Imagine you are taking a shower, when suddenly no bodily motion results in no water from the shower because, the artificial intelligent sensor fixed in the faucet is able to predict when you need water running down from the shower or not. This, as a result of a technology is intended to reduce water wastage when bathing.
Imagine if this simple idea is developed and implemented by policy in Ghana. Firstly, it will help us take a huge leap in water preservation for the greater good of the environment. Secondly, modified showers with motion sensors would create new jobs in the economic space afforded by AI and the digitalisation Bawumia champions. Technology is the only word in human history that offers countries the opportunity to engage and compete on an equal footing.
If you think it is possible and can be created through technology, then you are thinking like Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the digital leader of our times. The fact that we have someone thinking about the future, with digitalisation as its bedrock is very refreshing, and offers hope for the teeming youths who need a shot at expressing their relevance in this age of innovation through digitalisation.
Today, due to the digital evolution, it may be wrong to even ask a child what is their career aspiration? This is because that job may be extinct by the time the child grows up. Ask them HOW you want to be when you grow up. Having an agile learning mindset will be the new skill set of the 21st century.
Ghana will develop its own silicon valley under Dr. Bawumia’s digitalised space
If I tell you here, “You may live to be 150,” your instinct will be, that is stupid because from history, everybody dies. But no one flew in metal crafts before airplanes were invented either. So while your predictive conclusions may be logical and expect historical patterns to continue, we can now conclude that, a lot is changing around us and as a country we must endeavour to change with the times.
I believe a Bawumia Presidency focused on technology and digitalisation offers that space for new forms of economic entrepreneurism to occur and reinvent our fortunes as a country. Globally, the sophistication and the societal impact of intelligent technologies are set to increase substantially in the coming years and decades, as are the associated policy challenges.
When you get that much leadership focus and attention on a specific subject (digitalisation), and improved software systems, you create a world where we can analyse, predict and optimise with a precision unknown in human history. We can see trends we never saw, our telephones foretelling what type of music or videos we like with great savings, and we can optimise everything in our environment from the natural sunshine at our disposal to the unending wind waves that blows on our longitudinal lines as a country.
Without leadership understanding, therefore, Ghana would miss the opportunity of the most important technological transition humanity has ever seen in its history.
Let there be light
In darkness, nothing worth conceivable exists. Light energy propels everything there is, to be created and seen. It is no coincidence that the creation story as told from the Bible suggests all created things started with the advent of light. Energy in my opinion is the single most important pillar in every nation’s economic adventure. If God started off with identifying energy sources, then men cannot do without steady, constant supply of energy all through the economy.
The importance of energy cannot be over-emphasised in continual discussions of statehood in our current politics. The miracle of a Bawumia’s government is that, the world is already talking about new forms of energy readily available in our near proximity. Policy duty is to focus our intellectual resources on harnessing the economics in these energy sources and translate them into revenue generation for the country.
The truth is that, practice advances all human training without respect to high school grade, gender, race and ethnicity or parental education. Fortunately these new green forms of energy been discussed are all technology and digitalised based and every child in Ghana with the will to study thanks to the free SHS policy, can be trained in these new fields.
Conclusion
Our near environment provides us with the natural resources to achieve energy dependency. Whether we want to go solar or wind energy, our environmental topology provides the natural gap for us to tap into what the world is currently discussing as the forward going must for all nations of the world.
Equipping skill set in inventive knowledge and providing the right environment for talents to be developed in this direction is what policy makers must focus on. So far, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is walking this talk with new refreshing ideas that will make Ghana a green energy dependent hub on the African continent. Curiously, his opponent is not saying much as to the direction of energy Ghana will tow if returned back into power.
Step back from all of this and it’s clear that thriving countries today won’t elect a strongman. They’ll elect leaders who inspire and equip their citizens to be strong people who can own their own futures.
Written by Joseph Osei Djaba, New Juaben North Constituency (jocefdjaba@gmail.com)