Lead — don’t follow

technology
With bated breath, thousands of Zimbabweans were waiting for the iPhone 5 to be manufactured in China (close to Africa) shipped over to America and then be shipped through Durban and finally over the border into Zimbabwe.
Most people are content with paying US$1 500 for an iPhone 5.
We are content with waiting for the innovative instigation of the West and then paying a whole lot more for it.
Breaking it down
In the United States the average salary is about US$3 000 per month.
When the iPhone 5 came out, American citizens used 10 percent of their income (US$299) to buy an iPhone 5 through contract engagement with cellphone networks. Zimbabweans have an average salary of US$300 per month, yet some were willing to pay the exorbitant amount of US$1 500 for an American- designed, Chinese-made piece of technology.
If the iPhone 5 was being sold in America for US$1 500, no one would buy it, absolutely no one.
It is not worth 50 percent of people’s monthly income, yet Zimbabwe is willing to wait and pay a premium for this device.
Something is wrong
I know people who make US$300 a month who scrapped money together to buy an old iPhone 4 for US$500.
Why is there such a desire for people in the country to support the inventions that get sold to us at exorbitant prices?
I would not be surprised if the vast majority of the parts in the phone were manufactured using resources that came from Africa.
Zimbabwe has a culture of applauding the person who can get the latest gadget first.
Who can get the latest Mercedes/BMW/Jeep? We applaud them for having obtained something regardless of the cost or practicality of the achievement (with the deterioration of our roads and the rains just around the corner is a low clearance model really worth it).
Keeping up with the Joneses has never worked, regardless of where you are in the world.
Instead, we should recognise and support innovation and invention.
At the same time this recognition should be without everyone trying to jump on the bandwagon and getting their cut.
Just be grateful that someone has succeeded in creating something amazing and not try steal it, undercut their ideas or demanding a part of it.
The economy should support productivity and creativity and not make it prohibitive to set up a factory or business.
There is no point in having a brilliant idea if we are going to sell it to the highest bidder who will produce it in a foreign country with no benefit ever coming to local industry and job creation.
It is time as a nation we start to ask the real hard questions, like why are we consistently exporting raw materials and never seeing the next stage in the factory development here?
Where are the Zimbabwean patents that really work? Not some cheap, rip-off scam but real inventions that have the power to change the world.
We have been struggling with electricity issues for the last decade, surely by now we should be experimenting with new and more efficient ways of energy generation and not just importing generators and fuel to compensate.
If we are going to continue to sit back then we will continue to be at the mercy of the both the West and the East who will continue to take our raw materials and sell them back to us at five times our monthly income.
It takes a change of attitude on both a national and individual level.
It takes a different sort of waiting that says I refuse to pay an exorbitant price for a phone and I am willing to work a little harder to create the environment where I can get it at a fraction of my monthly income.
Let us not play catch up, and pay a premium for waiting. There is a season we must tap into where we become the innovators.
Let us make the United States wait on the latest African idea and pay a premium for it.
Africa should be a hotbed of invention where the rest of the world comes to find out how it is done.
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