Monique Maddy at TechCrunch has an overview of Africa's technical growing pains and related challenges. As anywhere else, the future depends on connectivity. However, the continent represents only 10 percent of the total Internet users in the world, despite representing 16 percent of the world population.
The scale and complexity of Africa's technical landscape sits at the heart of the problem, and connectivity issues are particularly prevalent. Internet users in Africa represent only 10 percent of the total users in the world, despite representing 16 percent of the world population, according to Internet World Stats. And only 31 percent of the total population has access to the internet, which represents a penetration that is well below the rest of the world at 52 percent.
[...] Africa is at a technical tipping point. To survive and thrive in this diverse and highly complex marketplace, we need businesses that are flexible and capable of adapting both their products and their business models, which can most effectively work with local companies and talent to develop and promote local content and digital solutions while leveraging the power of the smartphone and widespread connectivity.
Barriers to growth include use of zero-rating by some of the world's largest players as they try to both push into the region while setting up obstacles to entry by competitors. She also asks how large Western companies plan to see a return on investment or whether Chinese companies will beat them to the punch.
Source : The intensifying battle for Africa's burgeoning tech landscape
See also :
Madhvi Gokool - AFRINIC Update (2017)
Michele McCann - iGDP in Africa (2014)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday February 25 2018, @05:41PM (4 children)
I can just see teh African facebook
"I carried a jug of water 14 miles so i could take a dump before going to my shitty job carrying water jugs on my head."
466 likes
"I just gave birth to my 40th child (14 of who are still alive)"
589 likes
"I'm, like, some random white guy living in Africa"
1 likes
***Meant to be funny, but probably seems racist (I mean...how many times on facebook have you seen someone posting about taking a dump....seriously....)***
**Just meant for chuckles...relax**
*Don't hate the player (disclosure: i am not a player) hate the facebook*
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Sunday February 25 2018, @07:11PM
That's not unfair though. It really happens. But it's not the big problem. Tech often starts in enclaves and spreads out. The problem is you need to be able to trust the government, and while some African governments are "trustworthy" many aren't.
Note I said "trust". This is a relative term and relates to stability of operating conditions, not protection of liberties or some such. Many businesses are willing to invest in places where the government is oppressive, but few are willing to invest much in places where the government is unstable.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @07:35PM (1 child)
Q) Whaddya call an African that's taking a dump?
A) Showoff...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:39PM
A) Thief! Stop stealing my fertilizer!
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday February 26 2018, @02:00AM
Well.. the # of baby pics is gonna skyrocket.. on the bright side, or may much much worse, the pet pics will be more than just cats & dogs..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @06:26PM
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030718 [userfriendly.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @07:15PM
that say nothing concrete.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday February 25 2018, @07:33PM (1 child)
So they are ahead of the game then?
http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users-by-country/ [internetlivestats.com]
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS [worldbank.org]
It seems they have a rather cherry-picked statistic there. It seems a rather contrived phraseology. Is it penetration? Is it something else?
I'm betting they had to exclude high-income (as does the second link I posted) to come up with that they would have you believe is a huge disparity, but actually its rather better than most developing world countries. Even the US only has about 90% penetration.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by dtremenak on Monday February 26 2018, @06:34PM
The numbers in the summary aren't penetration numbers and can't be quickly converted into them without knowing the sizes of both populations, because they're both relative. If you're looking at the ratio between them, it's just a normalized benchmark (which tells you only that Africa is substantially underperforming, but is pretty meaningless without other benchmarks to compare with).
If you want penetration numbers, you have to start out knowing that there are 3.86 billion internet users and 7.6 billion people worldwide.
Africa represents 10% of the first number (0.38 billion) and 16 percent of the second number (1.2 billion), giving the continent about 32% penetration. This seems fairly consistent with the linked data (i.e. these four high-population African countries at different stages of development: South Africa 52%, Nigeria 47%, Ivory Coast 22%, DRC 7%).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday February 25 2018, @07:38PM (4 children)
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jimmy-kimmel-crisis-wakanda-black-panther_us_5a91347de4b0ee6416a39591 [huffingtonpost.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 25 2018, @09:48PM (3 children)
Yeah, right. "This video is restricted from playing in your location" not gonna learn what's the people know about vibranium.
On the other side, the "7 Things Men Should Know About Vaginas To Make Sex Great Again" is available on my location.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:00PM (1 child)
You're Australian. A criminal by birthright, and a second-class world citizen today.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:08PM
Yeah, well, I'm gonna have great sex instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:26PM
"If your penis is bleeding, see a doctor."
"If your vagina isn't bleeding, see a doctor."
Man, vaginas are weird.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Appalbarry on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:03PM (2 children)
Funny thing is that "success" tends to be measured almost entirely by "is it the same as we have in Silicon Valley?" (Or New York, Or Omaha, or Kalamazoo...)
While everyone in North America was obsessing over cable and DSL speeds and the availability of high-speed connections, much of the so-called "developing" world was skipping over the idea of land-lines and copper and going direct to wireless for everything. When cel phones become ubiquitous many other things do to.
In particular the many payment systems [ft.com] that use mobile phones and avoid Visa, Mastercard, and the banks almost entirely. Messaging systems like WhatsApp and WeChat that completely skip the 1990s paradigm of e-mail and other technologies.
Arguably the future of North American technology will likely wind up being a lot like what Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have already accomplished.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @01:59AM (1 child)
I can assure you the fiber optic service I enjoy in America is excellent and better than anything wireless.
(Score: 2) by ewk on Monday February 26 2018, @10:35AM
Except when you leave your house/basement... :-)
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Entropy on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:13PM (2 children)
And this is somehow news. I suppose they are good at war crimes and racial genocide.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 25 2018, @10:54PM (1 child)
Black-on-black violence is "racial genocide?!"
Cultural genocide, maybe, but I like to think about it as more a bunch of squabbling tribes with any peace maintained under bribery and the constant threat of violence.
Also see: Afghanistan.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Entropy on Monday February 26 2018, @03:22AM
Some parts of africa killed all the white people, took their land, mismanaged their land...and are now starving.(where they were formerly food producers of fairly epic proportions) but I lumped killing each other into war crimes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @06:59AM
Ho hum, the big money boys are scuffling to see who can best exploit a gazillion illiterate jigaboos.
The impact of this on the rest of the world? None.