Africa calling, mobile phone innovation could replace mining, oil
Post date: May 25, 2011 8:01:12 PM
Africa's business
technology revolution
gathers pace
The mobile phone
is much cheaper to get, plus it can be used outside where there is no infrastructure like power,"
Essentially, the mobile is going to be huge for us in terms of innovation, much more than the PC was a few years ago.
Kenya Tech entrepreneurs
Kariuki Gathitu is one of a new breed of Kenyan technology entrepreneurs "Essentially, the mobile is going to be huge for us in terms of innovation, much more than the PC was a few years ago."
m:lab - a consortium of stakeholders,
including Nairobi University, which aims to hothouse talented mobile application developers.
M-Payer
MONEY BY PHONE KENYA
Kariuki Gathitu is one of the hottest properties in Kenya's tech sector. He is a 27 year old software developer who has come up with an application to build on the country's already sophisticated mobile payments market, called M-Payer. Mr Gathitu demonstrates how subscribers can pay bills, receive cash and transfer funds with just a few taps on a mobile, and cash will clear in minutes, not hours or days.
M-Payer claims it can end the 'cheque in post' culture that has ruined many small African firms, often operating on tiny margins, with little or no access to bank credit.
This challenge is basically the interoperability, aggregation and integration of mobile money
New trends Ghana
ShopAfrica53.com goods from ghana
South-Africa space telescope SKA
South Africa is a serious contender to be home to a massive deep space telescope project called the SKA - or Square Kilometre Array. If the country beats off competition from Australia, its aerospace industry would receive a massive boost.
source: bbc.co.uk