According to Dr Afriyie, many middle income countries such as Ghana had failed to keep pace with the various waves of industrial revolutions including the fourth industrial revolution.

He was speaking at the 2nd edition of the Ghana Digital Innovation Week celebration yesterday and organised in partnership with stakeholders such as the MESTI and the Ministry of Communication and Digitalisation.

The three-day programme had in place exhibition sessions where innovators exhibited the innovations and technologies they had developed.

It was on the theme “Localising Ghana’s digitisation and innovation eco-system: opportunities for economic development”.

“The world has gone through various waves of industrial revolution and across all these waves of revolution, developing and middle income countries have not been able to keep pace as expected, “Dr Afriyie said.

“The fourth industrial revolution is yet another wave of the industrial revolution that has ushered the world into an era of frontier technologies. But developing countries such as Ghana must cease the opportunity to leapfrog these and not go through the routine part that our developed peers passed through’, Dr Afriyie added.

He explained that in as much as developing countries were struggling to keep up with the pace of industrial revolution, positive contributions could be made based on cultural experiences and socio-cultural circumstances.

According to Mr Afriyie, the celebration of the Innovation Week was a demonstration of the country’s commitment to keep pace with the direction of innovation.

In a speech read on her behalf the Minister of Communication and Digitalisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu – Ekufful stated that her outfit would continue to nurture the local innovation eco-system and build networks abroad.

She said this required the collective responsibility of all and therefore called on both private and public corporations to join hands in that regard.

For his part, the German Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Daniel Krull said the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine posed a security threat on digitalisation.

“This Russia-Ukraine war makes it clear to all of us the security threat of digitalisation. Russia has attacked companies, governments and institutions in Germany and Europe around the world. Russia is using social media for fake news and dirty campaigns”, Mr Krull said.

Due to the security threat on digitalisation, Mr Krull said there was the need for countries including Ghana to formulate stringent data protection law in order to protect data collection.

“Data is the new gold, data is the new oil. So with Ghana being very progressive in digitalisation, I am sometimes surprised and a few questions I ask is how safe is our data. With the data collected on the Ghana Card, where are all these data stored”, Mr Krull asked.