How much can the informal marketplace teach you about the African economy? Knowledge Management Specialist, Charles Dhewa, threads the link between indigenous knowledge, with its application in the marketplace, and the development of solutions in tackling African challenges. In a talk filled with facts and anecdotes, Charles reminds us that "when we import knowledge at the expense of indigenous knowledge, our major loss is African identity”, and how not all skills can be learnt in a classroom if African countries are to build strong and thriving home-grown economies. Charles Dhewa is the CEO of Knowledge Transfer Africa, which he founded in 2006 after realising that agricultural value chain actors in developing countries needed a knowledge broker to keep reminding them of what they could be forgetting and under-estimating. Working at the intersection of formal and informal agricultural markets in Zimbabwe, his organisation has setup a fluid knowledge and information platform called MKambo which tracks, trends and ensures agricultural value chains are driven by knowledge, technology and innovation. Charles is always clarifying opportunities and influencing policy through his thought leadership blog ‘eMKambo’. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx