The Future Africa Awards & Summit unveils new identity, new website .

"The brand has always focused on evolving alongside Young Africa."

The Central Working Committee for The Future Africa Awards & Summit, TFAAS, on Tuesday announced its new identity, and also unveiled its new logo and web portal.

"The brand has always focused on evolving alongside Young Africa," said Mfon Ekpo, a member of the committee, and Fellow with President Barack Obama's Young African Leaders Initiative. "After a year of work with our global brand support team, we are excited to unveil this new identity which puts the focus on our African reach, and reflects our commitment to a bold new vision for the continent's future."

The new logo has Africa in its centre, outlined to reflect a guided vision. Its strength is in its simplicity and clarity. This simplicity is also mirrored in the official web portal www.thefutureafrica.com/awards.

The 2014 edition was launched in May during the World Economic Forum on Africa; expanded in scope to The Future Africa Awards & Summit, a 2-day ideas-fest, where the continent's most influential leaders and institutions with portfolio on youth will gather to chart immediate action-points for expansion of jobs and opportunities, as well as good governance and citizen engagement.

The committee, in May, also unveiled the 'Have you met Africa?' campaign with brand ambassadors Ashish J. Thakkar (Rwanda), Omotola Jolade-Ekeinde (Nigeria), Chude Jideonwo (Nigeria), Jason Njoku (Nigeria) and Saran KabanJones (Liberia).

TFAAS 2014 is supported by Microsoft, the U.S. Consulate and the Tony Elumelu Foundation. Official Media Partners are EbonyLife TV, AfricaMagic, Bloomberg TV Africa, Ventures Africa, and Y! Africa. Official Online Partners are MemeBurn, BellaNaija, PREMIUM TIMES and 360nobs.

The official bloggers for 2014 are Linda Ikeji, Omojuwa, LadunLiadi, Olorisupergal, Ameyaw, NigeriaNewsDesk and GidiTraffic. Country partners are The Cable, LadunLiadi Blog, The Trent, Information Nigeria and News Wire.
Cool FM is the host radio station. Channels Television is the host TV station.

For more information, visit @TFAAfrica on Twitter or the website www.thefutureafrica.com/awards.
The official hash tags for 2014 are #ThisIsAfrica and ‎#TFAAS2014. 

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Want to Be a Real Leader? Forget "You" by Joel Peterson

Charles de Gaulle, President of France and no shrinking violet himself, liked to remind people that "the cemeteries are full of indispensable men." Forget that reminder of humility, and you're unlikely to build something that lasts longer than you do.

In his seminal book "Good to Great," Jim Collins makes the critical observation that some "rockstar" CEOs leave a company with record earnings, productivity, and reputation – but that the same organization crashes and burns soon after they leave. That's a great example of a leader who ensures his or her own fame and success, rather than the long-term security of the company.

Strong leaders can often feel that they're making the vital difference to everything – and everyone – in an organization. They believe that the firm's legacy and their legacy is one and the same. But that kind of self-importance (après moi, le deluge) is toxic to trust-building. Leaders with a me-first attitude are often too distracted playing the smartest guy in the room to realize the floodwaters have already begun to risebefore they make their exits.

That's exactly what happened at Enron. When Jeff Skilling proclaimed "I am Enron," the energy giant was at its peak. If Skilling had had the humility to pull his head out of the clouds, he might have seen the water was already ankle-high. The hubris of the Lay-Skilling-Fastow team didn't just destroy Enron; their lack of humility damaged the public's trust in business leaders generally. With a raft of scandals at WorldCom, Tyco, Global Crossing and Enron, it wasn't just these companies or their leaders who took the trust hit; we all did.

If you want to build something enduring, try the opposite approach. Internalize the notion that you're a temporary steward, guiding people, assets, and decision-making, and protecting the values and vision that make an organization what it is. Part of humility is building for a future you won't see, and ensuring that the best parts of the business not only last, but can be built upon by the next generation of leaders.

One of my favorite examples of humility comes from the 1950's farm machinery industry and Moline, Illinois. After a century of dominance by International Harvester (IH), competitor John Deere got a new president in Bill Hewitt, a Harvard Business School dropout and the great-grandson of John Deere himself. Hewitt set about turning the business into a multinational corporation. He gained a reputation as a well-liked leader and quick learner, and the trust he inspired in his employees helped Deere leapfrog past IH to lead the industry. At the end of Hewitt's nearly 3-decade tenure, people said, "He made us realize how good we were."

It's hard to imagine higher praise for a leader: one who's capable of building trust between people, and of empowering them to trust themselves.

Leaders determined to build cultures where trust is more than just a feel-good notion know that it's hard work. As Herman Miller CEO Max De Pree said, "Earning trust is not easy, nor is it cheap, nor does it happen quickly. Earning trust is hard and demanding work. Trust comes only with genuine effort, never with a lick and a promise."

It may sound like a paradox, but to be effective, high-trust leaders must see themselves as both vital and dispensable. The 10th critical element for building a high-trust enterprise is having the humility to recognize the other 9 (discussed in the prior posts):

1) Ensuring personal integrity

2) Showing interpersonal respect

3) Empowering team members

4) Holding people accountable

5) Articulating a vision for winning

6) Developing a trust-building budget

7) Making sure no one is "kept in the dark"

8) Being willing to sacrifice

9) Making conflict constructive

It's a lot to shoulder, and there is plenty of room for error at every step. Which is why addressing all of these elements requires a level of selflessness – of ego-suspension – that is critical to finding the right answers and learning from inevitable mistakes. Unless leaders have the humility to learn, to grow, and to weather the journey along with us, few will want to trust them. Without that trust, they won't succeed, and neither will we.

Building a durable, high-trust culture means focusing on the success and well-being of those around you – on the organization as a whole, but primarily on the people that give it energy and life. If you want to be a high-trust leader, you've got to be in the center – but you can't be the center.

"Everyday is an opportunity for a whole NEW beginning. What's that one thing you can do differently today to create positive change in your life and in the world? Think & ACT NOW"

Have you visited Stone Origin Network's blog today?
An online Transformation Hub for young people.

Visit: www.stoneorigin.net
TWITTER: @stoneorigin.
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Thank You.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Wins US National Critics Book Prize for “Americanah”

Ace Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is clearly having the best month of her life as she promotes her new book – “Americanah“.
Here’s another reason for her to go dancing in the wind - she has won the US National Critics Book Prize for her novel 'Americanah'.
The book was also selected as one of The New York Times’ 10 best books of 2013.
The National Critics Book Prize was first awarded in 1974 and is open to writers of all nationalities whose work has been published in the US.
Americanah was published in May 2013 by Alfred A. Knopf. It's a fictional novel that unravels the story of a young Nigerian woman who emigrates to America for a university education.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born 15 September 1977) has been called "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young Anglophone authors [that] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature", and her string of awards keep substantiating that claim.
Congratulations to her!

Read more here....

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