After reading
White African's blog post of the (used to be) common phrase of calling Africa a dark continent, I got thinking and could not but take a deep breath, asking myself the question of whether or not there is hope for the continent. I concluded there is.
Courtesy of Whiteafrican.com blog, Africa and Europe at night with Google map. See any difference?
Africa has come a long way, trailing other continents in the race of development. We lost out in all the ages known to man, from the industrial age to the space age, even the during the computer age in the 80s and 90s in the west, lots of countries in Africa were still in short of typewriters!
While Africa is still being plagued by natural disasters and diseases, visionary leadership has also been lacking. The sum total effect of this is a continent still fitting perfectly into the description of the dark continent, even if in a different context.
The Information age is seen as Africa's last chance! meaning if we do not get it now, we are doomed. Maybe, maybe not. Today there is so much concern about how to get technology into the continent to light up the darkness. Getting technology into the continent means giving African's a taste of affordable and fast internet access, affordable computer systems (more than the $100 laptop), more telecommunications infrastructures and a fair share of appropiate news coverage by the world media.
These will bring a remarkable growth in development. While an affordable internet would increase African content on the internet, availability of computers will facilitate the development of the young African, marginalised right now because of his inabilility to afford a PC, telecommuncation infrastructures will attract more investors to the continent.
Mobile Telephony
Some giant leaps towards a better Africa have been taken these past few years and should not go unnoticed. Some 5 years ago there were only close to half a million telephone lines in Nigeria. There were no mobile phones, and few people had fixed telephone lines in their homes. With a delibrate liberalization of the telecoms industry, Nigeria today is Africa's second largest mobile market with around *18 million subscriber base, most of whom are in the major cities. While future growth is projected, infrastructural development has been slow. This applies not only to Nigeria, but other African countries too.
The mobile telephony is the closest to the Information society that Nigerians have experienced. With Internet access still on the high side, a lot work still needs to be done. Much of it, from African governments excersing their political will in the appropiate direction.
One Laptop per Child!
This would be my first time of writing about this project. The One Laptop Per Child is a great project. Not a surprising product from the ever innovative MIT. It is also an outstanding one, infact, to be able to squeeze the PC into a school box for kids. However, I feel the project should be taken as a very short term solution to the problem of access to the computers, I feel kids in the developing world deserves more.
The bottom line of the OLPC is a cheaper computer for the kid, but it is worthy to note that a lot of the things that triggered creative thinking in the Bill Gates and the Micheal Dells of this world were the real challenges of having to interact with the real computers and not an adaptation of it.
Besides, thinking the OLPC is the future for the developing world is a terrible proposition that creates a platform for a greater divide in the future. How do explain it when a kid grows up in Africa today with the $100 laptop and another kid grows up in the US with a pentium M laptop and Apple's nanopods as toys? In trying to quick fix, we end up with another QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), opening a larger hole in trying to close a large one.
While we welcome the idea of the OLPC, it should be not be an indication that the digital divide is close to being bridged, rather it should be seen as a temporary solution to the problem while we remain at the drawing board thinking up a better approach.
