Browsing: digital innovation in africa

In what could easily be mistaken as a scene from the TV series Knight Rider, an autonomous bot delivery vehicle took to the streets of London. In its maiden journey, it delivered medical supplies for a Hounslow care home.

The vehicle named Kar-go is a brainchild of Zimbabwean serial entrepreneur Pasi William Sachiti. It uses artificial intelligence to learn from natural events, including the terrain, allowing it to use this learned knowledge in new situations. 

The bot also has a specialized delivery management system and is capable of delivering parcels completely autonomously. 

To fulfill safety regulations, Kar- go moves around with a driver who can step in, in case of an emergency.   

The car can deliver in any terrain whether rural or urban and can navigate both smooth and dirt roads. 

The bot was built by Academy Robotics, a startup founded by Mr. Sachiti. The vehicle works through an app …

President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel once said “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste. It provides the opportunity to do things that were not possible to do before”.^[1] When the COVID-19 crisis hit the global north the fear was that it would be most devastating in Africa with Bill Gates predicting that ten million lives would be wiped out by the virus.^[2] But he was wrong because African leaders did what was not possible before – they locked down their countries and instituted adherence to the protocols of social distancing and washing of hands. These preventive measures and the sudden change of behavior slowed down the virus’s serious impact in Africa. According to Harvard Health preventing the spread of the virus is rooted in behavioral change.^[3] Starting up new behavior in the new normal was what the US and Europe could not …

Africa appears to have narrowly escaped the level of devastation that COVID19 is wreaking in the global north with China as its entry.[1] As if the virus followed the global supply chain to destroy it.[2] The global supply chain links China to the global north before connecting to Africa[3] so by the time the virus got here African leaders shut the borders – that is the saving grace despite the doom’s day prophecies of Bill Gates.[4] Africa got it right this time around without the help of the western saviors which begs George Ayittey’s famous quote “Africa is poor because she is not free”.[5]

According to the IMF[6] and WorldBank[7], Africa would experience her first recession in 25 years, but it would not be as severe as the global north.[8] Her recovery in my view could be fast-tracked by four mega …