welcome to your africa true story
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the african continent is the latest
target of big tech domination
while billions are being invested by
tech giants like google and facebook
their projects do not cater to the needs
of the local population
actually there is a bit representation
of mobile phones generally in kenya
africa
but now the problem is connectivity and
connectivity i mean internet
so you might have a really good
smartphone but you don't have
connectivity meaning that you can't
really access the content that is online
douglas muangi is a local innovator
who's trying to bring home-grown
technology alternatives to madari
one of the biggest slums in nairobi
digital divide in kenya is
so it's such a black and white it's
those who can access tech those who can
completely
can't even accept that tech
internet use across africa skyrocketed
from 2.1
in 2005 to 28.2
by 2019 the highest growth rate globally
this prompted facebook to introduce to
africa
a 37 000 kilometer long undersea cable
being built around the african continent
it's supposed to interconnect 23
countries across africa
west asia and europe and promises to
provide african countries with better
internet
google is also currently in talks to
build a cable system along africa's
western coasts
we asked academic kotoma konuma what
these investments mean for africa's
development and independence
so this there needs to be awareness
because at the moment i think what is
happening is that uh
citizens are happy to use
these digital platforms and i'm sure
they'll be happy to to use uh
whatever will come out as a result of
these uh
you know cables because they are
marketed in such a way
that they bring a positive aspect to
people's lives
big tech in africa is known for its big
promises
balloons were sworn to bring the
internet to rural and remote communities
worldwide
loon an affiliate of google failed to
succeed in africa
and before that facebook fell short of
supplying internet through its drone
experiments
i would say that technologies are value
latin
and what i mean by this is that uh
whoever is behind the development of
these technologies
will have their values inculcated in
these particular technologies
google and all the big tech that are
developing silicon savannah
they were meant for the first world yeah
but now in kenya dynamics you know the
landscape is really different
and the fact that these digital
platforms are
western platforms in a sense is what
digital colonialism
is about
there seems to be this belief that
there's a great deal of opportunity in
africa
but many opportunities have to be
steered by somebody from outside africa
there is an element of racial bias
around the people who actually get money
and those who don't even if the ideas
are similar there's a story
that goes back a few years that one of
our government agencies needed a mobile
app
the guys in the uk i think charged a
premium of something like three four
hundred thousand dollars for the app the
guys in kenya were paid something like
twenty thousand dollars
when you look at the power of these tech
companies it's huge
they're quite influential financially
but even politically
there's um the case of africa
at independence where you look across
the continent
because it's the same colonial logic of
invading our lands exploiting raw
materials
transporting them adding value and later
looking for markets
for it the same logic africa should be
the richest continent
in the world africa has one
advantage big advantage
our population is young it almost feels
like there's a race
to connect africa and i think to me
it's uh as if africa is uh like the
last frontier so i think internet
chinese firms like huawei zte and china
telecom
are the chief architects of the new ict
infrastructure across
africa china went as far as to establish
techno a chinese mobile phone
manufacturer with the sole purpose
of serving african markets
as part of its belt and road initiative
china has also announced a new digital
silk road in 2015
building network cables data centers
research and development facilities
and digital partnerships with african
universities
at least 46 of all 54 countries in
africa
are currently engaged with china's
digital sectors
china can stand up to u.s because
they have a significant amount of people
1.3
billion so when they developed
their own 10 cents they developed
their own applications there was market
there was skill china is a
sort of uh winning the the race uh
because you know
its products are cheaper and it's
invested a lot in terms of the
technology infrastructure
and i like using uh as a metaphor the
headquarters of the african union
we didn't build it africa didn't build
it china built it
about a decade ago five seven years ago
there was a discovery that that building
was bugged
so what did you sign off by this slavish
underdog ish acceptance of freebies
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technology is all about solving an
actual problem it could be a really
a complex tech but if it does not meet
the needs of those
for the users i mean it can't help
it can't help
douglas founded oasis madari in 2013
a community-based organization offering
teaching services and free technology
access
to the people from the poorest slums in
nairobi
after the first case of confidentiality
was reported in kenya
the minister of education introduced our
online
education which is a really good model
but there are some gaps you know you
need uh internet to access the
the content and uh majority of our
families in bazaar islam
they don't have access to a smartphone
and for those who do
they can't access our internet so we
develop a system that does not require
internet
and it cut across as long as you have a
phone that can send and receive text
you're good to go and it's totally free
which of these does not show
the use of
what scares me about the big
technological challenge coming into
kenya
and by extension in africa is data
data privacy so we're in a position
where
we are logging in we're giving rights
but you do not actually know
what you're giving out so mine is
actually
data privacy so our data can be used
in a way that we don't that will
definitely infringe our rights
many of us don't understand just how
much data we're pushing out there
every time we put a picture on facebook
or twitter linkedin
every time we share our geographical
information right now we're seeing
unprecedented waves of citizen
mobilization using
technology as platforms for citizen
mobilization but we're also seeing
a significant increase in surveillance
and forms of social control that are
being deployed by the governments in
collaboration with the corporations
we had a heightened use of the internet
especially for polarization
and for ethnicized discourse we saw a
lot of
advertising paid for that is designed to
play on
ethnic differences and you know this is
a country where people have literally
gone at each other you know machetes and
everything
and that's going to have serious
consequences it is having serious
consequences right now
so imagine if people then uh
decided to depend on
facebook in africa and then it decided
to do what it did
in in australia just because it didn't
sort of maybe like
something
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facebook has a long history of privacy
scandals
including passing information onto
us-based intelligence services
and advertising agencies the free
internet facebook claims to offer africa
restricts access to information by
design in 2015
it introduced an app called free basics
an alternative to the internet
which only really allows you to read
content chosen by facebook
collects your data and turns you into a
passive consumer
at the same time i think one needs to
recognize the fact that somehow
free is not always free so to speak
you know because you know facebook
it's to the advantage of facebook isn't
it at the end of the day
we have these companies entering these
markets and expanding into these markets
without any kind of concomitant
investment
in accountability in transparency
in fairness
technology is there to to ensure that uh
it's it's making our life easier that is
the answers of tech
so talking about the big tech giant in
the western world
yeah they have really sophisticated uh
amazing product
but it's not solving our problems yeah
it is relevant to us
so now it's up to us to step up to come
up with
a product that will meet um
our needs and that is when we are going
to we will be able to
reduce the price and make it available
to anyone who want to access technology
i think that globally we're in a
time of tremendous change and i keep
thinking about
my my one of my favorite philosophers
antonio gramsci he says
that the old world is dying
and the new one is not yet born and so
now is the time for demons
many big tech initiatives are more about
flashy announcements and marketing
then reaching and serving the poorest
people
for local innovators it is important to
turn around this exploitation and
colonial mentality
still rampant in the 21st century
wangi's project shows us that the people
can do great things autonomously
[Music]
it should come from us we should be at
our forefront leading
in a revolution in technology
now tell me tell me i am not
being bad to say
a country like botswana one million
what would you tell americans that we
don't want google here because
they will say to hell with you but if
au stood up and said we don't want this
1.2 billion people they will listen to
you
they would listen to you so we need to
create
a mega single market to have leverage in
terms of discussions
otherwise now we are just lives like we
were
when we were colonized first
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