For centuries, Africans devised means to survive. They mastered the herbs and cured the most poisonous snake bites, melted iron and made cutlasses and hoes, and formulated compounds and fixed broken bones. The Ethiopians invented an indigenous way of writing, and documented some of the earliest components of African history.
The ancient trade routes from Accra through Kano to Khartoum were anchored on the ingenuity of Africans who dyed clothes, transformed hides into leather, and improved agricultural yields through self-taught farming mechanisms like fallow and erosion control.
Yet, Africa had a dark period through the vagaries of slavery and self-inflicted tragedies of wars that destroyed a virtuoso system of innovation built and refined over generations. But the good news is that Africa is emerging again, stronger. It is a land of Sankofa innovation where legends painstakingly reach back, pick old ideas on processes, concepts and tools, and improve on them, while applying new techniques.
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In the east, west, north and south, the spirit of innovation is being rekindled in the continent. There are sparks of African innovators who want to drive Africa’s future in their hands.
Read my book “Africa’s Sankofa Innovation” here.
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