The (im)perfect digital world bombshell
A UN report released in October 2018 by a panel of experts has revealed a bombshell. We have only a decade to “make unprecedented changes globally to alleviate climate change effects.
For humanity to thrive, Africa must go beyond the current goal-oriented survival metrics. That demands extraordinary transitions in everything we do. The report is demanding a vast scale-up of emerging technologies.
The future of energy in Africa seems to be in the morning hour’s stage in the Oil Age. While in the developed world, the theme is “End of the Oil Age.” Moreover, the effect of Electric Vehicles (EV) is breaking the tyranny of oil dependency. To have maximum impact from these effects, Governments must promote alternative green energy strategies.
Where did the Stone Age era go? Was it because we run out of stones? Sheikh Zaki Yamani (ex-Oil Minister) is known for the early 70’s Arab oil embargo when he spurred Opec to quadruple the price of crude oil resulting in altered state of geopolitical historical conflict.
He said that “Stone Age did not come to its end because stones became unavailable.” His analogy was meant to prepare the world to see the future.
Appropriate technologies make perfect sense, considering that Stone Age and Oil Age emerged in tandem. As of now, the Oil Age is on its deathbed despite of unexplored oil fields in Africa. What is happening?
Some of the oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia is diversifying their supplies of energy hence reducing their demand for oil, thus loosening the grip. Soon, the entire transportation market will become electrified, hence the collapse of oil age and the demise of the entire oil industry.
Few African nations are now home to thriving economies even before adapting full digitisation. The transportation sector is booming as advances in emerging technologies are providing ways for their digital economies to scale.
To hire a car, a smartphone app at your fingertips will do. In Africa, Taxify has outgrown its biggest rival Uber.
Its expansion strategy is focused on going to smaller and major cities while Uber is only focused on the latter. In Tanzania alone; Uber is only in Dar es Salaam while Taxify has already gone to Dodoma and Mwanza.
The emerging technology brands world-wide have skyrocketed the digital world with 3D solutions, offering consumers innovative better solutions; creating a chain of one product or service rolling out after one another.
Other super brands have risen, resulting in embedded day-to-day lives, something which was un-imaginable in the last five years; the likes of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Mining, etc. As a result, the digital world is creating winners and losers.
Unfortunately, many African nations will spin into crisis especially those nations persisting to investing heavily in the Oil Age.
Africa must leapfrog from the 20th century driven by oil, to the 21st century being driven by digitally in almost everything.
The world’s geopolitical order is reshaping differently for nations to organise or perish. It’s not our feet that move us along the digital world; it’s our minds. It’s time to approach the digital world with a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset.
