This document discusses how to develop localized applications to target and profit from the African market. It recommends creating opportunities for talented software developers and implementers in Africa to excel through capacity building programs and transnational alliances. A framework is proposed using open-source software and libraries on a modular basis to facilitate rapid development of distributed applications and skills. Lessons focus on the importance of collaboration networks and alliances for building software engineering capacity and creating an application ecosystem in Africa.

1. How to develop localised
applications to target and profit
from the African market
Dr Derek W. Keats
Kenga Solutions
http://kengasolutions.com
http://www.dkeats.com
derek@dkeats.com
+27 82 787 0169

2. The business opportunities
in capacity building
How to develop localised
applications to target and profit
from the African market
Dr Derek W. Keats
Kenga Solutions
http://kengasolutions.com
http://www.dkeats.com
derek@dkeats.com
+27 82 787 0169

3. The
African
market
!!!

4. The
African
market
!!!

5. The
African
market
!!!
Our share of knowledge
economy production
Research published

6. The
African
market
!!!

7. to target and Outcome
profit from
The make it
here and sell
it there
approach?

8. The business
opportunities
in capacity
building

9. Idea capital
ity of ideas that are contained in an initiative, the relationships am
to
s in
tem.

10. USA 2010
913 100
People who make a living as
software developers

11. Nigeria 2012
913 100
2 000
300 000
People who
make a living as
software
developers

13. What mix is right? Doesn't
matter
USA SA Nigeria
100
Within
local
ecosystem
Outside of
local
ecosystem 0

14. Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia
2002
AVOIR
University of the
Western Cape

15. Human development
“Capacity building”
Creating
opportunities
for talented
young software
developers
& implementers
to excel
Chisimba training at Uganda Martyrs University

16. All about ...
Creating opportunities
through transnational
alliances within Africa
and out

17. All about ...
Software & process
innovation capacity
Reducing
dependence on
the awful
sameness of
prepared
applications

18. Megan Watson of the UWC team ran a
training workshop for new developers in
Ghana in August, 2006.

19. Barriers to
Why FOSS? innovation
Cost
Successful innovation
Permission
Knowledge
Starting
point

23. A framework for building software and skills
Built on a stack of FOSS applications & libraries using a
suite of FOSS development & collaboration tools
An object-oriented,
MVC framework for
rapid development
of distributed
software
applications

24. The FOSS stack
Cross platform
jQue RESTful API
ry Ajax
Mashable
XMPP
Javascr
ipt Mobile phone
Apache2
Online package
management
Chisim
Cloud-ready
PHP ba MySQL
PEA
R
CUR GNU/Linux
L FFm
peg

25. Everything is a module
Module Module Module
View View View
Controller Controller Controller
Model Model Model
View
e.g. htmlelements
modulecatalogue
Controller
modules
sysconfig
Helper
security
utilities
lucene
strings
blocks
API
Object
Engine
Model

26. Instances
eLear
ning
CMS Blog
OER News
Portal
system
Mappi
Social ng
. . . etc

27. Make
a back
end for
mobile
apps

29. List posts
1600
1400
1200
Number of posts
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
2009 2010

34. A network of networks
e.g. InWent An alliance can be
viewed as a
e.g. FLOSS Include network of
networks
e.g. Vietnam Increasing the
AVOIR e.g. Afghanistan
networks in the
eQuality
alliance strengthens
alliances
the alliance and
e.g. HP Chameleon the underlying
networks
e.g. Animal health
Adding nodes to
a network
strengthens the
e.g. VLIR network and the
e.g. Philippines
nodes

42. Training in Chisimba
development and
implementation
FET sector

43. Chisimba FET project wins best Capactity Building award at
the 2011 SAFIPA conference

44. Business

45. Partner institutions,
organisations, projects
Capacity building, academic projects
Commercial activity,
enterprise solutions

49. Lessons
Collaboration, networks and alliances
are a way to build software
engineering capacity that could
be used to create an APP
ecosystem
Creating coordinated opportunities for students
who have learned theory of software to achieve
practical experience made them much more
marketable
Our biggest challenge is understanding and
believing we can and should do it & then
building sustainable businesses

50. Lessons
AVOIR is non-structural – that was an important
component of both its success and its winding
down
Despite numerous challenges, AVOIR has been
going for 8 years, and has produced excellent
software in Africa
With industry interest and input (including
funding) we could replicate it and include an
app ecosystem

51. The
FUTURE

52. My
DREAM

53. Thank you
Derek Keats, PhD
derek@dkeats.com
+27 82 787 0169
www.dkeats.com
kengasolutions.com