The "Digital Railroad" - Connecting Africa

Connecting Africa to the digital world is an important goal and progress is being made. At the African University of Science and Technology here in Abuja using Skype, email or text messaging is an important tool for us visiting faculty to stay in contact with our students after we leave. The development of the communication infrastructure will determine the location of the ‘corridors of shame’ in cyberspace. Being connected to main cyber arteries is vital for the growth and development of science, technology and commerce.

Historically one of the most important infrastructure projects was the Uganda Railway, which integrated colonial East Africa into the British Empire. Now ‘digital railways’ are being built and one example is the Seacom project - a $800 million project to run an undersea fiber optic cable along the East African coast mainly funded by African investors. These efforts will allow Africa to join the global e-commerce trade and provide vital fast communication bandwidth. Everybody here talks about bandwidth and how essential it is for continuing and accelerating the efforts to connect Africa to the World, open new markets and allow for cultural and scientific exchange.

The precedence set by the runaway implementation of mobile telephones in Africa hints at the enormous growth potential for the IT sector in Africa. Everybody has one or more cell phones here. Cell phones are ubiquitous and so are the bad habits of constantly being connected. Last night in an upscale restaurant in Abuja everyone was constantly texting, checking their email or showing and taking pictures using cell phones - so was I. Safaricom’s M-Pesa service in Kenya is an example of innovation we can learn from: integrating banking services and fast and reliable digital communication allows the transmission of money via the cell phone and lets farmers buy and sell products on markets without cash due to instant confirmation of the deal. Restaurants and other vendors are buying into this technology platform. In societies where carrying lots of cash makes you an immediate target for theft and/or bribery a cashless commerce has a massive appeal.

The fast development of the digital infrastructure will initially allow Africa to become competitive in the data processing and call center business. The good English language skills of the emerging middle class will likely result in US and European customers being directed to call centers here. The ‘Indian model’ has shown that these centers are to be seen as ‘landing parties’ for US and European businesses before engaging in manufacturing partnerships after a critical market size is reached. Make no mistake Africa will be the emerging market in the next 50 years and not paying attention to its early stages will cost us dearly down the road.

For Africa there are 3 crucial challenges to implement the ‘digital railroad”:

1. Don’t throw out the baby with the water. Don’t overtax the African internet no matter how tempting this is. Governments are always on the quest for additional income and in countries like Nigeria were the majority of workers do not pay taxes on their wages a consumption tax is appealing. This could seriously delay the growth of the digital blood circulation and lead to limbs not being developed or succumbing to gangrene. The French postal office had a system called ‘Minitel’ about 20 years ago that was de facto a proto-internet using dial-up. The government had a strict policy of access control and no incentives to grow it as a european project. The subsequent US internet domination is the result of minimum regulation and the government staying out of the business as long as possible.Asian contries such as South Korea have now overtaken the US in certain aspects of the cyber infrastructure such as band width.
   
   
2. Don’t buy into the current platform. One of the main lessons learned from the cell phone explosion in Africa is that ‘leap-frogging’ is possible and certain technologies (i.e. land lines) can be superseded. Sometimes it pays to not be an early adopter. Conventional laptops and desk tops will become obsolete for many businesses and at the moment net-books might be a better choice until the currently still amorphous ‘digital cloud’ becomes more structured.
   
   
3. What African governments must do is to provide ample subventions for emerging national and pan-African research universities as well as research and commercialization centers to help them increase their digital bandwidths. Commercialization relies on an incubation and stimulus period. To make money in the knowledge economy you must first spend money.

The Rule of Law I

One is often reminded of the rule of law when visiting countries where the compact between the governed and their elected representatives or self appointed rulers is not based on agreed upon and codified law but on a more tacit agreement of what will be prosecuted and what not. In many societies we have laws which are either no longer used or only used in conjunction with other laws to amplify certain charges. That’s the way we use the sodomy laws still in place in many jurisdictions in the US. In case of rape they are added to the charges, as a single charge they are no longer applied. The reason: no politician wants to spend political capital to get rid of them out of fear of being branded as someone who approves of what will no longer be persecuted.

However, if legal recourse is not possible because laws will not be used then a severe dissolution of the social fabric occurs which has a very corrosive effect on the behavior of individuals which no longer feel bound by law. In modern western societies emerging behavior needs to be constrained to protect agreed upon common goods and fellow citizens. Therefore we confine smokers to certain areas, insist on hands-free use of cell phones and prohibit texting while driving. These are examples of how law needs to continuously adapt to social and behavioral changes caused by technological and politico-cultural changes.

What strikes me in African and Asian countries I’ve visited is the other side of the medal: how often technological and political changes are impeded by not having or applying existing laws which promote social behavior at the cost of limited individual gains. A constant ‘tragedy of commons’ is being played and everybody loses. Trash is left in public places and common good is given no value. This is a disturbing metaphor which describes a lot of social and political phenomena here in Nigeria. The implementation of technologies within societies without the rule of law transforms the character of technologies from tools of change and progress into instruments of power and support for the status quo. Furthermore, the cultural price that is being paid is a high one: once ignored law becomes very difficult to insist on and respect. It might even call for draconian measures to turn the tides and force compliance with existing rules regulating social interactions and behaviors such as parking, traffic rules and garbage disposal. While we enforce fines and use tickets to induce behavioral changes albeit it begrudgingly, an inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy no longer has this tool. What remains are immediate and draconian punishment. I found this sign in a government parking lot in Abuja. We would probably argue that a parking violation does not warrant deflating tires and violates the principle of proportionality of crime and punishment. However, the erosion of political and social capital in countries like Nigeria often results in an unreasonable escalation of punishment. Enforcing civil behavior using harsh punishment results in even more resentment towards law enforcement and fuels this spiral of mistrust ultimately leading to even less rule of the law.

African Technologies of Maintenance

Our view of technology as cutting-edge, innovative and as something that is always emerging is in stark contrast to maintaining and repairing things we already have. Maybe we should think more of things – or as my friend Davis Baird would say ‘thing-ness” rather than the concepts of technologies that project almost exclusively into the future and do not concern themselves too much with what we have right now. The maintenance and repair of existing things is old-fashioned, reeks of craftsmanship and ‘black art’ – what philosophers call tacit knowledge- and does not lend itself to ambitious, glossy and hyped power-point visions of what will be once we solve that one critical technical problem standing between us and ‘the city on the hill’. That kind of modernistic rhetoric is constantly regurgitated by people who see themselves as visionaries but have little or no direct or even ‘interactional’ expertise with respect to the technologies and things they pitch.

This kind of alienation from things is not possible in countries like Nigeria. Like in other developing countries having things implies a maintenance intense co-existence with them. The Maytag repair man is alive and well in Africa. It starts with the origin of the things being discarded, used and predominantly foreign: raised CAFE standards for vehicles, implementing cash-for-clunker incentives in the US and Europe result in a surge of decades old cars being shipped to developing countries in particular due to its proximity from Europe to Africa. In many cases the historical roots become apparent by identifying cars in African cities. In former French colonies decade old Citroens and Peugeots including the classic “deux-cheveaux” still do battle with VW Golfs and Mercedes. The same is true for washing machines, refrigerators, generators, television sets, radios and even more recently cell phones. The recycling and re-using of products that have been spit out of our consumption cycles largely due to an artificially shortened market-driven life cycle creates an enormous maintenance and repair infrastructure that has a tremendous economic impact. The main traffic arteries out of Abuja are lined with tiny repair shops bristling with activity where things are simply kept running. And to keep things running means adapting them to local supplies, available skills and cost-effective solutions. Recycled rubber, metals such as scrap cooper and steel as well as the ubiquitous use of corrugated metal sheets are combined to repair and create new parts that appear to stem the tide of time and mechanical decay of vehicles, two-stroke motorcycles and other moving hybrids by an almost continuous process of re-engineering. Another striking difference is the engagement of the customer in this process. You don’t just drop off your car, pick it up after work and pay the bill. The owner becomes involved in finding a solution for the problem and helps fix it – it is hands-on rather than hand(s)-off. This collaborative act allows for quality and price control, transfers ‘thing knowledge’ to the owner which might permit him to fix a reoccurring problem by himself. Furthermore, it also creates a bond with the craftsman that insures future work and allows for bartering, which is an important shadow economy in all developing countries. Some of us might remember the fuzzy warm feeling of conspiring with “our” mechanic on how to keep an old car running.
This process of adaptation to local use and resource availability is a ray of hope for the future of Africa, since it taps into and continuously challenges the ingenuity of local talent. The savvy craftsmen and artisans are the foundation of a yet untapped workforce for maintenance intensive use-oriented technologies such as solar water heaters, photovoltaic cells and water purification systems.
And maybe there is an important lesson for us: maintaining our infrastructure (public buildings, sewers, roads, bridges, and electrical grid) will be one of our biggest challenges and could provide the emergence of a new class of craftsmen. Maybe focusing on maintenance technologies is not so old-fashioned after all? And would it really be that bad to see how long you can keep that old car on the road?

Off to Africa

A new class of students is waiting at the African University of Science & Technology in Abuja, Nigeria. I will be teaching a 3 weeks course called "Introduction to Materials Chemistry".

Being and traveling in Nigeria will allow me to learn more about a country that is vital to our future. Last year's impressions might be amplified or altered...stay tuned.

But the most important thing:

These students are some of the smartest I have ever had in a class room. This is the most important resource Africa has: a smart young generation hungry for knowledge and progress.

My class last year is shown above - you can find out who they are and where they come from on http://www.aust.edu.ng/

Permanent Resource Crisis?

The amount and types of materials needed to implement low- or zero carbon based technologies for a weakly sustainable economy already point to the beginning of a series of resource crises (‘permanent resource crises’).

The rare earth metals have abundances on the order of parts-per-million in the earth’s crust. While the elements of this group of 15 metals are not as rare as their name indicates, their 2007 world demand of 110,000 tons, of which 90% comes from China, is used in many high-tech products and processes, including ceramics and pigments (7%), catalysis, including automotive catalytic converters (20%), phosphors for compact fluorescent and solid state lighting (LEDs) (7%), the glass and polishing industry (25%), permanent magnets such as Nd-Fe-B and SmCo5 (35%) and other applications such as the newly identified need for neodymium (Nd) for wind turbine systems and as unrefined mixtures called ‘mischmetal’ in nickel hydride batteries (6%)[1]. Many of these uses are center stage in green technologies and their demand is likely to outpace supply within a very short time.

The price of rare earth metals has been going up in the last decade, due to the limited supply (controlled by the Chinese government) and the growing demand for phosphors for lighting applications. The anticipated ban of incandescent lamps in Australia and Europe, and the push for compact fluorescent lamps in the short term has already put enormous pressure on rare earth supplies and prices. A full ‘green lighting switch’ will double the required volume of phosphors containing rare earth metals. We also anticipate a continued demand for flat plate TV screens: a continuous growth rate of 15-20% for large size flat displays is projected over the next few years. There is already a shortage of Terbium (Tb), needed for green phosphors, and Europium (Eu), used for red and blue phosphors. At most about 40% of additional Tb (~50 tons) and 75% of Eu (~130 tons) will be available by 2015.

Recycling 10-15% of the current world supply of Tb and Eu is an absolute must for addressing this materials shortage in the short to mid-term – but there is currently no agreed upon process for efficiently collecting and recycling rare earth metals from lighting phosphors.Other strategic materials needed to implement green and nanotechnologies which are currently resource limited are silver, tellurium and indium (for thin film photovoltaic devices), platinum (needed for fuel cells), and lithium (for lithium based batteries).

[1] Jean-PierreCuif, Rhodia, Global Phosphor Summit 2008