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By Chinedu James
A panel of experts at the recently held NerdsUnite 2018, organized by MainOne in Lagos, have called for positive collaborations among IT players in Africa to move the continent forward in its digital march. Africa is a very slow entry into the knowledge economy. Only two countries – Mauritius and South Africa made the list of top 65 countries in a recent global publication of countries’ e-Readiness.
While the panel believe Africa holds much potential to innovate and leapfrog its poor economy, absence of cross border knowledge sharing and inability to pool knowledge and fund resources has ensured that the continent remains far from the digital start-point.
The theme of NerdsUnite 2018 is “Radical digital transformation”, focusing on the challenges the continent faces to rework its steps to economic progress by leveraging on innovation and technology.
Global Director of Market Business Development, Avanti Communications, Mr. SrinathLogasubrum, expressed dissatisfaction with Africa’s condition of under-achievement, noting that “there are some resistance to required changes from some of the countries in the region of Africa.”
The speakers stated that countries in the region needs to work together to achieve collective or personal successes in technology and innovation.
According to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Microsoft, Hakeem Adeniji, “it is important we all collaborate. Microsoft is a partner-centric organisation and we are talking to businesses in Nigeria.
“There are lots of growing businesses in Nigeria that we can partner with by providing our services for them to incorporate those services.
“We basically have partnerships, we have a world class center in Nigeria and it’s all about us sitting down with partners and growing centers have discussions in various areas and those discussions are ongoing,” said Adeniji.
