Afro@Digital (NR)

synopsis

The documentary asserts that computing technology may in fact be indigenous to Africa. The new field of ethno-mathematics has discovered the oldest calculating tool in the world in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. Named the 'Ishango bone' after its place of origin, it uses a base twelve system devised 15,000 years before the construction of the pyramids. Despite the relative scarcity of computers on the continent, the largest source of coltan, a product used in most microprocessors, is the Congo.