There is a lot of money to be made in space activities like space travel, space tourism, and space advertising, that Africa needs to take advantage of its generational scientific and economy.
Mr Bright Ladzekpo, a Technology Consultant, who gave the advice on a national broadcast channel on Monday, while speaking on the “Africa Aerospace Initiative” said the continent’s representation in the aerospace industry was far behind the rest of the world.
This hindered the tapping of benefits from both the scientific and business perspective such as tracking climate change, satellite internet and promotion of agriculture.
By 2050, Mr Ladzekpo said, it was estimated that Africa would have one out of four people in the world, and those people would be a young generation.
“So, the onus lies on us to educate and prepare the generation. We are so far behind and need to accelerate to close the gap in technology trainings in institutions including high schools,” he added.
The Technology Consultant noted that the Africa Space Agency was created in 2023 in Egypt, and there was also the Africa Aerospace Forum, being promoted, which signified a step by the continent to catch up and called on Ghana to invest in her young generation to tap the extreme benefits in space.
“China recently brought moon rocks down and that can be done by us too. We believe capacity building and identifying talents is the starting point and once we get our young people ready, they will make us proud.
“There are a lot of satellites in space already, but it will take ten times more to cover the world in terms of non-earth orbiting satellites that can beam satellite internet. So, Africa can fill in some of the gaps, apart from the border monitoring systems,” he said.
With Artificial Intelligence and globalisation, Mr Ladzekpo said Africa could close the gap investing in its young people in Information Technology.
“We have to invest in our young people. It’s not cheap to access Ivy League education and Engineering in Science education at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. We need to have more scholarships, more endowment funds in the university, the US and UK among others to power the move of growing the numbers,” he said.
He noted that it was unworthy to wait for diversity inclusion and equity to present itself to the continent especially Ghana, without first investing in her people.
King Solomon Mawuena Ladzekpo, the 2023 Overall Best A-Level student in IT, Cambridge International Education Examination series, said aerospace was an area that could have a great impact on the economy especially with internet access.
In the next 10 to 15 years, he proposed that Ghana ramped-up on its globalisation education drive, saying: “Because I feel if you give to the world, the world will surely give back to you.”
GNA
SOF
02 July 2024
Images attached
