As an eight year old, one of the ultimate joys of my life
was running post office errand for my grandmother who was a cloth weaver.
Grandma weaved the most beautiful saris and boubous using the wooden loom
machine to spin threads into patterns of elegant colors without which the
traditional marriage was incomplete in our sub culture.
Anxious African brides from Ghana, United States, United Kingdom
and other countries of the world would inundate our village King’s landline
phone (itself a rarity and a seal of inimitable wealth and greatness at that
time) with calls and messages for my grandma as regards the fabrics they
wanted.
It was to assuage their anxieties that Grandma sent me to
the post office with envelopes inside which were tucked little pieces of fabrics
destined for different parts of the world for sampling. To get your wedding
fabric ready in time, you often had to start the process as early as a year
head.
Last year August when I visited my grandma’s village, the
ultimate joy of the boy who now lived with her was to keep her iPad fully
charged (and of course play Candy Crush on it!). It was with this iPad, Grandma
took pictures of her elegant fabrics and posted them on Facebook where her
clients, anxious brides and grooms all over the worls, fussed over them,
commented, liked, shared and reposted them with glee.
This is what excites me: In the years ahead, when Grandma
sends the pictures of her fabrics to her clients across the world, not only
will they comment or share or retweet, they will be able to print sheets and
sheets of fabric in 3D, ready to be worn right away. What had been made in the
somnolent interior of Africa by an old woman who had never traveled out of the
country will travel at the speed of possibility and find elegant, physical
expression in New York, in London, Montreal, New Dehli and other cities of the
world in a matter of minutes.
I imagine walking over to my Grandma as she works on her
loom to explain this prospect to her, she would pause; eyes wide open and
shout, in her local dialect, super wonder!
But it doesn’t stop there.
In 2015 alone, over 50 baby factories were discovered in
Nigeria with some selling babies for as low as 100 dollars. According to the
South African police figures a child goes missing every five minute. I have
often wondered, do the perpetrators of this act, shake hands over a bottle of
beer, say nice doing business with you as the cries and smiles of the baby is
muffled in a sack?
With the fourth industrial, I think, a unique opportunity to
phase out this menace totally presents itself. For example, a Nano-companion
for babies, implanted early, perhaps in pregnancy may create a database and
sensor with which suspicious movements can easily be detected and halted.
Let’s face it, Africa largely lost out of the Industrial
revolution and though we seem to be catching on the internet revolution (with
67% mobile penetration and 26.5% internet spread) a whopping two third of people in Africa still live
outside the magical openness of the internet.
With this fourth industrial revolution, the opportunity to restart
and sail with the world presents itself. In Agriculture, for instance, with the 65% of
uncultivated arable in Africa, tractors and harvesters that are not just cold
metals but also humanoids or intelligent robots with pre-programmed ultra-efficiency
will make Africa reach in our lifetime, her much talked about destiny as the food
basket of the world. Imagine a day in the sweltering heat of an Africa
farmland, as you plough and harrow, your tractor suddenly pauses, whirls in
circle all by itself and says: Boss, I think we are doing great today!
Unemployment and
youth inactivity across the continent stands at 60%. Africa has the youngest
population in this world. This youth bulge presents a grave challenge and with
the advent of humanoids will this gap not even widen further?
But I also think of the women and girls in Borno, in
Maidiguri, in Chibok, in Baga who spend one third of their days fetching water.
I think of the respite that might come their way and the liberty to pursue
greater destinies.
Preserving the human warmth, fellow feeling and extended
family networks so key to the Africa culture and spirit will be an important test of that
era as the revolution approaches.
Government and economic retooling will be inevitable. There
will be unprecedented global connectedness, new business ecosystems and
creative economies. Intergenerational
and intercontinental synergies will reach its peak in known human history. Indeed,
we will be able to say indeed the brotherhood and of course sisterhood of humans,
in our lifetime, transcend the sovereignty of nations.
There would be shattering of old conceptions and walls.
You see that last August when I went to see my Grandma, she took
selfies with my little son, pouting, turning her face this way and that way and
uploaded them on Facebook. As I stood there, mouth agape, surprised beyond
measure, my eighty year old grandmother turned to me and said:
Son, by the way, are we friends on Facebook?
I can only imagine the surprises ahead.
Gbenga Adesina