Silicon Valley sees Africa as a new technological frontier

Lagos: With its colorful hammocks and ping pong table, a new technology center in Lagos metropolis does not look It is one of the start-ups on the other side of the world in Silicon Valley.

But the NG_Hub office is located in the suburbs of Yaba – the heart of Nigeria's nascent tech scene of giants eager to tap into an emerging market of connected young Africans ]

In May, Google and Facebook launched initiatives nearby

This week, Vice President of Nigeria Yemi Osinbajo was in California courting US technology investors for what He said could announce a "fourth industrial revolution" at home.

But it's not just Nigeria that stings the interest of tech giants.

Google announced the opening of the first artificial intelligence laboratory in Africa to Accra, the capital of Ghana

Demographics is a key factor: the population African is estimated at 1.2 billion, of which 60% by 2050, the UN estimates that the population will double to 2.4 billion.

"Companies like Facebook and Google really have the opportunity to get in and get a foot in the sand," said Daniel Ives, a technology researcher at GBH Insights in New York

"If you look at Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, from where does it come a lot from this growth? It's international," he said at AFP

Facebook operates since the NG_Hub because it does not yet have a permanent office in Nigeria.

Public policy, Ebele Okobi, said at the opening of the premises that the goal was to cultivate the emerging technology community.

The social network is committed to training 50,000 people across the country In exchange, Facebook, which currently has some 26 million users in Nigeria, gets more than Users and access to a mbadive market to test new products and strategies.

"We are invested in the ecosystem, just the fact that they engage … that in itself is a goal," she added.

Cybercolonialism?

Numerous In California, Mr. Osinbajo has stated that the Nigerian government will "actively support" Google's "Next Billion Users" plan to "ensure better digital access to and around Nigeria" ".

Few areas in Africa inspire as much hope as technology, which has the potential to revolutionize everything from health care to agriculture.

Examples: Ubenwa, a Nigerian start-up that has been described as "Shazam for babies", after the app that identifies music and snippet movies.

Ubenwa badyzes the cry of a baby using AI to diagnose asphyxia. cause of death in Africa when babies do not become in

Early detection of the problem could save thousands of lives. solutions, "said Tewodros Abebe, a PhD student in Linguistic Technology at the University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

" If we are not involved, no one can understand the existing problems on our continent. "

Abebe rejected fears that what Facebook and Google are doing is a form of so-called cyber-colonialism

" Working collaboratively, I think, is a good way technology transfer for Africa, "he said." They're only looking for business, that's colonization. "

Epocalypse Now

As the African technology sector grows, fueled by the growth of mobile phone use, as well as pressure on governments to protect the personal data of its citizens.

Osinbajo told technology leaders that Nigeria was eager to create the right environment for development.]

But the privacy debate is unobtrusive in many African countries, unlike Europe, which has recently adopted new and stricter data protection laws.

Facebook has also been at the center of a crisis protecting user data in relation to manipulation allegations during the US presidential election and Brexit referendum in 2016

Global Justice Now, an Anti-Poverty Group, Fears Global Surveillance

"We could find ourselves drowsy toward a world in which a handful of Technology companies exert monopoly control over large parts of the global economy, further exacerbating inequality between North and South. "The activist group said in a May 2018 report entitled Epocalypse Now .

Renata Avila, of the World Wide Web Foundation in Geneva who advocates for digital equality, said that was not "The message is that Africa has need investments and that she needs to develop these industries, so it's usually a pro-business narrative, "said Avila, a digital rights specialist.

"But there is little surveillance," she added, warning that without regulation, people were vulnerable to exploitation.