As the 2021 edition of the annual Digital Africa Conference & Exhibition started Tuesday, Chairman of Digital Africa Group, Dr. Evans Woherem has explained that “the past decade has left a global mark with the emergence of great technologies and innovations which would not have been seen as ‘humanly impossible’ a few decades back.
Digital Africa Conference & Exhibition is the foremost annual gathering of ICT experts, stakeholders, public and private sector players, policy makers, students and exhibitors. This year’s event is holding virtually, just like last year’s, as a result of the persisting COVID-19 pandemic.
With the theme- ‘Building a new Africa with AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Blockchain,’ this year’s edition of the Conference is once more shifting to the virtual space with the goal of providing an engaging and meaningful experience for everyone who will be participating as a conference participant, exhibitor or sponsor.
According to Dr. Woherem: “The emergence of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain is disrupting several sectors such as EdTech, HealthTech, Renewable Energy, eCommerce, AgriTech, among others.
“We feel Africa needs to embrace this new revolution and therefore, needs to embrace the technologies that are fuelling the revolution. Is Africa at par with the rest of the world, with Europe, UAE, Asia, America today in terms of preparedness? The answer is no. But has Africa had what it takes to become part of it as quickly as possible if we are willing to do so, the answer is yes.”
He continues: “Africa today has the biggest number of the population made up of youthful people and these technologies we are talking about are technologies of the future, technologies the youth even understand better, and since the continent has a huge population of youthful people, it goes to reason that Africa also is going to play a lot of roles.
“For us to truly be part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), there’s a lot that needs to happen in terms of planning, making sure we also carry out research in our unique areas. That being the case, I believe the government needs to do a lot to make sure we are heavily involved in research and create centres across the whole of Africa to teach our people and enable them to practice what will help them to do inventions.
Woherem said AI deals with technology that infuses technologies into themselves, “those things done by humans which are called intelligent behaviours are transferred into machines, robots or any other thing with embedded technologies.”
In addition, he noted that Blockchain is basically a new technology that has come to make sure that almost everything that is put into a system can be organised into some sort of ledgers in such a manner that everybody that plays a role in that particular system is connected to it and every modification made is seen by every other person on the same system.
The 2021 edition of Digital Africa Conference & Exhibition, which will end on Thursday, June 24, 2021, will also have the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami as the Special Guest of Honour with such cerebrals as Lead Faculty, Tekedia Institute, Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe; and Founder/CEO MEDSAF, Vivian Nwakah, as some of the keynote speakers.
