{"id":1565,"date":"2016-05-18T11:39:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T10:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1565"},"modified":"2016-10-26T15:46:48","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T14:46:48","slug":"connecting-africas-resources-through-digital-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/05\/18\/connecting-africas-resources-through-digital-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting Africa\u2019s Resources through Digital Transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c<strong>Connecting Africa\u2019s Resources through Digital Transformation<\/strong>\u201d was the theme of last week\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/events\/world-economic-forum-on-africa-2016\">World Economic Forum<\/a> (WEF) on Africa that took place in Kigali, Rwanda. Too bad I wasn\u2019t able to attend\u2026 such is life! But at least I could get a grasp of it through the internet.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1566\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1566\" style=\"width: 744px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1566 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/05\/Africa-digital-tranformation.jpg\" alt=\"Africa digital transformation.\" width=\"744\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/05\/Africa-digital-tranformation.jpg 744w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/05\/Africa-digital-tranformation-300x148.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/05\/Africa-digital-tranformation-500x247.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 744px) 100vw, 744px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1566\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The digital transformation opens opportunities for Africa to leapfrog<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Some of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/press\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\">meeting\u2019s highlights<\/a> reported by Oliver Cann at the WEF\u2019s web site resonate with the views I share through this blog:*<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>\u201cAfricans Need to Showcase Success to Address Perceptions of Risk\u201d<\/strong>: most <strong>outsiders only see risk in African markets<\/strong>. They do not realize about the huge market opportunities. This is good and bad news to African companies. Good news because the market is there for them; bad news because in most cases they would benefit from collaborating with foreign companies. That\u2019s why <strong>I agree that showcasing their success is important<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>\u201cSmart Energy Mix Key to Africa\u2019s Bright Future\u201d<\/strong>: absolutely! <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/05\/11\/energy-poverty\/\">Energy poverty<\/a><\/strong> (about which I talked last week)<strong> is an important obstacle to the continent\u2019s development<\/strong>. Alternative sources of power give an opportunity to leapfrog national grids. Some are very capital expensive but others are more affordable even for households. If you have been following my blog, you know this is a theme that I bring up every now and then. Btw, let\u2019s not forget that development is not an abstract idea: it touches people\u2019s lives in a very tangible way.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>\u201cAfrica Embraces the Fourth Industrial Revolution\u201d<\/strong>: actually, the 4<sup>th<\/sup> Industrial Revolution was at the core of the Davos WEF meeting last January. At the time, I commented that <strong>the new industrial revolution offers Africa opportunities to leapfrog<\/strong>. This weekend I read in the <em>Financial Times<\/em> that <strong>two companies are to start commercial drone delivery services in Rwanda<\/strong>. This is the first time in the world that drones are used for commercial delivery \u2013 speaking of leapfrogging!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I just picked just a few of the highlights reported: there were too many to comment on just one post! What I missed, though, was some discussion about the need to focus on socioeconomic (and not just economic) development. To the extent that we place human beings at the center of decision-making, socioeconomic development will be authentic progress for the betterment of all affected.<\/p>\n<p>If you were involved or red about the WEF meeting at Kigali, would you to share some thoughts with the rest of us?<\/p>\n<p><em>*In quotation marks, headlines of the news reported by Cann; commentaries are my own.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Related posts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/01\/13\/africa-rising-under-question\/\">\u201cAfrica Rising\u201d \u2013 Under question?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/07\/15\/africa-powering-ahead\/\">Africa powering ahead<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/02\/25\/together-raw-materials-and-technology-can-transform-african-business\/\">Together raw materials and technology can transform African business<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cConnecting Africa\u2019s Resources through Digital Transformation\u201d was the theme of last week\u2019s World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa that took place in Kigali, Rwanda. Too bad I wasn\u2019t able to attend\u2026 such is life! But at least I could get a grasp of it through the internet. Some of the meeting\u2019s highlights reported by Oliver [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99314,492,99106],"tags":[100280,93575,100279,70262,100276,100281,100278,152],"class_list":["post-1565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-and-institutional-context","category-development","category-future-and-perspectives-for-africa","tag-4th-industrial-revolution","tag-digital-tranformation","tag-energy-poverty","tag-infrastructures","tag-kigali","tag-lepfrog","tag-perception-of-risk","tag-world-economic-forum","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1567,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions\/1567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}