The Legendary Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela is, perhaps, the most prominent African. Far-famed for ending the apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela boasts of unflinching courage that, indubitably, could not be thwarted by the rigid constraints of jail life or his jailers. He was jailed for 27 years but was remained influential even behind bars; his voice and image had to banned from appearing in public.
Born in Transkei, South Africa on 18th of July, 1918, Mandela was groomed as a future leader in a tender age following the death of his father, an acting paramount chief, in the year 1927. Mandela studied at Wesleyan secondary school before joining University College of Fort Hare. At University College of Fort Hare, he pursued Bachelors of Arts and later studied law after completing the BA course. During the same time, he joined ANC (African National Congress) in 1943; probably the commencement of his political life.
Madiba, as he is commonly known in South Africa, was involved in a plethora of freedom fighting activities. At a glance, he was one of the pioneering brains behind the formation of the congress youth league that vouched for the reinvigoration of the opposition against apartheid. The youth league and ANC unanimously agreed to use boycotts and strikes, among other strategies as a means of airing the grievances of the South Africans with regards with the apartheid. Mandela would later be detained for five years for allegedly leaving the country unlawfully before being sentenced to life imprisonment on fresh charges in 1964. He release came in the year 1990. He later became the first black president of South Africa.
For more information about the life of Nelson Mandela, please read “Nelson Mandela: A Life in Photographs” By David Elliot Cohen, John D. Battersby. The book is published by The Sterling Publishing Co. Inc. in New York.
Toyota Motor Corporation
A Wooden Hand Loom! This is what Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Company, started with towards the end of the 19th Century. The loom was intended by Sakichi to simplify the process of weaving by use of an electric driven loom with the ability to stop following a mere arching of a fibre. The selling of Sakichi’s wooden handloom patents-rights by Sakichi’s son, Kiichiro, to an England based loom manufacturer facilitated the formation of Toyota Motors.
With the help of his father’s philosophy as his management blueprint, Kiichiro was particularly instrumental in the running of Toyata Motor Corporation, colloquially known as Toyota. However, all did not go well as Toyota was profoundly affected by inflation making the firm have a lot of arrears by the end of World War II. Kiichiro had to quit as the president of the Toyota Motor Corporation and his post taken by his nephew, Eiji Toyoda. Toyota’s unit production at the time was far much less as compared to other competing companies like Ford.
The prospects of succeeding were still not promising even with Eiji at the helm of the firm's management system. It was, therefore, inevitable for Eiji to come up with another strategy that would help ameliorate the situation. With the help of one of the top Toyota managers, Taiichi Ohmo, Eiji authored the Toyota Production System, which stipulated that Toyota produce what it needs only when it is needed. Concisely, Toyota owes much of its success today to this production system. Toyota Motor Corporation has since grown to be the one leading motor manufacturers in the world. In Africa, for example, two in every five motor vehicles is a “Toyota”.
More information about Toyota Motor Corporation can be obtained from the Toyota Motors website; http://www.toyota-industries.com.
