African Development Bank President, Akinwumi Adesina, pleaded for Africans to embrace technology, and governments to urgently move away from “investing in the jobs of the past, but rather in the jobs of the future. A future that is just around the corner.”
He revealed this during a parallel event at the just concluded Ibrahim Governance Weekend by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.
Adesina was addressing the audience in a debate entitled: The New Tech Era: Job-killer or Job-creator? organised by The Africa Report and Jeune Afrique as part of the2019 Mo Ibrahim Governance Weekend.
“The people who control data, will control Africa. Coding must be compulsory, at all levels. The currency of the future is going to be coding,” Adesina said. “Information technology must not be the exclusive privilege of the elite, we must democratize technology,” he added.
Panelists included Pascal Lamy, board Director of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and past Director-General of the World Trade Organization; Eric Kacou, an Ivorian businessman and co-founder of ESP Solutions; Chioma Agwuegbo, a Nigerian tech specialist and Zyad Liman, publishing director of Afrique Magazine.