PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD Africa, with its wealth of natural resources and anticipated adoption of new technologies, is poised to make great economic strides this century. As a recent Smarter Technology article noted, African economies are growing at some of the fastest rates in the world. And mobile technology is seen as both a key enabler to sustain immediate and future growth, as well as a way to leapfrog ahead of many established economies in the use of new technologies.
In fact, Africa’s use of mobile, particularly mobile commerce has leapfrogged what is available in developed regions of the world. Given the lack of constraints imposed by working with an existing infrastructure, many expect similar significant gains with the adoption of cloud computing and social media.
Africa is poised to leapfrog developed regions in the use of mobile and other technologies. (Source: NASA)
But is new technology enough to induce changes that would transform the global economic landscape?
Certainly, starting with a limited legacy infrastructure and adopting the most modern technology has many advantages. Countries and businesses do not have to deal with maintaining the old or integrating the new with the old. But in similar cases in the past, technology alone was not always enough to lift struggling economies.
Specifically, this is certainly not the first time that a region of the world, lacking a modern infrastructure, was able to leverage new technology to leapfrog developed nations only to realize a small economic boost. A good example of this was the deployment of ISDN services in the 1990s. At the time, ISDN was pretty much the only broadband service available in a price range to support the high-speed connectivity needs of small branch offices and telecommuters who needed more bandwidth than that afforded by dial-up modems.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, many Eastern Europe governments and telecom companies invested heavily in infrastructure and as a result ISDN became routinely available in many countries. Traveling to CEBIT shows back then and hearing the giant telecoms talk of ISDN penetration levels in Eastern Europe, I would be frustrated that the service was not available to me (at any price) in my Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan. Similarly, when DSL services were first being rolled out worldwide, the Upper East Side of Manhattan (along with large sections of many U.S. cities) simply had to wait.
As was the case then with Eastern Europe, African nations and companies today will likely find that technology alone does not always translate into a booming economy or business success.
So where will problems occur? A recent Harvard Business Review blog noted inhibitors to innovation and economic growth. The blog cited an example of State-run lotteries in Africa. The traditional lotteries were in a fairly bad state. They needed an extensive agent network and cash redemption facilities. Entrepreneurs eyed an opportunity and tried to enter the field with mobile-based lotteries, which overcame these limitations. Unfortunately, the current legal and regulatory systems do not allow mobile lotteries to function.
The blog author noted: “Despite the opportunity being so glaring, not a single mobile-driven lottery infrastructure has emerged in any African country. If this is the case with lotteries, think of the even more regulated sectors of health and education, or more politically charged sectors such as agriculture.”
So while technology may be able to give African nations and businesses ways to significantly boost the region’s economic fortunes, attention will have to be paid to the other legacy systems that could stall any efforts for innovation.
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