IJCIRISSN 1996-1065 [Online]
ISSN 1818-1139 [PRINT]

Volume 3 (1) 2009

Abstract:
Africa had a late start in the race to acquire the information communication technologies (ICTs). This last place in the race, compared to other continents, has had tremendous implications in the development plans for the continent. For Africa, the race has been difficult from a late start to an insurmountable litany of problems that include; difficult in equipment acquisition, lack of capacity, limited research and development resources, and lack of investments in ICTs. But as I have pointed out in my previous writings, the wind of change has started blowing across the continent. The new African quest for technological acquisition is driven mostly by an unprecedented indigenous interest in technological development and the numerous and sometimes ambitious initiatives by NGOs and the donor community. The long awaited African technological dawn may be in sight. African leading universities and institutions, responding to an unprecedented interest in ICTs by young people, have set themselves on a quest to be the ICT incubators and jump start ICT education, research and build ICT capacity to help in the construction of the badly needed infrastructure. For these institutions and everybody else involved in the quest for technological advance, the race has picked up speed.

To maintain this new found exuberance for ICT and to speed up the process of ICT development and capacity building, African higher education instructions have set themselves an agenda to build research and development capacity that will create the ICT infrastructure capable of finding relevant ICT solutions capable of solving local problems and challenges.View full Article