IGF 2022 WS #39 Africas Dilemma post-pandemic fragmentation

Description:

In the crossroad of maturing and collaborating in building a strong unified internet ecosystem, the multistakeholderism model is at a conflict of ideology that is pitting stakeholders against one another, with the universal declaration of an open internet led by the states with its covet view on disinformation, misinformation and censorship versus the china firewall and threats of the Putin Net. Our session will view the matter with the lens of young Africans battling internal policy problems in boosting internal access and the our position externally in a highly fragile internet ecosystem, now its time to dwell deep on what the internet means beyond the days of Arpanet what is the internet really for Africa and how do we develop a strong morale and strategic meaning and purpose of the model of the internet that is our and independent in its operation as a network and translation of its purpose to the young demographic of internet leaders and shapers.
Lets begin in ancient Egypt with the hieroglyphs modern emojis, language systems and local innovations that formed the bedrock of modern civilisation language, literacy and knowledge share the great Alexandra library, The C section innovation in ancient Buganda or the matrilineal communities that had strong women leadership in power, Nandi Empire.
Africa has always pioneered and paved the way in localisation of emerging technologies that have shaped modern civilisation, our identity and cultural systems of open trade, flow of information language localisation such as the invention of Swahili, we as people are sustainable with local innovations that have found a place in the world.
Lets fast forward to Mpesa and mobile money technology with recent reports showing the majority of mobile transactions happen across Africa, our rural developing communities have access to finance and real-time communication. It's a prerequisite now how local innovation has catapulted technology transfer and development.
Nigeria has unicorns reshaping fintech in the world, our young labor-force is maturing and now Africa exports Skill Sets, patents.
Now with the world’s largest talent pool, demographically young people in Africa are the future of consumers, sustainable energy solutions are emerging in Africa , local content and innovation has been tested globally and acknowledged our place in it with the limitations we have. The Flying geese theory states capital flows where labor is and African labor is the bold option, but we need collaboration in decentralisation of bureaucracy and free access to technology infrastructure, finance, Skillsets and exchanged leadership capacity.
With Mpesa, Telecoms in Africa have entered new financing markets with local products, The availability of connectivity has created unicorns with boldest solutions to major world problems, we know how to localize emerging technologies with our communal systems to make accessible innovations with empowered meaningful access to emerging technologies such as Blockchain for reaching more frontiers of affordable finance, 5G to boost new connections of devices hybrid industries, cloud & infrastructure to store and share computational power across the continent, AI to create shared neural networks that solve real world issues such as the Ebola Detection AI App, Malaria big data analysis we have a deep understand on real issues and empowered access and use will lead to more solutions.

Africa has a strategic location and spirit in its common ground cooperation and collaboration between The west and East with localised innovations in Africa we can aid in resolving the Fragmentation of the internet with deeper collaboration in Africa Led and development and force deeper structures interconnections and economy share between the east and west, Emerging technologies and our emerging labor are the future of multilateral cooperation via digital diplomacy, battling cyberwars and emerging security threats to collective economic gain in consumerism 3.0 access.