Coming decades promise hope and anxiety in technology

What you need to know:

  • By looking back we can realise how far the ICT industry has come in the last decades and what we can expect in the next decades.
  • M-Pesa is an example of an innovation that has changed the way money is transferred in this region.

The next 100 years represent a Kenya of contrasts and paradoxes.

While there is much hope of better things, there is also a lot of anxiety about the near future of ICT on the human kind.


Due to anticipated growth in ICT, we might as well start seeing big anti-digital movements in a few years.


REVOLUTION


The entire industrial infrastructure based on fossil fuels is fast aging. Technology has started to make up the industrial way of life.

Computer technology is beginning to create a new infrastructure for the next industrial revolution in the 21st century.


Information will be very critical in any development; it has been recognised as the fifth factor of production.


Creativity and innovation have started to influencing how things are done. Technologies are expected to introduce entirely new ways of working, interacting and learning.


GLOBALISATION


ICT is expected not only to drive globalisation to the next level, but also to change production and business interaction patterns.


By looking back we can realise how far the ICT industry has come in the last decades and what we can expect in the next decades.

M-Pesa is an example of an innovation that has changed the way money is transferred in this region.


ICT is expected to be the next big thing in economies of many countries and will increasingly become a key production factor in almost all industries.


The current contribution of ICT to the Kenyan GDP is at five percent, according to the Communications Commission of Kenya. Several plans are in place to push it to 25 percent.


Countries such as Australia expect the ICT sector to move from the current $131 billion a year (about Sh1.5 billion) to at least $1 trillion (about Sh11.6 billion) by 2050 as ICT becomes a utility service just as electricity did during the industrial age.


Countries foreseeing the role of ICT are already setting up national and regional innovation centres.


We have several centres such as Ilab and Ihub. Universities are repositioning themselves by investing in research and development centres.


These will be the potential sources of breakthrough high technological innovations.


RESEARCH FACILITIES


Global companies such as IBM have already established research facilities in Kenya to address the current and future regional needs.


Software no longer lags behind hardware in development. More sophisticated programs are continually developed to address the current and future business needs.


The fact that we no longer have a clear distinction between human and intelligent systems has pushed the adoption of ICT to a higher level.


REALISM


ICT will continue taking the world to astonishing realism as the trend towards brain-computer links increases. Many important tasks in business and government are being computerised.

Humphrey Njogu is a policy analyst with KIPPRA. [email protected]