By Wilson Ntulume
Technology has evolved the way we know life and the way we perceive everything about how humans behaved a hundred or so years ago. It has transformed culture through numerous advancements in technology. It has replaced the traditional ways of greeting with so-called “up-to-date” greeting styles of “hi”, “hello” and so on.
And sometimes we don’t know how to address those above uses because how social media has made greetings more of a mutual understanding than the official way of doing business.
I have seen that mainly in African culture, where it’s incumbent on the child to address their parents with a certain way of greeting. Oaths could be “Eladde Mama,” which translates as “how have you been for those in Buganda,” but these and other traditions have been supplanted by western culture or way of life.
Am Wilson Ntulume is a second-year student at Makerere University offering a Bachelor’s Degree in Telecommunications Engineering. I am being carried along through my academic endeavors by the generous non-profit organization, The Rose Namaynja Foundation. You are correct in calling it the RNF in this day and age. It’s a great opportunity to write regarding this matter, seeing as I live this reality with every breath that I take.
Firstly, we will all agree that humanity was created to evolve, grow, and develop every other day. And such technologies will also continue to mature along the same patterns. We should accept this reality as the one thing we cannot do without if we are to keep our eyes on the future.
Seeing that I am in a third-world country, Uganda, if not a second-world, knowledge of and access to technology are limited to many individuals in society. Despite its benefits of it, it’s still scarce like water in the desert, making the digital divide quite large among the natives of the land. Though progress is made every other day. When a terror like no other hit in the year 2020, it was sore and bitter for the countries and sectors that had not embraced technology.
Schools and institutions were closed to keep under control the new non-deterring enemy to humanity. I went a full year without enjoying the comfort of learning and progression in knowledge. Though on my part, it did me some good, which has been a good milestone for the destiny I want to achieve.
During that period, I embarked on learning about new technologies that were booming and taking an arrowhead in this “dotcom” generation.
I started to read about NFTs, Bitcoin, video editing, photography, and graphics. Designing and Programming These I learned with no requirement of a physical teacher instructing me and evaluating. One of the biggest lessons I learned is that I can be anything I choose to set my heart to.
That period taught me how to be alone and fellowship with all manner of wisdom and knowledge. And one thing I would love to add. My generation is that your mind can adapt to anything you set yourself to do with all diligence. All that I learned was because of the available internet, as it’s known as “the internet of things.” Whatever material you will need to enhance your life is available online. Refuse to struggle through life while you can learn anything.
With the same skills I learned, we have been able to build a company called Beautyperls, which is an online shop dealing with both male and female beauty products, and we have pattern ships with big companies. We coded or created our website and have grown our sales with the very skills we set ourselves to do in the year 2020.
We do our social media marketing and create graphics and videos, which are essential if you are to create any standing brand in this generation. To the point above, I stand to say that there has never been a time like this in history to be able to learn anything because knowledge is available. Though my part of the story is a bit charming to hear, it has not been quite the same for everyone out there. Many people were desperate to make money online, but it wasn’t all milk and honey on everyone’s tongue.
Many were cheated through online investments that promised heaven and a poverty-killer machine for every Dick, Tom, and Harry.
Unfortunately, this was just dry wind with no power to yield rain. For those who had high hopes for the new wake of dawn, which was twilight for many, it was sorrow and gnashing of teeth.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t exercise ourselves with the opportunities available to us today. The world has evolved and will continue to do so whether you are on board or not. Information, as some may prefer to call it, knowledge, is the key to whatever milestone you may want to achieve in life. Back to the point of culture, every community is distinct from another by the way they live their lives.
This is done through the inbuilt customs and norms of culture and the practices that come along with them. But these will continue to phase out as we more and more adapt ourselves to the new western way of life.
This is mainly influenced by the technologies that have eased life, thus phasing away the way we conduct ourselves. For example, one doesn’t need to be in the Bagishu community to have a circumcision since this can be conducted in hospitals as minor surgery. This has made the action safer and more reliable, though we have lost the culture there. I choose to advise my generation to take on technology and understand that the world is moving on and we have to be at the forefront of this advancement.
There is so much that technology has do
