10 Things you didn't know
about
ICTs and
Development
in Africa
Steve Song
Manager – ICT4D Africa Programs

1) ICTs in Africa are
growing faster
than anyone
would have
guessed...

The
Dark
Continent?

GSM Mobile
Phone Coverage
2005

2) ...but not
fast enough

3) Mobile Phone
infrastructure is
enormously
important to
African
development...

4) ...but mobile is
not a panacea.
Africa needs
broadband
too!

african university
bandwidth
=
You
Makarere University
Kampala, Uganda
Hundreds of times more expensive!!

5) ICTs in Africa can be
cheaper than
paper...

6) ...but are not
cheap enough

7) Innovation in
ICTs abounds
in Africa...

8) ...but is
limited by
artificially
high prices

9) In Africa, the
internet is
limited to the
few...

10) ...but those FEW
matter a great
deal

BBC story on Mobile
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3681938.stm
● BBC: I have never a big fan of
technological determinism, that it can
bring great changes to society.
● Kenyan Student: Were you a big
sceptic of fire and wheel?
● BBC: Is it as big as that?
● Kenyan Student: Yes.

thanks for
listening
Steve Song
Manager – ICT4D Africa Programs
Acacia and Connectivity Africa

ubuntu
“A person with ubuntu is open and
available to others, affirming of
others, does not feel threatened that
others are able and good, for he or
she has a proper self-assurance
that comes from knowing that he or
she belongs in a greater whole and
is diminished when others are
humiliated or diminished, when
others are tortured or oppressed.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu