Tech

Where you will spend the night on 24^th August 2019 will affect this country for the next 10 years, because that will be the reference night for the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census. You will expect someone to knock at your door between the evenings of 24^th to 31^st August and ask, “What are the names of each person who spent the night of 24^th/25^th August, 2019 in this household?” You will then proceed to give some information about them, or they can answer on their own.

The census will be heavily dependent on technology, with enumerators using android devices to capture and transmit all the data that will be collected. This is expected to increase the accuracy of data collected, due to inclusion of GPS based location information, and also make it faster to transfer the data to the central servers. Except to see the enumerators armed with a tablet.

What information should you be expected to give during the census? For the information regarding ICT, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics has the following questions for you:

1. Have you owned a mobile phone in the last three months?
2. Have you used a mobile phone in the last three months
3. Have you used the internet from any location in the last three months?
4. Have you used a computer/laptop/tablet in the last three months?
5. Have you bought or ordered goods online in the last three months?
6. Have you registered for the Huduma Namba?

Besides ICT, the other information required for each person in every household include:

1. Name
2. Relationship to the head of the household
3. Sex
4. Age
5. Date of Birth
6. Mother’s detail (if present)
7. Ethnicity
8. Religion
9. Marital status
10. Birth place
11. Previous residence (where you were living in August 2018)
12. How long you have lived where you are
13. Reason for moving to the current location (if you have moved)
14. Status of parents
15. For females aged 12 and above, details of children they have borne.
16. Information on difficulties in doing activities of daily life (like disability)
17. Education attainment
18. Labour force participation
19. Information on annual livebirths and deaths in the household
20. Involvement in agriculture
21. Housing condition and amenities (e.g. waste disposal, source of drinking water, number of rooms in the house)
22. Ownership of household assets like radio, TV, fridge… etc.

In 2013, the government of Kenya promised to issue laptops to all pupils joining primary school. This was made as an election campaign pledge, and it was one of the most expensive political promises ever made. It would involve issuing laptops to every new batch of pupils joining class one every year. The aim of the project was to promote digital literacy and prepare the young learners to thrive in a ICT based economy.

It wasn’t until 2016 that the government started following through with the promise. However, it was no longer laptops, but tablets. The reality had slowly sank in that there was no way the government could issue delicate laptops to grade one kids, preferring to use tablets that were specially designed for the kids.

Six years after the project was announced and three years after the implementation was started, the project was silently retired. In fact, there was not official announcement about the same. Only the sharp eyed budget analysts discovered that the government had allocated zero shillings for the project, signaling its end. What went wrong? Many things, because as we will see, technology for the sake of technology is not a good idea, and digital inclusion cannot be attained while ignoring other basic needs.

Why it failed

Most politically motivated promises are done without regard to many basic principles of public policy formulation. This project was bound to fail for the following reasons:

1. It would be extremely costly to run the project. This was actually going to cost more than all the other costs associated with free primary education currently offered by the government.
2. Lack of skilled personnel to run the program was a major hindrance. Most of the teachers were not very computer literate, and a one week training by the government would not make them experts, when the children they were supposed to teach could easily outdo them in using smartphones and tablets. The content was also not ready and it delayed the launch for a quite a long time
3. The priorities were wrong from the beginning. Schools lack teachers, classrooms, connection to the grid, and in some places, there are no schools! It is also common for children to drop out of school due to lack of books or even food.
4. Lack of requisite infrastructure. Only 10% of schools were connected to the grid, while 50% were far away from the national grid. Schools also lacked the facilities to safely store the devices, considering the many cases of school break-ins where books were being stolen.
5. Lack of support mechanism when technology failed. This left both teachers and learners stranded, and often having to wait for long to receive technical support.

What could have been done differently?

The goal to impart digital skills in students is a noble one. However, as it stands, there could be a better approach to the same. One way would be to build computer labs in all high schools in Kenya. This approach would work better since the students already have the literacy and numeracy skills. As some people had also suggested, the labs could also be used as community centers to provide the same skills to people in the neighboring communities during holidays or in the evening. The cost would be affordable.

While the government tried to make the most of the project by having the tablets locally assembled, there was little transfer of skills involved. A conversation with one of the people involved revealed that all the parts of the devices, including the plastic covers, were imported, and their only duty was to plug in parts together.

The project failed.

Automobile is a word that came up when the world transitioned from horse drawn cars to self-propelling cars with engines. Then, no one saw it coming that one day even the driver would become unnecessary and the car would move from both animal power and control. Once Self-driving cars (also known as autonomous or driverless cars) hit our roads, we will be having the first true automobiles ever.

Today, we have autonomous cars being tested by many companies all over the world. It is estimated that we will see a major use of self-driving cars in early 2020s, which is just a few years to come. How will these cars affect Africa as a continent?

How self-driving cars work

Driving is a simple but monotonous task that almost any person can learn, just like riding a bicycle. However, it demands concentration and focus on the road, which most humans do not like, especially in the current age where there are distractions everywhere. It involves making observations, interpreting the observations, and acting on the information acquired.

Making observations is one of the easiest part for a machine, but the most boring for humans. While humans will look away and get distracted, a combination of sensors will never blink. Humans use their eyes, and ears to make observations, while an autonomous car will use an array of sensors such as cameras, radar, LiDAR and Ultrasonic sensors. With these, the car can see objects around it, identify lanes on the road, and estimate distance between then and obstacles.

The part of interpreting the information is very easy for human beings, but complicated for machines. That is where Artificial Intelligence comes into play. A person can identify what an obstacle is very easily, and make a decision. Whether it is someone crossing the road, a piece of carton, a rock, a discarded water bottle, or a pothole, a human being can see the obstacle and make the decision at the heat of the moment. However, a machine needs to be trained on how to react in each of those situation, and this is a very complex task which every manufacturer is trying to crack. An autonomous car needs to know how to react to any of those situations, and even make decisions when it comes to unexpected situations.

Acting on the information is easy. A person will simply use hands and legs to steer a car, while an autonomous car will use several actuators to do the actions (like a motor to turn the wheels). Both human beings and machines do well at this.

Current Situation

At the moment, self-driving cars can do well in places where there is law and order. Where there are street lights and markings on the road. Where people respect and follow traffic signs. What would happen if the same cars were brought to Lagos or Nairobi, where chaos rule the road and infrastructure is not very developed? chaos. Yet, these are the areas which have more accidents that are attributed to human error, something that driverless cars can solve.

The truth is that it will take longer before we have good self-driving cars on most of our African roads. However, there is one of there aspects that can be used, which is already in play in some cars that have semi-autonomous mode.

Assisted Driving

The self-driving technology can be used to assist human drivers to make better decisions on the road. This would help avoid human error, as the sensors are able to warn drivers of many dangers that humans miss, and also help in enforcing some traffic rules. We can have our vehicles that will never over speed (by design), and ones that will report violation of lane discipline. We can have vehicles that will observe speed limits automatically, which won’t start when the driver is drunk, which will act when a driver is distracted, report risky behaviors, never ran red lights, and observe route discipline. This would solve most of public transport problems.

Most of these features are available in some high end cars today but miss where they are needed most; public transport vehicles. As of now, we can focus on technology assisted driving before fully autonomous vehicles find their place in Africa.