Nelson Mandela's vision for equal opportunity and development lives on
throughout South Africa.
In this edition of Today in Technology, we visit his
rural home village of Qunu to learn how access to high-speed broadband internet
is improving the lives of people living in the region.
Microsoft is working with South African educators, doctors and entrepreneurs
who understand that Mandela's long walk to freedom can only be realized
if everyone has access to information and education.
Nelson Mandela was born in Mvezo. He was nine years
when he left his home with his mother. His father had just passed away so they
moved to this area.
Why did he love Qunu so much?
The landscape of this area
was was quite exciting for him. As he grew up, he would climb up the tree to
listen to people talking about politics, business, culture. That's where he learned
the art of leadership.
The first in his family to receive an education, Mandela
left Qunu to continue his studies. Along the way, he met new people and learned
new ideas. He realized that access to information is power.
Mandela's long walk to freedom would take decades of resistance and sacrifice,
including 27 years in prison.
When apartheid ended in the early 1990s,
culminating in Mandela's election as South Africa's first black president,
it marked the beginning of a new path.
We know it well that none of us acting
alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united
people for national reconciliation, for nation-building, for the birth of a new world.
Where are we today? Is the long walk to
freedom over, or is it continuing?
For that long walk to freedom to be over
it means we would have succeeded in delivering an education system, health care system,
water and sanitation. Are we close? In some areas, we are. So the struggle of the
long walk to freedom continues.
Today, apartheid is outlawed, but progress for
everyone is elusive. The long walk to freedom continues, and technology can help.
In rural parts of South Africa, like Qunu, in the Eastern Cape, an estimated
75% of people lack access to broadband internet. That's why Microsoft and our
Airband Initiative have partnered with local broadband entrepreneurs like BrightWave.
When we started BrightWave, our primary mission was to enable affordable
broadband access to the masses.
So what does broadband mean to the people that you serve?
It is a window to a world that they never had.
It is very important for our
learners to be connected. We would like them to have access to Internet, just
like children from bigger cities, because the gap in knowledge, it disadvantages them.
BrightWave has brought broadband access to more than 1,000 schools and
clinics including here in Qunu, and the benefits aren't limited to education.
Health care is another critical area that needs better broadband.
Nothing is dynamic, so you cannot rely on the lesson that you were told before. By
having internet, it's easier for us to get all the information we need and is
helping us to get the results of the patients early.
Using the powers of artificial intelligence in the cloud,
South African startup Phulukisa is
developing technology that empowers health workers to quickly and securely
diagnose some of the most common diseases.
South Africa, and Africa as a whole,
have got a chronic shortage of doctors. We have a population of
53 million people and there's less than 200 urologists in the whole country. Most of
them are centered in big cities. I cannot train doctors quick enough, but what I
can do is make better use of their time by creating tools that allows only what
they need to think about or to see to be brought to their attention.
But Phulukisa can't deploy this promising and innovative solution without internet connectivity.
I want everyone for as far as I can see
to be accounted for. I want them to feel as if they are participating in the
bettering of their own health, and I want it to be an absolute partnership between us and them.
The saying is that it takes a village to raise a child.
It takes a world to serve a village.
We are all part of the world that is coming together to serve this village.
Mandela, he said, what I was fighting for all my life
is that I need to make sure that my people are relevant for the future.
It starts today, and it starts with us.