Can Africa become the next tech hub?

Can Africa really be at the forefront of scientific research and technological innovation? For many, the answer is likely to be “no”. How can a continent still struggling with poverty and poor infrastructure lead the way in scientific research? Such dismissal, however, is premature.

A decade of unprecedented growth and structural change, as well as profound global shifts, has set the region on a new development trajectory. There is a palpable sense of momentum and optimism that continues to accelerate, and global businesses in key sectors are now strategically investing across Africa for the long term – an important shift from the transactional character of past investment cycles.

Having gone through a mobile telecommunications revolution over the past decade, which caught many by surprise, some of this investment is going to cutting-edge innovation. Glaxo Smith Kline, for example, is currently trialling ground-breaking candidate vaccines for malaria across seven countries on the continent. All the research is taking place in Africa, and initial results have shown promising results. Aside from the transfer of knowledge and technology on the back of such trials, initiatives like this will leave a legacy that burgeoning African companies can build on.

Microsoft and Huawei recently launched a smartphone engineered entirely for the African market on the back of incubation and innovation centres being set up by tech giants such as Google across the continent. IBM has opened its first research lab in Africa, only the 12th in its history, in Nairobi, Kenya. This is much more than a symbolic gesture. Linked to the company’s labs across the globe, it will be carrying out cutting-edge research. At a launch event in Nairobi last February, one of the ambitions set out was to win Africa’s first Nobel Prize in science.

Brazil’s agricultural research agency, Embrapa, which played a pivotal role in establishing the South American country as a global agricultural powerhouse, is sharing knowledge with a number of African countries, and has set up an office in Ghana. With many expecting Africa to play a central role in achieving 21st century food security, this may be the precursor to ground-breaking research.

South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang’s 2008 book, Bad Samaritans, begins with a hypothetical news report about a Mozambican company launching breakthrough technology for the mass production of hydrogen fuel cells. If Africa’s successful run of recent years continues, such stories may well be a future reality. It will be fascinating to hear what the experts have to say on this at a high-level session at the World Economic Forum on Africa.

Lanre Akinola is Editor of This Is Africa, a publication from the Financial Times. On Twitter, follow @FT_ThisIsAfrica and @akinolalanre 

Image: Internet LAN cables. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne