The African Dream

The once “Dark” continent emerges into the light of globalization

When advances in technology are discussed whether over a cup of coffee with friends or by a columnist for The New York Times, the emphasis is clearly on the developed and in most cases Western world. A review of the multinational American corporation Apple’s latest Iphone for instance is more than likely to feature in the media. But what of the developing countries? Hardly any column inches are dedicated to the growth of technology in developing countries.

One of my favourite academics Ramaswami Harindranath (who coincidentally lectures at The University of Melbourne) suggests in the opening chapters of his book Perspectives on Global Cultures that the developed world are yet to benefit from the “trickle down of the joys that globalization brings” (Harindranath, 2006: 14). While this can be argued of the majority of the developing world I believe that this is slowly changing.  The developing world can be said to be playing catch-up with the West.

I have a soft spot for everything African as I spent the first 16 years of my life in Zambia. I was keen therefore to learn more about the progress made in Africa where technology is concerned. In my daily browsing of the BBC website sometime in April I stumbled across a news article that featured the African continent taking on the broadband revolution. The article goes on to state that plans are underway for East Africa to gain three underwater fibre-optic cables. This furthering in technology for this part of the world would eventually mean access to advanced telephone services, Internet banking and downloading of music and film – aspects of everyday life in the Western world which we take for granted.

Encouraged by the hope that Africa is taking small steps towards technological advancement and certainly feeling the heat of globalization like the rest of the world, I did a bit more discovery work on the Web. It was here that I discovered this article entitled Technology elevates Africa’s global status. The article tells the story of a truly African innovation – Ushahidi. Ushahidi (which in Swahili translates to ‘testimony’), as the author of the article Rebecca Wanjiku relates, “is a website and communications platform that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election violence in 2008”. While this innovation may seem insignificant in the dog eat dog technology world of the West, this is a major breakthrough for the crisis-torn Kenya and the rest of Africa who undergo conflict-driven and often bloody elections. Using Google Maps, the web engine allows anyone in the world to set up their own way to gather reports by mobile phone, email and the web and then have these mapped.

Ultimately and in my view extraordinarily, we have a piece of technology with a worldly benevolent purpose. With our era tinged with war and conflict, innovations such as these, however small an impact they may have, have just that – an impact. International news corporation Al-Jazeera now uses Ushahidi in its reporting of the war on Gaza. It is certainly clear why Ushahidi has won many awards and continues to have a global impact on the path to a war-free world.

Food for thought

BBC News Africa

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/default.stm

Ushahidi

www.ushahidi.com