How Africa and the Middle East utilise creativity and tech innovation to enhance lives

Jabulani Sigege, group executive creative director – Machine and Loeries Digital jury member this year reflects on how Africa and The Middle East use technology (Image supplied)

Both regions produce the kind of work that nobly attempts to solve some of the most fundamental social and health issues, but you wouldn’t be amiss in thinking that the Middle East has far more social issues, which they tackle with solutions that involve tech.

This can be social media, installations, virtual worlds, AR and more.

The creative solutions from across Africa, on the other hand, seem to address both light-hearted as well as weightier issues.

Especially in South Africa, where the ability to laugh in the face of adversity and absurdness also exists in the digital landscape - and is made all the more interesting for it.

Hacking tech differently

South Africa and Africa-at-large have significantly smaller budgets to play with, than their Middle Eastern counterparts.

That always becomes evident in the Digital Craft section, where the polishing, the touching up, the sharpening, and the buffing of a piece of work are the focus.

It may be a case of more money, to get better expertise on work. Or maybe it’s more time to make it sing. Whatever it is, there is a level of sheen that elevates the work from outside of the continent.

But what is heartening is that ideas from outside of the Middle East can more than hold their own, even if sometimes they may have a roughness around the edges.

Sometimes, that’s exactly what gives them an edge; how people hack tech to use it in unthought or unheard-of ways.

Instead of accepting technology how it is, they change it to suit them and what they need – especially when it wasn’t originally designed with them or their circumstances in mind.

A social equaliser

What the most outstanding work from either region in the digital category does is tap into cultural capital, looking at the issues through that lens and letting that influence how the solution is found and amplified.

This happens often in diverse societies, where issues are more complex than in homogenous ones, as is found in the Western world.

So while the digital category won’t be transforming Africa or the Middle East into a Wakanda-like world in the next decade, what it is doing is continuously showcasing how creativity converging with tech enhances lives and standards of living.

A social equaliser, of sorts.

Or rather, a way of enabling those left behind to be able to catch up more quickly.

It gets better every year, suggesting that the well of creativity is deeper within digital and will keep producing “I wish I did that” work. The future is now.