Outliers: A Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell
When I concluded my review of Elon Musk, I vowed to help create an environment that any 10-year-old with the same potential as Elon, will be well positioned to at a minimum achieve what Elon achieved. I believe with the launch of TPH in April, we have taken the necessary steps in the right direction (www.teenagers.org.za).
It was really exciting to read a book that qualified that conclusion:
The message of this book is actually an intended contradiction with its title:
1. The so-called outliers are beneficiaries of a series of events and privileges that were not a doing of their own.
2. Although they worked hard, the circumstances that gave them the opportunity for their hard work to mean something had nothing to do them. E.g. Bill Gates had unlimited access to a computer at the age of 13, when at a time not even a college professor had an unlimited access to a Computer and obviously no other teenager in the world had that privilege.
3. The book is a call for us to create an environment were there would be no “Outliers”, because everyone will be given the same opportunity that their hard work will amount to something great.
4. The author’s view is that we should not celebrate that a certain generation created that environment for Bill Gates, but should ask ourselves the question, if a thousand more teenagers had the same opportunity, what kind of world will we be having today?
5. The good news for me as an African, is how much effort I see on a daily basis, especially from young people, to try to realise that dream. ICT Centres and Libraries are being built by NGO’s in rural areas and in most of the events I have attended this far, there seems to be a drive to disrupt the status quo.
There are no Outliers and there shouldn’t be “Outliers”.
#Books #Empowerment #SDG #privilege #Youth #Development #Opportunity #Poverty #Rural
Mashudu Mbedzi 