hi everyone I would do it in English too
my name is Boris Gifu I’m working as a
cyber security engineer
I’m currently based in humbled and I’m
core I’m going to talk about the role of
Technology in reducing corruption in
Africa I was up with a question what do
you think China Switzerland Panama and
South Africa have in common there are
all countries that that were listed in
recent corruption scandals actually
corruption isn’t just a matter of a
country according to Transparency
International a corruption is a global
problem a good way to up to see it is to
look at the corruption perception index
this is a ranking released by
Transparency International and as you
can see on the ranking there is revision
with countries usually at the bottom
line this is actually man my homeland
Africa according to Transparency
International six out of the ten most
corrupt countries in the world located
in Africa this is actually a very big
I’m originally from Cameroon and I have
personally have experience of it and I
have seen women like that
she’s living in Aslam she’s doing her
best and she will do anything possible
to provide a better future feature to
her to her baby for her child she is
living in a slum that means she doesn’t
have access to basic facilities such as
hospitals universities sanitation clean
water and so on
you know what those facilities are
actually already built but only on the
paper in the reality a lot of money have
been on the paper invested to build a
lot of infrastructures in developing
countries but in fact they all have
vanished because of corruption
this woman will then be selling on a
street vendor there and not having
access to all of that only because of
corruption as someone from Africa and I
study here at the University of
Technology of 12 I’ve got I’ve got a lot
of access to technology and these kind
of technology gadgets I’ve been changing
my own life in the tremendous way the
same thing is actually happening in
Africa they look at this man
he’s Shepherd from Kenya and Masai Mara
the gadget that he has is not just a
simple gadget the smartphone is using is
actually helping him a lot in improving
his productivity thanks to the smart
phone he can get access to informations
like the weather forecasts he can
contact other hip hip hurts across the
country or even other clients in Nairobi
the capital city of Kenya and it can so
in have more income and this is this
kind of stories is really happening
very often in Africa I will give you
another example this is gifted mom this
is an application developed by a
Cameroonian engineer it’s a very simple
application
whose objective is to reduce mortal in
infant mortality
I will try to maybe put it into context
in a lot of rural area of remote areas
in Africa and in many other developing
areas it’s really hard for pregnant
women or new new mothers to access
proper sanitation or to get good advices
on how to deal with the baby or to deal
with the pregnancy the conclusion is
that the mochila T rate is high for new
baby
newborn babies and this engineer just
thought of an application that can help
connect medical specialists space in
cities and people living in remote areas
or islam’s like the woman we saw before
and thanks to that a lot of women could
have their baby safely and to get the
right advices at the right time and this
technology is actually making a big
difference in Africa and I’m not only
the old I’m not the only one who has not
is it even international Internet
companies are also getting a way of that
this is for example Mark Zuckerberg he
is not in Silicon Valley is actually in
Lagos Nigeria and he went there not to
give development aid but to learn about
local startups actually the startup
ecosystem in Africa is currently booming
and if you haven’t put Africa on the map
of tech hubs you should consider
starting it now let this is a look of
the trending ventures of a platform that
I’m part of the platform is called
venture venture capitalists for Africa
VC for a
calm and here you have the platform is
there to help local startups in Africa
grow and also to help them get some
finances fundings and even exposures and
on the platform at the moment I’m
talking there are five thousand trending
ventures and the normal is flowing and
not all these startups are getting
interested into technology government
are also seeing the influence and the
advantages of technology and in the next
in the next many minutes are gonna tell
you why I believe this can really make a
big difference in reducing corruption as
the first example I will bring you to
East Africa Rhonda
this is a website government platform
the word pipe with the website is from
the random event government it’s
actually a simple website the objective
is every citizen can go on the website
and know exactly what to ask for and ask
for any services to know you can know
exactly how much a service is gonna cost
you can know exactly how long you’re
gonna take and you can actually get the
service in due time there is close to no
access to people like it’s all automated
and thanks to this automation the
exposure to corruption decrease a lot
with such initiatives
Rhonda cool call from in ten years from
one of the most corrupted countries in
the world to one of the least corrupt
countries not just in Africa but also in
the world we can maybe have a quick look
at this form here it’s a form to ask for
a birth certificate as you see you have
access to the supporting documents that
you
need you know exactly what steps you
have to take you know the time you’re
gonna need the processing time and the
money you need to pay and there’s no
hidden costs that means then no
corruption I will show you maybe I’ll
put it into perspective you cannabis
understand why I really think this kind
of initiatives can change the way we see
a lot of African countries this is the
ranking of Rhonda in the in the
corruption perception index in the last
ten years
in around the last ten years you can see
that in 20 2006 it was around 121 and
it’s currently wrong 45 this is a better
ranking that than countries like Italy
Croatia or Slovenia there is a second
thing I want to talk about corruption is
also helping Africa in the way that he
helped the civil society to take actions
in a way never seen before maybe this
can be one of the best example that we
can think of the Arab Spring
those are Tunisian people they we just
wanted to make – to demonstrate against
the corrupted the corruption that were
in place in the country and I wanted to
– to say no we don’t want it anymore
and they didn’t use any kind of weapon
they just use the internet social
network and they could organize such a
massive revolution so as you can see
technology didn’t just help take this
picture it actually helped make the
revolution the same thing is happening
all over all over Africa this is Kenya
this is Boniface Mwangi
anti-corruption activist in Ronda he has
been the police came to him a lot of
time because of
he’s because of the way he was actually
letting raising awareness about
corruption in the country the government
was feeling attacked by him and the only
tool in use was actually a photograph
and social network I’m gonna also talk a
little a little bit about my own country
and this is those are camera activists
as well 10 years ago they have been
doing the same thing for bloggers
a lot of time every time when the
president go to it goes to citizen or to
Europe the try just to do a small
demonstration and ten years ago it will
have go unnoticed but nowadays like one
year ago they did the same thing and
they just posted a video on YouTube and
everyone was aware of that of what was
happening so technologies are actually
helping putting forward the democracy
and helping educating the people about
the Terp thing I wanna talk about is
technology actually bring money let’s
have a look at this website
this is Jim Muir I took the Moroccan
they are actually in a lot of countries
but I like Morocco so I just put Jimmy
Morocco there
this is Webster the equivalent of
parmesan
they are currently actually in maybe 10
or 20 countries in Africa and they are
actually growing every every day they
recently raised like 400 millions
dollars on the international markets and
this kind of technologies are bringing
jobs in the country and governments are
a way that technology and
telecommunications and so on are
bringing job and money and because of
that they actually they know that they
need to invest that
the need to invest in the area and this
is having a side effect because the more
they invest in the area the more you
have in the government you have more
more services that goes online for
example paying tax taxes of example
paying fees for universities and so the
things goes really fast
and the incentive to pay corruption to
pay bribes it’s actually going away I
would see I’ll give you a simple example
if I need one day just to to get my ID
card I will certainly be more more
willing to pay bribes to get it fast
then if I need just two minutes a
technology is actually making it happen
change the technology you just need ten
minutes two minutes to do two services
that usually take to two days and he’s
actually helping even bringing the
confidence into the economy so as a
conclusion I would say that corruption
and even poverty are being a reduced
thanks to technology and Africans
actually working hard to resolve local
problems using local solutions and
technology and I find it really exciting
and I could say that yeah Africa is not
a country it’s the continent of 55
countries and there are certainly very
different history and a success story
isn’t even economies in the continent
not every kind not every country is
replicating the examples of the example
of Rhonda but what is what is sure and
what is true is that the population is
young and the population is educated and
we can have we can have a fling of it
when we go on websites like VC for
Africa and for that reason I really
think that technologies
surely shaping the future of Africa and
certainly might change the way you see
the continent in the coming years thank
you very much [Applause]