On Wednesday, December 9, 2009, Dr. Calestous Juma, a Kenyan national who teaches "the practice of international development" at the Harvard Kennedy School, gave an interesting talk on Africa's role in science, technology and globalization. Dr. Juma’s presentation was part of the John de la Mothe Memorial Lecture Series at the University of Ottawa. In spite of the wintry weather, the event was well-attended and the audience included, among others, Fred Gault (former Director of the Science, Innovation and Electronic Information Division at Statistics Canada and Visiting Fellow at IDRC), IDRC's Bruce Currie-Alder, and a couple members of the diplomatic corps in Ottawa, including His Excellency Dr. Abraham S. Nkomo from South Africa and Clara Randrianjara, a councillor from the Madagascar Embassy. 

The title of Dr. Juma’s presentation was "Africa in the Age of Technological Interdependence: Challenges and Opportunities for International Cooperation". At the beginning Dr. Juma gave the impression that he was going to focus on climate change, and although he discussed, for example, wind power and white power LED (whose lack of heat-generation is not a loss for the tropics), he didn't limit his presentation to that topic. Indeed, he highlighted several topical systemic issues, including:

-Broadband*. Dr. Juma noted that the current push to connect Africa with the world has received a massive boost from the World Cup, and that the laying of cable has been "driven by FIFA's timetable." He also pointed to the major decrease in the cost of laying fibre optic cable.

-The evolution of the cell phone and its current predominance in Africa (he cited as examples M-Pesa’s success and expansion to 25 countries outside of Kenya and solar-powered ultrasound machines which can send images to mobile phones).

-Infrastructure (railroad, power transmission, primary roads) and the challenges that their inadequacy in Africa poses for regional trade, for example.

On the nexus between climate change and food security, he pointed to Lake Chad as an example of damage caused by climate change, noting that the lake has decreased by approximately 80 percent since the 1960s. He believes that developing countries must not follow the carbon-intensive path forged by industrialized countries, and he is excited about the prospects for Africa benefitting from pre-existing knowledge about technologies (which he says doubles every 14 months, not including satellite-generated knowledge in support of defence).   

He is an advocate of science and technology policy studies, especially with universities as the locus. He is a strong proponent of practical education and he laments the fact that, as he views it, too many Africans are educated for jobs that don't exist. He is also interested in 'science parks' such as the one which exists in Western Kenya, which parallels one in Gujarat, India, a city with strong historical and current ties with East Africa. 

It is also interesting to note that, when asked about India's and China's interests in Africa, he was critical of what he calls "whining" on the part of the West. Dr. Juma noted that China has invested in mineral-poor countries and is training Zambian engineers, has built two engineering schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is financing the construction of a dam in Ghana in exchange for cocoa beans (presumably the Bui hydroelectric project, which is being carried out by Sino-Hydro Corporation Limited of China). 

Dr. Juma’s "take-home message" was that, under conditions of crisis such as climate change, doing nothing is more dangerous than taking a risk. He underscored this point using the image of a wheelie-popping zebra on a motorbike zooming away from a pouncing lion, which he showed us in two phases, beginning with a view of a seemingly reckless zebra with a death wish and then revealing the feline motivation for the zebra’s speedy getaway.

On the whole, I think that little of what Dr. Juma highlighted in his presentation would be a great surprise to the Acacia community of ICT4D researchers, although he is clearly very knowledgeable about many of the issues that interest and concern the program. Dr. Juma’s experience and expertise in African higher education in S&T and his knowledge of partnering (universities, business, and government) would also be of great interest and value to ICT4D scholars and practitioners alike.

On a stylistic note, at no point did Dr. Juma stand behind the podium or read from slides; he moved around at the front and used only slides with minimal text and a good mix of graphics and just a few graphs. At one point he even threw a laptop from the One Laptop Per Child program (in which he was involved) on the floor to demonstrate its robustness, and managed to get a chuckle out of the audience when two people sitting at the front were unable to figure out how to open it. In short, he is an authoritative, engaging and entertaining speaker, and would certainly be a good option as a guest speaker for an Acacia/IDRC audience.  

*Dr. Juma’s African cable map can be viewed in Ethan Zuckerman's blog. Based on my reading of the latter, it seems Dr. Juma delivered a very similar talk at the Berkman Center in September, and Zuckerman has written an eloquent and comprehensive synopsis which is worth the read.