Whether you believe it or not, I apply that more than 80% of digital companies in Africa will expire by 2028 if they fail to reinvent themselves at the AI age. From Edtech to HR-Tech, AI will create a new competition base which disintermediary of many current players. Good people, the accelerated company: a new era of disruption and integration, is here.
In the large tapestry of human progress, we hold at a pivotal moment. Not just a continuation of what preceded, but a radical change, a transmutation as I like to call it. We go from familiar banks to the innovation company in unexplored waters of the Accelerated company.
Let’s go back. Before the 1780s, we existed in the Invention company. A brilliant time of mind, posing the foundation of natural philosophy. Think of the fundamental elements of physics and chemistry, the very language of science. They invented writing, printing, the tools that shaped our world. However, their genius was often confined to the laboratory, their discoveries find it difficult to translate into generalized services. This led to stagnant GDPs and generational poverty. Imagine, unlock the secrets of the elements but die of preventable diseases like polio.
Then the Innovation company emerged, after the 1780s, accelerating around the 1980s. It was the era of mechanization, mass production and data systems. The ideas of the invention company have been transformed into tangible products and services, which stimulates exponential economic growth. PIB flat curves began their ascent. However, this era also created a gap: the developed, developed nations and the least developed.
Now we hold on to the threshold of Accelerated company. A new wave, driven by AI systems and autonomous machines, is upon us. These are not only faster computers or smarter phones. It is a fundamental restructuring of the way we live, work and interact.
Consider the transparent integration of our lives. You can send money to your mother to Lagos in a few seconds, an unimaginable feat there is a generation. We jump into Ubers led by foreigners, sleep in Airbnb houses belonging to people we have never met. This level of interconnection, facilitated by robust verification systems, dismantles the friction of fear and the unknown.
This is the era of acceleration. Technologies rewrite the very orders of our existence. We become entwined, integrated and, yes, accelerated. This new reality requires agility, adaptability and the desire to embrace unprecedented.
Accelerated society is not only a concept; It is a reality. Are we ready for the speed of change, the depth of integration and the extent of the disturbance? Only time will tell us, but one thing is certain: the world as we know it changes quickly. And we have to evolve with.
Taken special notes on the abundance of Africa in the AI era, by Ndubuisi Ekekwe, to go online to Blurura with Tekedia Mini-MBA Ed17 (June 9 to September 6, 2025)
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