Professor Calestous Juma on the need for big vision thinkers are ministers of technology in Africa.
For example, ministries responsible for telecoms can take the lead in training a new generation of electronics engineers. Similarly, research and training institutes in energy and power ministries could create colleges to train professional in their sector. Ministries of agriculture have widely distributed research institutes that could seed the next generation of technical universities.
This is probably on of the areas that I spent the first four months of this year advocating in Uganda. It doesn’t make sense that Hive Colab spends an inordinate amount of time and effort struggling to afford an internet connection so that developers don’t have to worry about it. If the Government of Uganda was really forward-thinking, they’d see to it that ALL of Uganda’s tech hubs were provided with above average connectivity, leveling a current barrier of entry.
If this vision we all talk about is even remotely possible across the continent, then we need to think bigger and out of the box. Africa’s future innovators, need to also be at the table writing the policy that will govern Africa’s tech future. Right now, to quote another professor, Africa’s tech future is being written by Hippos, instead of Cheetahs.
