‘Science and Technology, Africa’s Gain?’, this theme of the December 2019 edition emerged from a threefold point. The first one concerned the fact that science and technology introduced various important trends that highly define development in the contemporary society. The second was a recognition of the necessity of African nations to assess various ways of benefitting from the exponential growth of scientific endeavors and technological activities. In fact, the intention of the editors when they introduced this theme was to analyze the contributions of science and technology in the realization of Africa’s renaissance and to evaluate how Africa contributed, contributes or can contribute to the growth of the two fields. Thirdly, given the undeniable support of science and technology in developmental sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, education, et cetera, we proposed to reflect on the commitment of African nations vis-à-vis these efficacious instruments of sustainable development. In other words, in addition to the acknowledgement of what Africa’s knowledge systems contribute and can contribute to science and technology, we proposed this edition of Chiedza as a platform to assess the role of African political systems, economic and educational sectors in bridging the gap between the significant exponential growth of science and technology globally and the slow growth of these fields in Africa due to various instabilities.
The importance of reflecting on the place of science and technology on the African continent and the necessity of continuous discussions on issues related to these two domains are illustrated in the articles that make up this issue. This edition introduces a number of different topics that reflect the status of science and technology in contemporary Africa. Though almost all our contributors chose to focus on technology, they built up arguments in which they manifest that, in various instances, science and technology are married in such a way that progress in one leads the promotion of the other. Christian Ekesiobi Uchechukwu, in his well-researched paper reflects on the causes of Africa’s seemingly poor technological mobility. Also, he goes on to propose various solutions that can help enhance the project of sustainable technological development in Africa. Precious Nihorowa chooses to assess the role of technology in the promotion of democracy on the African continent. For Nihororwa, so far, technology has been on one hand an agent used for the promotion of democratic principles. On the other hand, technology is also a hindrance and a disorientation of the people’s vote as they participate in a democracy. Hence, he suggests that, ‘if technology is to be a helpful agent in democracy in Africa, it has to be guided by clear well-designed policies.’
Christian Ntsolani puts the theme of this issue in a different perspective by using Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas on science and the arts in order to evaluate how the accelerated progresses in science and technology shape human experiences in the modern world. Ntsolani, following his reading of Rousseau’s Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, warns us of the fact that what we call progress may in fact be a form of human enslavement. Victor Mureithi reviews various debates and discussions around the acceptance of biotechnological development and innovations in the domain of food productions. Mainly, he analyzes the role of the genetic modification of food sources. Mureithi proposes the search for an answer to the question whether or not we should adopt technologies or not. He concludes that ‘there is need for more groundwork by the African states in order to be able to make adequate decisions.
In this issue, there are two articles that can be put under the thematic area of ‘philosophy of Artificial Intelligence’. They manifest a growing awareness of the necessity of getting familiarized with issues that relate to Artificial Intelligence both at purely social and academic level. It is in this line that Bikorimana Félix and Dr. Stephen Buckland in their respective papers assess the famous Turing Test. For Bikorimana, his paper summarizes various positions on the experiment that Turing proposes. His conclusion echoes French M. Robert’s view that ‘since the Turing Test evaluates intelligence in human standards, it is not an accurate test for evaluating machine intelligence because it is ethnocentric’. Dr Buckland approaches the Turing Test as a strategy. In an analytic way, he sets out to explore the following questions on the Turing Test, ‘What does it, and what can it, show?’. Toure Ousmane Jonas contributes a paper in which he examines diverse means of the cultural survival of an African identity vis-à-vis the influence coming from emerging new technologies.
This edition includes other articles that are not directly related to the main theme of science and technology. These include, Guillaume Semugisha’s paper which evaluates the situation of environmental law. He argues that ‘environmental law increases people’s awareness and offers worthwhile boundaries to the level of usage or exploitation of the environment’. Another article comes from Tassi Yves who dialogues with various African thinkers to analyze their comprehension of African humanism or identity in the Ubuntu concept. He notes that there are various problems with the interpretation of this African humanism and suggests ‘the concept of “glocality” as a new attempt to talk about African identity in a contemporary and ever fragmented world’. All these articles are followed by Kevin Shijja Kuhumba’s review of the book Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach authored by Martha Nussbaum. In addition, this edition contains a short story by Uchechukwu D. Oguike. This story brings out the complexity and emptiness of life.
No doubt, the articles and contributions in this edition play an important role in the assessment of ways of promoting science and technology as instruments of sustainable development and essential tools of the innovation ecosystem in Africa. Moreover, other works that focus on themes other than science and technology have also done a good job in introducing us to various new concepts and by proposing interesting systematic solutions to a number of issues.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank the editorial board of Chiedza for their laudable support and invaluable commitment to the journal. I remain grateful to Ashley Salima and Tobechukwu Tobias Edeh for their assistance and dedication. Also, I want to thank Christian Ekesiobi for designing this issue and for tirelessly assisting me with the review of various articles. Also, I am grateful to Prof. Anthony Chennells for being a pillar of support and highly appreciated guidance. I cannot forget to extend my gratitude to the administration of Arrupe Jesuit University especially Dr Evaristus Ekwueme, the Pro Vice Chancellor Academics, for his continuous support. Finally, I wholeheartedly thank all those who contributed articles, book reviews and short stories to this edition.