“For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”. Digital Tech in Ghana.
At our recent roundtable, “The Five Pillars of Digital Tech in Ghana”, we had the privilege of sharing and exchanging ideas with friends and colleagues who are actively engaged in/understand the transformative power of, technology in Africa. Around the virtual table, we brought together our team members and invited guests[1] to see what lies beneath the buzz of Ghana’s tech scene, as a country with one of the highest internet penetration rates in Africa as we explain here on CNN’s Marketplace Africa. We’ve captured some of the highlights from our roundtable conversation below.
The drawbacks of using a fancy phone.
Our experience of getting an iPhone fixed in Ghana is not a seamless one. To start with, there is only one Apple authorised store in the country, iStore, with 2 branches[2] for a country of over 30 million people. That said, there are roadside phone fixers on every other street corner in Accra. However, if you choose to go down the informal route, you run the risk of not ever being able to get your phone repaired by Apple again (for quality control reasons). If you do opt for the latter, be prepared: (i) not to receive a comprehensive diagnosis of what the problem was and (ii) to keep the repairer in business for some time because you may have to keep going back for your phone to stay switched on.
Living without a phone: freedom or frustration?
We asked our participants what they would miss the most if they had to be without their phones for 3 weeks (the amount of time it took for a phone to be fixed, pls see above) and we received mixed views. Some said they would be hamstrung because Linkedin is their ‘life’; others said the app ‘Shazam’ which captures the latest songs would be sorely missed, while others said they would miss calling family. Others shared that it would represent real freedom (much to the chagrin of spouses!).
Why are there more SIM cards than people?
The fact that there are 41 million registered SIM cards in Ghana, 10 million more than there are people, was debated with participants considering that it is a function of poor network coverage. Consumers tend to have more than one SIM to ward against those times when the network for one service provider is down. Presently, MTN holds the largest market share (57%), followed by Vodafone (23%), AirtelTigo (18%) and Glo (1%)[3].
Skills gap needs urgent filling.
Ghana has 40 private and seven public universities. There are initiatives in place to embed digital tech into curricular and expand general awareness through the marking of Africa Code Week for instance and the collaboration between the likes of Google and local universities. Yet we discussed how much more is required at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Experiences were shared of the disconnect across the urban and rural divide and the gender gap and how there is a need to ‘train the trainers’ such that teachers are better equipped for the 4th industrial revolution. We did also leave the conversation wistfully, as the question was posed as to what the impact of a more tech-savvy Generation Alpha will be, now that our children/ nieces/nephews would rather reach for a flashing phone over a wooden toy.
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* Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash
[1] Isaac Acquah, Manging Director, Innovation Spark; Mardiya Cheiba, Community Manager, ZongoVation Hub; Sandra Ahiataku, Program Manager, Viamo Ghana; Tristan Jervis, Co-Head, Global Technology, Russell Reynolds Associates; Nutifafa Amedior, Data Analyst, Universal Merchant Bank; Albert Opoku, Co-Founder, HapaSpace; Richard Awusi, Plan International.
[2] Located at Accra Mall and Kumasi City Mall.
[3] https://dailyguidenetwork.com/over-1-26m-sim-cards-linked-to-ghana-cards/