“Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching.”
— Igbo Proverb
The above proverb popularized by Chinua Achebe , the late literary giant sums up my thoughts on the situation we currently face.
The global pandemic caused by a new strain of the CoronaVirus COVID-19 created a challenge the likes of which has not been seen in the last 100 years. At the time I typed this, there have been more than 423K confirmed cases globally with almost 19K fatalities. This virus has proved to be a leveller in every way imaginable by cutting across national, social, economic and racial boundaries. It has combined with a number of other factors to create a perfect storm that has humanity fighting on the same side for the first time in living memory…
I shared a few thoughts down on how we can optimize the role of tech in all of this in a medium post.
I would love to get your reactions and better still your contributions.
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Great Medium article Emeka! Let’s go for it!
Speaking from Nigeria that is still at the cusp of the pandemic, our response and solutions will be based on the state of our healthcare and the government’s organizational capacity. Imagine if companies in tech, healthcare and other sectors can rally as you have described to fight this pandemic. I am aware that companies like DOCi Healthcare are refitting their healthcare app with a Covid-19 chat button to assist people to get WHO- validated answers to Covid-19 related questions. DOCi would be glad to be part of any initiative that can beatback this pandemic.
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Lovely article Emeka! This is another time in history when all humanity has come together putting aside differences to fight a common enemy, COVID-19. If you ask me, what is the end game? I tell you, Victoria Ascerta!!!.
By extension, I strongly believe that if we can adopt the same approach to fighting common issues in our environment, then the solution will be more closer at hand than we can imagine. Take for instance, in Nigeria today, cash has always being king. Cash is the biggest competitor to all Nigerian banks put together and even payment solution service providers (FINTECHS) put together. But believe me, it only take a legislation by the government for all businesses to adopt e-payment channels. I ask myself which is more terrible between a total business lock down and a legislation on the adoption and use of e-payment channels only as a means of exchange.
If sometimes in the 80’s a government took a decision to change her country’s currency and it was successful. Then the truth be told, with sincerity of purpose and a will, the cashless agenda of the CBN can be achieved in no time if we all work together as one. Another food for thought!
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Thank you George.
Please shoot an email to the team at CovidGlobalProject [at] protonmail.com with some details of what you are working on and they will let you know the next steps!
Thank you @Perusky.
Like you I hope we can apply the lessons learned here to other areas