Jonathan Ledgard
Jonathan Ledgard raises several questions in relation to the arrival of new technologies and infrastructures in Africa and how these have an impact on African development, both culturally and politically. He also discusses how these technologies bring with them foreign interests and expectations, which have a direct effect on Africa as a whole.
Synthesis
Big ideas about archiving and memory • Working for The Economist • Joining love of Africa, technology, and creativity • The archiving of the human brain – reverse engineering • The Merowe people of Sudan have their archive in the elements • Expand…
Big ideas about archiving and memory • Working for The Economist • Joining love of Africa, technology, and creativity • The archival of the human brain – reverse engineering • The Merowe people of Sudan have their archive in the elements • Technology is not the be-all and end-all • A youthful China shakes hands with a shy Africa • The Nokia 1100 – the most influential technology in Africa in the last fifty years • Life recording – an entire life compressed and stored • IBM predicts a tsunami of data • How will future generations of Africans relate to their past? • Africa has a history of non-archival practice • Digital data implies the recording of the present • Attitudes toward Africa will have to change in the future • The dangers of digital identities being controlled by the state and corporations
Short biography
Jonathan Ledgard, thinker on near future nature, technology, and politics. Director of the Afrotech initiative at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Expand…
Jonathan Ledgard, thinker on near future nature, technology, and politics. Director of the Afrotech initiative at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, where he works to pioneer advanced technologies on a massive scale in Africa through projects including the development of virtual coins and cargo robots. A long-time Africa correspondent for The Economist who has reported stories from 50 countries and on several wars, he is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, Giraffe (2006) and Submergence (2013).