This TED Talk features cancer researcher Charity Weioua, recorded live at TED at IBM, 2016.

Growing up in Kenya, I knew I always wanted to study biochemistry.

See, I had seen the impact of the high prevalence of diseases like malaria,

and I wanted to make medicines that would cure the sick.

So I worked really hard, got a scholarship to the United States,

where I became a cancer researcher, and I loved it.

For someone who wants to cure diseases, there is no higher calling.

Ten years later, I returned to Kenya to do just that.

A freshly minted PhD, ready to take on this horrific illness,

which in Kenya was almost certainly a death sentence.

But instead of landing a job in a pharmaceutical company or a hospital, I found myself drawn to a different kind of lab,

working with a different kind of patient. A patient whose illness was so serious, it impacted every single person in my country.

A patient who needed to get healthy fast.

That patient was my government.

See, many of us will agree that lots of governments are unhealthy today.

Thank you. of governments are unhealthy today. And Kenya was no exception.

When I returned to Kenya in 2014, there was 17% youth unemployment.

And Nairobi, the major business hub, was rated 177th on the quality

of living index. It was bad. Now, an economy is only as healthy as the entities that make it up.

So when government, one of its most vital entities is weak or unhealthy,

everyone and everything suffers.

Now, sometimes we might put a band aid in place to try and temporarily stop the pain.

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