[kictanet] Silicon Savanna

[Andrew Limo]

The Time [July, 11] has profiled and sign-posted Kenya’s
technology prowess- The Silicon Savanna. Commenting on the deliberations of the
recent conference for mobile-phone software geeks, Pivot25, the reporter
marvels at the high adoption rate of mobile applications Kenya and Africa. “ For
the first time, hundreds of millions of people found themselves in a sort of
grid, one that allowed them to talk to one another”. 

But emerging innovations and resilience should not really surprise
anyone. Africans are not creating anything new using these gadgets. They only use
them to escalate what they have been doing. Our value systems honor the sharing
of resources and Mpesa has only helped to amplify the age-long practice. If we
like saying a few unkind words to each other face-to-face, we will say more on SMS. If we pickpocket
and pilfer offline, we siphon and defraud online. It is the amounts and scales
that change, not the values.   

The good thing about the emerging technologies though is that they
are universal, democratic and quite liberating (of course for those with access
and know-how). They invent and patent the gadgets in the other world but we are
proving to be the king users. They invented the car but never gave us the
source code. We could not also access it remotely. The Internet is one
civilization we will not be denied. 

The digital zealots like PS Ndemo have helped spur growth in
the tech sector. My worry is if the rural communities are not connected soon,
we will only succeed in bridging the digital divide with the world as a
country. The elite, who are anyway endowed in other aspects of life, will continue to prosper from
innovations. And technology will be found wanting in the scales of bridging the
undesirable rich-poor divide. 

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