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What Africa Can Teach the World:
An Academic Symposium in Honor of President Spar's Inauguration
10.24.08
New York, NY — On Friday, October 24, at 10:00 a.m., Barnard College will hold an academic symposium entitled "What Africa Can Teach the World" in honor of President Debora Spar's inauguration as the College's seventh president. The program will bring together distinguished individuals who are active in African business and economics to discuss the past and future of the African economies, their trade policies and practices, and future challenges for the continent.
President Spar has conducted extensive research regarding business and industry in Africa. Her research has looked at the diamond industry, the AIDS crisis, the democratization of South Africa since apartheid, and the emergence of Botswana as an African success story. At Harvard Business School, where she was the Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration, President Spar created and chaired "Making Markets Work," a program designed to develop leaders in both the private and public sector in African nations.
President Spar will welcome the panel's organizer, Barnard history professor Abosede George, and moderator Mamadou Diouf, Leitner Family Professor of African Studies and Director of Columbia University's Institute of African Studies. Participants will include:
- Jonathan Cook, Senior Lecturer at the Gordon Institution of Business Science University of Pretoria, South Africa
- Malik Fal, Business Marketing and Operations Group Lead for Microsoft Corporation in West, East, and Central Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands
- Una Okonkwo-Osili, Associate Professor of Economics at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
More information on President Spar's inauguration festivities.
WHEN: October 24, 2008, 10:00 a.m.
WHERE: James Room, 4th Floor, Barnard Hall
Barnard College, 3009 Broadway at West 117th Street
PANELIST BIOGRAPHIES
Mamadou Diouf is a renowned West African scholar and historian and the director of Columbia University's Institute for African Studies at the School of International and Public Affairs. He is also a faculty member in Columbia's Departments of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) and History. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Paris-Sorbonne (France). His research interests include urban, political, social and intellectual history in colonial and postcolonial Africa.
Jonathan Cook is a Senior Lecturer and Director for Academic Programs at the Gordon Institution of Business Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. He is a counseling psychologist and his teaching and research interests include leadership, executive development, team effectiveness and interpersonal skills. He directs "Teaching the Practice of Management" program, a joint project of GIBS, the Lagos Business School and the Global Business School Network, to develop case-teaching skills among business school faculty in Africa. Cook also consults on self-assessment and peer feedback in leadership development. He owns the company Thornhill Associates (Pty) Ltd., which provides resources in this field.
Malik Fal leads Microsoft Corporation's Business Marketing & Operations (BMO) Group for West-East-Central Africa, which is based in Johannesburg and covers 49 African countries. Fal's most recent responsibilities included the management of full-fledged competitiveness engagements for the Office of the President of Rwanda, OTF's various business development initiatives across Africa, teaching engagements with Harvard Business School's pilot executive course entitled "Making Markets Work," and on-going engagements with OTF's long-term development institutional clients such as the World Bank, DFID, or USAID.
Una Okonkwo-Osili is an Associate Professor of Economics at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis and is a consultant in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Her research lies within the field of development economics. In particular, she studies how households in developing countries make economic decisions where incomes are low and variable, and especially in the presence of market imperfections. Currently, Okonkwo-Osili is studying the private income contributions and institutions using data from Indonesia. She plans to examine transfers to community-level institutions in other parts of the developing world and the role that community groups can play in the process of economic development.
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