Dr. Evans Woherem doubles as the
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Compumetrics Solutions
Limited, and the Chairman, Digital Africa Global Consult. In this
interview with STANLEY OPARA, he assesses Africa’s position on
the global technology map and the need for a more proactive approach
towards technology development
As a computer systems expert, how would you describe Africa with reference to global technology advancements?
As per technology progress with reference
to Africa, I am bewildered and concerned that African countries do not
seem to be in a hurry with regards to their positions in the world’s
technology ranking. Africa is far below the rest of the other continents
of the world in technology acquisition. Yet, the other continents,
especially the Americas, Europe and Asia seem to be on steroids in
acquiring and adopting new technologies. However, in Africa, it does not
seem to be any sense of urgency at all.
It is now commonly known that countries
that have technological competence are more developed and economically
competitive. They are at the higher pecking order of world development.
Of course, there is a difference between using technologies invented and
innovated by another country and actually being the inventing country.
It is more rewarding to be one of the key inventing and innovating
countries of the world in technology. This is what I mean as
technological competence. In other words, it is not the mere purchase
and use of technologies invented from abroad.
So what is there for Africa technologically?
Since the first and second industrial
revolutions till date, Africa has been on the lower rung of the
technology league table. Hence, Africa is the least developed continent
economically and so the weakest in power, for there is a positive
correlation between having technology and economic development. Europe,
supported heavily by technology, started the first and second industrial
revolutions while the United States and Asia followed, through Japan.
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa) countries, a term coined by Jim O’Neil of Goldman
Sachs, have awoken and are now also being reckoned with in the
technology ecosystem. So we dare to ask: Whither Africa? Something must
be done to correct the anomaly. Africa must wake up to the imperative of
technology for our economic development.
There is a new economic grouping in the
making, the MINT (Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey). The acronym
was first coined by Fidelity, a Boston Assets management firm, but was
also popularised by Jim O’Neil. The MINT countries are being predicted
to be the next set of emerging nations to be reckoned with in the world.
We are glad that another African country, Nigeria, is among them.
However, it must be noted that their
predicted positioning in the world’s country development league table is
not a given. It may or may not be actualised. It is merely a prediction
for now. For Nigeria, it is largely due to the potentialities of the
country. It, therefore, may or may not prove to be the case. It depends
largely on the leaders of Nigeria to see to it that this happens.
You talked about the MINT countries and their potentials; what is expected of Nigeria to lead this emerging economic bloc?
For Nigeria to truly be a prototypical
MINT country, there has to be a national sense of urgency for economic
development and technological development in the country. In South
Korea, in the 1990s, the government, industry and academia collaborated
to come up with an economic development strategy that had Information
Technology at its heart, and they underpinned it all by saying that
whatever they needed to do in order to grow economically and
technologically, they needed to do so very quickly. They thus recognised
fully that in order to catch up, he who is behind needs to run even
faster than he that is at the front, or he would be forever a laggard, a
follower, a mimic or worse, the despised of the world.
To get to the level of technological
competence of the rest of the world, African countries need to run
faster than they are running so far. This requires for our leaders to
comprehend that reality and develop a sense of urgency for the
development of technology and the economy. It needs to be done in such a
comprehensive and holistic manner that all family members, construction
workers, pupils at school, teachers, market women, and taxi drivers on
the streets, among others, should be aware of the development
imperatives and the reasons for the sense of urgency for development in
the country.
The governments of African countries
should do this as if our collective lives depend on it, for the people
are ready. The people are indeed ready, for they have acquired most of
the necessary conditions for the leapfrogging of development. What is
left is the sufficient condition that can be engendered by the
leadership of the country. Are they ready for this? Or are they
satisfied by the status quo?
The good news is that, at the level of
the citizens, especially the youth, Africa is waking up rapidly. The
youth are very much at home with technology. Many are very educated in
science, engineering and technology. Africans in the Diaspora are highly
competent in new technology. Many of them are making enormous names
abroad especially in IT.
In fact, the youth of Africa, especially
those living in the cities, are now practically at the same level of
interestedness and ability in the use of new technologies as are the
youth of the rest of the world.
The only problem has to do with access to
some of those new technologies. This is because Africa is still one of
the digitally deprived sections of the world. This can be seen in the
percentage of Africans with access to new technologies. It is very low.
Many Africans, about 50 per cent, still live in the villages, and even
among the cities. Many are too poor to afford some of the new
technologies. However, the rate of adoption of the new technology
products even in the villages and the ghettoes are staggering. Thus, I
have no doubt that Africa is ready to adopt new technologies.
African innovators recently converged
at the Consumer Electronics Show 2014 in the US. You actually led the
African delegation to the CES for the very first time in its history?
What does this hold for the African continent?
CES is the ‘bazaar’ and ‘Mecca’ for new
computer and electronic products. It is usually where key technology
companies first debut their latest innovations, and where new upstart
companies also go to show what they have created. It is therefore, where
you feel the tempo of the world’s creativity in fashioning out the new
products that we will live with, work with and play with in the near
future.
With the CES, I feel Africa is given a
special goggle with which to stick its nose to the window pane of the
innovation house of the world, in which, for now Africa, is not a
participant, to peek at or observe the creative genius of the West and
Asia. There, we see their creations in the form of products and
technologies that would change our lives and our world in the near to
long term future and dream of one day being part of it all.
We are today largely not part of that
innovation house. The sad part of it is that our leaders do not seem to
care or feel a sense of urgency for us to be part of the innovation
house. Nevertheless, when many consumer products from the world’s
innovation house come out, our leaders are often eager and one of the
first to acquire them.
Going by what you saw at CES 2014, what kind of new technologies do we expect to see now?
Looking at the plethora of products
exhibited at the 2014 CES, we can clearly see that we have come a long
way, from mainframe computers to mini computers, workstation, PCs,
laptops, PDAs, tablets, smartphones, and now to wearable products with
sensors that enhance the monitoring of bodies or that provide us with
more information.
We now have the convergence of different
systems or product paradigms or technological trajectories. A TV is no
longer just a TV; it can now do Internet and function as a radio, clock,
and so on. Thus, a computer, radio, watch, phone, camera, etc., are no
longer just what they used to be. The lines between them are now all
blurring. We have entered an age of mass customisation.
So what are the implications of these new technologies and trends?
When you look at all the ills of the
world today and how seemingly impracticable they are, you will be
forgiven for saying that this is the worst of times. Yes in indeed, it
can be for we are at cross-roads. We may indeed end up in the nightmare
scene as that is the logical conclusion of where today is taking us. But
it is also the best of times. In fact, the world humans have never had
it so good with regards to the numerous possibilities that are at its
disposal in terms of how to better the world, our living standards, our
joys and collective happiness and our comfort and securities.
In Nigeria, our problems of
under-development in security, bad infrastructure, inept leadership,
corruption, impolite or discourteous way of reacting to one another,
instead of as our brother’s keeper, point to a resigned future that is
worse than a Hobbesian nightmare. Yet, today, Nigeria and Africa have
never had it better in terms of our positive power to better our lives
and develop Africa. The rest of the world clearly sees Africa as the
next frontier for rapid development, and a continent that has been
waking up to that reality.
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