The Reverend Julian Kyula, a Kenyan FinTech Entrepreneur, has asked African countries to make it easy for innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs to thrive.
He said encouraging ease of doing business would help African countries take advantage of the fourth industrial revolution, which is happening now, and deal with its many problems.
Rev. Kyula gave this advice to the media in an interview after giving the 5th Public Lecture in Accra over the weekend. The lecture was put on by the Sundoulos Advanced Leadership Training (SALT) Institute and the Intercessors for Africa.
The topic of the talk was “Technology and Change: The Fourth Industrial Revolution and What It Means for Africa’s Change.”
Rev. Kyula said that a number of African technology creators had to leave the continent because of bad working conditions. This meant that the continent was losing millions of dollars’ worth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to other countries.
“A lot of people are moving their businesses to places where they are welcome because of tax breaks or because they are citizens. They will be able to change their citizenship and get two citizenships, one in their home country and one in another.
“Can you imagine if Twitter or Elon Musk had started in Ghana and then had to leave to set up somewhere else? “He has four or three times Ghana’s GDP in his hands,” he said.
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“Why should we lose someone who could completely change a whole country’s tax bracket? We should try to get those who are going to come to do so. Africa is home to the next Elon Musks. Governments need to catch up and make sure that people like Elon Musk don’t go somewhere else.
Rev. Kyula on why African innovators are migrating
Rev. Kyula, who is the founder of EDOMx and Kyula Capital, said that bad government rules in Africa were a big reason why so many local innovations were leaving the continent. He asked African governments to make policies and laws that would help innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship grow.
“Usually, regulation can slow down entrepreneurship,” he said, adding, “We need to work together and have conversations that get governments to the table, to the drawing table, to create policy and legislation that encourages innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship instead of stifling it.”
“The laws need to be looked at to make sure they don’t drive skilled people out of the country…”
Rev. Kyula told innovators that these problems shouldn’t stop them, and he suggested that they look for other ways to grow.
Also, he encouraged local tech developers and entrepreneurs to work together to help them solve problems in their field and grow beyond their borders.
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Apostle Onyinah on adapting modern technologies in Ghana
Apostle Eric Opoku Onyinah, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral Project and a speaker at the talk, said that “outdated” cultural practises must give way to modern technologies so that Ghana is not left out of the fourth industrial revolution.
“Sometimes, we’re too proud of our culture, but some of the things we do are old-fashioned,” he said.
“Look at our chieftaincy. Do you still want to carry people in a palanquin when we have cars and other things?
“We need to start making some of these changes if we want to grow. We’ll keep keeping track of time.”
He stressed how important it was to train people who could “catch the time” and keep up with the fast pace of technological change in order to help the country grow.
Apostle Onyinah also told local business owners to “think differently” if they want to stand out on a world scale.