watch on todays White House Briefing tonight at nine dirty eastern on cspan or anytime on cspan. Org. Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders gathered this week in washington d. C. To discuss strategies for innovation, Economic Growth and development in africa. Speakers included as are several african initiatives with Companies Including microsoft, General Electric and the mobile network safari column hosted by the brookings institution, and this is an hour and 20 minutes. Good afternoon. Thanks for being with us and the panel members. We have a team that is really connection and communication in africa and we have with us and i will quickly go over the more detailed versions. We have jay ireland who was appointed in 2011. Since his appointment, jay has overseen the growth of over 1800 employees and revenues of over 2. 4 billion, with businesses across aviation, power generation, oil and gas, health care and transportation transportation. Jay is also at the number of the board of directors of the Cancer Research foundation and a trustee of st. Lawrence university. Jay, thanks a lot for being with us. Then, we have robert collymoore, ceo of safari unlimited, the leading Communications Company in africa in pioneer of the worlds most developed mobile payment system. Bob has more than 30 years of commercial experience working in the Telecom Sector and is passionate about how businesses can be capitalized in communities in more countries. The United Nation takes the United Nations Global Compact board. Then, we have the general manager of africa initiatives from microsoft and the general manager for microsoft africa initiatives. He has 30 years of experience in icp across four continents, having first read microsoft in 1992 and technical manager in south africa. Since that time he is at many positions of the country, including chief operating officer for microsoft saudi arabia as well as director of Strategic Initiatives for the middle east and north africa based in istanbul, my home city. And fernando was once a race car driver. And finally, we have 79, the founder of a diversified tofu, group with diverse mint in africa, europe, north america, latin america and asiapacific. The cochair of the African UnionWorld EconomicForum Platform are investing in African Agriculture known as proafrica recently took over the chairmanship of the alliance for green revolution in africa from kofi anon. He and his wife financed the foundation which provides scholarships for over 42,000 african orphans. This is a great panel and again thank you very much for being with us. Just a few words. Our African Growth Initiative of proteins is now almost five years old. We really focus on bringing africas on bringing africas first to washington and at the same time partnering with the network of african think tanks and universities throughout africa. For us, this event attached to president obama hosting the african summit is extremely exciting that were trying our best to make it as successful as possible. The Communications Team is of course crucial for africa. I was head of ntp for a while, but before that i was at the world bank from long years ago. And i remember traveling from aubuchon to paris basically. You still have to go sometime through. You still have to sometimes go through paris, london or more off in dubai. But africa is huge continent together to communicate, to interact, having the physical infrastructure, which is so important, but also the softer infrastructure, mobile Communication Network where it has been such a huge Breakthrough Technology is i think a huge opportunity and i think many of us hope that africa will be at the prodding. You are to see it happening in banking and health care and other areas. And finally, human networks. At the end of the day, maybe the most important of all network of entrepreneurs, academics, ngos of a Civil Society and particularly business now looking at africa is real investment. Philanthropy is great and i think we want to encourage it as much as possible. But when business sees row profit opportunities in the opportunity to develop africa will be good for its bottom line in integrating them fully into the business and valueadded chain, that is where we will see africas takeoff becoming sustainable and really laughing. So with that, we will go in the order of sitting here and we will start with the day. Gray, thank you for having me. It is great to be here this week. I actually started last week we had a trade mission with an Energy Ministers to houston for oil and gas. The whole affect of getting more people understanding africa and more importantly getting a lot of the African Leaders and heads of state and Business Leaders here is the key thing, which is obviously in a conference. I said earlier as we met, and the other room, its nice to have a metal bender for all these i. T. Guys and telephone guys. We are an infrastructure company. Ge, ive been in nairobi for the last three and a half years. We want to put a real focus, so we put Senior Leaders in a number of different regions. And what ive seen in africa, the growth obviously we all know about the demographic population, the growing middle class, et cetera, et cetera. The real thing thats real thing thats got to have been mistaken as demographics and get any real value out of them and to do that the infrastructure has to be improved. Rose, rails, power, electric, but also the communication as well, which i think has leapfrogged here in the u. S. My daughter who is, and visited a part of the safari in kenya said they had better service. And she did at her apartment in manhattan. So bob, you and giving you that commercial. But overall, the innovation aspect in africa is totally undervalued and misunderstood by many people. When i come back to the u. S. And talk, we have tremendous innovation that is occurring. As someone said earlier today and another meeting i was at, a Typical Development you go through a sequential manner and theres no real reason in africa we cant go from one, two to six and leap over three, four, five. And i think we have done not. A lot of it is capable because communication, infrastructure and the ability now of technology to move bigger and bigger pieces of data across them. We are working on a number of solutions in the health care site or in africa to really drive the capability of the rural areas if you go back into the urban areas, but we do have trained technicians that can read xrays or ultrasound better. So we are having that ability to change the realize that people that are away from lets say the banner of the Trained Medical people. The other big area is energy. The electricity is the big one. We all know about the electricity deficit in africa is absolutely imperative to correct that. We are happy to help do they not. We have a whole plethora of products across a number of different power capabilities. But most importantly to give access. We can generate all the power or deliver generation to the grid, but you need access for the consumers. Again, when you look at technologies out there, not just the standpoint of picking the grid and doing some things that are powered by the hour cometh things like that, rental capability, people again through the telecom lines, but also the ability to bring solar power and micro grids, which the pivot mechanisms are the key and a lot of that is through mobile telephony. All of those are absolutely critical. One of the key things i found it even with all of that in as you said earlier about traveling around, the most important thing that has to happen is going to be more and more investment. Theres a lot of dollars to want to invest in africa from all over. East, west of develop worlds developing and that is going to happen because people perceive that the risk matches the reward on investment days and the only way people are understand the true Risk Perception of africa for the risk reality is to be there. You have to be local. You know, he was trying to do my job sitting in london were sitting in the u. S. And flying in every now and then, i have a very hard time to really connect people that you need for the business standpoint, not just a government, but other Business Leaders and to understand what the issues were. I think the more people to come to africa from the standpoint of investing, they realize yes theres a lot of challenges. We all know what they are, but they are not insurmountable. An easy place to do business. It is easier in some respects than people think, harder in others quite frankly. We have been able to grow our business from unnamed a billion orders to about four this year the last three years. Weve been able to grow pretty dramatically and its all because we have a focus on the ground and we continue to hire local people and that makes the communication and the theme of the conference really have the communication, not just using that technology, but the old meaning understanding of what has to be done. Thanks, bob and jay. A b1 point for all the panelists, this quite a few studies on catch up in leapfrogging. One question that is very people are asking on the data you feed technologies are spreading very, very fast. So when they appear somewhere in the world, japan or the u. S. Or germany two months later, they are in other parts of the world. That is not necessarily true for their diffusion. Any remark from that would also be very welcome. They are the mentioned twice one of the great examples of leapfrogging in one of the greatest leaders of that. I have to make sure [laughter] you know, one of the things with much of the narrative today in this week is about this thing called africa. We think about the continental science rather than the 55 countries that make up the country. You know, those people speak in 2000, three dozen languages. Different cultures, different religions and different political makeup. And regional integration unless we can get a grip and it. You know, from dubai is about 1400. To have the same is approaching 4000. It takes a lot longer to compile into hong kong. Still another one that actually relates much more to our industry come on washington to nairobi. And so, when you think about this thing called africa, it theres 55 things called africa. Typically we talk about unemployment rates across the continent. And in nigeria records about 13 . The fact is nigeria has 170 Million People. Thats a lot of people without a purpose in life. So you know, jerry in the ge team have been doing a lot of stuff around energy. When i look at investing in africa, we do tend to look a bit more collaboratively. In kenya are discovered oil. The problem with the sisters absolutely need for energy because 80 of the population are currently having access. You cant industrialize the country unless you have power. It doesnt create jobs. Its capitalintensive. The problem is the jobs created, no quality jobs. So that doesnt been addressed the issue of youth unemployment, which across the continent and all the countries it is a problem. Also the rule of art or culture because arboriculture agendas about 20 contributions of gdp at higher or lower in some places. And its about 15 of experts coming out of african countries. The probably how does the average farmer is operating on. 21. 3. An interesting statistic i discovered the other day that germany makes more coffee than the whole continent of africa. Even more alarming is the value of swedish sorry, swiss coffee exports is twice the value of german coffee exports. So again, you can probably challenge the numbers that they wont be that far off. Actually when you go into starbucks in nearby that coffee, that kilogram turns into Something Like 500. I have a friend who works out of uganda and e