So everything changed for me after I met Chandru about 15 years ago in a village in Andhra Pradesh, India. I was there with a research team. I went for a walk in the village. Suddenly, I heard a shout from behind and turned around to see a young boy pushing himself forward with a big wooden stick, his right leg twisted by childhood polio.
Chandru was then about 13 years old, studied in the eighth standard in the village school, and his favorite subject, he told me, was mathematics. Mathematics, I thought. I know some mathematics. I pulled out my notebook and wrote three math questions for him. Very quickly and accurately, he answered them. I wrote three more questions and then another three, harder still. Each time he answered them deftly and correctly.
And then, with an impish grin, he flips the notebook around and writes three questions for me. I struggled with the first of his questions. His second question stumped me. Luckily for me, his father wandered in at that time and rescued me.
I commented on the boy's mathematical brilliance and asked the father what he hoped the son would become. To my surprise, he laughed. "Ha, ha, ha," he said, "He wants to be an engineer. Ha, ha, ha!"
"Why do you laugh?" I cried.
"No one around here has ever become an engineer," the father told me. "No one ever will be." That shocked me.
Over the next few days, I went around the 10 neighboring villages and asked about the positions people had achieved over the last 10 years. It turned out that the father was dead right. Not only had no one ever become an engineer, no one had become an architect, an accountant, an airline pilot or anything better. The highest positions were those of schoolteacher and local official.
What was I doing in that village? I started my career in the Indian Administrative Service, implementing development programs for the government. I learned a great deal, but after 15 years realized I needed to study more, and went to Cornell University and later became a professor. Over the last 20-some years I have done grassroots research in many different countries but with the same basic question. Why are people poor, and how can they be given a fair deal?
I found many, many people like Chandru around the globe. Individuals who have boundless talent but little to no opportunity to discover it and realize their full potential. Bottom line, talent is everywhere, but not opportunity. Thousands, millions of talents routinely go undiscovered and unrewarded.
To make equality of opportunity a reality and to achieve world class excellence, societies need to invest in talent ladders. What is the talent ladder, and how did I come upon the idea?
It began with a random conversation in class. How could Jamaica, a small country of three million people, have produced such an impressive flow of world-beating sprinters? How could Usain Bolt, whose parents ran a village grocery store, rise from there to world class competition? Why did his talents not go unrecognized and unrewarded, like those of the thousands of individuals I had met in different countries?
To find out, I went to Jamaica. The first thing I noticed was that not everybody is built like Usain Bolt. There are tall Jamaicans and short ones, thin ones and fat ones, slow ones and fast ones, as there are in other places. It's not about genetics or geography. What is special is the system they have developed, which tags a fast Jamaican at a young age and takes her or him up the steps of a talent ladder: an easy to access sequence of steps that begins at the grassroots and goes to the highest levels. Every child can compete. Those who perform better move higher up the ladder.
But Jamaica is hardly alone in this regard. Once you look around, you see many other examples. Wrestlers in Haryana, a small state in India, have won more international medals than any other kind of sportsperson. The talent ladder in this case begins with akharas and academies at the grassroots. Those who do well in dangals and competitions move up to higher-level academies, to government training centers and to the Pro Wrestling League, a newish rung in this talent ladder.
Other examples of world-class excellence and talent ladders that I have studied include marathon runners in Kenya, tech entrepreneurs in Estonia, writers in Nigeria, classical musicians from Sistema, which began in Venezuela, and has spread around the world, women golf players from South Korea, hackers from North Korea. You probably know of other examples.
Here's the key. They can support different kinds of endeavors, but at root, all talent ladders are built to the same core design principles, the seven principles or seven pillars of talent ladders.
First and foremost, open access with transparent and objective standards. Everyone has a realistic opportunity to participate. Barriers to entry are systematically removed. In Sistema, for example, the grassroots music rooms, or nucleus, are set up in the poorest neighborhoods so that these children also can easily participate. Transparent and objective standards are required in parallel to weed out influence and nepotism. In Jamaica, local athletics meets might be taking place on dirt tracks with many barefoot runners, but the timing equipment will be world-class, and that's the only thing that matters.
Second pillar: unbroken ladder. All the steps in place. South Korea came from nowhere to capture women's golf by building a hierarchy of golf tours from the amateur to the intermediate to the international levels. It shouldn't be a broken ladder or a dangling ladder.
Third pillar: role models. Ethiopians used to be soccer-mad and not a nation of runners until Abebe Bikila won the Olympic marathon in 1960 and again in 1964, and hundreds of young Ethiopians took to running. If he or she can do it, I can do it, too. Role models motivate, inspire, show the way forward.
Fourth pillar: soft landings. Not everyone who starts on a talent ladder is going to make it all the way to the top. But if the hundreds of others who plateau at intermediate levels are simply let go, that sends the wrong signal and demotivates new beginners. In Jamaica, for example, elite runners in training are required to take university classes. Those who don't make it to champion runner have become sports journalists and administrators and therapists, etc.
Fifth pillar: society-wide project with multiple actors. Big role for civil society. Lots of volunteers. In Estonia, the country's government, NGOs, tech startups, parents, teachers, ordinary citizens have all played big roles and the mix of roles has changed over time. The system is protected by having multiple anchors.
Sixth pillar: mix of motivations. Yes, it's very competitive, but collaboration is equally important. In Kenya, in the training groups that run together, one or two runners might be winning prize money at a particular time, but they are required to support the well-being of other runners in their group, while knowing these are their future competitors.
Seventh principle: adaptation. The world doesn't stay still. To remain world-class, a system has to be adaptive.
Building world-class excellence requires talent ladders. Giving a fair deal to millions requires talent ladders. Forward-looking societies have started investing in building talent ladders. How do we implement the seven pillars? There are a few basic steps.
Organize local competitions, initially in a small number of grassroots locations, widely advertised, open to all. Engage with multiple stakeholders. Commit to at least three to five years. Kids who know the competition will be held year after year will train more seriously. Summer camps, year-long mentoring for the high performers. Those who keep doing consistently well move up to higher and higher levels in the ladder. Others who reach only intermediate levels can exit with viable alternative careers. Learn from these pilots. Refine and extend the model. It is possible. It is necessary.
Imagine if a math ladder had existed in Andhra Pradesh. Where might Chandru be now? And how much better would India be performing at the International Math Olympiad?
Thank you.
(Applause)
