By Napoleon Esemudje
As far as slogans go, few tell a cautionary tale as that of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign refrain: “The economy, stupid.” For twenty-first century Africa, a postscript should include – ‘and technology‘; as the meaningful lack of an indigenous technology industry along with the essential ecosystem of tech innovators, champions and investors remains Africa’s Achilles’ heel. If Africa’s moneyed elites are troubled by this predicament, they are yet to react appropriately.
The last decade has seen the awakening of philanthropic consciousness amongst African billionaires and corporate giants leading to a commendable wave of social interventions across the continent. From Aliko Dangote Foundation’s drive to improve access to better healthcare and poverty alleviation, to Mo Inrahim Foundation’s focus on leadership and good governance; their endowments are helping to tackle some of Africa’s obvious and pressing socio-political challenges.
Others like the Tony Elumelu Foundation, inspired by the founder’s Africapitalism philosophy, have taken an instructive approach towards developing the entrepreneurial capacity of promising young Africans supported by generous seed capital and diligent advocacy. Significant funding is also being pumped into the arts, particularly the entertainment sector. Africa’s corporate giants are falling over in a scramble to sponsor television reality and talent shows, musical concerts and the engagement of artists, entertainers and sport stars as iconic brand ambassadors. Laudable as these may be, a lot more needs to be done to secure Africa’s future especially in the technology (or tech) innovation space.
For the most part, African billionaires have so far tiptoed around the tech space. This is understandable in part because unlike their Western and Asian counterparts, most African billionaires made their fortune from non-tech businesses. In addition, the nuances of the tech sector particularly the patience required to fund long term R&D and the related incubation process may not come naturally to some. There is also the reality that generations of Africans have long been psychologically wired to see tech innovations as foreign imports from outside the continent. This needs to change.
Young Africans must see and be able to imagine a new reality where African tech innovators, scientists and tech entrepreneurs are amongst the emerging class of wealth creators. This won’t happen anytime soon if we wait for African governments to lead the way. For with few exceptions, they lack the required strategic vision and purposeful discipline to create and sustain tech innovation. That is where Africa’s billionaires and private capital must step in.
Many investors would typically choose traditional investment channels for proven moneymaking ideas. But when it comes to the development of indigenous tech innovations, Africa needs a can-do mental reset. Indigenous tech innovations will breed critical confidence in the ability of Africans to change their poor material circumstances. Billionaires from the continent can help by setting big, audacious and ambitious tech goals.
Here’s how this can work.
Competitive rivalry amongst innovators have turned the wheels of technology for ages. By the beginning of the twentieth century, targeted contests sponsored by wealthy individuals and corporate entities, set daring technology goals matched by considerable prize monies. Famous examples include the series of aviation contests sponsored by the British publisher, Lord Northcliffe.
His newspaper, the Daily Mail, started the first of several competitions for aviation pioneers with the 1906 Daily Mail’s £10,000 prize for the “first aviator to fly from London to Manchester, within 24 hours, in a heavier than air machine”. Another more recent example of successful competitions designed to push the boundaries of aviation technology was the 2004 Ansari X Prize of US$10 million for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft twice within two weeks.
Tech contests like these have the twin benefits of promoting specific and measurable tech innovation objectives while creating an exemplary set of tech celebrities. Africa’s budding tech hubs need this publicity to flourish and to make tech innovation/innovators cool.
African billionaires and corporate giants can make this happen by sponsoring prize monies for targeted tech competitions. These contests should be as daring and as demanding as possible to ignite and capture the public imagination of the entire continent and could perhaps be drawn from any of these:
- A working automobile engine indigenously designed and built by an African
- A working jet engine indigenously designed and built by an African
- A working rocket engine that can achieve sub-orbital flight indigenously designed and built by an African
- A specific medical breakthrough by an African leading to the cure for specific disease prevalent in Africa
- And a contest to select and sponsor the first African in space
Some of these challenges (long surpassed in other parts of the world) may seem hard and unattainable for many in Africa. But we should be inspired by the words of former US president, John F. Kennedy in his famous 1962 moon speech: “We choose to go to the moon this decade and to do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”
As Africans, it bears restating that ultimately only Africans can develop Africa and Africans will not be truly reckoned with in the global arena until we become technologically independent.
For Africa’s billionaires, it is about their legacy and enlightened self-interest. In a continent filled with despairing young people, a billionaire wealth is ultimately vulnerable. Setting high tech visions and goals for Africa’s teeming young people could in fact reset Africa’s bright future and the transformational impact of Africa’s billionaires.