Networking has been identified as one of the solutions to bridging the digital economy gap between Nigeria, and indeed Africa, and the rest of the world.
This came during a lecture delivered on Tuesday by a communication scholar, Prof. Boulou Ebanda de B’beri of the University of Ottawa, Canada.
The lecture titled Mass Media and Communication Studies in this 21st Century Digital Knowledge Economy was delivered at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) Mass Communication department.
Responding to the question from one of the attending lecturers, Dr. Olubunmi Ajibade, who highlighted corruption and educational deficiencies as some of the problems besetting the country’s progress, B’beri emphasized that networking will help out
“Today, our field of communication is an in-depth interdisciplinary field, unlike before. We need to work with engineers, we need to network with computer scientists, we need to network with other disciplines….”
While noting that Africa lags behind in the growing digital knowledge, B’beri called for a change in the consumption-inclined nature of Africans.
He enjoined the lecturers present to be involved in original researches as well as improve their efforts at being up-to-date.
According to him, “Mass media in the 21st century knowledge economy is for all. And at this point, Africa and Africans are absent.We are about one billion individuals but we are absent in this economy.”
Despite Africa’s present position in the growing digital world, B’bleri believes the digital economy space is “a mercy space that we need to colonise.”
He therefore enjoined students to read voraciously, to improve their knowledge of the digital world, so they can be more involved in it. ?
B’bleri also charged both undergraduate and postgraduate students present to be more creative, share ideas and not disregard their potentials.
Taking these steps, he believes, will help Africa bridge the festering gap between her, Europe, and the rest of the world involved in the digital knowledge economy race.
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