The villagers saw a special breed of “bird” which fell from the sky. They gathered to get it. They aimed their arrows because even though the bird was already down, it was still moving. Too bad, the animal is a drone.
The bad thing in this video is that the actors are Africans which is a bad stereotype.
Source: I saw this in TechCabal newsletter today
In 1776, Scottish economist and philosopher, Adam Smith, wrote the masterpiece ‘The Wealth of Nations’- actually ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”.
By coincidence, the United States Declaration of Independence was adopted the same year, making the American colonies independent and thus no longer a part of the British Empire.
America has since evolved to dominate the old British Empire in virtually every aspect of human endeavors, except perhaps, social welfare. The Americans, figuratively, were discipled by Dr. Smith who believed in the free market and made his argument that ‘capitalism’ will benefit mankind more than any other economic structure. He laid this foundation at the onset of the industrial revolution and provided the basis for modern economics.
Smith made his case about the ‘invisible hand’ and why monopoly and undue and unfettered government regulations or interference in market and industry must be discouraged. He was of the opinion that prudent allocation of resources cannot happen when states dominate and over interfere.
In that old time, American farmers could grow cotton, but would not process it. It has to be sent to England where it would later be imported into the U.S as a finished product. Understanding that this decision was not due to lack of processing ability, you will appreciate Smith’s argument that the market must be free.
His theses were clear and were very influential; they provided the same level of fulcrum to Economics as Isaac Newton’s Mathematica Prinicipia to Physics. Or in modern times, Bill Gates’ Windows to the information economy.
While reading Smith’s book and understanding the time frame it was written, one cannot but appreciate the intellectual rigor in that piece. Before technology was penetrated in en mass across the regions of the world, he noted that all nations could compete at par in agricultural productivity. The reason was absence of division of labor in any subsistence farming system in the world. A farmer does everything in the farm and is not an expert in most.
Discounting fertile land, rain and other factors that could help farmers, all the farmers, from Africa to plantations in Alabama, the level of productivity was similar. Why? No specialization was employed in farming business at the time.
Fast track forward when the industrial revolution set forth. The British Empire became an engine of wealth creation through automation. It was a quintessential period of unrivaled human productivity which resulted to enormous wealth created in the empire. Technology not only helped speed process execution, it helped in division of labor.
Interestingly, Dr Smith had noted that except agriculture where productivity was flat because of lack of division of labor, other industries were doing just fine. And in those industries, there were organized structures which enabled division of labor. For instance in the construction industry, there were bricklayers, carpenters, painters, and so on; but a farmer was a farmer.
As you read through Wealth of Nations and observe the 21st century, it becomes evident that technology was so influential in the last few centuries. It has changed our structures and created a new business adaptation rules like outsourcing which is indeed a new breed of division of labor.
From accumulation of stock and pricing, as explained by Dr. Smith, we see today a world where technology is shaping everything in very fundamental ways for wealth creation. In this era, it has become technology as technology translates to wealth. So, nations that focus on creating, diffusing and penetrating technology will do well.
Why? It is about national technology DNA. The more passionate and innovative nations are triumphing at the global business scene. Give me Japan and I will give you electronics. Talk about United States, I will share biotechnology and pharmaceutical technologies, and indeed every major technology. Give me China, and I will give you green technologies.
So, as nations continue to compete on the technology paradigm, we see at the highest level of success measurement an embodiment captured by technology capability. When nations are understood from the lens of their Technology Readiness Index, Knowledge Economic Index, we see that countries have become technology competing nodes. In some really poor countries with no (effectual) technology, they do not have a node and are unplugged in the sphere of global wealth creation.
Simply, it will be difficult to separate the health of any modern economy from its technology. It goes beyond the wealth of that nation to its survivability. The most advanced nations are the technology juggernauts while the least developing economies barely record any technology penetration impact. For the latter, it is like still living in the pre-industrial age Dr. Smith discussed on agriculture and division of labor where processes were inefficient.
Perhaps, this explains the efficiency in developed world in both the public and private arenas. The more technologies they diffuse, the more productive they become. In other words, show me the technology and I will tell you where the nation stands in the league of countries. Interestingly, the invention of steam engine changed the world and powered the industrial revolution. The invention of transistor transformed the 20th century and is fuelling the new innovation century.
It seems that major scientific breakthroughs bring major great countries. Let me emphasize here that some old kingdoms that ruled the world such as the old Babylon, Roman Empire, and Pharaoh’s Egypt; there have been associated knowledge base that put them ahead. You cannot disassociate good crop production in River Nile to the mastery of Egyptians in inventing some sections of geometry for farming. Some of the old wars had been won by developing constructs that enabled efficient transportation of soldiers to battleground. There was science and nations were winning by using that knowledge.
In conclusion, the world has been living on technology and it is indeed defining our competitive space. As nations compete, it is technology that shapes the world with wealth as the major byproducts, in some cases. I make this case because some of the best technologies had been invented for non-wealth reasons (yes, directly). Examples include Internet and radar technologies which have created wealth and spurred commercial innovations but have military origins.
There could not be any more powerful way of examining national competitiveness than understanding the technology of nations. Yes, wealth has since morphed to technology and all competitions and wealth creation could as well be seen from technology viewpoint. And in this piece, I aptly replace Dr. Smith’s ‘wealth’ with ‘technology’ to have The Technology of Nations. Oh yes, Smith postulated process mechanica, Newton gave us mathematica and Gates pioneered clickatica.
This is a Short Note from my LinkedIn update.
There is a new transition in the world of digital business. Since Netscape Navigator pioneered our modern web experience, we have gone through phases which recently include responsive, (cloud-first) and mobile-internet design frameworks.
The mobile-first is matured and a new mantra is in town: “AI-first”. That means the focus of leading tech companies now is how artificial intelligence (AI) will drive everything they do. This is the battle that will decide the category winners of the utilities disguised as global tech firms. With human-like characterizes, software will be smarter and more adaptive.
From Siri to Alexa, Cortana to Bixby, you will see amalgam of platforms and productivity services running on cloud with AI at the heart of them.
Without sounding pessimistic, AI-first world cannot be leapfrogged as we say in Africa. This is mathematics and not coding. Yes, no hacking! This is a big challenge as if we cannot transition to the AI-world, we will possibly miss the emerging opportunities. From medicine to agriculture, entertainment to education, AI will create a new trajectory that will redesign commerce and industry. It will reshape how people, firms and nations conduct businesses and reconstruct the economic architectures. Now is the time for Africa to plan and take action. It needs to develop a roadmap because not doing anything will be extremely devastating.
This is a Short Note from my LinkedIn update.
Few weeks ago, I wrote about how abundance of internet traffic does not guarantee more value https://www.tekedia.com/65289/the-law-of-diminishing-abundance-of-internet-higher-user-growth-uncorrelated-with-revenue/ . You can see more visitors using your content and yet nothing positive happens in the bank.
My suggestion to African entrepreneurs, do not build you business with ad-supported strategy. It is challenging. Rather, find a way to create value and have subscribers no matter how small. Do not be caught with traffic, focus on what happens in the bank.
It is very hard to make money from Google Adsense because Google discounts up to a factor of 4 African traffic compared to U.S. and Western Europe. So you need to quadruple African traffic to make up with similar US sites. In short, some Western advertises will not compensate for African traffic (excluding South Africa).
A US user generates $18.81 for Facebook (ARPU) while an African user is $1.41. I like Jobberman which asks people to pay now. I like iROKOtv which charges. It is better you have 100 people paying $10 per month than 10,000 people-traffic that gives you $10 at month end. But to do that, you need to invest in quality and differentiate. Traffic is a number, be focused on the real one – revenue traffic.
This is a Short Note from my LinkedIn update.
When I was in Federal University of Technology Owerri (Nigeria), I was a jacobian (people who read too much). I read hard because I needed to read more to do better. I knew I was not the smartest guy in class, but if I put more efforts I could come on top. There was an exam I prepared for straight 11 hours of study – Thermodynamics.
I understand one thing: life is not just about knowledge and being smart. It is more of the path you decide to take. A British whizkid Marcus Hutchin who “solved” the WannaCry malware was arrested in U.S. on the suspicion that he created another malware. He was hailed as a genius when he halted the spread of the WannaCry.
Marcus Hutchins, the young cybersecurity expert, who managed to halt the spread of the WannaCry ransomware’s first wave last week says he plans to donate monetary reward offered to him to charity. Hutchins, was responsible for halting the inexorable march of WannaCry on Friday, when he followed clues from the malware’s code and registered a domain name the attackers were using as a kill switch.
Ever since, his identity has been outed by British media and has been inundated with communications from the media, the cybersecurity world and more. He’s now even been offered a $10,000 by HackerOne, a platform for cybersecurity professionals to report potential security flaws in exchange for bounty rewards. However, Hutchins says he doesn’t want to take the money, and no instead plans to donate the amount to charity. “I plan on holding a vote to decide which charities will get the majority of the money,” he wrote on Twitter.
Now, how can brilliant people decide to be stupid? You have the mind of Einstein and decide to write malware infecting the world. He could be a legend. Hutchin refuses to take the right path just as we see brilliant kids in our universities that simply will not wake up to attend lectures. They fail and drop out.
The most brilliant student I met in FUTO did not last a year. He was peerless. But he had a flaw: his path was wrong. He would be sleeping up to 11am when students went to classes at 2am to “colonize” seats for classes starting at 9am. Do not waste your gifts.