I have always stated, and I want to reiterate here, that achieving technological advancements has nothing to do with race but has everything to do with culture. If a group of people develops an enabling culture, they will climb one strung upon another of technological development. They may be white people or black people or indeed people of other colours in between. The colour of the skin only describes the wavelengths of light that the skin reflects, and nothing more.
Searching within Africa, one notices that Ghana is a shining example of what Africa is capable of achieving. Under the dynamic leader, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana became independent, from British rule, in 1957. This was achieved ahead of most African countries. Following the attainment of independence, Ghana went to work to develop a number of sectors, including sports. Everybody in Malawi knows that the Nyasaland national football team was clobbered 12-0 by Ghana in 1962, a testimony to the fact that Ghana had quickly put its national football team together and went on a conquering rampage.
They have gone on to conquer in other fields besides football, not least in the field of technology. I have reported on this column the amazing technological exploits of Ghanaian, Apostle Kwadwo Safo Kantanka. In 1998 Dr. Kantanka built Ghana’s first locally assembled car, the Kantanka saloon and has since introduced other Kantanka motor vehicle models in Ghana. He has, in addition, assembled other technological units including a military jet and a military rocket launcher.
Ghana is slowly but surely creating a technological culture. In a culture of technology one step usually leads to another and before the world knows it, great things get accomplished. It is certainly so with Ghana, which recently, on the 7th of this month, successfully launched its first satellite into orbit. With this satellite launch, Ghana has joined the ranks of space-faring nations. A satellite is an object that orbits a heavenly body and is kept in motion by the interplay between the object’s initial force of motion and the gravity of the heavenly body. Earth has one natural satellite, namely the Moon, and numerous artificial ones.
The Ghanaian satellite was the culmination of a two year project by a team of scientists and engineers from Ghana’s All Nations University. Orbiting at an altitude of 400 kilometres above the surface of the Earth, the satellite, christened GhanaSat-1, was launched primarily to monitor Ghana’s coastline for mapping purposes. It was launched from the International Space Station, a floating chamber that orbits the Earth with a crew of astronauts on board.
Bravo Ghana, bravo Africa! This is how technological revolutions begin. The industrial revolution was ushered in by individuals like Jethro Tull, who built farm machinery, and George Stephenson, the father of locomotive transport. Similarly individuals like Apostle Kantanka will usher in a technological revolution in Africa, leading to what has been termed the “African Renaissance”.
We need to nurture the creative minds among us. Two or three months ago, I ran two articles covering the Polytechnic’s Design Studio where young, talented people are involved in a number of technological projects. We need that kind of deliberate effort to promote the sharing of ideas to come up with technical solutions to some of our problems.
I have had the privilege to interact with some, probably all, the teams of young people who run projects within the Design Studio. One of the teams assembled a quadcopter (helicopter with four rotors), which was intended to be flown robotically. In other words, they have been working towards creating a drone.
I was pleasantly surprised to get a Whatsapp message on 14th July, 2017, from one of the quadcopter team members, reporting that he was in the United States of America to represent Malawi at a robotics Olympics function. The function has attracted 163 teams from 153 countries. My hope is that he and his Malawi team mates will learn a great deal from the Olympics and that as a result of what they will have learnt they will enrich their quadcopter project, as well other projects that they are likely to embark on in future.
What kind of culture are we developing in Malawi? The young people I have mentioned above are developing a technological culture and great things can be expected from them. The majority of Malawians, however, have a culture that is steep in superstition. Any technological marvel will be linked to a supernatural, often evil, force. These are the people that believe that for anybody to run a maize mill, they need to kill a person and install them in the mill. Absolute nonsense!