Story: Rahamatu-Lahi Zakaria || Sanatu Zambang Newsroom
The mode of communication has change over the past years in the world due to the advance in technology. Technology is playing a great role in every aspect of our lives from religion to culture, to our education system and how we socialized. Another aspect that technology is changing is the way we do business.
Now, looking at how technology is used, we can appreciate the progress we have made in the use of technology to run our day to day activities and how it has made life easy for us.
Tamale has seen a surge in the use of technology by the youth and to discuss digital technology in the region, Sanatu Zambang Breakfast Live had Rashid Lancer: a web developer and graphic designer, Mark Yaw Addo: the founding and managing director of Impact bloc and Khadija who works with Hopin Academy, a tech hub in Tamale with a degree in computer science.
To talk of information one can not downplay the role of radio then and now. Radio still plays a major role in how we disseminate information. Thanks to the penetration of China phone in the country, everything change and it will never be the same again. One of the things that changed is the way we make friends and communicate
”There was this craze for things we did not know at that age. Now it looks like we have the chance to get connected to the outside world, so there we had what we called the pen pal, friends to write to them but now Facebook came to take over, we were more excited with Facebook coming to take over writing.” Mark Yaw Addo.
Technology has also become a learning tool for people in and around. People are beginning to embrace it and do a lot of learning. But those who started early are advance and know more when it comes to digital technology and it set them apart from their colleague.
”I had my first email over 20years ago. Those of us who got exposed to those things early, we were seen as weirdos. When people meet you the things you talk about, other people just do not know about them thanks to our exposure. But then it actually made us so expose to a lot of things, so many aspects of things that those who are starting now might not actually know’ Rashid Lancer.
Khadija said ”I think technology has affected everything we do now. That is where we are now irrespective of what we do, technology has affected every bit of our lives. it influences entertainment back in school”
According to her, due to the penetration of foreign music and culture, most performances back in school were influenced by what they hear and watch on the internet, imitating other people. Likewise, business
”Innovation is something that has been on top. We sell our products globally even though you are in the north”
If people who are less into technology are hindering the progress of the use of technology around here, Khadija said no
”I think what technology has thought us is that you don’t wait for the people to want something before you do. Sometimes technology bring efficiency to the team, from my perspective you don’t wait for the people to catch up before you bring the new thing. I don’t think they are limiting”
According to Mark Yaw, for us to fully benefit from technology ” You have to seriously reorient the mindset of the people.” He believes that there are a lot of opportunities here since there are untapped markets here and people are still exploring.
Rashid also asked for people not to discourage the young generation from using technology but rather should guide them on how to use it for their benefit in the present and future ” Technology is here to stay, we need to teach people how to leverage on technology to use it for good. They should see it to be good.”
