Learned that maybe in the past we didn’t know that much, but now we’re giving voices to people. I’m a goalkeeper. I was the first one last year, that’s why I came here. This year, they’re going to have more goalkeepers, so I think that we need more people to ...

They’ve working in the aid industry for how many years, and now they’re thinking that if we grab the global goals, we can change the narrative. We can make it better. That’s what they’re trying to do right now, and I think it’s a good cause for them to use ...

Why do you think Bill Gates and Melinda Gates are taking on the global goals. Because they have a reach, they have a platform, and they’re moving from the aid industry...If you look at it -- I was thinking yesterday -- it’s the same process.

No, I want to go to talk to the government, to the private sector, to investors, and so we can stop this narrative of leave no one behind, but there is no action because they do micro-actions, small conversations, write a report about it, a small partnership, or give funding ...

We need to go and tell them, and I want to go to the United Nations and tell them exactly what I just told you. If I have to drag myself one day to stand in that podium and tell them, I will because I don’t think they’re hearing this ...

We’re not scared of meeting those people, because we think they are the future. We think that they’ve been forgotten for many decades. So many millions of dollars and billions of dollars. People are making money out of poverty, seriously. Now, if we want to be sincere with the sustainable ...

If the slogan in the United Nations is "Leave no one behind," this is it. This is what you need to back. You need to back organizations like this that will not leave anyone behind, because we are not scared in going and meeting gays and lesbians, the marginalized, the ...

You can see the girls who are 11 years old. In 2030 they’ll be 24, 25, and there’s no way you can’t see the return on investment. There’s no way. If you really put the heart into and say I will do this, you can see the results. You can ...

They’re mini coding programs, mini-mini programs trying to do things, but I think we’re in a unique position right now, where whoever join iamtheCODE, whoever support iamtheCODE, there is no way you will not see the impact, because you can see that.

We need to show this in a very systematic way and contextualize it, make people understand what it is. That’s where we are right now, and I think that we want people to understand this mission. It’s very rare that for an African person, but also an African organization is ...

We’re not diverting into any social media hoo-ha or hype. We’re focusing on the context, what we’re trying to do here. We have a very big mission. By 2030 we need to show one million women and girls to learn how to code. We need to show this. This is ...

Where I come from, everything I suffered in my life to arrive here is very rare, so some people go and say, "You should talk to Mariéme, you should help her," and so that’s how iamtheCODE came about. Right now, that’s what we’re following. We’re following our truth.

People always advise us. When I see people like that, we invite them on the board, and so they are part of the organization themselves, and then finally, we just have people who literally like talking about iamtheCODE and based on my story as well, because it’s a very unique ...

I personally don’t know a lot of stuff, so I have people who I ask advice all the time, "How do you think we should improve this? How do you think we can write this? How do you think we can raise funds? How do you think..."

They can give us their ideas, but they can also help us shape iamtheCODE because we don’t know everything, and that’s something we’re very humble and vulnerable to know that we don’t know a lot of stuff.

Yeah. Send clear messages, and then we invite people on our board. If in fact we understand who they are, we invite them on the board so they can see how iamtheCODE is working.

I want to make sure when you say, "Mariéme, show me this. Where is my money going? How is impacting people?" I want to make sure I show that you that clearly.

I don’t want you to come and say to me, "Show me your work," I say, "Maybe. I don’t know." I don’t want to do that.

I believe that blowing your own trumpet without having any impact doing anything, it doesn’t matter because at the moment, anybody can go and say, "Fake news." What I want you to do is, tomorrow when you say to me, " Mariéme, show me your work," I want to look ...

I think that if they want to find us, they will. I think if somebody goes and say, "Have you seen iamtheCODE?" They will come to us. That’s what I believe.

That’s what I believe, and that’s why iamtheCODE for the last two years we never had any PR stuff, no PR. People just are going and talking about it. People always say to me, "Oh, why don’t you talk to ’WIRED’ magazine? Why don’t you talk to ’Guardian’? Why don’t ...

They need to care about the situations. Then I try finding ambassadors, people who can go and talk about this. We don’t put money into PR and marketing because I believe if you are doing something good, it will talk for itself. [laughs]

The processes like how do you make it happen? Once we put these together, we need to find people to do it. I want to find champions, people who really care about situations, not just for publicity’s sake or for press op, but people who really cares.

As I putting processes together, what are the processes we need to put into place to make this work? We need to have clear, tangible, measurable M&Es impact to do that. We start putting processes together, meaning lesson plans, the right curriculums, the right technology companies, the right companies to ...

We need real products. Products that are expensive can’t reach the poor or the marginalized communities or people with different languages, different skill sets, different gender, different race. We need to think about empathy when we building solutions.

We have probably 400, 500 followers, all friends of people we know. [laughs] Just you, by yourself, you can fill the room. People is not a problem. People is really not a problem. People buy into things if they see that it’s working.

Real, clear, tangible ways of measuring impact. I believe that if you have the right people...We all have connections, between you and me and...What’s your name again?

I believe that if we really put our heart into it, then we can all work together. When I started to put this together, I said I needed to find people. iamtheCODE is based on people, products, and processes.

[laughs]

I realize I was a recipient of aid in all of these big UN conversations. I just realized that it’s time for us to sit down and work together, collaborate. In my country, in Senegal, in Africa, they say, "If you want to go far, you need to..."

Nobody had this sort of multi-stakeholder approach. Everybody is doing their own thing. Everybody is working silo. Everybody’s trying to raise fund by themself. Everybody’s just trying to do by themself.

Yes. That’s a very good question. As I told you, iamtheCODE, I created it. The idea was to mobilize government, private sector investors, but also philanthropic foundations to start looking into SDGs, looking into the sustainable development goals.

Absolutely.