Comments on: Tech Success in Africa is Built on the Ordinary

By: Tools for Change « Pamela B's Blog

Tools for Change « Pamela B's Blog — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 21:54:51 +0000

[…] TED Fellow and African blogger Erik Hersman observes […]

By: Oyolla

Oyolla — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:11:25 +0000

The assumption here is that Nokia will sit back and watch as Android and them all come and eat their lunch. I think that is a wrong perception. I think 2011 is a year to watch what is the next move that Nokia is going to make. Nokia remains a formidable opponent for its competitors…. And afterall… as they will soon realise, Africa is not for sissys

By: Mobile Trends and the Innovators, where are the masses?

Mobile Trends and the Innovators, where are the masses? — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:41:53 +0000

[...] wise old White African once said that â€œalmost any meaningful success in Africaâ€s mobile or web space has been from [...]

By: niti bhan

niti bhan — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 04:50:48 +0000

This is what happens when you go on vacation! You miss the interesting conversations. Must say I agree with you Hash and also second what Ken says but I’d just like throw a question out in case someone is still reading this thread:

I’ve noticed the meteoric numbers in the uptake of Android OS over the last year per the data I’d seen, *and* I’ve heard about the affordable handsets to come to Kenya – what I’d be interested in would be whether anyone has tracked the geographies of where Android has shown so much sudden success?

The challenge of OS and platform in Africa (which of course you are all far better informed than I) is something I’d been pondering for a past few years – it seems the big difference between success over mobile and the historic success of the PC platform is the lack of standardization of any given OS. One can hope that Android might take this space going forward, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this?

Best,
Niti

By: Mwagiru

Mwagiru — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:09:32 +0000

Not sure whether devices running opera mini browsers were counted…Not sure the OS can be detected when a non-native browser is used.

By: engeng

engeng — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:17:50 +0000

duh, samsung is known for dropping support on their phones.
‘We often miss a huge opportunity too when we try so hard to
emulate Americans by building â€œme tooâ€ applications or solutions
that we hope will make us look like Silicon Valley techpreneurs. By
doing so, we forget that the our Valley counterparts are building
solutions that are relevant first in their masses (the American
public) before they spill over our way.’ ironically, you are all
talking about android.

By: david

david — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 12:02:16 +0000

Great post,i do believe that the Android platform is something alot of developers should be looking into right now ,with Google wanting to dive into Africa and also the Chinese with huawei i believe that the majority of the kind of people who use this technology in Africa will be carrying Android handsets in a couple of years.Samsung itself seems to be shifting towards Android(too much for bada) and i dont even want to talk about symbian.

By: Africa: Tech Success in Africa is Built on the Ordinary · Global Voices

Africa: Tech Success in Africa is Built on the Ordinary · Global Voices — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 17:02:19 +0000

[...] Meeting the needs of ordinary people is key to success in tech industry in Africa: “In fact, you can take this one step further. Almost any meaningful success in Africaâ€s mobile or web space has been from companies focused on meeting the needs of ordinary people.” [...]

By: HASH

HASH — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:49:57 +0000

Thanks guys. I agree that things will move fast in this space, they always have actually, that’s what’s so interesting about tech.

What I wanted to point out though is the need for us all to focus more on the less sexy part of the work we do. The money and users are found in the mundane, more often than not.

By: John Karanja

John Karanja — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:16:51 +0000

Yes i think i agree with @Kiwanja’s sentiments. In Africa you need to strike a balance in this space which is quite difficult.

Problem is there is such a huge digital/economic divide in Africa more so than anywhere else in the world which leaves developers with 3 options either to go for the elite market with mostly consultancy services or mass market with scalable apps or both markets which i believe is the right model.

Lastly one huge bottleneck remains in Kenya (not sure about rest of Africa) is the monopolization of public digital resources e.g. Shortcodes, Bandwidth and TV/Radio Frequencies. If these were liberalized in some form of market you would see much more innovative mass market innovation here.