October should be named Somali ICT Month… wonderful news! The ICT Exhibition and now the Mogadishu tech summit. See https://mogadishutechsummit.com/
This is a good start, therefore, we should all encourage and congratulate those who achieved this. Of course, there is always a room for improvement, but then there is always next time, and the next generation to carry on the flame. This industry is the future and we should never relax and expect we have reached our goal by having one or two events here and there… more is expected from us. Somalia needs tech nerds more than old politicians fighting for a seat in parliament, etc.
Somalia cannot remain ideas free zone… we must have and push new ideas into our businesses and public sector. There are many areas that we, those who are in the ICT industry, can and should lead and encourage our leaders to follow.
Urgent problems that need very limited effort from our government but will have a great impact on our country:
- ICT product approval- need to know what ICT gadget comes into our country and must be approved before they are consumed by our people
- Telecom towers – who owns them and why do we have so many of them? Their health impact, and who will help all those who are effected by their radiation
- SIMcards- why have them when there are e-sim available
- Paymasters? why should this exist… when mobile money can deliver salaries to all gov employees? Can anyone in the Somali gov… answer this question
- Online education, e-health, e-gov, e-* …. why this is not our (Somali) tech radar?
- Why are we stuck with old ideas? Why do we have to destroy what works, only to rebuild… etc. etc?
Other ideas worth discussing during the tech summit… these are eight technologies and companies I would recommend to be discussed at this summit. Our universities should encourage the students to follow this and study, not stay stuck with old apps, and using USSD based ancient stuff!
