In September, Sony released an ad for Playstation 3 which included the line, “You can't believe everything you read on the Internet – otherwise, I'd be a Nigerian millionaire by now.” The ad was met with consternation from many Nigerians, and the Federal Government requested that Sony make a formal apology (Sony did apologize and later withdrew the ad).

Around the same time came the release of District 9 – a sci-fi blockbuster which was critically well-received but irksome to many Nigerians. The Nigerian government took offense at the film's depiction of Nigerians as criminals and cannibals, banning the film within Nigeria and asking the Censor's Board to confiscate it from theaters. Online, the movie provoked varied reactions, with some taking the view that the film presents a racist view of Nigerians, while others defended it as a fictional representation with little bearing on reality.

Adamu Waziri at EVCL points out that often Nigerian depictions of Nigerians are equally unflattering:

Nollywood, our indigenous movie industry, has portrayed us in a much harsher light to both national and international audiences. There was a time where you couldn’t get Nollywood movie that didn’t include one of the following or a combination of them; fraud, juju/witchcraft, armed robbery, incest, adultery, cannibalism and of course our favourite, corruption. Nollywood has been pumping out thousands of movies with these themes for years with no real opposition from the general public or any Ministry.

… Banning films sets the wrong precedent; in fact it can be dangerous. Let us the public debate the issue. We are mature enough to do so. In fact our Minister has succeeded in giving the movie more publicity which I’m sure she didn’t intend to do.

Nicole Stamp comments on race in District 9:

The thing that really upsets me is that most people who see this movie won’t question, or even notice, this incredibly racist portrayal…. Why can’t the Nigerians just be people with logical motives like money and weapons? Why do they have to go out of their way to be ooga-booga savages? ….it is impossible to disregard the charged portrayal of Nigerians which when viewed in a larger context, is beyond damaging or defamatory but is dangerous.

Read more on the debate at Nigerianstalk.org or google “district 9 race”.

More recently, Time magazine published a slide show by the South African photographer Pieter Hugo which featured scenes from Nigeria's “Nollywood” movie industry. Though not so controversial as District 9 or the Playstation commercial, the photographs nonetheless prompted debate in the blogosphere, with discussions over whether such depictions of Nigeria fall under the category of artistic freedom or cultural bias.

Solomon Sydelle at Nigerian Curiosity writes:

I definitely understand the need to push the envelope, after all that desire has led to some of the most creative masterpieces and accomplishments of all time. However, with these pictures, I struggle to develop an appreciation of them and/or what they represent and believe that they unnecessarily relied on biases that will only confirm certain stereotypes for Hugo's mainly Western audience.

These events are especially ill-timed as they correspond to a new initiative launched earlier this year to “Re-brand Nigeria.” The initiative is sponsored by Dr. Dora Akunyili, Nigerian Minister of Information and Communication, and has been met with both praise and criticism (see here for the discussion at Global Voices).

Bunmi Oloruntoba at  A Bombastic Element discusses the re-branding campaign in the context of a recent BBC discussion on the subject:

The minister has a good case when she argues that Nigeria is overlooking a lot of positives, has not been telling her stories and is making the mistake of letting the world define her image based on its notoriety alone. And she has some good examples of the positives. But the BBC sought out a few PR and branding experts who counter by saying, if the country wants to rebrand itself, it needs to give any PR team a lot more to build on. Those interviewed said, consistent power supply and an end to a diesel generator economy will make rebranding Nigeria “effortless.” And to prove their point, 13:40 mins into the program… well, you don't need to be a Nigerian to figure out what happened.

A bright spot in the discussion of Nigeria's image was a widely circulated video of Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaking on “The danger of a single story.” Adichie comments on the pitfalls of a monolithic image of Africa as a site of catastrophe; she cautions that limiting ourselves to a “single story” flattens experience and creates stereotypes. For many bloggers, Adichie's remarks resonated with their frustration at the depictions of Nigeria prevalent outside the country.

Shade NonConformist  writes of the connection between Adichie's speech and Nigeria's image:

I believe this is what Chimamada Adichie meant about The Danger of a Single Story lecture she gave at TED. It becomes a problem when the only portrayal of Africa that we see is one involving dead animals, poverty, disaster, death, corruption, celebrity adoptions…you know the whole nine yards. Now I'm not saying Africa does not have these issues. We can all agree that we do. I'm arguing that these issues are not specific to African countries.

… I/We will never stop criticizing depictions of Africa that are unbalanced and prejudiced. Presenting a balance depiction of Africa is crucial. As Africans we also need to act as vessels who are willing to be instrumental in the change we want to see (and will see) in our beloved continent.

Internet connections allow students in the most rural areas to augment learning through research. Academics can keep up with colleagues across the world. Social media may make it easier for people to organize themselves and facilitate the way immigrants send remittances.

The role ICTs plays in human development is being debated and discussed at a Sept. 23- 24 Harvard University forum, ICTs, Human Development, Growth and Poverty Reduction.

What about the backlash against computers and the fear of technological devices? If the promise of ICTs will lead to poverty reduction, how will technophobia affect this mission? Technophobia certainly remains a global issue. With the influence of ICTs role in development, however, does the fear of technology and misunderstanding of its uses disproportionally affect the developing world? If so, what are people doing about it?

Here are a few examples of fighting and understanding technophobia in Africa. (If you’ve got more, we’d love to hear them. We’ll also be trying to write this issue in other parts of the world, so please pass those ideas along, too.)

Technophobia in Africa, like elsewhere, takes many forms. Resistance to technology by teachers has been cited (.pdf) as a problem of computer expansion in Kenyan classrooms. Both hospital staff and patients in Uganda list “cultural adaptability” as a constraint in implementing ICTs in health centers. Girls around the world view cybercafés – in many places, the only gateway to the internet – as strictly boys’ territory.

James Kariuki, an E-learning specialist from Cape Town, South Africa relates a story of a well educated friend having difficulty with adapting to new technologies. This is from his blog Elearning in Africa:

I engaged with a friend today and he was lamenting about the speed at which the technology is moving. I could see the agony in his face when he told me that he was scheduled to do a presentation in a hall, and the only thing in that lecture hall as a visual aid is a computer and a projector. The old-fashioned overhead projectors have been replaced by these new technologies. The pain of having to redo his presentation, and scanning his images so that they can be used on the computer was profound. I asked him whether he has considered attending any of training sessions:

Most of us have a phobia for technology and most of the jargon used in the training leaves us more confused than we were before training. I know of a number of professors in my department who have the same feelings about the technology and they cannot attend training.

I asked him, is this reasons that some lecturers never use the technology in the lecture theatres? He said:

Yes, and more to that there is a cultural bearing. They should have involved an anthropologist to study the culture of the prospective users of the technology so that they can advice them about what need to change first [in terms of culture] for the technology to be successfully used.

Here I see a problem where the technology is being provided but the constituency that should benefit from it is not. I am not sure of the best approach to dealing with technophobia, especially in situations where the individuals [with the phobia] have all the resources and support and training but they cannot still use the resources available. If you have a clue, feel free to let me know.

In a comment, Neil J says we should all be expanding our definition of technophobia — because each of us have a bit of it.

I suppose, as you said training is the best way to deal with this. I am currently doing a university assignment into technophobia. I think we all have elements of technophobia:
- the anger we display when a computer crashes
- fearing that computers will replace our jobs
- fear that we are being watched!

The digital divide is not just rural versus urban or rich countries versus poor. Gender remains an important factor, says Ore Somolu, writing in The Networking Success Project from Nigeria.

Women face a number of limitations to be able to freely use technology, Ore continues, including lower disposable incomes, limited time for technology use, average lower literacy levels. One solution includes starting technology lessons for girls at an early age.

Young women need to become more involved in science and technology from an early age. This could be formally (primary or secondary school, computer school, after-school program) or informally (learning from family or friends, summer camps with computer classes). The Gender Team at KnowledgeHouseAfrica organises the FOSS Women Bootcamp Workshop, which equips young women with the skills necessary to train other women to use FOSS* (Free and Open Source Software). Fantsuam Foundation offers scholarships to qualified and interested women for ICT training.

Mothers are a big influence on their daughters and if they display feelings of technophobia, some girls may unconsciously adopt similar feelings. It is important that encouragement comes from the home, through introduction from a young age to incrementally more complex forms of technology.

Lauren Clifford-Holmes, a student at Rhodes University in South Africa, at one time felt that ICTs were not living up to their promise because few projects created tangible results. She lists a few examples of best practices when using ICTs to augment development. From her blog, The Soap Box:

What struck me about this story were two key nuances: firstly that dumping technology in a community is useless unless the skills are taught for the consumption of and production using this technology. Secondly, this case study emphasised the importance of focusing on schools and introducing students to technology which can aid their learning experience, and teach them the skills they need to thrive in the knowledge economy/ information society.

She reports on an example that promotes the right kind of appropriate technology, the Intel Teach Program.

Mthebula High School was donated computers by Telkom a few years ago, but none of the teachers were incorporating the technology into their instruction. School language teacher, Mercy Ntlemo, attributed this to most of the teachers lacking “the specific knowledge and training to integrate technology in any substantive way”. This meant the computers were gathering dust, barely used beyond basic information retrieval and simple word processing.

This example speaks to the larger debate within ICTs and development: development needs to happen on a multitude of different levels. It makes no sense to think you are aiding development by donating free technology like computers to those who lack the skills to utilise this technology effectively.

In this particular case, Ntlemo underwent the Intel Teach Program, a professional development program designed to help teachers integrate technology effectively in the classroom with the objective of helping students build 21st century skills. Ntlemo felt she really benefited from the training and following her success, many other teachers did the program, to help “conquer their technophobia”.
This training program exposed the teachers to new approaches for creating assessment tools and aligning lessons with educational learning goals and standards. Additionally, they discover new ways to incorporate the use of the Internet, Web page design, and student projects as vehicles for powerful learning.

As a result of the Intel Teach Program, Ntlemo says that technology is now an integral part of the curriculum at DZJ Mthebula High School, and project based learning is the norm. The training program revolutionised the way the teachers used the computers – a wonderful resource which until then were being completely underused. Ntlemo says the program “has revolutionised the way we teach.”

So what does a story such as this one teach us? It teaches us that we need to have a wholistic approach to development, and that development occurs within a particular context – such as lack of digital literacy. We need to understand the contexts of the communities needing developments in ICTs so that development does not become a worthless endeavour but rather a meaningful process of change.

GLO-1 is Africa's newest submarine cable.
Map via Many Possibilities.

In late July, damage to the SAT-3 cable — which until last weekend was Nigeria's only link to the global communications system — crippled bank services and Internet access throughout the country. Approximately 70 percent of the country's bandwidth was affected.

According to the Chief Operating Officer of Globacom Limited, which financed the GLO-1 project, the new system will be able to meet all of Nigeria's broadband needs for the next 15 to 20 years. Bloggers are looking forward to faster speeds and cheaper and more reliable access.

From Cameroon, Bill Zimmerman writes:

The cable is expected to drive down broadband costs and provide faster and more robust connectivity for voice, data and video services. The technology sector in West Africa stands to benefit from Glo-1 as companies will be able to communicate more easily with clients and partners overseas. It equally holds promise to open Internet access to individuals and small businesses who’ve been unable to afford connections of their own.

For Yomi Adegboye of Mobility Nigeria, the improvements GLO-1 promises can't come soon enough:

Before now, the entire country depended on only the SAT-3 cable under the monopoly of NITEL for cost-efficient high-speed access. Industry watchers have been in expectation of Glo-1 for months now, as its launch will undoubtedly impact on the cost and delivery of high-speed internet access in Nigeria.

Now that Glo-1 is here, when exactly do we begin to enjoy the services?

GLO-1 is unique in that is the world's first privately owned submarine cable. Theresa Carpenter Sondjo of Appfrica explains:

Most undersea cables, including the SAT-3 that currently connects West Africa to the rest of the world, are built by consortiums of private and public (national) companies. Glo-1 is unusual because it was financed entirely by Nigeria’s GlobalCom…. Nigeria currently depends on the NITEL monopoly for access to its own SAT-3 landing station and buys extra bandwidth from neighboring Benin.

Munashe Gumbonzvanda of TechMasai adds:

The interesting thing about the cable is that unlike other ventures like Seacom [Editor's Note: Seacom, a cable connecting the eastern African coastline to Europe and Asia, went live in July 2009], this venture was entirely financed by Glo alone. The consequences of the Glo-1 are major, but will probably take a while to take effect. This as with Seacom is a great moment for African technological innovation and development.

GSBI students

From the GSBI, the Global Social Benefit Incubator and The Next Billion Blog comes a series of video interviews of social entrepreneurs from all over the globe who are meeting in what editor Francisco Noguera calls a 2-week in residence boot camp that closes the Global Social Benefit Incubator.

But what is the GSBI? This is how they explain:

The Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI™) is the signature program of Santa Clara University's Center for Science, Technology and Society (CSTS).  It works with social entrepreneurs to empower them and their organizations and to overcome barriers to scale and impact.  Since 2003, 87 award-winning social enterprises have attended this program and become part of a growing network of path finding alumni for creating a more just and sustainable world.

The first person interviewed was Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu who runs Smallholder Farm Rural Radio in Nigeria, providing poor farmers in rural and isolated communities with a rural radio full of information on sustainable agriculture and development in local languages. What is great is that they use radio and Internet to provide the information and is a profitable enterprise.

Yugandhar Mandavkar from India's Grass Roots Action for Social Participation organization was also interviewed, and spoke about the vertical draft energy efficient wood stoves which save women in India from having to collect large amounts of firewood for cooking fires:

Manoj Sinha is also from India, but he has a different take on affordable energy for rural communities. Husk Power Systems provides pay-per-use energy to communities by providing energy from rice husks. According to GSBI, “HPS systems eliminate over 190 tons of CO2 emissions annually per village by replacing kerosene, diesel, and methane output with renewable sources”. The video, here: