I’ve been seeing a lot of Elon Musk videos and many other futuristic technology materials lately and I just can’t help but wonder if we have a place in this world.
A non-negotiable requirement for a solid footing in the race to the future is a robust academic institution and Nigeria simply doesn’t have it. I studied Computer Science in UNN and frankly, if I spent my university days seliing Gala in traffic, I would have probably fared better because I would have raised seed funds for my startup during those years. There is nothing I know about anything that can be traced back to the school. My friends who studied engineering courses have almost similar tales. People who have genuine desire for the courses are disappointed, those who go ahead to build things are not supported.
Andela is working hard to produce world class developers right here, but that is because to become a developer, you only need a computer. What about other spheres of technology like Robotics, Renewable energy, transportation, space exploration, etc? Are we going to still sit those one out?
It will be painful to sit and watch, especially since we have internet and satellite TV. It is going to be a lot worse than lagging behind in the industrial age for us because “we go dey see am as e dey happen”.
For the engineering student to know that even if he goes ahead to gather material online and learn to make things, he is limited by unavailability of labs, materials, mentors, companies and poor government and societal support.
The internet makes it very easy to learn anything, so anyone can have as much exposure to knowledge (either through materials or mentors) on just about any topic. But knowledge needs to be given practical expression in order to be beneficial. Other wise we will just have a decent idea of what is going on and still have no way of being part of it. Even worse is that things are happening really quickly so it’s even much easier to lag behind.
Is there any hope? What can we start doing NOW that can position Nigeria and Africa as strong players and maybe even start contributing to the body of knowledge in Technology globally in the near future (10-20 yrs)? Is there any Andela type model that we can adopt to nurture and develop technology talents and get back into the race for the future or will we keep consuming? I feel that the internet has leveled the playing field for everyone to a very large extent but I fear we may still not meet up!
Reading that made me think, how about we have an Andela type organization but with a focus on hardware engineering? Perhaps with a couple of labs scattered across the country and open to the public on maybe a subscription basis. Basically a literal heaven for all DIY enthusiasts. What do we know, we could even call it Andelabs.
If Africa is to catch up with the rest of the world, it will need to experience its own industrial revolution. For that to happen, Africans will need to learn to make things again.
Hmmm… Technology is an ecosystem. It starts from language skill, logical aptitude, relatively available capital and yeah government support. That being said Africa has to focus on her people having at best an average standard of living, else everything else seems like a joke.
Sadly, our education is poor. It isn’t poor because we aren’t trying, its poor because of lack of communication skills. People are still clinging to the good old days of their ‘culture’. There’s a reluctance to really accept English. That’s why there’s a sort of active ‘classism’, where I can tell within 2 sentences who is ‘educated’.
People have to learn that pidgin English and our indigenous languages haven’t evolved with any technological advancement. No vocabulary for Math, physics, chem and of course the computer age. This is why our fundamental problem is communication and expression of ideas. I can’t learn to code in Yoruba, thus if I speak English better than Yoruba… I am at an ADVANTAGE no matter what.
I wish I could do a study on ‘Command of English and its relation to success in Nigeria’. I predict the correlation will as clear as day. As I end, look at Singapore, a core Asian country. They’re language didn’t develop with technology and they adopted English fully, not the one where I would be speaking English in Nigeria and I’ll feel like I’m better than the listener…that just doesn’t work. So yeah that’s my reason
In fact…
It will be painful to sit and watch, especially since we have internet and satellite TV. It is going to be a lot worse than lagging behind in the industrial age for us because “we go dey see am as e dey happen”.
Off the top of my head. I think it will be really expensive to set up hardware hubs with the Andela hands on, mentorship model. Imagine having a Solar or Robotics lab. There are a lot of machines and material costs involved.
Nigeria needs to invest in quality basic education then its all gravy from there. In the decades before the s governments of abacha, ibb, obasanjo, yaradua and goodluck there was an emphasis on education. For instance, one of the top robotics professors in the usa before he decided to swim in the shark laden waters of nigeria was prof bart nnaji. One of the top ibm researchers was cyprian uzoh. One of the top authorities in multi core chip design is prof kunle olukotun. Today the money thats supposed to go to education goes to national assembly pockets.
