Mr. Austin Okere, Founder and Executive Vice-Chairman, Computer Warehouse Group Plc, has presented a thought provoking paper to world business leaders at a conference in Stockholm, tagged Digital Horizons, organised by the Economist Group against the backdrop of the world’s largest social networking company, Facebook, commissioning a 28,000 sq. m Data Centre in the Northern part of Sweden.
Over 150 leading innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs, futurists and policy makers were gathered at the conference to discuss the future of digital economy. The one-day summit featured conventional thinking challenge sessions wile critical visions, tools and insights were shared and fresh ideas generated around people, prosperity and power.
Mr. Okere’s paper focused on the consequences of the digital revolution from an African perspective, drawing attention to the shifting opportunities from the erstwhile prosperous Northern hemisphere countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy, U.K. and North America to Southern Hemisphere regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, China, India, Brazil and Australia. He drew attention to the fact that returns on foreign direct investments (FDI) into Sub–Saharan Africa are among the highest in the world due to the opportunities for growth and investment, and also as a result of the large and youthful population, projected to expand consumer expenditure to $1tr by 2020, coupled with the ample natural resources in the region.
He stressed that although digitalisation had already transformed our lives, a new wave of innovation is coming that will reshape the way we live, work and consume content as well as redefine our social systems, industrial competitiveness and push the boundaries of what we thought were possible.
Austin however cautioned that Africa’s youthful population could either bring a democratic dividend or become a source of social unrest depending on how much policy and execution is exerted towards channelling the energies of the populace into productive entrepreneurship.
Austin Okere alongside other panelists at the Economist Digital Horizons Conference in Stockholm, Sweden
Okere dispelled the erstwhile prejudices held against Sub-Saharan Africa such as being unprofitable, too complex and risky and difficult to tap into; citing examples of successful companies and how they have shattered these preconceived misconceptions, dealt with obstacles and created inventive business models, and taken advantage of technology to leapfrog what could in the past have been considered significant barriers.
He noted at companies such as African telecoms giant MTN, the Dangote Manufacturing conglomerate and his own Computer Warehouse Group, rapidly growing to become foremost Pan African Powerhouses.
The conference was preceded on the eve by a grand reception hosted by Margareta Bjork, President of the Stockholm City Council at the magnificent Golden Hall, the historic venue where Nobel laureates gather every December to receive their prices.
The main conference which was held at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), one of Scandinavia’s oldest and largest institutions of higher education founded in 1827, was chaired by Jan Piotrowski, Online Science and Technology editor at the Economist. The event was attended by Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden, who provided insights on governments’ perspectives on wide a range of issues from cyber security to job creation.
Other speakers included Nicklas Lundblad, Director of Policy at Google, Ulf Ewaldsson, Chief Technology Officer at Ericsson, Scott Kirtkpatrick, head of the School of Computer Science and Engineering at The Hebrew university of Jerusalem and Pekka Mattila, Managing Director of Aalto University Executive Education.
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