“Innovation around the mobile phone is particularly interesting in Africa, often because it is born out of necessity”.
Over the past week, the BBC have been covering the arrival of the Seacom fibre optic cable off the coast of East Africa, focusing on Kenya initially and today moving on to Rwanda. Their excellent coverage – video, news, blogs, photos and opinion – is all brought together in a new “Connected Africa” section of their website.
A few weeks ago, the Editor of the BBC News Technology site asked if I could contribute an article highlighting the innovative use of mobile technology in East Africa. With all the excitement around the new bandwidth revolution, it might have been easy to forget the mobile revolution. As the BBC put it, “If you want to see how east Africa may respond to the arrival of high-speed internet links, look no further than the mobile phone market”.
The featured article, or ‘Viewpoint’ – “Mobiles offer lifelines in Africa” – can be read here.
Great nuggets of information in this article, and short anecdotes (like the one at the top of this post). Really enjoyed it. Thanks!!
Hi all,
You may also be interested in this video demo of an African SMS mobile phone directory.