Information Technology can assure a great life for people anywhere; just expose them to this mine of wealth and eureka! Profound change begins.

See how mobile phones, satellite TV, and the Internet have changed our lives. See how different it has become from just a few years ago.

Think of how this could have been harnessed and focused on specific areas of our lives for well- planned and expected measurable ends. See what we are missing?

Information Technology can assure good education, good health, better security systems, better food security, better and fairer access to property and home ownership, better transportation systems, good access to jobs, businesses and investment opportunities, better and more effective governance and even social structures and systems and the list could go on.

No politician nor political party in Ghana has demonstrated- not even as part of their campaign manifestos (they do mention them for window dressing) a serious commitment to I.T. The good news is, it may not even require political leadership; it just requires a collection of individuals like you who can understand and commit to the future through I.T; the prospects for such, if they know what they are doing, can be overwhelmingly rewarding.

I suspect the next Nkrumah does not need to be a politician, just a guy who tries to make a difference through I.T.

In IT we have a biiiig chance, bigger than any and by far. IT is big for the individual, for a family, for a business, for a community and for a nation.

In case you've not noticed yet, no matter what our status in society is, each one of us is spending good portions of our incomes on I.T.: Mobile phones and phone talk time, Internet acquisition and usage time, satellite TV, pen-drives and other storage device, iPod, Mp3 players, laptops, PC's, tablets, and their software, including user applications; and these being some of the very obvious ways. There are those not too obvious but sometimes even more expensive ways like: Getting a new flat screen TV and not realizing that you just paid for all the technology and applications running your TV, a car with modern technology, a new home theater. How about using the ATM or the new prepaid Electricity metering system?

How about I.T. based medical equipment, tools and so on which we pay for indirectly anytime we visit the doctor?

We spend daily on food, clothing, entertainment, education, health, housing, transportation including many services in between. We do not seem to realize that for any goods or services we pay for, we actually pay for the Information Technologies/ Systems which went into giving us those goods.

The guys who imagine and innovate, those who build and maintain, those who repair and reengineer and all those who support these Information Systems that enable us get these goods and services in anyway are the ones who get our monies. They become rich, whether they come from, USA, India, Philippines, Brazil, and Kenyaor...

It does not really seem to matter where they live, what their level of education is, their background or any other consideration.

All that mattered in most cases was this: They got exposed to the possibilities of IT, they played with it for a while, became good at it and found a way to make this thing make life easier for them, and some didn't even think that they just hit the jackpot; but oh how they have.

"Sakawa" or Internet Fraud is a big menace in Ghana today. Most of the top guns engaged in it do not even know letters, they do not even fully appreciate computers or what great possibilities I.T. can offer them beyond their law- breaking activities but they are smart enough, they've played with the computer long enough.

Faced with lives of depravity and despondency (which does not however justify their activities) they see a clear and easy escape route through Internet based fraud (I.T. based). With no tutelage, no guidance most times only bits and pieces of how friends did it, they are good to go. As bad as it is, it has become a life changing endeavor for many a youth in the poor neighborhoods of our cities.

It is a bad example but isn't it strange that not many easy-to-identify good examples exist for success stories in I.T in Ghana? We hear stories of youth and even minors eight year olds, twelve, seventeen year olds doing great things with computers and I.T. elsewhere, how about us? Why not us?

Well I, just did something about the situation, I wrote about it, put it out here for you to read. Maybe I even succeeded in making you see things differently. I will go on to do more. How about you?

Most write-ups likes this end with a certain " we must do this and that ... Or that " chorus; even worse, they make it look like the solution must come from a politician, some authority or some sort like that, I,  choose to leave it to you, because really with I.T. the power truly is ours. If you think about how juveniles sitting in their rooms far away, from any government installation anywhere have caused major troubles for the security set-up of a nation like U.S.A., it should not be too hard to see how empowering Information Technologies/ Systems are.

Just see the possibilities around you; for yourself, your home, church/ mosque, business… your business, investments, job, education, et al.

What excuses do we have?

Be informed: Information Systems- I.S. "is”, Information Technology- I.T. "it"

IT IS Information Technology

IT IS Information Systems

IT IS it.

It reads forwards and backwards, it works anyhow you approach it, anyway you use it.. I mean I.T.  Information Technology is IT. See?