He?s a high-flying executive, but he still considers himself a ?simple kid? from South Africa?s rural hinterland. Mteto Nyati (42) grew up in the Umtata district, in the country?s Eastern Cape Province, the heartland of the Xhosa ethnic group. Umtata?s not very far from where Nelson Mandela and other stalwarts of South Africa?s liberation struggle first saw the light of day. It?s a world of rolling green hills, a ruggedly beautiful coastline and villages of mud huts and bleating goats.
?People basically survive through small scale farming. It?s a hard life for most, just growing crops and keeping livestock,? Nyati explains.
But despite this desperate struggle for survival, he says people in the area of his birth have always placed a premium on education.
?This region has produced quite a lot of people who are highly educated ? forced by the fact that people do not have an option: it?s either education or poverty,? Nyati says.
Throughout his childhood, he says, his parents advised him to become a medical doctor. As he excelled at high school, Nyati himself became convinced that he was destined for this particular career?until he was selected, as a top achiever with a high aptitude for science, to attend an international Olympiad in London.
?There I got exposed to many different careers, and that was when I decided that engineering was the area I?d like to be in,? Nyati reflects.
After high school, he studied mechanical engineering at university, no mean feat in 1980s South Africa, when apartheid was at its height.
?For me to get to a white university?. I had to apply to the minister of education. And he had to give me permission to do that. And there was a quota of how many black people could get to those professions. Today, it is open; it is free. Everybody has got the opportunity. Today?s youngsters, the youth, have got a huge opportunity in front of them,? Nyati says.
Following his graduation as a mechanical engineer, Nyati worked for the corporation British Oxygen for seven years. Then the ?business bug? bit him. He enrolled for an MBA at Wits University in his home country, and after completing the program, he became a highly respected business consultant in a South Africa that was changing rapidly.
?Through that consulting work, IBM got wind of some of the work that I was doing, and recruited me to join them,? Nyati says.
In 1996, he joined IBM Africa, one of the continent?s most successful companies, which is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
?It was one of the first companies in South Africa to offer black people (the opportunity) to become managers,? he says.
IBM leads in the creation, development and manufacture of the communication industry?s most advanced information technologies, including computer systems. Nyati considers it his mission to ?bridge the digital divide? between the developed world and Africa.
?First of all we?ve got projects that are targeted at children, helping them to be much more proficient in Maths and Science, and those projects are making a big difference,? he says.
?We also have got projects that are linking up schools, giving them access to the Internet. One might say this is very basic, but projects like these are opening new worlds for these people.?
Nyati says it?s intensely rewarding for him to watch youngsters who?ve previously ?never heard of the Internet? evolve into skilled researchers using computers as their tools.
Although he?s optimistic about the economic growth happening currently in South Africa, he says the country faces many tough challenges.
?There?s a huge shortage of skills in South Africa. Why? Because as a country, we are growing, whilst at the same time, because of the past, we do not have the people to take these new jobs (in the technical fields) that are being created. So what you see is a situation where there?s this growth, but it cannot be sustainable if we do not produce the (necessary) skills.?
For this reason, Nyati?s division at IBM has formed links with South African universities.
?We pulled them together, formed partnerships with them to try to address this gap in IT skills in our markets.?
IBM headquarters has also selected its South African operation as one of seven ?global delivery centers.?
?Now we have IBM South Africa delivering services from South Africa to European countries. And that has created over 1,500 jobs to young people here who ordinarily would not be having jobs. It is things like this that have really made a huge difference in this market,? Nyati says.