High-Techin Togo

　　For a tech entrepreneur and peace activist，Mawuna Koutonin has unlikely roots.

　　The 40-year-old was born in a remote village insoutheast Togo， and grew up to become the first of hisfather’s 36 children to earn a university degree. In 1994，Koutonin traded his basic food allowance at universityto pay for his first class in computers. The following yearhe and a group of friends opened one of Togo’s firstInternet news portals.

　　Since then， Koutonin has founded two onlineventures， Goodbuzz， a marketing platform that utilizesembedded games to drive traffic flow， and SiliconAfrica，a news site that focuses on Africa’s tech startup andentrepreneurial environment.

　　Koutonin caught up with ChinAfrica’s reporterNicholas Compton to share his views on Africa’sdevelopment. Excerpts of his thoughts follow：ChinAfrica： As the founder and editor at SiliconAfrica，how have you seen the tech scenedevelop in Africa and where do you see it goingfrom here？

　　Mawuna Koutonin： The tech scene is still at aninfant level in most African countries， probably exceptSouth Africa. Africa is at the end of technology valuechain， acting just as a consumer market where foreignhardware and software companies dump end of cycleor public-grade level technologies.

　　Africa has almost no global tech brand...100 percentof hardware and software is imported. For example， Nigeriaimports over $30 billion of software licenses andrelated products and services every year. Most of thelocal software developers are framework and toolkitsusers， not binary-level computer scientists or engineers.

　　You’ve publicly stated your goal of establishinga school for youth to learn robotics， manufacturingand entrepreneurship in Togo by 2017.

　　How did this goal come to fruition， and how isthe process coming along？

　　The school idea is a long dream of mine to create anengineering center in the heart of Africa - Kikongo(Democratic Republic of Congo) - that would teachbasic material processing， engineering design， mathematicsand manufacturing - from metal fabrication toassemblies， which would one day grow to a world classcompany， like Boeing or Rolls Royce. It’s a big dream.For now， my idea is to start a prototype of the schoolin Togo， my home country. Once the model provesfunctional and performs adequately， and we have accumulatedenough management skillsand experience， then Congo will be thefinal destination.

　　What do you think of the ongoingevolution of Sino-African relations？

　　What steps do you thinkneed to be taken for truly mutualbenefit from these ties？

　　China has a part of its history whichis very similar to ours. China has beenunder the evil domination of foreigncountries several times. China haslearned faster than Africans how to endthe negative effect of imperialism and in the same timedusted its citizens from victimhood to a self-reliant andproud country.

　　The worst case for Africans would be Chinese becoming totally unideological about their relationshipwith Africa， and allying themselves with the West to lootmore from the continent. So instead of one oppressor，we would have to deal with two big oppressors.

　　My wish is that the similarity of our history with theWest might motivate Chinese to be sensitive to Africannations’ wish to escape colonialism and imperialism.

　　In a broader sense， how do you think the internationalcommunity should conceive of andconduct relations with African countries？

　　I think Africa should not ask for any favor from anyone，even from the so-called international community. Likea foreign diplomat once said， “Countries don’t havefriends， they only have interests.” The world needs Africamore than Africa needs the world. Africans shouldfirst understand that and negotiate from that position.We are resourceful continent， envied by many. We arenot the ones who need pity.

　　We don’t need aid. Africans should have the courageto refuse aid， because aid makes our leaders lazy， corruptedand unaccountable. It creates a beggar mentalitywhich is now the biggest disease crippling Africanyouth and elite.

　　In that regards， the Chinese thought leaders couldbecome benevolent mentors for Africans leaders sharingthe Chinese experience in leadership， and tactics ofdealing with Western countries predatory behaviors.