Africa Business Communities

Dr. Stanley Ko: Scientific Development in Africa – my Opinion

Although I have lived and worked in Africa for several years and have occasionally been called "an African", I am still learning about the massive Africa.  I can only provide a brief "take" about what I perceive about the topic of scientific development in the continent.

Whenever we read the news about Africa, it is normally skewed towards the plight of wild animals, diseases like HIV and Ebola, civil wars, and labour union strikes.  Sometimes we read about famous soccer players and sports people (like Drogba, Yaya Toure, and James Kwambai), African billionaires (like Aliko Dangote and Patrice Motsepe), and good politicians (like Nelson Mandela).  There are also several prominent African Nobel Peace prize winners.  It is true that there is not a lot of information about science development.  Yet, when we Google-search on African scientists, we are able to find many prominent scientists across the continent, but perhaps not so many recently.  The latest one we read is about the doctors in Cape Town who managed a penis transplant.

Africa is not short of talented and intelligent people.  I believe that any form of development is motivated by need and then knowledge.  On need, Africa continent has been broadly receiving assistance from the developed countries.  For years, due to the mass of the continent, we struggle to have a good communication infrastructure.  When the mobile phone was introduced, we pride ourselves as having "leap-froged" technology.  So Africa has been importing technology rather than developing it on our own.  Importation has somehow satisfied the need.  On knowledge, Africa has some of the world's best universities; they are only found in major rich cities.  Most of the rural education institutions are limited due to funds, quality of educators, lack of facilities and poor government policies to encourage scientific developments, and the situation has somewhat done injustice to our large pool of talented Africans.

Importation of technology is not necessarily bad. The point is to be able to learn from imported technology and do the real "leap-froging", like what Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan, China and Singapore have done!

Dr. Stanley Ko is Founder, Albarka Africa Investments Pty Ltd.

 

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