Introduction

In Africa today, “tech” has become the new badge of progress, a word used so often, and in so many ways, that it has almost lost its meaning. Attend a conference in Lagos, Nairobi, or Accra and you’ll hear it everywhere, “tech startup,” “tech ecosystem,” “techpreneur.” It’s a language that signals modernity, but it also hides a quiet misconception: that technology must look foreign, sleek, and sophisticated before it is considered real.

Yet, every day, millions of Africans use, create, and adapt technology in ways that rarely make headlines. The mechanic who modifies car engines in a dusty workshop in Onitsha, the market woman who uses the local industrial machine for her business , or the rural farmer using solar-powered irrigation, these are not seen as “tech stories.” The continent has been taught to equate innovation with venture funding, coding bootcamps, and Silicon Valley partnerships. But perhaps it’s time to ask: what is really tech and who gets to define it?

The Myth of Tech in Africa

Over the past decade, Africa’s tech scene has grown impressively. Startups like Flutterwave, Andela, and M-Pesa have reshaped industries and attracted global investors. The numbers look promising — in 2022, African tech startups raised over $4.8 billion in funding, according to Partech Africa. But this boom also created a myth: that technology equals software, coding, or flashy apps.

In reality, the definition of technology is much broader, the application of knowledge to solve problems. But in many African spaces, tech has become a class marker. To be “in tech” is to be part of an elite conversation — English-speaking, laptop-owning, and globally connected. This narrow view has sidelined millions of creative problem solvers whose work is deeply technological, even if not digital.

The continent risks building an innovation culture that worships visibility over value. We celebrate every new app launch, but rarely the mechanic who does something new to an engine part, or the tailor who automates their workflow with a foot-pedal contraption. Yet these quiet innovators are the foundation of Africa’s resilience.

Tech in Everyday Life

Across Africa, technology is woven into daily life in humble, ingenious ways. Step into a roadside workshop in Aba, Nigeria, and you’ll see engineers who can build a working generator from scraps of metal. In Kenya, “jua kali” artisans, named after the Swahili phrase for “hot sun”, fabricate everything from bicycle parts to home furniture with locally sourced tools.

These craftsmen rarely call themselves technologists, yet their problem-solving approach embodies the essence of innovation: making things work with what is available.

Similarly, African farmers are adopting low-cost tools and community-built systems long before Silicon Valley noticed them. In Malawi and Ghana, smallholder farmers use simple SMS services to access weather updates and crop prices. In Nigeria, innovators have turned discarded plastic bottles into solar lamps for off-grid homes. These are forms of technology too, practical, human, and locally relevant.

Why Africa Misunderstands Tech

Part of Africa’s misunderstanding of “tech” comes from its colonial and post-colonial history. For decades, technology was imported, machines, systems, and knowledge that arrived from Europe or America, wrapped in foreign prestige. Western education reinforced that mindset: that to be “advanced” meant to replicate what was seen in London, Paris, or Silicon Valley.

This mentality persists today. Governments boast of “innovation hubs,” but many of these spaces replicate Western models without addressing local realities. A startup incubator in Lagos might teach Python programming, while rural schools still lack electricity. A nation celebrates fintech unicorns, but ignores local inventors who fix power grids with improvised materials.

The irony is that Africa’s traditional societies have always been technological, from irrigation systems in ancient Egypt to the iron-smelting furnaces of the Nok culture. Innovation didn’t begin with the internet; it began with the human instinct to survive and adapt.

Grassroots Tech and Local Ingenuity

Every African community has its quiet geniuses. In Sierra Leone, a self-taught inventor, Kelvin Doe, gained international recognition for building radio transmitters from discarded parts as a teenager. In Kenya, the “BRCK” project created rugged internet routers designed to survive erratic power supply. In rural Uganda, you would see youths transforming motorcycle batteries into mini-power banks for off-grid villages.

These innovations rarely trend on social media, but they transform lives. They show that “tech” does not need to be imported; it can be designed from the ground up.

However, what’s missing is an enabling environment. Most grassroots inventors lack access to funding, patent support, or manufacturing infrastructure. The African Development Bank (AfDB) notes that less than 2 percent of global R&D spending happens in Africa, despite the continent holding nearly 17 percent of the world’s population. Without local investment, ingenuity remains informal, celebrated on YouTube, but never scaled.

The Startup Illusion

Africa’s fascination with startups has produced both progress and pretense. For every truly transformative innovation, there are dozens of ventures chasing buzzwords, “AI for agriculture,” “blockchain for governance,” “edtech for impact.” These phrases attract investors, but often deliver little sustainable value.

This is not to dismiss startups entirely. Platforms like M-Pesa revolutionized mobile banking; Flutterwave simplified digital payments; Andela proved African talent can compete globally. But the deeper issue is the performance of tech, the idea that innovation must be glamorous to be real.

A report revealed that over 54 percent of African startups fail within three years, often due to lack of market fit, infrastructure, or policy support. Many founders admit they designed products for investors, not for the people they claimed to serve.

Meanwhile, local problems, waste management, transportation, access to clean water, remain under-innovated because they’re not “sexy” enough for global venture capital. This highlights Africa’s biggest challenge: confusing visibility for value.

Technology Is Culture Not Code

Technology is not only hardware or software, it’s culture. It’s the way societies adapt to challenges through creativity. When a community uses clay bricks to build houses, that’s technology. When a woman in Kigali uses recycled materials to design eco-friendly fashion, that’s innovation.

Across African cities, informal workers, welders, tailors, artisans, innovate daily under harsh conditions. They are engineers without certificates, coders without computers, yet they embody the continent’s inventive spirit.

The problem is not lack of technology; it’s lack of recognition. Our narrative of “tech” remains stuck in English-speaking conference halls while the real innovation happens in unglamorous corners, open markets, bus garages, and farms.

Policy, Education, and the Future of Real Innovation

For Africa to redefine technology, it must first localize it. Policymakers should move beyond slogans and invest in systems that support both digital and physical innovation. That means funding technical colleges, encouraging vocational training, and connecting research institutions with industries.

Countries like Rwanda are taking early steps. Its National Research and Innovation Fund supports homegrown solutions in agriculture and health tech. In Nigeria, initiatives like the Tertiary Education Trust Fund’s research grants are helping universities develop local technologies. But much more is needed.

Education remains the key. Africa cannot build a tech future with outdated curriculums that glorify theory over practice. Every school should teach not just coding, but creativity, how to identify problems and design local solutions. The African Union’s Agenda 2063 envisions “an Africa driven by innovation,” but that will remain rhetoric unless nations reward practical inventiveness as much as academic excellence.

Private investors, too, have a role to play. Rather than chasing the next unicorn, venture capital can fund scalable grassroots innovations, solar startups, waste recyclers, agricultural mechanization, water purification projects. These are the technologies that truly shape Africa’s development.

The Economic Case for Everyday Innovation

Redefining tech is not only cultural; it’s economic. According to reports, the informal sector contributes over 55 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP. That means the majority of productivity happens outside formal corporate structures. If governments and investors recognized these micro-innovations as legitimate technology, they could unlock massive economic potential.

Imagine structured support for local fabricators in Aba or metalworkers in Dar es Salaam. Imagine cooperative networks that help artisans patent their designs or sell products internationally. The next industrial revolution in Africa may not come from coding hubs, but from upgrading what already exists.

When we talk about the “future of work” in Africa, we must include these spaces. The mechanic’s workshop is as much a tech lab as the startup incubator; the open market as much an innovation hub as any coworking space in Nairobi.

Conclusion: Rethinking the Word ‘Tech’

Perhaps the real question is not what is tech, but who defines it. Africa’s greatest mistake would be to measure its progress by someone else’s tools. Technology should not be judged by its sophistication, but by its significance, how much it improves everyday life.

The continent’s future lies not only in coding, apps, or artificial intelligence, but in the creativity of its people, the unseen engineers, repairers, and makers who innovate daily out of necessity.

To truly thrive, Africa must broaden its idea of innovation. Recognize that the woman selling in the market and is using mobile money and online orders, to be part of the digital economy. That the young man who builds ‘things” from recycled motors is as much a technologist as a software developer.

In redefining “tech,” Africa can reclaim the power to define progress on its own terms, practical, inclusive, and human. The next big innovation might not come from Silicon Valley but from a mechanic’s shed in Accra or a solar tinkerer in Sokoto.

Because at the very basis, technology is not about machines; it’s about people who create changes and Africa has never lacked those who know how to make things work.