By Agbo Agbo
Whenever my colleagues in the soft-sell genre want to write a mischievous story they often start with this phrase: “This is not the best of times for…” On face value, this certainly is not the best of times to live in Nigerian as a youth.
The high rate of unemployment and the shrinking of opportunities make illegal ways of making ends meet look attractive. The obvers side of this fact, which seems to be lost on some, is why tech giants love to visit Nigeria and interact with our youths.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook had visited Nigeria so has Jack Dorsey of Twitter and many others. Dorsey, during his recent visit to Nigeria said he’ll come and spend three months in Africa with Nigeria taking a chunk of that period.
There must be “something” that draws these tech giants and others to Nigeria. Yes, we may have loads of “yahoo yahoo” guys prowling the internet seeking whom to devour.
But, at the same time we have rave making and dedicated youths doing their very best, in the most difficult of circumstances, to positively change this negative narrative and impact society.
These are the guys that attract the tech giants to Nigeria like bees to nectar. My regular interactions with some of our youths give me hope because of the few that have their heads firmly on their shoulders.
Sometimes in life you don’t need a crowd to cause a change, you may just need a few good and dedicated men.
During his visit to the country last month, Dorsey, who is the co-founder and Chief Executive of Twitter Inc., said the company was willing to partner young Nigerian entrepreneurs and engineers towards empowering them to take advantage of its service platform to create jobs not only for themselves but for the teeming population.
Dorsey, at an interactive forum in Abuja, stated that he believed Nigeria and Africa in general remained a future reference point for technology products and innovation.
At the same forum, a former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said Twitter could serve as a platform for young people to create jobs for themselves and others.
Dorsey and his team were in the country on the invitation of Okonjo-Iweala who chairs the Board of Trustees, African University of Science and Technology (AUST) to enable him to interact with some of the country’s young and promising brains in technology in order to encourage them to excel.
Dorsey also told the gathering that one of the objectives of the team’s visit was to also look for opportunities to make Twitter a lot better.
He said the team required “insights of what is working and what is not working” to be able to improve on its service.
He added that Twitter had in the past 13 years created a global service to give people voices and also using it to spur entrepreneurship among young people.
These visits couldn’t have come at a more auspicious time. Presently, the world is transitioning fully into the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and we cannot afford to be left behind. Analysts characterise the 4IR as the melding of technologies with faint demarcations across physical, digital and biological boundaries.
Its hallmarks include exponential applications of digital technology with unappalled migration across all industrial domains and geography and the resulting disruptions in systems of production, consumption, marketing, management, entrepreneurship, governance, and in social and firm cultures.
Some have framed these features into such phenomena as digitally enhanced network effects, the Internet of Things, etc.
At the core of the 4IR is the indispensability of data, increasing dynamics of its usage, ongoing contestation over its accessibility and status as both proprietary assets and as global public goods.
Recall that the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR) provided perhaps the most significant insights into Africa’s potential to leap-frog its march to sustainable development.
As with industrial revolutions, the 3IR has further tinkered with international division of labour. Gradually, Africa and indeed economies hitherto considered as periphery – so-called because they were traditional sources of raw materials – are now actors in knowledge-driven competition, which is the hallmark of the 3IR.
With the invention of computer technology, the entrenchment of digitisation, most importantly the Internet and the entire IT architecture, Africa is a demonstrable source of intellectual power in the digital sphere.
As the world’s youngest continent, Africa’s youthful populations are mostly ‘digital natives.’ The continent is home to vast technology hubs and start-ups driven by its youths now set to disrupt the old order and invert the narrative of African innovation.
In terms of impact, the 4IR is now associated with diverse phenomena, including Artificial Intelligence, robotics, 3D design and printing, big data, virtual currency and block chain technology.
In the 4IR, Nigeria’s major challenge is to leverage and optimise the significant gains made during the 3IR. According to the World Economic Forum, Africa’s future is more effectively located in 4IR-style innovation, rather than old-style industrialisation.
The Forum is optimistic that with impressive record at 13% above global average of early stage in entrepreneurial activity, “Africa has definitely grasped the promise of the 4IR.” It notes that, “More than 400 tech hubs have sprung up across the continent, with Lagos, Nairobi, and Cape Town emerging as internationally recognised technology centres.
These cities now host thousands of start-ups, along with the incubators, accelerators, innovation hubs, maker spaces, technology parks and co-working spaces that support them.”
To build on this trend, two factors are critical. The first is already what we are doing: attracting tech giants to show them the “stuff” we are made of.
As we do this, we should have it at the back of our minds to engage in strategic partnership for innovation and sustainable development.
The second is through coordinated continental commitment to intellectual property protection and open innovation culture. In essence, we need strong laws in the country and continent to protect intellectual property rights.
The 2018 World Economic Forum’s ‘Readiness for Future Production Report’ finds that despite the prevalence of tech platforms and innovation capacity or potentials, other factors such as institutional structures, appropriate skills, competitive trade and investment incentives, sustainable demand or market, etc. are critical.
Notwithstanding Africa’s impressive credential in technology start-ups, continental efforts remain fragmented and uncoordinated. This has resulted in higher than average mortality rate.
Another critical factor to Nigeria’s and Africa’s strategic positioning in the 4IR relates to intellectual property and alternative knowledge governance.
We remain under pressure to commit to stronger intellectual property protection amidst increasing relevance of open and collaborative models of innovation. Never before has a flexible approach to intellectual property been a compelling policy choice for Africa as now.
The reason for this is not farfetched as data is the ‘raw material’ that fuels the 4IR. Data analytics is a key driver of AI and machine learning.
These depend on big data in order to identify and deploy patterns and their algorithmic and functional transformations.
Since we are still fine-tuning existing frameworks, it will be imperative to tap into regional, sub-regional and global partnerships with a view to ensure effective coordination of the Africa’s burgeoning innovation.
Jack Dorsey will certainly not be the last tech giant to visit Nigeria. Without being too hard on ourselves, we should really commend our youths that are busy creating things out of nothing in the tech hubs in Lagos.
Yes, we are very far from achieving a modest level of power supply, but we have youths that are either climbing the mountain, boring their way through or simply moving round to make headway under very difficult circumstances. They deserve our support and encouragement.
The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanise the production process from a largely agrarian system. The Second used electric power to create mass production.
The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. The fourth is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century.
How prepared are we? Are we going to allow our toxic political environment get in the way of real progress? Only time will tell.