Dr Mensa Otabil said the recent innovations are good but not enough to solve the core problems in health, education and food needs of the continent.
“I know that when it comes to health, people will say ‘well we are flying blood to needy areas’…and it is a very important intervention because it is sad for somebody to die simply because they didn’t have blood or the right medicine wasn’t available or the right application wasn’t available, so it is a very important thing.
“But there are more problems that must be resolved and those routine problems are the problems we must use technology to solve. We must practically solve the nurse-doctor-patient ratio. So I would want to see how technology makes it possible for us to solve that,” he said.
Dr Otabil was speaking at the convocation of the Springboard Road Show in Accra. The 2019 Springboard is being held under the theme ‘The Digital Revolution – Digitizing, Life Improvement, and Positioning.’
The revered pastor used his speech to advocate for an improvement in Ghana’s health sector through the use of technological innovations aimed at solving physical problems.
He bemoaned the many reports of deaths which he believes would have been avoided if certain basic necessities were made available through technology.
“We have a health problem, we die unnecessarily. We die deaths that are so painful, annoying and very disturbing to know the kinds of things that kill people, human beings, most times in their prime. The primary reasons why we die by diseases are because of unhealthy unsanitary environments.
“There are exotic diseases that people have but the fundamental ones are the communicable ones based on mosquitoes biting us and the food we are eating,” he added.
He wants to see technology is benefitting Africa, not only in terms of providing and making food available but it must be cheap enough so that the average person - Ghanaian - can go to be bed every day with at least one solid meal that can keep his body actively functioning.
Dr Otabile believes if Ghana and Africa for that matter, cannot find a way to solve these problems, “then the digital technology can be just a nice way to stream videos and have fun but really, it is not solving our core problems.”
“Have we found a way to say this is technology we are using to improve agriculture and we can say that because of technology food production has increased by maybe 300 per cent?” he quizzed.
“If we cannot say that then we are only entertaining ourselves with technology but it is not answering our questions. It may be answering Europe and China’s questions but the technology must answer our African questions.”
“If we can’t find a way to solve that then the digital technology can be just a nice way to stream videos and have fun but really it is not solving our core problems.”
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