Technology made in East Africa and Rotten Tomatoes

So why do we have numerous technology institutions if we don't plan to make good use of the graduates churned from them?

Taking a second look at the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2010/2011

I have to admit that some of the results that Enterprise Technology captured from this report were surprising-like Rwanda topping the Technology Readiness at 100/139 countries surveyed, though only slightly beating Kenya at 101/136.

In the Technology Innovation category Uganda is second last in East Africa (104/139) after Burundi (134/139) while Tanzania(86/139), Rwanda(71/139) and Kenya (56/139) lead the way.

View the summary PDF.

However, from a bird's eye view if you look generally at East Africa, on the whole we are still using applications that are largely developed outside East Africa. There are thousands of developers dotting the East African continent who have developed user-friendly customizable applications at prices that East Africans can afford, so why are we still bent on looking outward?

Is the flood of foreign products stifling technology innovation in East Africa and keeping us in a comfort zone or is it because the East African market is averse to 'Made in East Africa' products? Why are we so happy to sample expensive 'Rotten Tomatoes' that cannot be customized for East Africa's unique challenges and when fresh natural products are brought to our corporate offices we smile and say: "Don't call me, I'll call you"?

So while I'm glad that Ory has moved into Google Africa policy work, it's a bitter sweet sentiment because I'm somehow inclined to believe that in her own fledgling startup she would have spearheaded another Ushahidi that would have put East Africa's developers on the map.

If we concentrated our resources on honing local developers into razor sharp innovators rather than grabbing the first expensive suite- might we not return revenue to the country and thus live up to the 'Trade not Aid' philosophy that we so love to quote lately?

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