Africa has been counted amongst one of the continents which has places that are still unreached by today's fascinating web technologies such as facebook, twitter, etc. Although it is so, the proliferation of mobile devices is raising much awareness of such technologies on a daily basis as people begin to shift from end user phones to today's smartphones. The biggest problem lies in the design of this new generation smartphones, they have been designed with a mindset of saying we are in the developed world not in a developing world. Take for instance , the antenna reception quality of latest generation smartphones, it does not matter whether HTC, iPhone, Motorola or Nokia. Immediately you leave urban areas to rural areas where base stations are very far, your phone becomes useless - no internet connection , no signal reception, it just become a dump piece of asset. I remember when Nokia released the 5110 around 2000 if not wrong about the release date, the device had the capability to catch signals even if taken to a rural place where base stations were very far away.
Most useful apps on today's smart phones are tailored for the western developed world either US or UK, trust me you will get that on any mobile platform whether android , iPhone or the Windows Mobile or Symbian, there no difference. Although such issues prevails, we cannot deny the great role that mobile technology is playing to transform our societies in terms of social interaction, business, education including managing some of our daily activities. Mobile devices have become another best friend we heavily depends upon. Besides, research has shown us that if the technology pack of today's smartphones can be shifted towards addressing problems inherent in the rural sector , more transformation and improvement can be realized especially in education, crime prevention, business and so forth. Although such benefits can be realized but affordability and low signal receptions will still be a major obstacle for people in rural sector. However, as time advances, more deployments of new networks will surface to offer more availability and as mobile devices improves in terms of hardware capability , more and more devices will become cheaper and affordable to the larger society. This will present us with a wide range of opportunities in terms of new developments which are geared towards improving our society.
What is your opinion of this?
Africa needs to wake up and take its destiny to its own hands. The largely underdeveloped emerging economies are the way of the future as China has demonstrated. However with ineffective governance and the highly ignored high-tech industry being given “afterthought”-kind of priority the likes of India, Brazil and Malaysia are cashing in where Africa can potentially cash in too.
ReplyDeleteIt all comes down to effective and efficient governance (or lack thereof in the case of Africa). Without a commitment to develop the high-tech infrastructure the situation is unlikely to change. Capitalist economic policies are great for certain economic sectors but can also be highly inefficient for others. In developed countries there is high government involvement in the deployment of enabling technologies such as the internet. Africa has to take lessons from there. Otherwise development will continue at a snail's pace, and by the time we realize it the opportunities and the boom of emerging economies would have long gone, and the cycle of poverty with continue.
(Catch my blog on "Effective Governance" at this address: http://vibrancysa.blogspot.com/2010/09/effective-governance.html)