I.T and innovation enthusiasts are Ghana's endangered intellectual species. Sidelined from mainstream political discourse, this herd needed a voice but even more importantly Ghana needed to hear this voice.

And so to connect the needy problems to needed solutions, Ghana's most established thought-leader held the first-ever Joy FM Technology and Innovation Summit dubbed JOTIS 2014.

The objective of JOTIS is to put young successful achievers at the centre of big national problems, to which they are to suggest practical solutions.

Not surprisingly, the auditorium was packed- with questioning youth, 'hungry' youth and even frustrated youth eager to make a difference.

Their passionate interest combined with four seasoned guest speakers to secure a promising atmosphere of intellectual discourse - all the organizational muscle work of your thought-leader, Joy FM.

The room was slightly dark to allow focus on the slides, but the lights in their minds were on.

Guest speakers 

Beginning his 15-minute lecture with a despairing picture of Ghana's leadership over the years, Bright Simmons lamented the sheer number of leaders at all levels who lack  "silicon leadership".

Silicon leadership -" a science-based, innovation-oriented, internationally-competitive, and original-thinking nation", he said.

You could hear a pin drop.

And to prove the need for this kind of leadership, he picked out four governance scenarios - Ghana's reliance on cocoa, the Precious Minerals Marketing Company, SADA and SUBAH.

Time to re-think cocoa

Sounding bells of worry, he said  cocoa was the solution to the needs of colonial Britain with industries to feed. But after over a 100 years reliance on the golden pods, surely it was time to change the menu of Ghana's export earnings.

"The extreme focus on cocoa is one of the prime examples of the lack of innovative thinking and that if I had my own way, tomorrow will shut down Cocoa Board", he told a gathering at Joy FM's  Technology and Innovation Summit dubbed JOTIS 2014.

Cocoa, like the sagging breast of a 70-year old, does not deserve the attention it is currently getting.

Already, the sign of cocoa's past glories are on the wall, he noted. Ghana has an ageing cocoa farming population, Bright Simmons argued, and the country’s non-traditional exports gave 40% more in terms of revenue than cocoa.

World market price of cocoa, which contributes about 3.4 per cent to the country’s Gross Domestic (GDP) has been falling, it dropped from US$3,747 in March 2012 to a little above US$2,660.

And when Bright Simmons charged that  "we have forced our brains into a box that says cocoa is important", a wave of frustration surged in his voice.

The frustration of saying things over and over again but with every counsel bouncing off a Made-In-Ghana  stronghold of conservatism.

Precious Minerals Marketing Company(PMMC)

Precious Minerals Marketing Company's understanding of innovation was questioned. It cannot be simply producing gold, jewelry and sticking it up on a website, Mr. Simmons explained.

"It has not occurred to them that jewelry is a fashion product....it is something that you have to partner the Kofi Ansah's of this world to create brands... if you are at PMMC and you really want to add value to gold then get brand experts and other designers to push that agenda.”

Savanah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) doomed to fail

Heaping another tonne of criticism to arguably one of the most ridiculed government programmes in recent times, Mr. Simmons said too much traditional thinking went into the concept of SADA and that the programme could never pass an innovative test.

SADA is a government agency set up to develop the northern savannah ecological zone deemed neglected and poor.

The slow pace of development in the three northern regions has resulted in a severe drift of the region's youth to the south in search of non-existent jobs and opportunities.

SADA, credited as a fantastic idea, came under severe public criticism after Joy News uncovered stories of gross mismanagement.  Although 32.4 million Ghana cedis was allocated to SADA to implement the afforestation project, there is not much to show on the ground.  

SADA paid for 5 million trees but got 700,000  and a budding mango plantation dried out after no arrangement was made to irrigate them in the dry season.

Bright Simmons  said the question that should be asked of every module or idea about SADA was "is it innovative?"

He said bamboo which could flourish in the savannah could be used to change fortunes of the region. Today, bamboo is used to produce durable bicycles which are exported to Europe.

Monitoring call tax can't cost Ghc 144 million - how about $150, 000?

But perhaps the most riveting application of innovation was Bright Simmons's take on SUBAH Infosolutions.

SUBAH was a project to help government monitor the payment of a telecommunications tax by telcos. It was expected to compare whether the telcos provided the right tax information to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

They were also expected to monitor the number of calls made by the telcos; the minutes spent on each call and compare it with the level of revenue declared by the telcos. They could do that by connecting their equipment to some physical nodes of the telecom companies to monitor revenues.

But Bright Simmons begged to differ. He said we didn't need to monitor call when we could collect the tax relying on pre-paid cards bought by clients.

"What you have to do is to look at the billing engines of the telcos and see when they [consumers] are topping up credit and billing it there...so anytime I buy credit the system knows that 5% belongs to government. Why do you have to buy equipment to monitor calls?"

He said it is possible to design a security robust module insert it into the billing engines of telcos. The juicy part is that it would not cost more than $150,000 - not $144 million.

Big money spent on a simple cost-saving projects all because innovative questions were not asked.

Is anybody listening?

The faces of an attentive crowd had a 'what is wrong with us?' look sculptured on their faces.  The delivery sinking in. Minds processing the four scenarios painted by Bright with paints of promise and despair.

He finished off .

Ghana needs leaders whose understanding of technology is beyond using social media, he  said.

“What we are arguing for is not leaders who can do facebook and twitter...What is missing in Ghana today is the absolute, the pathetic and the regrettable lack of silicon leadership." 

Silicon leaders, he said, have a mentality of questioning every traditional knowledge and looking out for innovative ways of achieving economic transformation.

A gentleman walked up to the podium, vented a couple of his frustrations and asked what everybody would have asked.

"Is anybody listening?".

With Ghana's most innovative thought-leader, Joy FM, involved, hopefully the answer is - yes.