SPIO-GARBRAH AT VODAFONE HQ: SPEAKS ON ICT AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN AFRICA
Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Chief Executive Office of the Commonwealth Telecom Organisation (CTO) has advised ICT professionals interested in using technology to transform Africa to build a critical mass of commonly-minded people through effective networking in order to break down the negative walls of resistance that impede Africa's progress. The CTO head was delivering the key note address on 7th November at Vodafone's headquarters in London to ICT professionals based in UK who were attending the BarCamp Africa UK event.
The BarCamp Africa, which originated in the USA brought together Africa-focused professionals from the Silicon Valley to exchange views on how technology could be used to develop Africa.
The nearly 100 participants from about 20 different nationalities at the London event included talented entrepreneurs, technologists, engineers, designers, bloggers, content producers and charities interested in networking on the technological dimensions of development.
In a wide-ranging Keynote address to kick-off the all-day interactions, Dr Spio-Garbrah stated that for Africa to modernize and advance more quickly, its leaders, governments and people must be open than they currently are to new ideas which is the foundation stone of technology, as all technological innovation required creativity.
He noted, however, that today, in many parts of Africa, as a result of a mixture of illiteracy (which he said exceeded 50% in many countries), superstition, fear of the unknown, fear of technology, and fear even of Africans returning from the Diaspora, there is a huge resistance to new ideas and to innovation.
In order to overcome this, he advised that African professionals who wanted to return to their homelands with technology-based solutions should not attempt to hit these brick walls individually and become frustrated, but must first build with others a critical mass of similar thinkers to stand a chance of breaking through these walls of resistance.
Giving some examples from his own experience, he recounted how when as Ambassador of Ghana to the USA in the mid-1990s he faced suspicion from colleagues in the Embassy of Ghana in the Washington when he procured the first two mobile phones for the use of the Embassy to enable its officials to maintain contact with a visiting delegation led by Ghana's First Lady.
According to him, at the time, even in the USA, mobile phones were not that common, and they were not on the official list of approved equipment and furnishing that could be bought by an Embassy of Ghana, as that list had been developed in the 1960s and was not regularly updated. As such, an officer in the Embassy wrote a report to Accra to accuse him of having flouted the rules of the Foreign Ministry. Today, however, noted Dr. Spio-Garbrah on a humorous note, every driver of every Ghanaian Embassy anywhere has a mobile phone.
Providing another example of how professionals in the Diaspora can face difficulties when they try to promote change in their respective countries, he informed the audience that he currently faces a charge from the political party he belongs to in Ghana of breaching a disciplinary code merely for writing an article in a leading newspaper in the country to encourage the government to act faster to solve the nation's problems.
'So you see, even free expression and free speech, which are the precursors and corollaries of creativity and innovation can be curtailed in some countries if a few people do not like what you are saying or doing, even if it is in the country's larger interest,' he noted.
'If after you have learnt all kinds of fancy technology in this country or elsewhere, and you are fired up with enthusiasm to go back to your country to help in its development, backward-thinking people will not allow you to express yourself freely, then how can you bring technological innovation to your country?', he asked rhetorically.
Dr Spio-Garbrah suggested that ICT professionals with project ideas for Africa could assess the potential of their ideas by using the 'PROFIT' model in performing their analysis. He stated that the P would require them to examine the Policy environment within which their project idea would be implemented; the R demanded an examination of the Regulatory regime for the good and services they had in mind; the O represented the Operating environment for that particular technology;
the F for the Financial and funding arrangements that would be required; the I for the Infrastructure that is needed to enable the technology to be applied; and the T for the specific Technological relevance of the product or service being contemplated. He was of the view that a robust and rigorous analysis based on this formula would enable technology innovators to be more successful in adapting their ideas for the often more hostile African environment.
He stated that the CTO, representing the interests of ICT ministries, regulators and operating countries of mainly Commonwealth countries, itself tries consistently to apply the PROFIT model to its various initiatives, especially the knowledge-sharing events it organises.
He informed the audience that from 8-10th December, for example, the CTO will be organising a Conference in London on 'Investing in ICTs in Emerging Markets', while from 16-18th November, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the Organisation will be organising another conference on the human resource management aspects of ICT development.
These conferences, and other training courses and workshops that the CTO organises are part of the institutions efforts in helping Commonwealth countries develop and train ICT professionals who could eventually assist in the transformation of their nations, the CTO chief stated.
Some of the other topics that were covered by other speakers at the BarCamp UK included: Establishing IT Leadership In Sub-Saharan Africa; Securing Africa's new Broadband for Development; Management Culture and Business; Blogging from Africa; Africa's Development Priorities and How Technology Can Help; Ending Poverty with Open Hardwar; Powerline Communications; and Publishing Technology Solutions and Fonts for Africa.