Comments on: Is There Technology Arbitrage in Africa?

By: JD

JD — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:44:17 +0000

I think this is a great argument! and I do believe that countries with more driven, knowledgable governments could make technologies more accessible to their people.
My only question is do you really think government is completely &always going to be accountable for the lack of technological support in a country? I mean I’m sure there is some area they fell short in at some point, but I think there are other factors that inhibit growth in these areas sometimes (like lack of investors, or technology dumping).

By: Louis

Louis — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:44:20 +0000

i’m not to clear on what you mean by technology arbitrage – but what i do now is that there is significant opportunity for arbitrage for various web services that are available online but due to payment lack of local payment solutions and local alternatives – from online shopping, to simple services as online storage and hosting – im sure many hosting solutions are mainly wrappers around international hosting services. same goes with services such as amazons EC2 and S3 -all this are opportunities for local arbitrage. Over time i’m sure more advanced services will be come available such as content caching and CDNs .

By: Chikwe

Chikwe — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:28:52 +0000

Interesting concept!

My take is that while there is significant uptake on the use of technology, in places like Nigeria, it is still used be an extremely small proportion of its 150 million people, and when used at all for the simplest of tasks – email, reading newspapers (and increasingly blogs).

The lag in governance is glaring, but the complete abscense of an online present by most arms of government is just as glaring. This morning the Nigerian Police reports that there is a fake Nigerian Police website out there…! I rest my case!

Read end of this article http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=154872

With increase in bandwidth there is a huge opportunity for good and evil…who get in there first?

By: Is There Technology Arbitrage in Africa? â€” WhiteAfrican « New Emerging Technologies for Netbook Mobile Phones Laptops Gadget and Gizmos

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:31:14 +0000

[…] […]

By: Wayan @ Inveneo

Wayan @ Inveneo — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:31:57 +0000

Of course there is opportunity where government policy does not keep up with technology. Here is one I noticed when I was lost in Abuja backstreets: Arbitrage Nigerian Telecom Rates: Commercialize Question Box

By: Daily Brief (Part 1): “Technology Arbitrage” in Africa - Marco Puccia : Business and Development

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:55:00 +0000

[…] Is There Technology Arbitrage in Africa? (via WhiteAfrican) – Erik Hersman posted an article on his blog where he pondered the role of “arbitrage” in filling the “technology gap” between Africa and the West, or the gap between technologies and the laws that govern them. He seems to focus on the latter, where my attention in drawn by the former. I’m interested in this idea thatÂ rather than seeing Africa’s disconnectivity or lack of tech. infrastructure as an impediment, it should be viewed as an opportunity. […]

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:52:49 +0000

I think ‘technology arbitrage’ is a great articulation and agree that it almost certainly represents a tremendous opportunity.