Exploring a Vision for Sustaining Innovation in African Economies

Abstract

There is an opportunity for African countries to capitalize on economic gains made in the telecommunication sector over the last decade and self-imposed pressure to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Thus far, African leaders have accepted capacity building and infrastructure development as two responsibilities which, when implemented, should accelerate internal and regional economic growth. But to accelerate development and overcome socioeconomic challenges associated with competing in an information-driven, flat economy, leadership in African governments, businesses and research (academic and nonacademic) must adopt a scalable and sustainable technology transfer agenda designed for multihelix innovation. Such an agenda would allow internal and external stakeholders to benefit from the network of productive information, transactions, and human capital that the continent’s telecommunication operators have accumulated over the decade. With multihelix collaboration, these physical networks could become transformative platforms that make it possible to scale economies, increase security and crop yields, promote human rights and civil liberties, improve health service response, multiply transactions and Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), and accelerate intellectual content exports. The convergent telemedia platforms could fuse physical infrastructure with virtual networks, social applications, and human activity to sustainably galvanize innovation, generate opportunities, create value, and change lives. New business models such as pay-as-you-go and residual revenue sharing, which leverage the absence of legacy systems, can facilitate this fusion.