By Rose Kwamboka
Technological innovation is becoming a major economic and social development accelerator on the African continent.
The world’s population is set to
increase from the 7.6 billion people we currently have.
According to the UN, the world population will increase by another four billion people by 2100.
What is the main reason for this? It’s not because
more children will be born, It’s because there will be
more adults. The youth of the world are set to
mature.
How these young people will be distributed around
the world is even more interesting.
Africa’s
demographics are unique from the rest of the world
in the sense that we are continent of young people.
It is predicted that within a period of three
generations, 41 per cent of the world’s youth will be
Africans. It is also expected that by 2030, Africa’s
labour force will be larger than China’s and larger
than India’s by 2035.
So it comes as no surprise that the combination of
Africa’s youth and technological innovation, which the
youth are known to take up enthusiastically, is a
potent contender for great things for the continent.
Harnessed, the right way, with skill and employment
this resource could very well be what frees the
roughly half a billion people in Africa today from the
jaws of poverty.
Fortunately, some international tech companies have
realised this and have started making efforts.
Google
is one of those companies and they have come up
with an initiative dubbed Launchpad Accelerator for
Africa. This is a three-month programme where start-ups
picked from various African countries are brought
together for training, mentorship and ecosystem
immersions.
I recently attended one of their graduation
ceremonies in Lagos, Nigeria and the potential for
growth in Africa through tech innovation is huge.
In this day and era there are no tech companies per
se, owing to the fact that tech has permeated our
lives to the point where ‘business as usual’ is no
longer possible without some form of tech.
In
essence, one can reliably say all businesses are tech
businesses.
Serious gain can be gleaned from solving the
problems we have in Africa and establishing gainful
employment of our youth if we infuse technology into
our everyday life even more. That became real for
me during this event and I believe more
conversations should be had about this.
Credit: Standard Media
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