Strands
Leadership Wisdom Series
Speaker Bio
Session
Q&A
SPEAKER BIO
Sheikha Bodour al Qasimi is the former Vice President and current President-Elect of the International Publishers Association.
Hailing from the Royal Family of Sharjah, UAE, Sheikha Bodour is passionate about supporting entrepreneurship. She established Sheraa (Sharjah Entrepreneurship Centre) in UAE in 2016 as a platform to cultivate a generation of changemakers in her community, positioning it globally as a vibrant startup hub. She is also the Founder and CEO of Kalimat Group, as well as Founder and former President of the Emirates Publishers Association. Sheikha Bodour is an alumnus of Cambridge University and UCL, UK.
The Ubuntu Challenge
Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi & Mamadou Toure discussed the importance of recognising humanity in everything we do - especially entrepreneurship.
Both speakers believe in the concept of ‘Ubuntu’, which translates to: I am because we are. As humans, we were born loving and that is what Ubuntu reminds us of. It requires us to change our mindsets and to remind ourselves what makes us human. We are entering a world where everyone has a responsibility to make this world a better place. Both speakers focus on uncovering this intrinsic power to go beyond fear and remember love, in order to make a difference within our communities.
Sheikha Bodour believes that entrepreneurs that have compassion and leadership qualities will create businesses while thinking of the impact they will have on their communities. When you ask an entrepreneur if they want to make money for themselves or serve their community, they’ll always choose the latter. This is due to our innate desire to help others and do better.
The Ubuntu love challenge started as a way to create a movement and inspire people to rise up to the challenges within their own community. They ask people to upload videos of themselves doing something kind and to challenge 12 others to do the same. This helped create momentum which they hoped would inspire a ripple effect of kindness.
Sheikha Bodour on the Ubuntu Challenge: “We thought about how one act of kindness could really make a difference to someone, and so this is how the challenge began. So, if I’ve done something in my community I go and share a video of that challenge to inspire other people to do the same. We received many videos from all over the world; it became a global movement. It can be something really small such as a poem, or pitching to give financial support to an organisation or helping your neighbour with groceries. We’ve given people examples of what they can do on our website. We have also put together a list of 100 days of inspirational acts of kindness to remind people of the power that is within them. They can do something really small that will still inspire a ripple effect of kindness.”
Q&A
What is the closest word to Ubuntu in the Arabic language?
I am completely fascinated by the word ‘Marhaba’. If you break it down, ‘Mar’ means Master or God and ‘Habba’ means love. So ultimately it was used by the Assyrians to say: ‘God is love and God is in you and you are love’. This is very similar to ‘Namaste’, meaning: ‘I salute the divinity in you’, which is very linked to ‘Ubuntu’, meaning ‘I am because you are’, thus illustrating that love is within each of us.
How do we hold those with power to account and empower the stakeholders?
The reality is I don’t think society has a choice today. We have learnt from the limit of excessive capitalism, in terms of resource depletion, inequalities, and new forms of communication. These have created natural reactions: first from the planet, second from the customer and third from stakeholders themselves. If your environment does not allow you to produce anymore, you are going to have to take a new environment into consideration. With the rise of environmentalist awareness and conscious consumerism, society is evolving naturally towards a stakeholder’s economy. The moment you involve stakeholders in the decisions, you’ll be more successful.
Is the digital world important for the work you do?
When we experienced the lockdown, a lot of our businesses stopped, especially in the publishing world. We depended on book fairs and travelling to different places all over the world and we couldn’t do that. Those of us who have online book stores were okay, but any books that weren’t digitised or didn’t have online selling opportunities were really impacted. I’ve had to recently urge publishers to take that leap of faith and invest in digital. There’s no time left to think or worry about it, this is the only answer right now. It has disrupted our industry tremendously.
What would your advice be to female leaders to overcome barriers?
We have to first acknowledge that men and women are different in terms of our leadership style and we all embody both masculine and feminine qualities, but one will be more dominant. There are examples of female leaders such as Jacinda Arden, who has really embraced her femininity in her leadership. She hasn’t seen it as a weakness, instead she’s used it as a strength, through showing real compassion for minorities during the Christchurch attack, for example. The ancient patriarchal system that we’re dealing with is crumbling and you see true leadership shining through by acts of understanding, compassion and kindness. My advice is to be yourself and embrace your intrinsic leadership style. Society will adapt.