Contador Harrison

Da Vinci Surgical System that facilitates complex surgery using a less invasive approach is finally taking shape in the African continent. A friend of mine who works with Intuitive surgical Inc. informed me that they are looking forward to expand their market to more parts of Africa. Da Vinci surgical system is used for repairing cardiac valve, gynecologic surgical procedure prostatectomies. Da Vinci robots are said to operate in several thousand hospitals globally but there has been few of the systems in Africa hospitals due to lack of skilled staff. The fact is that most hospitals are state or religious institutions controlled with majority of them in dire need of infrastructure development. The prohibitive cost of the system has also locked out many willing hospitals from buying the system because on average it costs close to US$2 million with hundred thousand dollars of annual maintenance fees something that poorly financed hospitals cannot ...

Africa’s growth and development has had its proponent and opponents. I have evaluated both sides and have realized attracting investment varies in each country. Tanzania’s huge foreign direct investments are a result of peace and tranquility that enabled the country to enjoy unmatched stability for more than half a century and not the new found mineral wealth as some would want us to believe. This factor is often taken for granted by many governments in Africa but investors I have worked with shares my opinion that stable environment is sole responsibility of state and is worth mentioning among private sector players. At least half of African countries are proud that stability is now a reality. Countries like Mauritius, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya have recently been described as possessing all characteristics of modern, productive and expanding democracies. There is no doubt Eastern and Southern African countries have widesprea...

Converged infrastructure has become the most talked about word in the IT industry over the past two years. In Western Europe and North America, it stands for the integration of computing, storage, networking and infrastructure management into an integrated system to help organizations increase efficiency, agility and IT service quality. When it comes to developing world of Africa, Latin America and Asia, it has contributed to fast pace of business growth and has resulted in transformation of the datacenters and organizations are increasingly facing challenge with the prospect of delivering applications and IT services on demand to a flexible and dynamic workforce. Converged infrastructure has been the key solution to fast delivery of IT services in countries like South Africa, Singapore and Australia by maximizing data center efficiency, and strengthening IT service quality. Last year, Gartner, a global research company estimated that in the next two years, a third o...

Connectivity is critical for sustaining Uganda’s economic growth. There is no doubt the country has shortages on infrastructure, in particular airports and ports around strategic areas around Lake Victoria. The recent announcement by Uganda Civil Aviation Authority that plans are afoot to build new facilities at Entebbe International Airport is welcome news to both tourists and business community. One can only wish that the slow progress that has characterized such projects would be missing. In this light, the Civil Aviation’s announcement that other airports will start commercial operations in coming years is greatly welcome. There is need for CAA to refurbish the outdated and overrun airports across the country to drive the aviation industry to greater heights and that would also help in revival plans of Uganda Airlines. Last year, some 1.23 million passengers used the airport, though its capacity is expected to handle up to 3 million passengers and, according to C...