Live blog: Africa 3.0 — the Cheetah Generation
By Ivo Vegter. Filed in sxswsa |Tags: africa, internet, mobile, sxsw, sxswsa
TMS Ruge: Africa 3.0 – a look at the future of a connected Africa
Teddy Ruge, co-founder of Project Diaspora, whose mission it is to mobilise, engage and motivate Africa’s Diaspora to do more for the continent. The belief is that Africa’s development has to go through its own people. $40 billion in remittances, going to projects in Africa.
Teddy Ruge, founder of the Diaspora Project
Examples of projects funded by the Diaspora are UMPG Ltd, which works with 1500 farmers to teach them to plant medicinal crops, and Women of Kireka, trying to switch women from quarry workers to jewellery and fashion designers.
Development of technology in Africa is a passion of mine. How can I talk about it? One thing I was reading earlier this week… Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. I read about the birth of technology in America and how it came about. The parallel with Africa was really striking. There are many similar things about how people become successful. One factor is the environment you were born in, and the 10 000 hours it takes to become who you are.
I looked at Silicon Valley’s outliers. All had similar traits. All were born around the same time. All had opportunities at very critical points in their youth.
The internet is growing everywhere. But on a world map, Africa doesn’t even show up. India, 60m users. Brazil, 67.5m. China 250m. But I was on the internet. Why wasn’t I counted?
Steve Song’s map for the Shuttleworth Foundation shows how connectivity has exploded in the also 18 months. African undersea cables being laid between 2008 and 2011 will finally bring the world, broadband, to Africa.
I looked at the capacity they will deliver. We’re going from unknown, around 2007/8, to 17 Terabits of design capacity by the end of 2011. That’s just cables. The addition of O3b networks, satellites backed by Google, will provide alternatives to 3G, WiMax and terrestrial bandwidht.
This is pointing to a revolution in development. In 2009, the billionth baby was counted in Africa. 53 countries. Compare that to 450m and 300m. There are 450m Africans under the age of 15. The entire US population is just 300m.
This is the Cheetah Generation. George B.N. Ayittey called them that: they’re disruptors to the status quo.
I can’t think of a better group of people who’re going to revolutionise Africa, technology. They’re going to grow up in the information age.
Mobile subscriptions are up to 450 million. Almost half the population. Growth curve, through 2013, is projected to be 12%, but I think it will be a lot higher. Those kids will want the latest and greatest. So that growth number is very conservative.
Mobile phones have made life and business so much easier in Africa. They’ve played a huge role.
Let’s make a call. [Live demo, Skype call. Calling his mother, Milly Kugonza in +25. The phone is busy.]
For her as a peasant farmer, a mobile phone makes it easier to decide whether to sell crops now, and in which town. She also suffers from asthma, so she can text the doctor in the next town, so it’s a life saver for her.
What’s the direction this will take? Accelerating the online participation of Africans. Currently, there are 67 million online Africans. Why weren’t we on that earlier map? Good question. Nigeria has the largest share, 24 million, Egypt has 13.5 million, South Africa has 5 million. That accounts for only 3.8% of global traffic.
My premise is that “the connected palm” is where the internet will go in Africa. We’re really good at leapfrogging. We leapfrogged landlines, straight to mobile phones. We’ll leapfrog laptops, and go straight to smartphones.
“Smart” is as smart does. For many people, the mobile phone is their first introduction to technology in Africa. It’s joining Africa 2.0. It will create Africa 3.0.
And interesting stat is the use of Opera Mini. In Africa, there was 177% growth, and it works even on dumb phones.
Steve Jobs has to know something is happening in Africa, to be present with the iPhone. How does he think he’ll make money with the iPhone in Africa? It is present in many African countries. How do we afford them?
I contacted Brian Herlihy, the CEO of Seacom. He says pervasive, fibre-connected towers, will make the handheld device pervasive in Africa. Most transactions will be by mobile phone. M-PESA demonstrates what the mobile phone can do in terms of innovation.
In order to have an environment to foster innovation and creativity, you have to have areas where these under-15s can go. There are technology parks being built in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Afriac, Nigeria… even governments are starting to see technology as the future, where we need to be. We also have individuals who are building centres of excellence, such as Appfrica Labs in Ugana, Limbe Labs in Cameroon, Banta Labs in Senegal, and iHub in Kenya. This is where Africa is going to put in its 10 000 hours. This is where our Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, will be found.
[He calls Bill Zimmerman, Limbe Labs. Really scratchy ringing tone, but it's going through. The line is noisy, but the video works. Southwest province of Cameroon. Video shows some of the coders in a small rec room. Shiny, chequerboard tiled floor. Among the projects they're working on is an SMS-based phone directory. There are a lot of graduates in Africa that make this possible, and Limbe is near the 3m-strong capital of Cameroon. Our connection here is 1Mbit/s, so it serves our needs. Video interview is jumpy, but good enough.]
A Skype call to Limbe Labs, in Cameroon
[Jon Gosier, Appfrica Labs, in Uganda.”We're an incubator. Ugandan technology entrepreneurs start businesses here, and we also work as a tech consultancy. This is Victor.” “Hi. Silica is something I'm working on, involving natural language processing. Working with Ushahidi to extract key words from reports, and create tag clouds to index and comprehend content.” “Udima is a platform for transparency, showing how aid money is being received and spent.” “Our internet was down just now, we were worried we wouldn't make the conference.” – big lag – “the idea now is to continue what we're doing and scale up a bit, and engage the global market with Facebook, iPhone, Android applications. This type of business isn't typically done here, but it's worked really well for us. Mobile is incredibly important. It's the go-to platform here. I'm really excited about products like the Nokia N900, which is really a good platform to create content, rather than just consuming it. In terms of reach, there's no comparison between computers and mobiles. Even in developed areas, computer penetration is usually only 1-2%, while mobile is up to 90% in some areas.”]
[Erik Hersman, @whiteafrican, from iHub in Nairobi. Big white guy with a beard and an AfriGadget shirt. “iHub is a commons, a place for the tech community to gather physically. There's a lot of interesting stuff happening, both among small companies and big enterprises, and they needed a place more permanent than a BarCamp to get together. The other aspect is providing high-speed access. We've got 20Mbit/s now, and we're getting more fibre for another 10Mbit/s. The mobile web is the most important part of what we do here. Even if it's just a GPRS connection on a mobile, that's something people here can afford. What does Steve Jobs see in the African digital space? There's a lot of middle-class Africans, who have the spending capacity to buy and use iPhones. It's always hard to be a prophet, but you can see connectivity spreading in high urban growth areas, and this will expand to rural. Our big Achilles heel is e-commerce, but we'll see that become really large over the next five years. These labs are important, trusted intermediaries, and they attract or facilitate investor money to fund new ideas. That's an important part of what we do.”]
[Trying to call Milly again. “How much do you want to bet that phone is on a taxi, going to be recharged. She's also the local MP, so her phone rings a lot.”]
You couldn’t have made that Skype call in 2007. But you can now. There’s so much room for growth, but I’m really excited about the future of technology in Africa.
For decades, we sat around a paraffin lamp, learning from second-hand books. Mobile is how we do it now.
If you’re an investor, an aid agency, empower through education. The more access we have, the more we learn, the more independent and empowered we get. That is the future. We’ve seen kids who go to BarCamps turn out to be coders at Appfrica Labs. This is how we’re going to get employed, make a difference, and rise.
Question: What’s the role of government in providing infrastructure?
We do have massive infrastructure problems. This isn’t just about the rosy side. It’s a breadbasket of trouble. The government has to play a role to make sure the infrastructure is present, for Africa 3.0 to have a realistic chance of succeeding.
Question: Does this leapfrogging mean that Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC project is superfluous?
My view is OLPC is a failed project. It’s a top-down solution imposed by outsiders. It doesn’t engage Africans and augment their lives in the way they want. It’s dead in the water, really.
Question: Before you get your Bill Joys, Steve Jobs, you needed the universities. Is there the right infrastructure available to educate people to their leadership and entrepreneurial potential?
You’re right. Our education system is woeful. It’s still based on the old colonial model of stuffing you with prescribed knowledge and regurgitating it. There isn’t a lot of opportunity for exploration. But that’s why I’m excited about mobile. Now you have the opportunity to learn on your own, to explore. You can bypass the teacher as gatekeeper. In countries where governments are not stepping up to the plate in terms of providing education, like Kenya, the private sector is starting to fill the gap.
Question: How can we dispel the myth that Africans and Afro-Americans are not helping each other? How are you reaching out to the American bloggers and media to get information out about what’s happening in Africa?
Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Write, write, write, write, write. Participate. Wherever you can. Find a niche, own it, and put out good content. If you can’t move the mountain, you can kick a few pebbles and try to cause an avalanche.
Teddy M.S. Ruge
@tmsruge
www.projectdiaspora.org
www.tmsruge.com
