Infrastructure at Scale, Automation Culture, and The African Tech Blind Spot
The digital landscape is rapidly evolving, demanding robust and scalable infrastructure. Michael Uanikehi, a cloud and DevOps engineering leader at Techchak, emphasizes the critical need for resilient, reproducible, and observable infrastructure. His expertise, highlighted by certifications from AWS, Microsoft, and HashiCorp, demonstrates his ability to design and deploy systems serving numerous users and protecting sensitive data, particularly within the African tech context, and other sectors like finance, health tech, and logistics. This proficiency in scaling infrastructure across borders reveals the crucial elements for success in the modern cloud-native world.
Automation’s Human Element and African Tech Weaknesses
Uanikehi highlights that good infrastructure is not solely about virtual machines and networks; it encompasses code-defined pipelines, policies, and guardrails. He stresses the importance of version control and mitigating risks for effective scaling. However, he identifies a critical blind spot: the human element. While automation and infrastructure-as-code are key, he suggests that many tech companies, particularly in Africa, overlook the people aspect. This oversight creates vulnerabilities. For instance, the balance between speed and security demands careful consideration of who is building and maintaining the system, as well as what processes are in place to keep them running and to adapt them to changing circumstances. Uanikehi’s insights suggest that African startups’ infrastructure may be lacking a holistic approach that considers both the technical aspects and the people involved.
Keywords
Related Keywords: Infrastructure scale Africa, African tech infrastructure, automation culture Africa, scaling tech in Africa, Africa tech automation, infrastructure automation, tech talent Africa, African tech challenges, missing tech skills Africa, cloud infrastructure Africa
