Powering the African marketplace: Herman Chinery-Hesse at TEDxEuston

Herman Chinery-Hesse is a software engineer by profession, although his early training was Industrial / Manufacturing technology. Twenty years ago, he co-founded the SOFTtribe Limited, which became the leading software house in Ghana and possibly West Africa. Herman's current venture Black Star line (BSL), seeks to financially empower rural Africans via e-commerce via their webmall (www.shopafric53.com) as well as their proprietary novel, global payment system and related technology, which serves as the platform for their "African liberty cards/credits" (ALC). Herman has won a number of awards including "Outstanding Ghanaian Professional" and "Distinguished Alumnus Award" from the Texas State Alumni Association and Texas State University-San Marcos, USA. He is the first and currently only African recipient of the award. He was a speaker TEDGlobal conference in Arusha, Tanzania. The BBC describes him as "Ghana's Bill Gates" and he is widely viewed as an African technology giant. Herman believes that "If Africa misses the current global IT boat and participation in resultant new economy, there may never again be another opportunity for rapid wealth creation on the continent". He is smart, dedicated and passionate about Africa. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.