The world is changing rapidly due to the growth of the Internet, a global communications tool linking humans together in real time. Many organisations are analysing processes under the theme of "re-engineering" to further take advantage of technology and eliminate routine procedures.
The effect of the digital revolution on how we organise and work will be very important. Some analysts argue that concepts of work, employment, and the job will change forever.
A new factor has now been added to this equation - information. Today, the world is being transformed not only by using matter and energy, but also by information, leading to a new explosion of productivity. In one way, virtualisation is the increased substitution of matter by information.
This substitution has profound consequences for the relations of humankind to nature, between humans and other humans, and between humans and machines.
This new layer of information is becoming increasingly prominent as virtualisation gains momentum. In the industrial world, materialism was, long ago, simply "if you can't touch it, it is not real."
Today, it is nearly reversed to the point where it could be said, "If you can touch it, it is not real." Information has become more important - in political, economic, social, and philosophical terms - than material objects. The Internet, unlike other media, represents a new collective mental space. Hence the notion of cyberspace, a parallel "virtual" world, co-exists in tandem with the real world. Our pre-historic ancestors existed principally in a natural environment. Civilised humanity occupied an invented architectural environment (mentally speaking), where they would spend a great deal of time working and playing.
If this digital revolution is altering civilisation, it will also greatly impact on our metaphysical imagination, the basic building blocks of our experience. In Africa we cannot afford to be left behind in this race. And that is where the major challenge lies in a continent still grappling with the bare necessities of life.
Oscar Kimanuka is a commentator on social and economic issues based in Kigali.
Source:allAfrica
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