They have also been urged to make use of inter connectivity as the telecommunication industry evolves to open up markets in the area of agriculture, value added services, law, and Mobile Financial Services, the media and Tele-medicine.

Panelists made these points at a “Thought Leadership Forum”, in Accra as part of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunication’s five years anniversary. Mr Ace Ankomah, a private legal Practitioner, noted that with the advent of technology, over 60 million cases have been resolved annually with the use of E-Adjudication currently available on line. 

According to him, selection of lawyers and good law firms in various countries could also be done on line. He recounted that technology was efficient and could yield results in the area of setting up virtual courts, adding, court proceedings in some countries could be received few hours after court sittings.

The lawyer however noted that in Ghana law reports were received years after judgement had been delivered. Dr. Adrian Oddoye, Medical Director of Akai House, noted that in the quest to develop quality health care, technology, had been useful in Doctor-client relationships.

Dr Oddoye said some clients could take pictures of ex-rays and same could be sent to other medical doctors who would explain and advise accordingly.  Dr Oddoye said robotic equipments have been invented to embark on tele-surgery in the next five.

Mr Kow A. Sam, Chief Executive Officer of Prep-eez, a private firm, recounted that his outfit had captured data on farmers in Ghana, Mali and Nigeria in relation to the size of their farms, farm produce and their output. Mr Sam said this information had been offered to banks and that propelled famers to seek financial assistances as well as make electronic payments from their customers.

Based on that, Mr Sam said his firm have engaged young graduates to collect information on farmers. According to him, researches conducted in agriculture were not translated into seven local languages to educate farmers on some best agricultural practices. On Mobile Financial Services, Mr Andrew Takyi Appiah, Chief Executive Officer of ZeePay, a payment platform, said uploading and distributing content was no longer difficult with the evolution of technology.

Mr Appiah said in the next five years, mobile wallet would be the acceptable mode of payments and a way of life.