Technology is rapidly transforming cultures and economic systems around the world. The dictionary’s definition is that Technology is the practical application of knowledge, especially in a particular area.
The reason Africa has fallen behind the world and especially the advanced economies is that it is mostly unable to navigate the waves of the various technological revolutions that have swept through the world. Africa could not do it because the leadership failed to focus on investments in the people. And when they did, they failed to recognize the investments they made. If you go the United States and Europe today, you will find top-level leaders in various professions and vocations. Most of these people are children of Africans and mostly Nigerians who got Federal and State government scholarships in the 1970s to study abroad for the purpose of returning home to drive economic growth and development. However, they and their parents have not make the trip back because no one appears to want them back. They are forgotten. They have been cancelled. And now we dare to speak of a brain drain and the African diaspora? Technology is changing the world and Africa does not have a good threshold of competencies to be well engaged. Many at home are neglected and those abroad are mostly cancelled.
Elon Musk, the second richest man in the world according to Forbes, Founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has said that “as society becomes increasingly automated by robots and artificial intelligence systems, one of the ways forward for humanity will be to merge with machines”.
As it is turning out, humans merging with machines is part of what the Fourth Industrial Revolution is all about. But what does humans merging with machines really mean? According to Peter Dockrill, Deputy Editor of Science Alert Musk said at the World Government Summit in Dubai, in 2017 that “the kind of daily dependence we already have on personal technology will only increase as time goes on to the point where human intelligence and machine thinking eventually become one”. Well here we are in 2021 and those comments are looking more real as the days go by. I think that we can all agree that we are now in a world of rapid technological change. And it is the future. We must embrace it if we are to make a mark in the world today and to secure the future of the African continent.
