The technological era has arrived on the planet. As a result, one of the criteria used to measure how evolved a country is in Africa is technological progress.
Technology is the use of modern science to better people’s lives. Tech is progressing significantly in all 195 countries around the globe, though not at the same rate.
Even though many countries are making rapid progress, others are far ahead of the pack in terms of tech. Americans, Europeans, and Asians are the most technologically developed countries on the planet.
Africa lags behind when it comes to technological development when compared to other parts. The continent’s technology is heavily reliant on the aforementioned areas.
Some countries in the region, on the other hand, are making substantial technological advancements. Steve Tchoumba, the manager of ActivSpaces shades more light on the progress of Africa as regards technological advancement in the continent.
CFA: Steve glad to have you on the show today.
Steve: Well I’m happy to be here.
CFA: What do you think is the role of technology in developing Africa today?
Steve: Tech is a great opportunity for Africa, great opportunity, that is not an argument, you can’t argue that it’s a great opportunity because it opens Africa to the rest of the world, so that’s one thing.
It’s amazing, it’s a great opportunity because, for example, you are able to have an entrepreneur here in Lagos, selling products or services around the world, you’re able to scale businesses to reach an amazing amount of people and to me, that offers Africa great opportunity and it’s not a question.
CFA: So why does it seem like we’ve not been able to handle some of our old issues? Is it a problem of capacity? I mean, what do you think?
Steve: I think we’ve done well, we need to give ourselves some credit and in regards to that, one thing that I’d like to say is this, this is new for us, okay, it’s new for us.
The Americans and Europe, they’ve been at it since the 40s and perhaps even before that. If you look at some statistics in 2010, there were probably about 2 or 3 incubators on the whole continent, today great work is been done, we have about 200 400 500.
The report by writers bridges talks about I think 644 incubators on the continent today but go back 10 years ago, it was about 5.
So look at the progress that we’ve already made in 10 years, so I think we’re making a lot of progress but there are a lot of problems but we need to give ourselves time, we need to train, we need to build capacity. (watch the full video here).
Don’t miss important articles during the week. Subscribe to techbuild.africa weekly digest for updates.