Emergence of Digital Systems through Indigenous Knowledge

International audience The emergence of digital systems is sprouted within the confinement of possibility in probabilities i.e., the combination of two or more items in a prescribed way and format to produce an output. African cultures like other cultures around the world, do have indigenous knowledge and belief in the possibility of probabilities for finding a solution to complex problems. One way of doing this is through traditional divination. The traditional divination system (popularly called Ifa in Yoruba land) is carried out by professionals that are traditionally and “spiritually” endowed to establish and to use a set of rules and combinations of traditional items to connect with deities to counsel, heal and resolve issues. This laid the process and procedure for the emergency of the digital system which nowadays is a common feature of human existence. Consequently, this study was carried out to establish similar processes, procedures, components and requirements in the traditional system with digital systems to show that digital systems evolved from indigenous knowledge (IK). This study clearly shows how the hardware components of the traditional system, such as open ifa (motherboard), kolanut, and or cowries, were activated by traditional software to produce information in the form of output. It also shows that ifa divination depends on the combination of two items or group of two items, be it kola nut or cowries which serves as input to produce output in the same way the output of digital systems depends on the combination of 0s and 1s. Furthermore, the study carried out an extensive investigation of the divination process in terms of its meaning, origin, composition, input and output. Through this, it was discovered and established that the gradual evolution of digital systems generally and computer system in particular emanated from the ifa divination process hence through indigenous knowledge.