Emphasis on ICTs blurs other key technologies crucial to development

The mere mention of the word “Technology” in Kenya and Africa today conjures images of mobile phones, satellite dishes, computers and all manner of electronic gizmos.

This is because of the unprecedented growth of the area of information and communication technology in the last 10 years.

The country has made great strides in the adoption of modern communication technologies and has even leapfrogged more developed countries such as US and UK in their adoption and use.

To many, technology has come to symbolise advancement in how we communicate or work. We have become more and more dependent on ICT in our everyday life to the point of addiction.

Sadly however, we have come to forget that the term technology does not only encompass information and communication technologies, but also other areas of technology such as agriculture (both pre and post harvest technologies), transport, health and business.

Our governments and other key decision makers also equate technology to ICT.

We have now placed so much emphasis on ICTs at the expense of other more critical sectors, especially agriculture.

Kenya is predominantly agrarian yet very little is being done to improve agricultural practices and systems.

These days news of harvest rotting in farms or aflatoxin poisoning due to poor storage of grains is common. It is also no longer news to hear Kenya is importing maize from Zambia or South Africa.

The “technology” sections of most magazines and newspapers is essentially ICT, I have never seen a technology section discussing a new solar based maize moisture reduction system. They only talk of the latest tablets, mobile phones, Internet, app developers who have won an award and the likes.

The ‘ICT is technology’ confusion is everywhere even in our training institutions, agricultural engineering graduates are more focused on writing mobile apps for farmers than coming up with cheaper and locally made farming machinery.

Range management students are busy writing mobile software than applying their skills in the development of management processes in ranches, farms and wildlife parks.

Mathematics students are busy doing ICT projects and learning Linux or Java rather than develop better actuarial or financial analysis methods to help our ever collapsing insurance and stock brokerage companies and protect investor money.

Pharmacists are busy writing drug dispensing software rather than commercialising the booming herbal medicine sector. We have failed.

We cannot live on ICTs alone. Let us apply technology in all sectors to develop. This year, Kenya should not import maize after letting our own harvest rot in farms as post-harvest technologists scramble for seats in over crowded MBA classes.

We should not export scrap metal to China and re-import it as steel as our mechanical engineers become IT managers.

We should not import instant showers from Brazil while our fabrication technicians sell insurance policies and write software.

We should not import juice from Israel or Egypt when we have arid-land science graduates pursuing IT or accounting packages to get jobs because the government emphasises ICT at the expense of arid-land technology.