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President Bill Clinton described Philip Emeagwali as “one of the great minds of the Information Age” and as “the Bill Gates of Africa.”
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Emeagwali

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  1. Africa Must Produce or Perish

    13-06-2008 10:34 door Philip
    - Imagine that it is May 25, 2063, the 100th anniversary of Africa Day, a day for reflecting on Africa’s successes and failures. The newspaper headline announces, “Last Remaining Oilfield in West Africa’s American Territory Dries Up.” The article continues: “The last patch of rainforest will soon be empty land scarred by oil pipelines, pumping stations, and natural gas refineries. Wholesale pollution will be the environmental legacy for future generations. “Africa’s offshore oil reserves will ebb away. Abandoned oil wells could well become tourist attractions, and oil-boom settlements will be transformed into derelict ghost towns. “…

  2. Technology Widens Rich-Poor Gap

    13-06-2008 10:27 door Philip
    - Oil has made us billions and fuelled our economic stability, but oil has also become the bane of our existence. For some, it is a curse that has caused poverty and corruption, but for others it is an essential source of untold wealth and power. But as the gap between rich and poor countries continues to expand, it is clear that intellectual capital and technology rule the world, and that natural resources such as oil, gold, and diamonds are no longer the primary determinants of wealth. Surprisingly, nations with few natural resources demonstrate greater economic growth rates than OPEC countries. Japan’s economic growth, driven by technological superiority, outpaces that of Saudi …

  3. Technology is the Root of All Evil

    13-06-2008 10:25 door Philip
    - According to history books, gun-wielding European slave traders kidnapped one in five Africans and transported them across the oceans to the Americas. A less visible, but no means less drastic technological tool of suppression, is the compass, a device used worldwide for navigation. In the same way that Britain used its maritime knowledge and the US harnessed its intellectual capital to rule the world, the early slave traders used the simple compass to wreak havoc on civilization. It is a sad fact that the innocuous navigation tool originated during and was fuelled by the Atlantic slave trade. The technological development of the innocent compass, invented in China for religious divina…

  4. Beyond the Last Computer

    13-06-2008 10:22 door Philip
    - I felt the hard, cold steel of a gun against the back of my head. I spun around and saw my assailant’s finger shaking on the trigger: “Don't run or I'll shoot you,” he said. I was just 14 years old, and death was a stranger to me. It was 1969, and Nigeria was embroiled in civil war. As a teenage refugee conscripted into the Biafran Army, I was forced at gunpoint to carry weapons to the Oguta front. It was a 24-hour, march through mosquito-infested mangroves flooded by the River Niger. When the 30-month war ended on January 15, 1970, I was discharged and reunited with my parents. Together with one million returning refugees we walked for three days, avoiding la…

  5. The Graves Are Not Yet Full

    09-04-2008 09:49 door Philip
    - Walk with me down memory lane. The time: 1968. In 30 months, one million dead. The setting: a dusty camp in Biafra where survivors waited and hoped for peace. The survivors: Refugees fleeing from the “Dance of Death.” My mentor: One of the refugee camp directors, whom I called “Teacher” out of respect. “Martin Luther King has been killed,” Teacher said, with a pained voice and vacant eyes. I looked towards Teacher, wondering: “Who is Martin Luther King?” I was a 13-year-old refugee in the west African nation of Nigeria, a land then called Biafra. Martin Luther King. What did that name mean? Eight out of ten Biafrans were refugees exile…

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