Making sense of Africa to become a hub for global science.
When you see Africa, at first it seems unlikely-A continent overwhelmed with hunger, poverty, conflict, and illiteracy. But what if Africa could become the new hub for global science?
In the reality, the foundation is there. It’s a continent of ingenuity, zeal to learn and adapt, knowledge, tied with the fast expansion of digital technology. All of this gives Africa a bargaining power in global scientific partnerships.
African is stepping up after decades of academic isolation and inadequate support for science and technology from their leaders.
Although the progress has been slow, it is without a doubt that the tide is turning. A solemn scientific work is happening now in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the area of physics maths, and astronomy.
Several innovations have been made that harness the power of quantum computing to describe the birth of our space-time and universe to ailment -fighting drones to better therapeutic and diagnostic tools to fight tuberculosis and other HIV-related opportunistic infections.
What remains for the continent is to build on the vast scientific and technical knowledge quantities available worldwide to solve local problems in fields such as environment, health agriculture, education and water.
The tactical focus for Africa should therefore be on generating research that is locally centered. It is through such approaches that will see the continent make its own exceptional influence to the global scientific innovativeness.
For it to be achieved, we must build a new generation of research universities that are problem-solving conscious and have direct links with local communities and enterprises.
Africa also needs rational policies that can help form workable and exclusively African social and political systems.
This is the only viable path to preventing the continent from fully becoming westernized.
As Laiqi Walli, a student at the Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa, Kenya puts it, “Our generation is making a grave mistake. And it’s a mistake we must recognize because we’re worsening the image of Africa.”
Basic discovery as one way of stemming brain drain and increasing innovation is to balance between investing in applied research, which is geared at solving existing problems and fundamental research, which is driven by curiosity.
Let us support Africa through science and build knowledge economies.
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