The Leapfrog of Africa
Africa needs to move beyond opportunistic innovation to proactive innovation
From developing biomedical smart jackets that diagnose pneumonia 4 times faster than a doctor to manufacturing cost effective but luxurious SUVs to fusing neuron cells with silicon chips that can detect explosives and even cancer cells, Africa is innovating to meet some of its most dire needs.
Innovation in Africa is multi-dimensional, affecting people in all forms and sectors of life. A South African drone software company helps farmer increase productivity by using a data analytics platform that combines satellite, drone and artificial intelligence technology. In Nigeria, a man has invented an amphibious vehicle that drives both on land and sea and he is currently working on getting it to fly. The list is endless. The bad news however is that much of Africa’s innovations have remained opportunistic. Large infrastructure, economic, technology, and policy gaps are forcing businesses in Africa to innovate in a different and somewhat dangerous path. Rather than instituting a gradual, programmatic and structured approach to innovation development, Africa is leveraging digital revolutions of past two decades to leapfrog its gaps. While this approach is brilliant in terms of faster speed of execution and cheaper cost, it will, in the long run, make Africa worse off.
Opportunistic innovations are myopic, shallow, partial, and short-lived. Driven largely by businesses for profits sake, opportunistic innovation targets only a few segment of people considered ‘profitable’ by the business. True benefits of opportunistic innovation accrue to only a few leaving the larger mass to struggle for leftovers. In addition, the need for profit and market share ensures that business models of opportunistic innovation are developed to avoid replication and are therefore difficult to replicate in other regions even within Africa. Opportunistic innovations are short-lived in that they start and end in themselves without having domino effects in other sectors. Innovations that led to the first industrial revolution in the United Kingdom, commenced in the textile industry and trickled to chemical and manufacturing. So far these trends have been missing in Africa’s innovation story.
Opportunistic innovations in themselves are not bad, rather, they are the starting point of an industrial revolution. Governments, regulating bodies and aid bodies in Africa however need to know when and how to grow an innovation from opportunistic to proactive. Proactive innovation, by contrast, are well structured. They are scalable and easier to replicable. They benefit a much larger mass and have long term effects that trickle down to other sectors.
To achieve proactive innovation in Africa, businesses and governments needs collaborate effectively to allow innovators benefits moderately from their innovation and after that cascade subsequent benefits to the society at large. African government needs to put in place policies, sandboxes, infrastructure and funding to mature innovations. Regulation can also be created to deliberately alter innovation from the path of opportunistic. This was demonstrated when the Central Bank of Kenya imposed few restrictions during the early deployment of MPesa’s mobile money services. This government-business proactive innovation management approach is what is required to develop existing innovation in Africa and motivate new ones.
An example of proactive innovation is Lightning Africa. The project was launched 2007 in Kenya by the World Bank and IFC with the objective of providing affordable, environmentally sustainable, durable, and safe lighting for the masses. It incorporated lessons from earlier IFC and donor grant-based solar lighting projects. The initiative demonstrated proper structure and roundedness in that it paid attention to constraints along the entire supply chain (including market intelligence; business development support to manufacturers and distributors; development of international quality standards in product design, product quality testing, and certification; and consumer education and financing). By 2016, the project had been deployed in 11 Sub-Saharan African countries, affecting almost 21 million people (4 percent of those with access to electricity). The project aims to reach 250 million more people by 2030 (equivalent to 42 percent of those without access to electricity). The success of Lighting Africa has spawned Lighting Global, to spread off-grid, solar-based electricity to other regions. Not only that, it has triggered solar startups that use mobile networks to manage generators, and mobile money for consumers to make micro payments. There are over half a dozen of these new solar utilities; they raised venture capital of more than US$200 million in 2016, up from US$19 million in 2013.
According to a World Bank report collaboration between government and new breed of young ‘agripreneurs’ can enhance agricultural processes and provide mass food in an environmentally friendly manner. Agripreneurs are innovative. They apply digital technologies and principles from startup ecosystems to enhance agricultural processes. Local entrepreneurs have a better understanding of their rural context, giving them an advantage over large multinationals, and they are more suited for surmounting challenges such as fragmented markets, lack of scale, illiteracy, and native traditions. Government and aid bodies can support them by providing an enabling environment that includes incubators, information exchange networks, and funding. Collaboration is also essential to improve agriculture supply chain, from farmers, to agribusinesses, to consumers.
These are few of many ways public-private partnership can help develop proactive innovation in Africa. Africa has been leapfrogging but now is the time to walk like a man.
