By Ian Ortega
“What will 2015 be like?” a lay man may ask. What should one expect? Will there be growth or will it be a year of decline? How will the year converge? Where does Uganda end up socially, politically and economically?
One can expect that in the New Year, more online businesses will open up. There will be more disruption caused mainly by an increase in innovative trends and online solutions. However, as much as many online businesses will open up, many will exit. We can foresee the breakthrough of online payments led majorly by Mobile Money being adopted for the e-commerce in Uganda. In the next 12 months, the economy is going to tend towards online start-ups. For the first time in history, investors will feel more confident to plug millions of money into technology start-ups.
However, the interest in the online world will also be driven by the road to 2016 as politicians try to leverage the numbers online for their electoral success. Unlike past elections, campaigns for 2016 will take full swing online, and majority of winners will be those who are made by their online presence. It is highly possible that the next direct adverts on major blogs will be political campaign adverts as contenders struggle to take up the visible spaces on the high traffic websites.
2015 promises to be a year of rapid growth. We are likely to see higher direct foreign investments. Politicians will be in the rush to work on most of the promises they made in the previous elections. The rush to fulfill promises will drive the economic growth-both directly and indirectly.
Growth will also be largely driven by the competition among the many businesses. With too much noise, only the aggressive, the strong and the innovators will come out on top in the New Year.
Politically, we can expect a huge number of turn-rounds, shocks and surprises. Of course, the Lord Mayor will take over his seat once again, that will be the first shock. In the event that Amama Mbabazi declares his interest in being President, we expect politically motivated charges to be brought against him, some real charges, while others conjured up. However, one shouldn’t be shocked either when he comes out to declare his full support for the party president. Will the campaign to neutralize Mbabazi affect the economy? Yes, but in a positive way. Since it’s going to be the struggle of the highest bidder, this time round, the people to be bought off, will be the huge beneficiaries.
From a cultural view point, the number of sex tapes and nude photos will triple. Most of these will be intentionally leaked by the victims themselves. It’s going to be a struggle for attention in a very boisterous place. The year will be characterized by huge scandals of a larger magnitude compared to past years. Of course, Zari will break up with Diamond Platinumz, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. The rich gang and the sushi boys will head back to South Africa. There will be less hullabaloo this time round about their activities, and December 2015 won’t see them get the same publicity they managed to amass in 2014. It’s going to be a year of oblivion for them; they will have to work harder at their stunts.
Musically, the year doesn’t promise to bring much to the table, but it promises resurrections. The past year saw dead artistes such as Sheebah come back to life and running the music scene. We should expect a similar pattern this year. Bebe Cool seems to be the artiste to bet on for 2015. All indicators show that 2015 will be his year. The fact that Bebe Cool will be on top this coming year will contribute to more hit songs in the industry as artistes will struggle to uproot him. Speaking of Eddy Kenzo, it won’t be a bad year for him; however, it won’t be a great one too. It will be mere musical survival. Being driven by the pressures of Sitya Loss, he will work up a good number of songs as a way of trying to hit that magic spot of 2014, however, 2015 will be different.
As I stated earlier, 2015 will be a year of high magnitude shocks and surprises. We are bound to be fooled by the randomness that will characterize 2015. Though all indicators point in the direction of high growth, the markets also promise high risk and huge volatility. In other-words, those who take the risk to invest will have a high risk of losing equal to the high risk of winning.
2015 will teach us more about the non-linearity in life. It will dispel our beliefs of cause and effect-that you do X and get Y. Instead, you may do X, and get A. Does the property bubble I predicted to burst finally happen? I highly doubt it will happen, as the influx of money earned though fraud and corruption continues so will the demand for our over-valued real estate. Thus 2015 will be a year of big wins, and big losses. It is a year that will be lived on the extremities, where one has to show their side and stick to it.
To the pawns in the game of 2015, the year will be about the cost and benefit analysis of the extremities. It will be a year of opportunity cost on display. However, 2015 is also a year of positioning. As such, it will belong to those at the right place, at the right time. Being at the right place and at the right time won’t be enough; it will also require one to be the right person.
How does the year converge? Expect no convergence in 2015. On the contrary, the year will be one of hyper divergence. We don’t see any asymptotic trends in the New Year, more of sinusoidal trends as all environments move from one extremity to another.
Do we see deaths of powerful people? Of course; more than you can imagine, and in the worst of ways. How will that happen? The seer doesn’t know, he simply knows it will happen in one way or another, whether by natural or artificial causes but again, these will be deaths that will shock and surprise us.
What do I make of 2015? I think, it will be a year of many black swans. 2015 will be characterized by the kind of events that are rare and improbable. Events many of us had least expected to happen. Thus we are going to be shocked out of our nerves by what 2015 holds both politically, economically, and socially. Extreme events do occur and 2015 will be inordinate on this, these extreme events have a great effect.
As Socrates always said; “the only thing I know is that I do not know.” This dictum will be truer than ever as even those who claim to know to exactness how events will turn out, will be shocked. Not even the master chess players will be spared, as the real effects of their strategies will be high order polar differences from what they envisaged.
To borrow a paragraph from Wikipedia:
“Why are humans often caught off guard by or slow to recognize the rare and novel? Partly because built into the very nature of our experience is the propensity to extend existing knowledge and experience to future events and experiences. To exacerbate this natural propensity much of our cultural education both formal and otherwise is built upon historical knowledge forced on us by others. Of course both the natural physiological propensity and the cultural phenomenon are somewhat a necessary precondition to learning, since complete openness to every event would be inefficient. Bertrand Russell observed, “An open mind is an empty mind.” So we cannot be completely open, but we must guard against being completely closed as well. It would be most efficacious if we could find a balance between the known and unknown and the limits of our knowledge and experience. The effect of unexpected events likely is integral to finding this balance. Thus, the rare and unexpected is far more significant to our formation of knowledge than people often imagine.”
Thus, we should expect the rare and unexpected in the coming year. We should make allowances for the limits of our knowledge and experience as we head into 2015. The fact is, the majority will be caught off-guard as we head into 2015. But is it a surprise that the majority gets caught off guard? Aren’t they simply mere pawns in this game?
How does one get to enjoy the 2015 society of Uganda?
Number One: Be Open to the rare and unexpected and expect that these will occur and they will be shocking and surprising.
Number Two: Be unplugged, objective and expect that the opposite of what you know may also be true. Thus you avoid being the pawn.
Number Three: Simply get a bag of popcorn, sit on the couch and watch the world like a television seeing it degrade to its divergences.
With those few humble predictions of your ignorant savant, I wish you the best of 2015, the year of shocks and surprises.