Africa-Press – Cape verde. José Brito believes that the digital economy and the creative industry can help leverage the development of Cape Verde and Africa, but that it is necessary to move from discourse to practice, with “consistency” policies.
Particularly with regard to Cape Verde, economist and entrepreneur José Brito envisions the country’s development potential in terms of the digital economy, taking into account that we currently live in a technological world, where there is a change in the development paradigm.
“It is no longer the problem of being a small country. Rwanda is a small country and is setting an example in terms of technological development. And Cape Verde can too, but you have to believe that it is possible, and that there is an opportunity, today. And that you have to invest in concrete and not in discourse. Because there is a lot of talk about the digital economy,” she explains.
digital colonization
Brito recalls that he was one of the first to create a digital economy company (Bonako) in Cape Verde, because he believed in this change. “I created the first Summit on Innovation in Africa (2014), to put Innovation on the agenda of public policies for development”. The digital economy, alert, is ruling the world. “It’s the big multinationals, it’s not the governments anymore. We are taking the risk, at this moment of a digital colonization. Today they are colonizing my thinking. In the past, colonialism was a physical presence, and nowadays you don’t need a physical presence. They’re getting me to vote for such a person, because they have ways of influencing my brain to do that. This is the new digital colonialism.”
But there are other positive sides of the digital world that can be applied, for example, to the creative industry, as a source of wealth production. “Let’s see what Africa has to offer. Let’s see the case of music. There is no better breeder in the area than the Africans. They are the ones who dominate in the United States, with the African-American diaspora, etc.”, he exemplifies.
northern domain
However, the commercialization system of this creativity, as he says, is still dominated by the “North”. “We have Google, Facebook, Youtube, which use all this to their advantage.
We have to create our platforms and give the African creator the possibility to earn from their work. This is a struggle that, unfortunately, does not reach a higher level of governance in the country, which does not have this perspective, that we can, in fact, do this”.
However, he believes that this is possible, but it is necessary to invest in people’s education and “in an ecosystem to support innovation” to allow this.
This analyst is fully confident that the digital economy can accelerate the development of Africa and Cape Verde.
“Finland, when they launched Skype, had nothing. In Kenya it was the same and, today, it is a reference from an international point of view, in which with the numerical currency (M-Pesa) they are already at another level”.
digital currency
Regarding, for example, the use of digital currency in Cape Verde, we are still far from that. “We have extremely conservative entities, particularly Banco de Cabo Verde. I tried to launch online money transfer a few years ago and I couldn’t get a license. They said it was because there was no law to regulate”.
This is because, as you recall, the BCV was afraid of money laundering and we did not do what Kenya did. “The Central Bank was against it, but the government said no and that they were going to let this industry develop and then we regulated it. Because you can’t regulate something that doesn’t exist, it has to exist for you to regulate,” he argues.
José Brito concludes that by denying globalization in Cape Verde, we may be “preventing” the development of “something totally new”.
Muska will reach the world
The first music streaming app made in Cape Verde – Muska – will be made available worldwide by the end of the year. The guarantee is from José Brito, one of the owners of Bonako, the first Cape Verdean digital games company.
Currently, the app is already available in Cape Verde and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), attesting to the success of the export of a digital economy made in Cape Verde by private individuals. In fact, the app was considered one of the TOP 10 at the first L’Afrique de l’Ouest Startup Summit, in November 2021.
The internationalization process is not always easy. “To develop the application with RDC, we did everything online, because we didn’t have the money to send people there. And it took much longer, because, online, the other side has to do its part, and the dialogue takes longer online”, he explains.José Brito argues that if there are not consistent public policies and an ecosystem to support companies in the sector, “we run the risk of increasing the mortality rate of Startups in the country”. But, with good policies, he argues, little by little they manage to get through this phase (from Startup to the commercialization of a product) and can recover the investment made in other Startups, hence the importance of “consistency” in policies for the sector. .
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