COUNTRY FOCUS: SIERRA LEONE
“
FOR SIERRA LEONE
TO GO FORWARD
IN THIS SPACE,
IT REQUIRES
THE POLITICAL
WILL TO DRIVE
INVESTMENT IN
INFRASTRUCTURE
AND EDUCATION IN
THE TECHNOLOGY
SPACE.
Sensi Tech Hub
(Sensi) grew out
of Sensi’s SMS
programme
hungry for the knowledge to learn about
tech and the opportunities and possibilities it
presents them.
“There are two main universities with a
technology faculty that have over 2,000
students, there are about 10 vocational
training institutions with roughly 200 to
500 students studying technology – slowly
feeding the hunger for knowledge.
“The private sector space is growing too –
with the cultural change comes the need for
businesses and organisations working in the
country to adapt.
Marah believes Sensi’s main objective
has been to address the issue of youth
unemployment in the country and has been
providing access to capital, skills training
in ICT, entrepreneurship and business,
professional development activities and
events, Internet, co-working space, work and
networking opportunities for young people
in Sierra Leone.
However, he believes Sierra Leone has a long
way to go in building the digital divide and
becoming a technology advanced nation.
“The country lacks much of the infrastructure
that is needed to drive technological
advancement. Political will in driving this
change in the last government was also
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INTELLIGENTCIO
lacking,” said Marah. “With the new
Government they have few promises in
their political manifesto to transform the
technology space and we have started to
see signs of this.”
“From our perspective and the work we
have been doing in Sierra Leone over
the past two years, we have seen a big
change in how the culture is changing
around technology. The transformation
that is happening in Sierra Leone around
technology is cultural, the shift that has
taken place in people having access to
basic devices like mobiles, tablets and
laptops has created an appetite for
knowledge about technology; this is the
generation of people we are dealing with,
“So we are seeing a wave of new
businesses that are being launched to serve
this demand.
“For Sierra Leone to go forward in this
space, it requires the political will to drive
investment in infrastructure and education in
the technology space.
“The private sector community working in
this space needs to invest more in building
the ecosystem for technology rather than
exploiting it.
“There are very few entities in town investing
time in ecosystem building activities which
is where the commitment needs to be to
drive that energy that will create the industry
– that will ultimately bring economic and
social change.” n
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