Kathy Gibson reports from AfricaCom – Africa is a land of opportunity, gifted with young people with great passion.
Mohamed Madkour, vice-president: ICT strategy and marketing at Huawei, shares that Africa’s development in terms of connectivity has been impressive, but there is still a lot of work to do.
We have a golden opportunity to enable people o be happier and healthier, Madkour says. Organisations could be more productive and countries enjoy more prosperous economies.
The brutal truth, he adds, is that a country without a digital future will simply not have a future.
“Transformation is about doing more for less, and doing it better.”
At the same time, we need to work on reducing emissions, with sustainable power being the other leg of a digital economy, Madkour says.
To help the continent achieve its potential, Madkour says it needs to focus on intelligent connectivity and transformation.
“Everything in our lives is centred around transformation, inspired by intelligence and built on the solid foundation of connectivity.”
Digital transformation has two parts, he says: the legacy business of ICT industrialisation needs to be followed by industry digitalisation.
“This is what really matters, and will be accomplished by service, infrastructure, talent and environment/ecosystem.
While legislation, regulations and infrastructure are all key to achieving digital transformation, the first thing we need to do is get smartphones into the hands of Africa’s users, Madkour says. And these devices need to be connected. With more than 300-million Africans living more than 50km from their closest fibre connection point, it’s clear a lot of work needs to be done in connecting households.
At the same time, we need to look at giving better connectivity to those that are already connected, with better speed, lower latency, more convenience and greater value. “These are all pillars of connectivity and we need to get them in place now.”
Today, connectivity is not so much about networks speeds but is very reliant on compute power as well. With technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) gaining in popularity, compute power needs to be devolved down to users’ pockets. “And you need to do this in a green fashion,” Madkour adds.
There is no argument about the fact that Africa has made tremendous leaps in connectivity over the last few years. “Comparing the numbers from 2015 to today, you can see there has been a tremendous increase,” Madkour says. “However, it is linear and we need to do better and leap forward because that is what the rest of the world is doing. They are experiencing exponential growth, and we need to do the same or better in mobility, connectivity and mobile connectivity.
“The fix is fibre – that is going to be key.”
Of course, not much can happen without a reliable electricity supply. “We need to work on getting electricity power supply, to all Africa,” Madkour says. “The latest World Bank statistics show that in 2020, fewer than half of African had a consistent power supply, where they had one at all.”
Huawei’s answer to this issue is the solar micro-grid that can power villages or homesteads that aren’t connected to the grid.
Madkour hastens to add that ICT is not a contributor to the power crisis in Africa – but it could be part of the solution.
“ICT is responsible for just 2% of the global emission, but we can use it to benefit industries by cutting 10-times the amount it consumes.”
He explains that 20% of today’s controllable carbon emission could be cut by better usage of ICT through intelligent design, better monitoring and management, and automation. “If you do ICT right, ICT will ensure greener industries.”
In the project to digitalise Africa’s economy, no organisation, operation or government can do it alone,” Madkour stresses. “Collaboration is important: real, proactive collaboration can result in an all-win situation.”
Talent is key to achieving this, and future-looking policies are important to ensure that vertical industries have an appetite for transformation.
“We must all collaborate. No one organisation, operator or government can do this on their own.”