I spoke to Shola and we touched on what drives him, eCommerce infrastructure, layoffs in Konga, Kinneviks numbers/LinkedIn post, taking the baton from Sim Shagaya, etc
5 Likes
I loved reading this article. I am in the e-commerce space as well and this was deeply insightful for me even though I’m operating in a country miles away.
This part though > “The last bit is how Africans own technology. The next wave of industrialization is going to be based on technology. Now the question is — how much of this technology would we own. And how does this affect our lives and our continent in the long term?”
That we as a continent are not catching on fast enough worries me. That not enough people are worried, worries me. Unlike the industrial revolution, this will have effects so far reaching to our lives and economies, we might not ever rise from it. I see a dystopian future for this continent and it frightens me.
3 Likes
While it pains me to say so - I totally agree with this. The truth is we’re still on level 0 when it comes to tech. Take for instance AI, we all know it would play a role in our lives in the future. Yet, we have no say in how it will be utilised or in what form it will shape our society.
Not to talk about the amount of data that the tech companies have on sovereign countries which is scary. What’s more scary is there’s always unintended consequences.
@Sherrytums and @PapaOlabode ,I quite agree with you. Though I also think that Africa has the opportunity to leapfrop some orders of tech development just like it happened in telephony(from analog to mobile in a fraction of the time it took the developed world). And I think therein lies the rub, while we may not go through the same teething probs and challenges they would face, we will not have that indepth knowledge of the technologies as they mature. So, in essence, its a catch-22 situation.!
3 Likes