McGill University in Montreal offers a program that every spring brings a group of about 30 students, a dozen alumni and professors to areas that are considered emerging global economies.
Coordinated by Professor Karl Moore, this year the 15th anniversary Hot Cities Tour went to Cairo and Morocco.
Speaking with WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley, Moore says the Hot Cities tour is an important program for McGill University and its students:
The slogan of the trip is taking the future to the future, that is young people to where there’s growing economies. Morocco’s doing very well, really growing. But we wanted to go to Cairo, part of it is just because of the history. And we went and saw the Great Pyramid. It’s one of the, it’s the only remaining Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. And we went and saw the Sphinx. We also met with the Minister of Information Technology and met with a bunch of entrepreneurs. So Egypt’s not doing well economically but there’s some hopes for the future with technology and communications and then with entrepreneurial things going on. We went to a palace. We had to leave our phones at the door because it was a palace. Incredible history. But there’s where the entrepreneurs were and doing some very cool up to date stuff. So we enjoyed that sense of history and that sense of the future. But Morocco is an excellent economy and it’s becoming a hub in North Africa, it has been for years, with Europe. And it’s about 18 miles we were told from Spain to Morocco and they might build a tunnel. They’re thinking about building a tunnel for trucks to come through. But they do a lot of shipping there. We met with the head of the port, one of the senior guys at the port there. We met with the CEO of the Royal Air Maroc Airline. And they’re really seeing themselves as being Africa’s connection to Europe into Africa and increasingly they’re portraying themselves as an Atlantic country, which is absolutely true. One thing that struck us is we flew from Montreal to Casablanca. It took about 6 hours. But it took almost 5 from Casablanca to Cairo, which myself and many others were surprised by that. We just didn’t realize how big Africa is. Now part of this we discussed in class is the map of the world was done by Europeans and Canada looks huge and Africa much smaller because of the world view they had in the way they presented the map. But it was that being on the plane for 5 hours that was, okay, Egypt is on the far side, east side of Africa and Morocco is on the far west side. But still. Huge continent. Huge possibilities. To some degree Africa is the future of the world. To some degree. Part of it is they’re having children unlike Europe and parts of the world. Now Canada and the U.S. are saved by immigration. They also have enormous amounts of minerals and other things. And we saw on our three trips there evidence of China being more and more involved in Africa. And the West, very much including the U.S. and Europe, have somewhat dropped the ball to there and I think it’s time that the West lean back into Africa.
The Hot Cities Tour is intended to expose students to emerging economies and one of the things that you mentioned is that the Cairo area is not doing well economically but there are some entrepreneurs. What can they learn by seeing an economy that’s not doing well, yet you have the entrepreneurs there trying to enhance the economy?
They give you the sense of the hope of the future and we see that increasing around the world as providing a sense of hope and direction for the future and a sense of possibility rather than just concern about where we’ve been and where we’re going.
Did the students pick up on the dichotomy of the entrepreneurs trying to do that yet seeing the state of the economy in Cairo?
Oh, absolutely. It was something where we took the bus. We got to the airport, went out to see the Great Pyramids and all and what we saw were people on the side of the road like you see in some parts of the world selling things and so on. And we asked one of the Egyptians with us like what’s going on here and it was partly that they’re trying to hustle. They’re trying to provide for their families. And I’ve seen it in other parts of the world but we didn’t see it in Morocco. So we admire their wanting to provide but it’s unfortunate they’ve got to go to those extents to do it at times.
What kinds of businesses did you visit and what kinds of businesses are emerging first in Cairo and then in Morocco?
Well in Egypt it was more around entrepreneurs is what we were doing. But we were there for just a couple of days. Met with the cabinet minister. Met with a big law firm. One of his sons who I knew at McGill is becoming a partner at a big law firm, so it was fun. We had eight law students and a lawyer with us who it was fun to go and talk to them privately about that. In Morocco there’s more of a role for the government in the (Michael Porter) from Harvard view of a cluster. So in Montreal we have clusters around aerospace. And we saw that, for example, the last day we went to a resort town. Met with the managing director of the hotel and the government is encouraged and providing funding for high end hotels to set up complexes where families can come, where they didn’t have that in the past. And so it makes it much more attractive to draw foreigners to go there and spend money and provide jobs for the locals and it’s something the government’s encouraging. We also went to the place where aerospace is strong and Bombardier many years ago set up a plant to make parts there. And Renault is making cars in Morocco. So they’ve created clusters where they have schools. We went to one of the top universities there that has a Center of AI. So the government’s provided funding to get clusters of capability there so that you want to invest there because they have the education, they have the workforce, they have the desire to do that. They have the funding available.
You began the Hot Cities Tour for McGill University back in 2009, so it’s been about 15 years. How has it evolved over those years?
The fun part is that we go somewhere different every year and it’s a chance to explore the world. It’s a lot more work to go somewhere different but it’s exciting to see different parts of the world and have McGill students and alumni exploring, I think we’ve been to 27 countries now. It’s a lot of work but it’s a joy to go and explore the world with students, alumni and this year with another prof as well.
Karl Moore is assessing costs before choosing next year’s McGill University Hot Cities Tour and is looking into high-growth areas such as Kenya and Rwanda.
