Africa, China is powered by cloned tech

Models of mobile phones. The Chinese have a very generous interpretation of copyright. I am prepared to wager that there is a Chinese copy of almost anything in existence. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Many people mock Chinese tech products as knockoffs, but majority of the world’s population cherish these pared-down digital products.
  • The world is not the same: the needs, tastes and preferences grow from different cultural soils.

  • The need to adapt tech products and services has spawned copycat entrepreneurs who have raked in billions.

Soon after M-Pesa business started in Kenya, almost every street had a green-painted M-Pesa shop. When a few people hatched out the secondhand car import business, thousands of Kenyans with money to spare plunged headlong into the business. Car-sale yards sprung up in all towns in just a few months.

Carbon copy businesses are widespread — in the car-cleaning business, quail-bird farming and software application development — everywhere. Copying ideas is despised and frowned upon. A copycat mentality is derided as stumbling block to innovation.

REVOLUTION

By blindly aping others — or so the theory goes — you stifle your own creativity and kill any chances of creating companies that change the world.

That aside, copying and cloning seems to be one of Kenya’s dominant small business start-up model — but Chinese have perfected this play. It is the modus operandi for many Chinese tech companies. They copy from the best: America’s Silicon Valley—the petri dish of technology revolution. Here is how.

Chinese start-up companies are driven by one chief goal — money. They are not driven by lofty ideals about changing the world. No, they follow the money and in its pursuit, they can create, copy or clone any idea that attracts money. Money is what matters; fame and glory may follow.

PARED-DOWN

Technology that paints the digital contours of China is by all shapes and stripes Silicon Valley’s look alike. The mini-iPhones are the perfect metaphor for Chinese technology. The phone has a shiny casing copied from America’s flagship phone, but with pared-down features. Its price? — a fraction of the original iPhone.

Weibo, a Chinese micro-blogging platform, was inspired by Twitter. It looks like a Twitter twin. Didii, the Chinese ride-hailing company, is Uber’s clone. This Uber look-alike rakes in more billions than original Uber does globally.

KNOCKOFFS

Toutiao is a Chinese-based news platform which uses artificial intelligence to direct news to users based on their preferences, which looks a lot like the US-created Buzz feed. And China’s dominant social media platform — WeChat —bears resemblance of Facebook.

Many people mock Chinese tech products as knockoffs, but majority of the world’s population, especially those in low-and middle-income countries, cherish these pared-down digital products.

CUSTOMISED

Here is the lesson for the tech Juggernauts in the Silicon Valley. Their products and services are not primed for the needs of people in developing countries. For those products to match the needs in these countries, their features and prices need to be customised.

The world is not the same: the needs, tastes and preferences grow from different cultural soils. The need to adapt tech products and services has spawned copycat entrepreneurs who have raked in billions. Cloned technology is what powers China and Africa.

Mr Wambugu is an informatics specialist. Email: [email protected] @samwambugu2