DIGITALIZATION: THE INEVITABLE PHENOMENON

Do you remember when we were learning about the Agrarian Revolution? That period when Agriculture in England went through massive transformations. With this revolution there came the Enclosure Act, rotation of crops, introduction of new tools in agriculture such as the plough and the threshing machine. But most of all Scientific methods began to be applied in agriculture (perhaps marking an end to the era of speculations).

Historians say that the Agrarian revolution came with the increase in population. As history reveals, population in England and Wales spiked from 5.5 million in 1700 to over 9.9 million by 1801 and in the 19th Century it tripled to over 32 million (with all the progress stated within this revolution the increase was inevitable).

But little did the world know that one of the social impacts of the agrarian revolution will be the Industrial Revolution.

Let me make it as simple as this, with the Agrarian revolution there came the Enclosure Act that I mentioned in the first paragraph. This Act meant the limitation of access to land or leaving farmers with plots that were too small or of poor quality. This led to the increase in number of workers migrating to the cities. Of course, it took a couple of decades for the industrial revolution to truly trigger the mass rural-urban labor migration but eventually this happened as well. Historical statistics show that by 1801 population living in the cities of England sparked from 18% in 1801 to 72% in 1891 (hence progress and changes becoming an inevitable phenomenon).

The Industrial revolution came in with a lot of technological changes such as the use of materials like iron and steel, the use of new energy sources such as fuels, coal, the steam engine, electricity and the invention of new machines such as the spinning jenny and the power loom. All this had one thing in common and that was “increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy” hence marking progress as an “inevitable phenomenon”.

Now, I notice that the title of this article is digitalization, so I won’t want to lure your mind to the total concepts of history even though history in itself is an interesting phenomenon. So, lets fast forward our minds to Digitalization and its inevitability.

Various writings have analyzed Digitalization to be 3rd phase of industrial revolution that began in the 1900s. It is characterized by the increase of automation digitization through the use of computers and electronics, invention of the internet and discovery of things like the nuclear energy. This era observed the rise of electronics like never before and most of them had one thing in common, “automation of the industrial process.” In this era there also came advancements in telecommunications and this opened the way towards globalization.

But this isn’t all, there is a 4th phase of Industrialization (at least that what our history books don’t have, because it’s not history, this is the phase we are living in). And simply this phase of revolution is marked by digital transformations, personal devices (even personal Wi-Fi), data analytics and AI technologies. Simply devices are getting smaller and smarter. And all this may seem irrelevant but these things are influencing and transforming the business level decisions around the world. Just to make it clear, some of the milestones of the fourth industrial revolution are: Advanced Robotics, Large scale digitalization, big data, cloud computing technologies and machine learning.

But the main question comes in, how are we embracing this revolution in our daily lives? Most of all is Digitalization inclusive?

Before we dwell into all this, let’s take a few steps back and make sure that we all don’t confuse DIGITIZATION and DIGITALIZATION.

Digitization is simply the pure or total conversion from analog to digital. The conversion of existing data and documents. Simply think of scanning a photograph or converting a report paper to PDF. In digitization the data does not change but it simply gets into the digital format.

On the other hand, Gartner defines Digitalization to be “the use of digital technologies to change business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities: it is a process of moving to digital business.”

What we can grasp in between these two definitions is that digitalization moves beyond digitization, it simply grasps digital information technology to entirely transform a business process by reevaluating and reimagining the way you do business. Digitalization is simply transformation.

Our ability to embrace digitalization in our daily lives might not be a complicated question since we all saw how 2020 forced even entrepreneurs and small business owners integrate their businesses with digital strategies and for those who did not believe that digitalization can transform their businesses, they had to attend the capacity building sessions “virtually” hence making “digitalization inevitable”.

Since the inevitability of digitalization might not be in question anymore. What about its Inclusion?

“Digital Inclusion refers to the activities necessary to ensure that all individuals and communities, including the most disadvantaged have access to and use of Information and communication Technologies.”

This leaves us with a couple of questions to determine, whether as a country we do have digital inclusion. Do all individuals and most disadvantaged have access to use of ICT? Even without statistics, how wide is the gap interpreted by your own imagination?

In 2020, Digital Opportunity Trust (dot) released a report named “The Digital Shift”. Among other things it contained perspectives of Tanzanian youths that took part in the Tanzania Youth Summit 2020. One of the things that I noted from the report was the discussion on Digital Inclusion efforts for Rural Communities and Youths. The participants were of the opinion that our focus should be on how we can ensure rural youths & the communities are not left behind in the accelerated digital adoption that occurred in response to the pandemic.

Again, in June 2020 Afro Barometer released a policy paper titled “Africa’s Digital Divide and the Promise of E-learning”. Within this paper some challenges that were identified to be fueling digital divide in Africa included lack of resources such as electricity, equipment, limited access to internet, frequent electricity blackout and lack of online teaching skills.

However, the challenge of lack of online teaching skills was new to me but most of all it helped me realize that not only are the students in need assistance towards adaptation, but the facilitators as well.

All these findings left me not only with hesitation but also uncertainty. Hesitation in accepting whether or not our development agendas are inclusive and Uncertain on whether the digital transformation that we discuss with profound intelligence really is inclusive.

After reading this piece, one will task me with the question of what can the solutions be? And my thoughts are as follows:

We need to create policies that not only inscribe the necessity of Digitalization in our daily life or give detailed analysis on the demand of the skills related to digitalization. But policies that are inclusive of the population of the disadvantaged and individuals in all communities be it rural or urban. Most of all let us have policies that are being implemented.I am saying this because, it does no one any good to sit on piles of beautiful policies that cannot be implemented.

Maybe in another time we will get a chance of reviewing the ICT policy of Tanzania. And see what it holds for the future generation of Tanzania, “when its implementation is certain, complete and inclusive as well”.

As I pen down my thoughts (thanks to digitalization, I am now typing) I cannot help but think that back in the days of the Agrarian Revolution some farmers might have never been bothered because they saw vast pieces of land on their left and right. But the Enclosure Act and Industrial Revolution made it inevitable for them to change, maybe some of them moved from their small towns to industrial cities. But it never ended there, Industrial Revolution moved from bringing the steam engine to bringing automation and digitalization hence making change once again inevitable. Therefore, as much as topics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the use of Advanced Robotics may seem uninteresting and irrelevant, sooner or later they will be relevant and Inevitable. So let us not be the stubborn generation from the agrarian days.

It is not only Imperative for us to embrace digitalization but also crucial for all of us to make it inclusive.

Article Written by,

Ken Edwin Heriel.

kenedwin9@gmail.com