Hannibal's Elephants: Kevin Sara at TEDxENIT

Kevin Sara draws a parallel between Carthage, Hannibal and his elephants, and the Tunisia of today and the development of solar energy in the Sahara desert. He explains that Saharan solar energy could compete with French nuclear, Russian gas and German offshore wind.

Hello, my name is Kevin Sara

and I just saw on the tweet
that an American was going to speak.

I don't like labels

and I would also like to clarify
that I am American but I am also English.

I was also born in Germany,

I spent my childhood in Belgium,

(Laughter)

my children are half Chinese,

and my business associates are Tunisians.

(Applause)

Well, what am I?
I am what?

Audience: Human, human!

Can one reduce reality, life,

the interpretation of facts

to tweets of 200 characters?
At times it is very difficult.

But I'll start by apologizing for all the mistakes
in French that I'm going to make,

I'm rather more English speaking,
but I was told

that there were more French speakers
than English in the room.

So, I'll do my best,
but from time to time,

I'll have to give the words in English
when I can't find them in French.

So, if we could start
with the first slide, I can't see it.

Great!
What are we supposed to do to see it?

Can you read anything there?

Audience: No!

OK, I think we need to turn on the lamp.

So, the title of my presentation is:

"Hannibal's elephants: what is their significance
to the Tunisia of today"

Of course, we're talking about Hannibal,
it's very easy, everyone knows who he was,

especially in Tunisia,
but what's interesting

is that everyone knows him
throughout the world!

And why are we still talking
about Hannibal?

Is it because he crossed the Alps
with his elephants?

No, it's not as simple as that.

In fact, what he did,
he made an extraordinary journey!

And, a war,
he conducted an extraordinary war!

He did not only cross the Alps
with some elephants,

but he conquered Spain, he crossed the Pyrenees,
he crossed France,

he crossed the Rhone with his elephants!

He had to construct some special boats;
it was an extraordinary affair.

And all this was with 40,000 men,
12,000 horses, cavalry

and forty or so elephants.

They arrived in northern Italy.

And on arriving in northern Italy,

the elephants sowed terror
among the Romans.

It was something they had never seen,
in any case arriving from the north.

I think that they may have seen them sometimes
with the Greeks in the south,

but it was a quite astonishing
tactical innovation.

It was also an astonishing strategic innovation
to arrive from where no one had arrived before.

Can we have the next slide?

Well, let's go back for a while
to antiquity and the history of Hannibal,

and have a little look
at the historical context.

Carthage was certainly
the centre of the Mediterranean world,

it was just before the First Punic War,

and she dominated the whole Mediterranean,
due to its geographical position,

half-way between East and West.
So, she was able to dominate

all the commerce and dominate the seas.

At that's a very interesting idea,
that geographical position,

because that position has not changed.

Tunisia remains at that position.

Let us pass to the next slide.

So, that war, what was,
as I called it, the innovation?

It was certainly the journey: Spain, France and
the crossing of the Rhone and the Alps.

And then, he deployed a tactical innovation,
the elephants, but also,

there were a series of tactical innovations
in the way how he conducted the war.

There are military historians who say
that it was Hannibal

who invented military strategy.

He used tricks and tactics
never seen before.

For example, he used the mist on the lakes
for his strategic advantage.

He used --
he attached torches to herds of cows

and had them go to the other side

so that the Romans thought that his armies
were there where they were not.

Before Hannibal,
battles were very simple and normally,

they would choose quite flat, large fields,

they would go to opposite ends of the field
and then attack each other.

That was it, that was war
and the techniques of war!

And it is said that Hannibal,
with an inferior force,

he almost conquered the Roman Empire!

But he was not completely successful,
he never -- he did not destroy Rome

and volumes have been written about the reason:
perhaps he didn't have the support of Carthage,

perhaps the battles for the cities
did not go well,

there's a whole series of theories,
but this is not what this presentation is about.

So, I just want to ask you
to remember 2 ideas:

One: Hannibal was a strategic innovator,
and two: he was a tactical innovator.

And the combination of the two was fatal.

So, with these thoughts in mind,
I want to introduce you to my project

which is a joint-venture project
between Tunisia and Europe called TuNur.

We are associate members of DESERTEC,

and we think, all things considered,
we can produce solar electricity

more cheaply in the Sahara,
where there is plenty of sun,

more than elsewhere.
And that that electricity

can be produced with new technologies

at a price sufficiently low
to compete with nuclear,

even possibly to compete
with natural gas and oil.

Also, we noticed recently,

it is competitive with offshore wind.

So the concept of TuNur is very simple:

we construct large solar power plants
in the desert.

And what is very important about
the strategic innovation

is that it is an integrated concept.

We have the power plants with an undersea cable
which supplies the market

and we sell the electricity in Europe
which will currently pay more for it

than we would be able to get for it
in Tunisia.

So, these sales support the whole development
of a Tunisian industry.

We use our elephants, so to speak,

the CSP (Concentrating Solar Power) with storage.

If we use standard solar energy

that we see on roofs, it's called the EP,

the problem with it is, that when the sun goes down,
there's no more electricity --

and that's just the time
when we usually have the greatest need,

for example, for lighting.

The CSP allows the storage of energy
to be able to generate electricity

after the sun sets.
That's a very important concept.

And that, that is our tactical innovation.
Our strategic innovation is the cable.

So, there we have it.
We think that we also have a winning formula

with the idea of having -- truly a new idea,

where we have a cable as far as northern Europe,

that actually goes to northern Italy.

For sure, a priori, we might say
that we might use a short

and simple cable to Sicily,
but it is not where the market is.

It is necessary to think clearly
about what the objectives are.

The long-term objectives are to create
an industry in Tunisia

that can make sales,
that can compete with Russian gas,

that can compete with French nuclear,

that can compete with German offshore wind.

So, it is necessary to go where the market is.

And if we can lay a cable to northern Italy,

that is where the European grid is,
the core of the European grid.

And from Italy we can go to Switzerland,
we can go to France, we can go everywhere.

So that is really a strategic move.

So, we are trying to combine
the tactical innovation with the CSP

and the storage to be able to provide electricity
after the sun has gone down,

with the strategic innovation to lay a cable
all the way to northern Italy.

The next slide.

So, to summarize, what can we
learn from these stories?

Of antiquity and the parallel with
what we are doing now?

The first lesson is, that is for sure,
the importance of innovation.

Of imagination and innovation.

The imagination does not cost anything!

We need to be creative, we need to have ideas.
I think that several people spoke about that.

Imagination is key, creativity is key,
to have new ideas is absolutely key.

But ideas are empty if there is no context,
if there is no leadership.

And that is absolutely essential.

Leadership - that was very funny
in preparing this speech,

I tried to find it ...

I looked in the dictionary,

what is the translation of leadership in French?

Audience: Leadership!

KS : No, a French word, please!

Audience: (French) Governance.

KS: (French) Governance?

I tried to find it but couldn't.

I looked in all the dictionaries
but I could not find it,

because, in fact, there is no exact translation.

Leadership, in fact, is the art of planning,
the planning of resources,

the management, the direction,
all combined in one.

And this is an extremely important concept
because without leadership,

there is no innovation.

There is only imagination and ideas.

Excuse me?

Audience: A pioneer.

KS : Pioneer, yes, but ... pioneer...

That is another concept.
That is a leader who is an innovator.

That is a concept, pioneer,
it could be that too.

But leadership is the ability
to lead men and women

and to inspire them.

That is an extremely important concept.

And this is what a military historian said
was one of the greatest Hannibal's qualities;

it was not only that he was
a tactical and strategic innovator,

but it was really his leadership qualities.

And his leadership qualities
resulted in the fact

that he never asked any man or woman

to do something that he wouldn't do personally.

And everyone knew it.

That is "leading by example"
and it is extremely important as a concept.

Also, leadership requires knowing
how to motivate.

It is said that Hannibal was a cruel man.

I'm going to tell you a little story

to show that, perhaps,
he was a cruel man,

but at the same time he understood

psychology very well,
and the concept of leadership.

On arriving in northern Italy,
before his first big battle in Italy,

he had some Swiss prisoners.
And he wanted to have a show

to motivate his troops to win

and he asked his Swiss prisoners
if there were two of them

willing to fight to the death.

And the winner would be set free
and could return to Switzerland.

He had 2 volunteers.
They fought in front of Hannibal's troops

and, of course, one died and the other
was overjoyed and was able to return.

It was simply a lesson,
very, very simple for his troops:

you win or you're dead!

And he had a whole series of tactics
with his men

to motivate them, and a mutiny
was never recorded,

because one of the major problems
in the Antiquity,

was that the troops would often go against
the military commander

and that caused problems
as you can imagine.

Hannibal never had that problem.

The third concept
with which I would like to leave you,

is that the geographical position of Tunisia
has not changed,

and you have real competitive advantages

being in the middle of the Mediterranean.
I think we alluded before,

to the fact that this growth area
was on the Mediterranean and in Africa.

Tunisia has the history to be
a key player in this area.

And this was not the case
at the time of Carthage.

Carthage did not have
a lot of territory

but she made alliances.

Hannibal went with the Spaniards,
Libyans and Gauls to attack Italy;

he did not have many soldiers
from Carthage.

And it was his leadership qualities,
his ability to motivate

and manage a multinational force,
which made ...

which allowed him to win!

And these qualities exist!

These ideas are still valid today.

There is no difference. At the level of ideas,
nothing has changed.

One is always left with the importance
of imagination and innovation,

the importance of leadership
and the geographical location of Tunisia.

And if I can add:

there is the idea we should turn
to the BRIC countries,

to China, to Russia,

because that's where the growth is,

but just seeing that
Europe is weakening now,

isn't it there that there is a true opportunity?

And I leave you with that thought.
Thank you very much.

(Applause)