Africa: Are you Present in this Area of Connectedness?
In September 2016, I had the privilege of sharing a stage with user experience design thought leaders at the EuroIA Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands. This summit is Europe’s leading Information Architecture (IA) and User Experience (UX) conference. http://www.euroia.org/. The theme of the conference was Connected Things Amongst Us”. I was invited to give a thought provoking rhetoric within this theme.
My topic was “Africa, Are You Present In This World of Connectedness?” It was well received and I believe planted a seed of curiosity in my colleagues. See the speech as presented below:
Imagine for a second, that you are a business person who is about to make a big investment in a country. Now, the only information you have is the most recent news headlines.
Imagine you read the following about this country:
“PANIC!”
“IMMINENT WAR AND GENOCIDE.”
“UNREST IN THE QUEEN’S BACKYARD”.
Chances are, with headlines like those, you’d probably think twice about travelling to that country let alone investing in it.
Two of those headlines are true of the recent Brexit referendum in the UK. But I modified the last picture to reinforce a full wave of panic that the first 2 headlines already suggest. The same can be done with this year’s US elections to make an investor want to run.
Even though England is still dealing with Brexit and America has an uncertain electoral future, I’m willing to bet that it wouldn’t be too difficult for you to invest with those countries.
Yet, that is much of the problem facing many nations in Africa. Its countries’ are judged and dismissed solely upon the sensational headlines read around the world. Africa being drowned in headlines that are hardly positive — starvation, disease, corruption.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian novelist once remarked, “It is easy to romanticise poverty, to see poor people as inherently lacking agency and will. It is easy to strip them of human dignity, to reduce them to objects of pity.”
This has never been clearer than in the view of Africa from the Western media, in which we are constantly shown poverty and conflict. Ask yourself, if Africa is all poverty, hunger and war, how does art, music, technology and business manage to overcome these odds? Could there be another side of Africa that you do not see?
I want to challenge you today:
First, seek to learn about other people in their world. Look through their eyes. Don’t expect the news coverage to be your source of truth. Seek the unconventional truth. How? My second challenge to you.
The system may seem completely broken from the outside but you will never know if there is a chance until you experience it first-hand. Legacy is not absolute truth. Mark Zuckerberg’s first experience in Africa last month led him to say that ‘The future will be built in Africa’.
Third challenge, support Africa to utilise its potential. Contribution to global issues cannot be a priority when most of the labour force is battling conflict, hunger and poverty that is a result of colonialism and current unfavourable policies. Judge Africa on fair terms.
Rather than share with you stories of Africa’s past, I want to tell you about the Africa I know. The Africa of today and the Africa of the future. I speak to you today with the hope that you will see the great continent in a different light, that you will want to learn more, to engage more, and yes, to invest more, in the cradle of mankind.
The beauty of being a third world country at this time is that we have little legacy to call our own. Our systems, which are foreign in the first place, are continuously being challenged by global trends. We are playing catch up as well as adapting. We are like new play dough that can be shaped into anything without fighting the battle of status quo.
Kenya has been making news in the technology world because of its break through application of MPESA, a mobile payment service, in a magnitude not seen anywhere in the world. This technology is being used by literally everyone from old people to young children. Innovation is a product of relevance and priority.
While the Internet is not widely spread in Africa as we would like, we continue to lay fibre optic infrastructure in our cities and eventually, the whole continent in a matter of years. Very soon the Internet will be as ubiquitous as mobile phones. With better inter-connectivity, social media will be our best chance to show the world something other than war, hunger and disease.
In line with the advancement in technology infrastructure, we are also promoting entrepreneurship which, in every growing society is the means to innovation. They say that Africa’s problems should be solved using African solutions. With over 40% unemployment rate, entrepreneurship is almost mandatory. Through knowledge acquired by our diaspora that is returning to Africa in record numbers, we are not coming up with solutions that only work for Africa but those that can plug into the changing world so that we can play ball with the rest of the world.
Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican political leader, was prophetic when he said, “Africa has become the big game of the nation hunters.” referring to the Scramble for Africa by colonialists. Today, Africa looms as the greatest commercial, industrial and political prize in the world.”
But if you just paid attention to the headlines and the news media, you wouldn’t think Africa was a prize worth being hunted. You would have missed our growth in infrastructure, you would have missed our growth in population, you would have missed our growth in entrepreneurship.
But all of that can change, depending on your perspective. It starts with each of us making the conscious decision to go beyond the headlines and to judge Africa and its countries on their own merits.
I’ll end with a short story:
A traveller came upon an old man on the outskirts of a town and asked, “How are the people in that town?”
The old man asked, “Well, what have you heard about them?”
The traveller replied, “I have heard that they are a good people.”
“You are correct,” the old man replied.
And so the traveller went into town and came back one week later and told the old man, “You were right, they were good and kind people.”
Another traveller came along and asked the same question to the old man, “How are the people in that town?”
The old man asked, “What have you heard about them?”
The traveller said, “I have heard that they are mean and nasty”
“You are correct,” the old man replied.
He too went into the town, but left after one day, “You were right, they were mean and nasty,” he told the old man.
“No”, the old man said, “That is what you wanted to see. The traits you expected to see were the ones you saw.”
So it is with Africa. It is up to you how you want to view the continent, its situation and its opportunities.
Africa’s connection to the world cannot just be one way. It cannot just be the Internet connecting Africa to everyone else. No, it must be the world connecting to Africa as well — it’s up to you, each of you, to go beyond the news headlines. To go beyond the assumptions and social obstacles that society has placed between you and our great continent.
My question is not to Africa but to the rest of the world; are you inviting Africa in the world of connectedness?
Thank you.
