• The Fear of The Rise of Robots

    Have you ever wondered when and where you will ever use the boring integrals or surds you learnt in your high school mathematics?

    Well, wonder no more and don’t despair, Tech Entrepreneur Victor Kawagga is here to give us hope in this regard.

    There have been so many fears among people on the planet nowadays that almost any message of hope is highly likely to stir that which it intends to soothe.

    Incessant wars, Disease, Terrorism, Political despots, Religious fanaticism and Biased Journalism have greatly fueled this ubiquitous fear.

    A recent entrant to this list of fears is the fear of the rise of robots and Artificial Intelligence.

    I won’t be surprised if many, if not all of you disagree with Victor’s remark that robots won't steal our jobs, because I know that it is not easy to come to terms with counter-status quo and counter-intuitive comments.

    Right from the tech-themed movies released nowadays to the smart phone revolution, the status quo is imbued with, or at least is portrayed to be gripped by a cataclysmic fear that humanity is doomed in the face of robots.

    We have collectively been engulfed, thanks to the naïve and biased news stories, by the fear that robots could one day out-compete human beings in the making of goods and deliverance of services in our economies.

    Whether this fear is justified or not is immaterial but what is of significant economic consequence is that a myriad of tech-entrepreneurs is rising amidst, against and in response to this global fear.

    I was privileged to meet and chat with one of these rising tech-entrepreneurs. His name is Victor Paul Kawagga.

    He is a Ugandan born, autodidact robotics guru who has dedicated his life to not only debunking the myths and stereotypes surrounding robotics but also directly exposing how and why robots are not to be feared but to be embraced.

    Victor, as the Chief Technical Officer, is championing this dream of making the world embrace the usefulness of robots through his initiative of Glocal Interactives Uganda Limited.

    Alongside the CEO Catherine Tushabe, Projects manager Samson Kasozi, Director of Education Program Ruth Mbabazi and Operations manager Robert Mutebi, Victor is steadily improving the society’s perception of robots.

    Victor and team have carefully crafted an ingenious school out-reach training model of robotics whose long term goal is to equip all schools in Africa with usable knowledge on robots.

    The management of Glocal Interactives is passionate about unleashing this novel and practical science of robotics because it is concerned about the continuous indoctrination of students with outdated knowledge of science which creates a bunch of clueless citizens in return.

    Victor is not only stopping at re-assuring Ugandans about the usefulness of robots but is also on a larger forum; Pan African Robotics Competitions Committee of 2019 to orchestrate his dream globally.

    It is indeed an entrepreneurial instinct for one to explore an idea dreaded by others.