Comms minister tasks tech actors and innovators to lead continent’s digital resurgence
By Patrick Paintsil
Minister for Communication, Digital Technology, and Innovation, Samuel George Nartey, has urged tech investors and innovators in Africa’s technology ecosystem to develop sovereign home-made digital solutions to spearhead the transition towards a highly digitalized continent.
‘Let us reset Africa’s digital identity, not as consumers of technology only, but as creators; not as dependents, but as sovereigns and leaders,” he charged a gathering of innovators, digital services providers and tech entrepreneurs at the 10th edition of the Mobex Africa Tech and Innovation Conference and Awards in Accra.
He added: “We need to have a set of innovators who will take risks, who will build solutions and scale them across the continent. We need investors, who will provide potent and patient examples for Africa’s tech champions.”
On the regulatory front, the minister assured that government will champion continental coordination and create a policy environment that will entrench Africa’s digital revolution and unpack home-grown digital solutions across the continent.
He disclosed that the ministry is currently working on several pieces of legislations that aptly reflect the modern demands of the tech and innovation ecosystem—from artificial intelligence to emerging technologies to data protection, cyber security, and data harmonization.
“Our regulations should protect citizens, whilst unleashing innovation, not strangling it. To our developing partners, align your support with Africa’s priorities, not just your own agenda,” the minister further stressed.
A national digital development council will also be launched next year, which will create a tri-sector forum involving government, industry and academia to brainstorm policies that reflect diverse perspectives and real-world realities in the tech ecosystem.
Mr. Nartey extoled partnerships like Mobex Africa that have connected stakeholders and capitalized collaborations that have rippled across the continent.
This year’s Mobex Africa Tech Innovation Conference and Awards, organized by Mobex Africa, in partnership with Margins ID Group, convened entrepreneurs in the tech and innovation ecosystem, investors and policymakers to discuss pertinent issues including digital payments, identity systems and financial inclusion.
Highlights of the conference included insightful panel sessions and paper presentations carefully curated topics that proposed workable recommendations and strategies towards building a digitally-sovereign African tech ecosystem.
A panel on “Scaling digital payments across Africa: the AfCFTA advantage” cited fragmented interoperability, poor regulatory coordination and high cost of transaction as key barriers stifling the mass uptake of digital payment solutions across the continent.
Panelists proposed that African governments must develop robust digital infrastructure and harmonize cross-border regulations and policies to drive mass adoption and scaling of digital innovations in payments and identity to entrench the gains of intra-Africa trade.
The three-day event held on the theme “Resetting Africa’s digital identity and sovereignty” was climaxed with an innovation awards to celebrate twenty-two (22) pioneers shaping the continent’s digital destiny.
