As part of the 2024 AGYLE – African German Young Leaders in Business cohort, I had the unique opportunity to join the programme´s Live Week in Berlin, from 16th to the 20th September. The AGYLE programme is a project by Deutschland Land der Ideen that aims to connect young African and German leaders from business, politics and the media to strengthen the African-German dialogue and to establish a long-term business network supporting the development of innovative business models.
This year’s focus topic of the AGYLE programme was “Circular Economy – How young leaders are shaping the transformation” and a group of 40 exceptional entrepreneurs and experts in the field of Circular Economy have been selected and invited to Berlin from Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Germany. During the week we got to know each other in different ways and we have been matchmaked with extraordinary speakers, impact investors, coaches and thinkers.
It has been a week of professional and personal transformation, of mutual listening and inspiration, of learning from each other and innovating together. The live week program has been extremely well curated by the AGYLE team and I´m happy to share some of its insights and takeaways.
DAY 1 – GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHERS & DEEP DIVE INTO CIRCULAR ECONOMY
The first day started at the Impact Hub Berlin with a longer Impro-Theater session by Die Gorillas that helped so much in breaking the ice between the participants and in learning how in leadership it is essential to always be aware of all the others involved in a project and to listen and be emotionally in contact with your team. We laughed incredibly much during this session and the first connections in the group started to emerge.
In the afternoon we were treated to an inspiring keynote speech by Ramona Liberoff, one of the most prominent Circular Economy experts globally.
The main takeaways from her speech are:
→ Innovation needs a full re-imagination of the world as it is and of all production sectors. Therefore we need the right political leaders that are able to inspire with long-term visions. We can’t achieve this without diversifying the political pipeline.
→ Instead of asking consumers to change the world, we should actually ask people as voters to choose their leaders because of what they think about climate topics instead of because of their personalities.
→ When driving innovation take a step back and look at the bigger picture, who else can be involved? What other problem could be included in our solution?
→ Strategic innovation means that some stuff should not be produced or used at all.
→ No region in the world is further in Circular Economy, because we are nowhere collectively. The US can move things very rapidly and EU can move things very ambitiously. Africa has actually a greater understanding of CE and of resource efficiency. So we have a lot to learn from each other.
→ Some of the most successful and deep innovation in CE projects are the local ones.
In the evening we regrouped for the “Meeting the Circular Champions” session and dinner with Peter Schrum (SUNfarming GmbH), Evoléna de Wilde d‘Estmael (Co-Founder and CEO at Faircado), Frieder Söling (CEO NochMall), Luise Billen (Advisor at ReTech Germany) and Justus Susewind (Head of Business Development at ecopals). It consisted of short introductions and a panel discussion with the entrepreneurs and their tangible examples of Circular Economy business models and products.
Main Takeaways:
→ It is still extremely challenging for these innovative businesses to access the market, as both B2C customers are hard to reach and B2B partners are often too conservative to try out new solutions.
→ Solar-Farming (including grazing) is an already established practice that can bring more equity also in the countries of the Global South.
DAY 2 – CONNECTING VC & INDUSTRY WITH THE YOUNG LEADERS
The second day started with a knowledge sharing session by venture capital and impact investment experts. Some of the Young Leaders had also the opportunity to pitch their ventures and projects and to get very valuable feedback by the expert.
The panel of experts included: Mr. Siegfried Russwurm (President, BDI), Morgan Sheil (Head of Impact at World Fund), Pauline Koelbl (Founder & Managing Partner at ShEquity), Niclas-Alexander Mauss (Co-Founder at Circular Republic) and Natascha Zeljko (Co-Founder & Executive Partner at CIRCULAZE).
Main Takeaways from the panel discussion:
→ Young entrepreneurs with innovative ideas need to be extremely strategic, because they will compete with big corporations soon.
→ The scalability of the idea and a clear path to growth are essential to get funding.
→ The Civil Society and Foundations can be key actors in derisking founders and start-ups. They can help supporters founders in the very initial phase and give them credibility.
In the evening the AGYLE team organized a unique boat-talk with the entrepreneur and thinker Thomas Schindler. His keynote speech focussing on the shift that our society needs to make in order to set up a new sustainable framework for life within the planetary borders was followed by a round of fishbowl questions. Most of the concepts discussed can be found on his TedTalk titled “The Heliogenic civilization”.
My personal main takeaway from the discussions with the leaders:
→ As Global North citizens it’s easier for German leaders in CE to believe in disrupting scenarios centering LIFE and human connections and moving away from the capitalistic economic system, while for our Global South colleagues it was a struggle to envision this disruption into possible real scenarios for their countries. We need more exchange on this topics, in order to create a more global long-term vision for a flourishing life on the planet.
DAY 3 – EMPOWERING TOMORROW´S CHANGEMAKERS
The third day was all about Circular Economy and connections.
Thanks to a dynamic design-thinking-inspired workshop by Thinking Circular, the young leaders have been creating and exploring models and scenarios for innovative supply chains. The last session of the workshop was all about personal and business connections: I observed with fascination how Eveline Lemke (Founder of Thinking Circular) could find links and cooperation ideas among participants from different backgrounds and locations. After a day of deep exchange, Eveline only had to listen to our challenges to know exactly who among the participants could help out or team up to resolve those obstacles.
At the end of the workshop we all felt extremely empowered and interconnected.
My main takeaway here:
→ Sometimes we forget that challenges related to CE are not only systemic, but also individual. On the other hand, solving individual challenges can unlock systemic change too. We, as individuals working in CE, with our knowledge and networks, can mostly easily support others in overcoming these obstacles. Nevertheless building these links and supportive connections takes long, deep dialogues. It takes space and time to explore together. And sometimes it might take a facilitator to guide the people through the process of understanding how to help each other. This process is not to be underestimated. Leaders in CE should be given more opportunities to exchange with their colleagues from all over the world, but also they should give themselves more time to do so.
DAY 4 – BOOSTING LEADERSHIP SKILLS
On Thursday we deep dived into the topic of RESILIENCE with Evelyn Kaulartz and Anne Augenvoort of Rethink Work. Together we explored our protection factors in being motivated and resilient in our work and we learned the basics of stress and resilience. We also discussed what the concepts of “Community”, “Individuality” and “Spirituality” mean to us in different societal set-ups and what they have to do with our personal resilience levels.
We experimented what it means to be in the “here and now” through a guided mindfulness exercise and at the end of the session we worked in groups on understanding and overcoming our “personal beliefs”, which are the primary drivers we follow in stress situations.
The whole day has been an intense personal experience. We opened up to the other leaders on a more personal dimension with real honesty.
My main Learnings:
→ For most of the young leaders in the room the biggest factor making them strong and resilient is their VISION.
→ Community can be a burden. For many of the African participants, being successful means giving back (money or other help) to their communities, without having the opportunity to individually decide about it. Often their communities are too present in their everyday lives, making it even difficult to work their hours, as they are constantly interrupted. As a consequence people tend not to have any time for themselves.
→ It is very fascinating that Spirituality and Religion can create this individual, safe and quiet space for most of the African participants. But institutionalized religion at the work space mostly excludes minorities from other religions, which can be problematic for some of the workers and also sometimes bring to racism when employing new people.
→ Spirituality is a great source of faith and strength for the African Leaders.
→ Trying to please everyone is a very common stress reaction. But instead of feeling energized by this reaction, in most of the cases the situations evolve in ways that make us feel inferior, less confident, and frustrated. The message that people with this inner belief should send to themselves is: I am allowed to say no and to set boundaries.
In the evening we were treated to a round of speeches and Fireside Chats with three incredible founders and personalities who motivated us telling us the stories of their bumpy careers. It was encouraging and energizing to get advice and inspiration by Alina Bassi (Investment Manager, Ananda Impact Ventures and Co-Founder at Founderland), Julie Chrysler (Social Business Strategist at Yunus Environmental Hub), and Till Wahnbaeck (Founder of Impacc).
One big takeaway here:
→ The path to have an impactful (happy) career is not always straight and at times it takes courage to make important jumps and changes. Nevertheless the solution lies in following our inner values.
DAY 5 – REFLECTIONS & CLOSINGS
On our last day together, we were guided by Simon Springman, Managing Director of Launchlabs, into a reflection round. It was enriching to hear from the participants what this week meant to them, what the highlights were and what they wished for this group to become in the future.
What a joy to understand that everyone felt being part of a new African-German community of like-minded people working with very similar value-driven visions! At the end of the week, every young leader in the program felt the extraordinary power of being professionally as well as personally connected to the others and could not believe that this time was coming to an end. The main wish for the future expressed during the feedback round was to keep alive this community and bring it to Africa.
In the evening we then had the unique opportunity to hear a speech about the importance of Storytelling by Enuma Okoro, a Nigerian-American author, writer, and arts and culture critic. Her talk focused on the importance of asking and listening to the stories of the others and deeply understanding the legacies of these. Through her lens and worlds we could mentally browse through all the stories we heard during the week and impress them in our individual memories.
It was the perfect ending for this incredible week of encounters, learnings, explorations and discoveries.
Thank you again to the AGYLE – Land der Ideen team for this exceptional chance. I’m absolutely certain that not only the people involved, but also their initiatives, companies and organisations are already benefiting from the synergies and collaborations arised from the Live Week.
Some concrete cooperation projects have already started. Stay tuned for more!
Arianna
Text by Arianna Nicoletti
Pictures credits: ©AGYLE/Bernd Brundert
