Silicon Valley eyes Africa as new tech frontier
Silicon Valley eyes Africa as new tech frontier
Lagos is attracting interest from global tech giants keen
to tap into an emerging market of young, connected Africans
July 15, 2018 by Stephanie Findlay
With its colourful hammocks and table tennis table, a new
tech hub in the Lagos metropolis wouldn't look out of place among the start-ups
on the other side of the world in Silicon Valley.
But the NG_Hub office is in the suburb of Yaba—the heart
of Nigeria's burgeoning tech scene that is attracting interest from global
giants keen to tap into an emerging market of young, connected Africans.
In May, both Google and Facebook launched initiatives
nearby.
This week, Nigeria's Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was in
California to court US tech investors for what he said could herald a
"fourth industrial revolution" back home.
But it isn't just Nigeria that is piquing the interest of
tech giants.
Last month, Google said it would open Africa's first
artificial intelligence lab in Ghana's capital, Accra.
Demographics are a key factor behind the drive: Africa's
population is estimated to be 1.2 billion, 60 percent of them under 24. By
2050, the UN estimates the population will double to 2.4 billion.
"There's a clear opportunity for companies like
Facebook and Google to really go in and put a pole in the sand," said
Daniel Ives, a technology researcher at GBH Insights in New York.
"If you look at Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Apple,
where is a lot of that growth coming from? It's international," he told
AFP.
Facebook is operating from the NG_Hub as it doesn't yet
have a permanent office in Nigeria.
The company's Africa head of public policy, Ebele Okobi,
said at the opening of the premises that the goal was to cultivate the nascent
technology community.
The social network has pledged to train 50,000 people
across the country to "give them the digital skills they need to
succeed", she added.
In exchange, Facebook, which currently has some 26
million users in Nigeria, gets more users and access to a massive market to
test new products and strategies.
"We are invested in the ecosystem. Just the fact
that they are engaging... that in of itself is a goal," she added.
Cyber colonialism?
Many African governments have given the tech titans an
enthusiastic welcome.
In California, Osinbajo said the Nigerian government will
"actively support" Google's "Next Billion Users" plan to
"ensure greater digital access in Nigeria and around the world".
Few sectors in Africa inspire as much hope as technology,
which has the potential to revolutionise everything from healthcare to farming.
Examples include Ubenwa, a Nigerian start-up that has
been described as "Shazam for babies", after the application that
identifies music and films from snippets.
Ubenwa analyses a baby's cry using AI to diagnose birth
asphyxia, a major cause of death in Africa when babies don't get enough oxygen
and nutrients before, during or immediately after birth.
Detecting the problem early could save thousands of
lives.
"Africans should be responsible to come up with the
solutions," said Tewodros Abebe, a doctoral student studying language
technology at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.
"Unless we are involved, no one can understand the
existing problems in our continent."
Abebe dismissed fears that what Facebook and Google are
doing represents a form of so-called cyber colonialism.
"Working collaboratively I think is a good way of
technology transfer for Africa," he said. "If they are only looking
for business, that's colonisation."
'Epocalypse Now'
As Africa's technology sector grows, fuelled by growth in
mobile phone use, so too does pressure on governments to protect its citizens'
personal data.
Osinbajo told tech leaders Nigeria was keen to create the
right environment for development, including for regulation.
But the debate over privacy is muted in many African
countries, unlike in Europe, which recently passed tougher new data protection
laws.
Facebook has also been at the centre of a storm for
failing to protect user data in connection with claims of manipulation in the
2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum.
Global Justice Now, an anti-poverty group, fears tech
companies are being given free rein to create a global surveillance state.
"We could find ourselves sleepwalking towards a
world in which a handful of tech companies exercise monopoly control over whole
swathes of the world economy, further exacerbating inequality between the
global north and the global south," said the activist group in a May 2018
report titled "Epocalypse Now".
Renata Avila, from the World Wide Web Foundation in
Geneva that campaigns for digital equality, said that has not come to fruition
but there were pressing concerns.
"The message is that Africa needs investment and it
needs to develop these industries, so usually it's a pro-business
narrative," said Avila, a digital rights researcher.
"But there is little oversight," she added,
warning that without regulation, people were vulnerable to exploitation.
Comments
Post a Comment