Walter Cronkite School Professor Gregg Zachary has been to Africa 40 times in the last 12 years. Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation, Zachary is continuing his research into how science and technology impact the continent.
Zachary and two other professors — one from ASU, one from Canada’s Concordia University — are conducting a research project to examine how computer science is currently developing in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The group will investigate and report on technological advancements in Uganda and Kenya. The study will look at the relationship between computer science and economic innovation by interviewing and observing students, policymakers, funders, entrepreneurs and staff of nongovernmental organizations.
Zachary also teaches at the ASU Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes. He has reported on science and technology in Africa for publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy magazine and The Atlantic.
“I had a connection with covering Africa from a certain perspective — I looked at what’s working there and why,” Zachary said. “I want to understand things and I want to create value through understanding, so my approach has been more conceptual.”
He said that through journalism, people can build bridges with scholars and help create more knowledge.
Understanding how Africa is innovating, and how that innovation is changing the continent, is a crucial endeavor for those concerned about the societal aspects of new technologies, said David H. Guston, a professor at ASU’s School of Politics and Global Studies and co-director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes.
“(Zachary’s) talents as a journalist — his ability to conduct on-the-ground research and perceive and document the perspectives and activities of these African innovators — blends exceptionally well with the ethnographic style of research used by his more academic collaborators to reveal the fine details that provide the grist for great analysis,” Guston said.
The other ASU professor on the research team is Jameson Wetmore, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Wetmore said there is a long history of Westerners who attempt to help African communities by bringing them technologies developed elsewhere.
“For the most part, the intentions of these people have been good, but almost all of their efforts resulted in failure,” Wetmore said. “Sometimes they brought technology that didn’t help. All too often the technologies they brought actually made life worse for the local people.”
Wetmore said Africans can be incredibly inventive and the local solutions they have developed are far better than what outsiders have come up with.
“We don’t often see the brilliance of their technologies because they don’t look like ours,” Wetmore said. “Africans typically haven’t participated in the types of technology we see as ‘high-tech,’ but with computer science they have an opportunity to demonstrate their creativity. I’m anxious to show what local peoples can accomplish when they can call their own shots and pursue their own goals.”
Wetmore said the costs of engaging in this type of science are not high, which may enable a much larger diversity of people to get involved.
“We see evidence that computer science is being done by more and more people in Uganda and Kenya,” Wetmore said. “We’d like to tell the story of how this effort is progressing to demonstrate that Sub-Saharan African nations can produce their own unique technologies.”
The research team has received about $250,000 in order to pursue their research in the two countries. The third team member is Concordia University Professor Matthew Harsh, who teaches at the Centre for Engineering in Society and has also had experience studying the region.
Once complete, the research will be presented in publications and at scholarly meetings. The primary investigators will also plan an outreach event in Washington, D.C. for congressional staff, international policymakers and managers of technology companies.
Contact the reporter at rbrisley@asu.edu
