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Article: A program for Africa's computer people: a little help from U.S. academics and business professionals could go a long way toward making the information sector an engine for economic development.
- Article from:
- Issues in Science and Technology
- Article date:
- March 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 National Academy of Sciences. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Jacob Aryetey has two personal computers on his desk, only one of which is connected to the Web. In his case, the Web-connected one is the anomaly. Aryetey is alone among the four computer science faculty at the University of Ghana to have Web access in his office. A native of Ghana, he is chairman of a computer science department that graduates about three dozen students a year.
A database specialist, the 48year-old Aryetey is on the front lines of a little-known aspect of Africa: the drive to develop a home-grown cadre of software programmers and computer engineers who can make an African city--maybe Accra, Ghana's capital--a hub of information technology (IT) ...