AFRICAN CONTEXT FOR TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURES FOR DIGITAL
LEARNING AND THE ENDOGENOUS GROWTH OF A KNOWLEDGE
ECONOMY

AFRICAN CONTEXT FOR TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURES FOR DIGITAL
LEARNING AND THE ENDOGENOUS GROWTH OF A KNOWLEDGE
ECONOMY

GABRIEL KABANDA

The Southern African countries, embodied as the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
region, face sustainable development problems and low global competitiveness. Innovation in the
education sector presents a promissory note that can stimulate an endogenous growth of the
knowledge economy and reduction of poverty. Technological futures in digital learning are largely
influenced by complexity, simulation and modeling, and decision-making capabilities. The paper is
purposed to develop an endogenous growth model for a knowledge economy for SADC countries
where digital learning is the engine for sustainable growth with its associated technological futures and
complexity. The learners in ubiquitous learning environments are able to access the various contents
on the Web, search the electronic databases, interactively communicate with instructors and other
learners and obtain knowledge anytime and anywhere through wireless technologies. The diffusion
discourse and the social embedded innovation can achieve a desirable impact in development, mainly
through ICTs for development (ICT4D). Social media is one area that has introduced complexity in the
digital learning environment. Chaos Theory is used to seek understanding of the aperiodic behaviour in
deterministic, non-linear dynamical systems in a digital learning environment and the design thereof.
The Lorenz attractor for such a learning environment is innovation that brings solutions and relevancy
to the developmental agenda, with Lyapunov exponents expressed by divergent trajectories of ICT4D.
The Jacobian matrix grows exponentially with each technology that goes through diffusion and
adoption. The Neo-classic theory of growth is about technical progress premised on exogenous factors
and driven by labour, capital and technology. Technology diffusion in SADC is not exogenous. The
endogenous growth theory is a model of long-run economic growth that emphasizes that technological
change is influenced by economic incentives and a great diversity of resources in an African
environment, which largely supports innovation, an embodiment of knowledge in capital and learning
by doing. The mixed method methodology is used in this research, which is a research study of the
SADC region countries. Mixed methods often combine nomothetic and idiographic approaches in an
attempt to serve the dual purposes of generalisation and in-depth understanding—to gain an overview
of social regularities from a larger sample while understanding the other through detailed study of a
smaller sample. The methodology used was largely qualitative on human capital development and
technology diffusion, and quantitative on GDP and Infodensity covering 18 countries in East and
Southern Africa. The 18 countries covered by the qualitative study are South Africa, Angola, Bostwana,
Burundi, D.R. Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. An endogenous model for sustainable economic
growth is developed through panel data analysis. Panel Data is a data set that contains repeated
observations over time, i.e., observations on multiple phenomena observed over multiple time periods
for the same firms, individuals, households, enterprises, countries, or any set of entities that remain
stable through time. An endogenous model for a knowledge economy for SADC countries is proposed.

Basic Research Journal of Engineering Innovation

2013