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A Mobile Money Transfer Directory for Africa

Benjamin Lyon started CreditSMS, a new outfit that is focused on providing an efficient an accessible platform for microfinance institutions to deliver and track loans via SMS. I’ve been tracking what they’ve been doing since they first popped on the radar two months ago. I’m intrigued by the question: can we decrease the cost for MFI’s with the use of simple SMS technology?

The crux of the inefficiencies can be found in the number, distance and expense of MFI personnel to track and receive payments. Ben states it this way:

“By allowing microloan officers to receive weekly loan repayments via SMS instead of spending time and money to travel to group meetings, MFIs will spend significantly less on fuel and have more time to pursue and manage a larger loan portfolio.”

This might very well be true, and I’m at least interested in seeing the experiment go forward.

A Mobile Money Transfer Directory

In the course of their research they needed to do more discovery on the possible ways to transfer funds with in Africa. This meant embarking on a study of the types of options available by every operator in every country. With that data, they decided to create the Mobile Money Transfer Directory.

This first stage looks like its about creating a simple index of the operator, the money transfer service and a designation of the service. I can see this becoming more dynamic later, with data points like “transaction cost” and “number of merchants”, along with a slew of other pieces of information needed to understand the mobile money transfer systems (and how they differ) in each African country.

[Note: African Signals, the wiki for mobile/web pricing in Africa, turned out quite useful. Ben used that as a starting point in gathering much of his information.]

Hanging out with Ghanaian Devs

August 12, 2009 / HASH / 4 Comments

Though I’ve been busy running around getting ready for this Maker Faire Africa event, I’ve also had some nice chats with the a few of the programmers and designers in Accra. I know there are still a lot that I haven’t met, but this has been a good start.

I’ll start out by saying this: one of the most disappointing things that I’ve come across here is the lack of community within the tech scene. There is no mailing list, forum, or other digital touch-point for the devs to keep in touch with each other and discuss pertinent local issues. I know just how valuable this is due to my involvement with the Skunkworks tech community in Nairobi.

Offsetting that is the fact that they do have places like Busy Internet and AITI, two facilities that are well-known for supporting the tech community, that act as nexus points for tech meetups and user groups. There are also a number of good tech outfits with quality programmers.

First impressions leave me excited about the talent, but surprised at the lack of connectivity within the community.

Ushahidi meetup

Tonight we had an Ushahidi meetup night in Accra over at the Suuch Solutions office. It’s a great location, butting up to a hotel with nice seating for a get together like ours. We had a couple devs from BusyLab (which I’ll write a full post on soon), a couple from Succh, as well as Henry Addo from our team.

It looks like we have a couple new guys to help out on some interesting parts of the platform. George is an HTML markup guy who is itching to get his hands into some design work, and Chinedu is going to dig into the API with Henry.

The BugLabs Device

We also had a chance to break out the Bug kit from BugLabs, a completely modular hardware device that can be programmed using Java. I’m not sure who will be having the first crack at it, but everyone was amazed with it. What geek doesn’t like this type of stuff? I mean, accelerometer, GPS, camera, LCD, WiFi and control unit. It’s just such a crazy-cool device.

TEDx Nairobi in 2 Days

August 6, 2009 / HASH / 9 Comments

In two days, August 8th, there will be a TEDx event in Nairobi taking place at the British Council. These are self-organized and hosted events that enable individuals to team together and create a TED-like experience in their own city. The TEDx Nairobi team has a number of TED Fellows leading it, and an outstanding line-up of speakers and talks to screen.

TEDx Nairobi speakers

The best part about a TEDx event is the other people you meet there. It’s an eclectic mix of individuals, so you could find yourself rubbing shoulders with a scientist on one side and a dance instructor on the other, all while talking to the CEO of a major multinational tech company. It’s a time for open ideas and conversation, along with a healthy mixture of thought provoking talks.

As a TED Fellow and a Nairobi guy myself, I’m highly disappointed that I won’t be able to make it to the event. I have no doubt that the speakers will put on some of their best performances, as the pressure to do a good job is on. Personally, I’d like to hear what Paula Kahumbu of WildlifeDirect will bring to the table as I’m sure it will be both moving and insightful. I’m curious to hear if Aly-Khan Satchu of Rich.co.ke will talk about his work, or bring something different to the table. Lastly, I know I will miss hearing the music of Muthoni.

The TED Commandments

What some know about, and all speakers need to read, is “The TED Commandments“. These are 10 rules that every TED speaker should know:

Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick
Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion
Thou Shalt Tell a Story
Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy
Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee

The organizers tell me that seats are now VERY limited. In fact, as of writing this there are only 12 seats left. Try your luck, see if you can make it to the event by filling in the registration form.

Meetups in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda

August 4, 2009 / HASH / 4 Comments

August is a busy month. If you’re in Ghana, Kenya or Uganda and want to meetup about anything, let me know. Here’s a rough agenda for some open times and events on my schedule.

ghana-kenya-uganda

Ghana

I’ll be in Ghana from Aug 10-18, much of that time will be spent getting ready for and putting on Maker Faire Africa. If you’re attending that event, or want to carve out some time to chat before/after it, let me know.

We’re having an Ushahidi meetup on Wednesday, Aug 12th starting at 6pm at the Adabraka. If you want to know more about the project, let me, Henry Addo or Brian Herbert know.

I’m really interested in seeing some of the mobile and web apps that the Ghanaian community is working on. If you know someone working on something cool that I just shouldn’t miss, leave it in the comments.

Kenya

I’ve got a couple days in Kenya around Aug 19-20 and Aug 23-26. As usual, my Kenya time gets busy very quickly, so let me know now if you want to meet and I’ll see if I can slot it in. I’ve always got time for cool stuff. 🙂

I’m planning to have an Ushahidi meetup on Wednesday, Aug 26th starting at 6pm at the Prestige Plaza food court (as usual). Come meet the Ushahidi team that’s behind the latest “Goma” release. Also we’ll have the two newest members of Ushahidi in attendance.

Uganda

I’ve got a quick jaunt over to Uganda where I’ll be meeting up with the Appfrica team and Teddy Ruge. We’re also planning on having a tech meetup on Friday, Aug 20th. Again, let us know if you can make it.

As you can tell, it’s a little bit of a whirlwind trip. Follow along here for updates (and AfriGadget for the Maker Faire Africa reports).

Maker Faire Africa in 2 Weeks

August 3, 2009 / HASH / 6 Comments

I’ll be in Ghana next week to help with the final preparations for Maker Faire Africa, taking place August 14-16 in Accra, with the rest of the organizing team. It’s looking to be quite the event with many Ghanian Makers, as well as some from Kenya, Liberia and Malawi. The FabLab teams from Nigeria and Kenya will both be showing what they’ve been building, as well as some of the teams from the IDDS event.

A Small Taste…

Dominic Wanjihia from Kenya will be coming to show his evapocooler invention for cooling camels milk in Somalia, along with an number of his other inventions.

The FabLab team from the University of Nigeria on their way. Look for a bunch of neat stuff, including: a mobile device battery charger using cycle power, a simple mobile robot, a Wi-fi phone network, and a universal remote control for switching on/off your lights.

Planish, a company that makes cool, funky looking furniture from water bottles will be showing their wares.
Water bottle furniture from Ghana by Planish

Nana Kofi Acquah is an amazing Ghanaian photographer with images that capture the spirit of Ghana. His breathtaking pictures have been used by the likes of FIFA, Nike and Nestle in campaigns around the world. You can find his professional site at NKAphoto.com »

Pat Delaney, of Multimachine fame, is coming. This is an, “all-purpose open source machine tool that can be built inexpensively by a semi-skilled mechanic with common hand tools, from discarded car and truck parts, using only commonly available hand tools and no electricity.” Though he can’t bring the full machine, he is bringing all the knowledge cased in DVDs for anyone to build their own out of locally available parts.

Most of my blogging about Maker Faire Africa will happen on AfriGadget, but there will be a lot of content up on the MFA blog as well.

Lessons from the mLearning Summit in Zambia

July 14, 2009 / HASH / Comments Off

There’s an excellent post up on MobileActive about the recent mLearning Summit held in Zambia, titled “Go Mobile: Using Mobile Learning to Teach 21st Century Skills”. Steve Vosloo is a South African who has spent a lot of time researching how mobile phones can be used in education, here’s a video put together by him from this event.

“Steve Vosloo noted that m-learning summits have two main goals: To introduce and popularize the mobile phone as a tool for engaging students, and secondly, to identify local content needs. Examples of this may include applications that support grade submissions and attendance in remote locations or projects that explore how texting can be used in literacy.”

Kazang: A Truly Mobile Prepaid Service Terminal for Africa

July 10, 2009 / HASH / 19 Comments

Psitek is a company that deeply understands the African market, I’m convinced that this is due to them having all of their work done on the continent. The last time I wrote about them was after I came across the nearly indestructible Streetwise mobile-accessible computer for children.

As Hannes notes:

“They are the inventors of that trusted voice access device that anyone that ever travelled to Africa would know about: the Adondo. Designed for Africa with anti-insect electronics, high temperature and humidity tolerance, their devices still ship with car-battery ready clamps.”

The Kazang service and terminal

This time it’s about Kazang, a prepaid terminal for merchants selling mobile phone services, such as prepaid airtime, paying of electricity bills or insurance. The service is a year and a half old now, and boasts nearly 5,000 vendors ranging from South Africa to Kenya to Zambia.

The newest device, the Timpa, comes with all of the necessary requirements for the challenges that a merchant running a business in a rural (or urban) setting in Africa would need. It has a built-in printer and rechargeable battery which makes it fully mobile, uses GPRS technology to communicate with the Content Ready (back-end) server (just plug in a data SIM card), and a large LCD with backlighting. They have also built in fail-safes for when the GPRS connection drops, or the electricity goes out, so that the merchant doesn’t get charged for a voucher that they didn’t receive.

Psitek claims that clearing $1000/month is a reasonable to expect by vendors, which would bring home about $80/month of profit (8% margin). This alone makes it a fairly good proposition for a lot of merchants, meaning they can add a Kazang terminal to their shop as an added draw for more customers and it acts as to supplement their other revenue streams.

Not written about much relative to their impact, Psitek is one of those tech firms offering devices that run behind the scenes of many businesses in the southern part of Africa.

A Job Board Aimed at African Devs and Designers

July 7, 2009 / HASH / 12 Comments

This week I launched a little side project: JOBS.whiteafrican.com I think of it as a place to connect freelancers and small teams with gigs and project work in the African tech sphere.

I’ve been getting a number of emails lately asking me connect people in the US, Europe or large organizations in Africa with local (as in “in-Africa”) talent. They’re usually interested in finding a knowledgeable designer, a good blogger or editor, and I’ve had quite a few people ask me to put them in touch with programmers.

The White African Job Board

At this time, it’s a simple and free place to post jobs for African technology professionals. So, what I’m really looking forward to seeing are opportunities listed specifically for people in Africa. That last bit is important, it’s for African devs, designers and bloggers.

A lot of these might be for short-term gigs and volunteer opportunities, but who knows… It’s a little bit of an experiment, so no promises on my part. If it proves popular and useful I’ll keep it around. Oh, I have the final say on what jobs go live too, so be forewarned. Think of me as the curator and friendly job board dictator… 🙂

Make sure you grab the news feed, so you don’t have to keep coming back to see what’s new. Take a look at the tips page – think about how you’ll deal with project scope, as well as how to pay, or be paid.

Real Job Boards Around Africa

Unlike my little project solely focused on technologists, there are some real job boards around the continent that are worth keeping in mind. Here are a couple of them (leave links others that I missed in the comments area):

Kazinow
Find a Job in Africa
Job Space – South Africa
Best Jobs – South Africa
Zebra Jobs
Sama Source – Outsourcing to Africa

Further Thoughts on Outsourcing Tech Work to Africa

It’s an encouraging sign that there are a lot of people interested in finding local African talent. What I’ve found in my travels, and in talking to technologists around the continent, is that though there are more devs and designers each year, the number of top quality ones available for work are few.

One cautionary piece of advice though… and it pains me to say this. A few of the African developers that I have come across are not time-conscious and they can come across like their client/project is not as important to them as you would find in their counterparts in the West. Of course, this means if you are timely and fulfill your responsibilities you will find clients lined up 10 deep to get to you – you’re a rare commodity.

African developers are quickly going to learn that they’re on the global stage now, and there’s nothing stopping their clients from switching to someone more reliable, even if it’s a country or continent away.

The good news is that of the many devs I’ve met, many are as good as any you’ll find anywhere else in the world. A few of them are on par with the best I’ve come across anywhere.

A related initiative

There is also an initiative called Coded in Country focused on getting programming work done within the countries that the applications and products are meant for. Keep an eye on it, and pitch in as/where you can.

Traffic Updates by SMS in Nigeria

July 5, 2009 / HASH / 15 Comments

eNowNow is a service in Nigeria where anyone with a mobile phone can sign up to receive updates on traffic conditions in different areas around Lagos.

How it Works

Armed with a mobile phone, a team of 4-6 motorcyclists ride to different, pre-designate parts of the city. They take pictures of the current traffic conditions and MMS that image to the central office. That image is then geolocated and given a score of “slow”, “moving” or “free”. Anyone who has signed up for SMS or email alerts is then sent a message with the traffic update.

Challenges

I asked Simon, one of the people putting the service into action, what some of their challenges are. His reply:

“Collecting information in this way, although not that technical (lots of people have said why not use stationary webcams it would be technically superior), is turning out to be more difficult than we expected. Finding people who can grasp the concept behind the service, ride well through the crazy Lagos traffic, and are reliable has been tricky, added to that we’ve had lots of issues around harassment and even arrests from the police (many police officers apparently believe you need special police permission to take photos of traffic) and just recently the weather has been in our way as the rainy season has just started in Lagos making operations more difficult and a few phones have been dropped in puddles! “

The business side

eNowNow doesn’t see much value in charging premium SMS rates for their services. They believe margins are low, and they don’t think the uptake would be high enough amongst their target market to make it work. Instead, they have plans to subsidize the service with revenues from licensing traffic information to Sat Nav providers and logistics companies.

“In Nigeria the networks will take anything between 40 and 75% of a premium SMS’s cost to a subscriber for themselves (pull or push) leaving you a tiny margin for profitability and driving the industry standard (and therefore what the networks will allow you) per SMS cost higher. Most people think that traffic only affects those in cars and they can therefore afford to pay for a service, but most of Lagos’ population aren’t in that bracket and those on public transport still have choices about which buses they take, which routes and what time they leave work.”

Thoughts and ideas

Maybe it’s because I’m a motorcycle fan, or maybe it’s because I have a deeply ingrained detestation for being stuck in traffic in Africa’s mega cities, but this application hits the sweet spot for me. I’ve been wanting just this type of thing in Nairobi for a long time…

One additional idea, to make this even more dynamic, and spread it over the whole city is to create a way for ordinary drivers to text into the system when they come across a new or growing traffic problem. I imagine that Lagos has areas with traffic that is not on the pre-designated points that eNowNow operates in currently.

This is a classic locally grown tech initiative, and I hope that they can pull it off. If so, it can definitely be replicated in other major metro markets across the continent.

Obama’s New Media Strategies for Ghana

July 2, 2009 / HASH / 13 Comments

A couple weeks ago I had a discussion with President Obama’s New Media team, where we talked about what they might do to reach out to ordinary Ghanaians on his trip next week – which will culminate in his speech in Accra on July 11th. There is a lot of excitement in Africa around Obama, and this trip is going to set the continent humming.

~~WhiteHouse.gov/Ghana isn’t live yet, but on July 11th, it will become available.~~ They are going to stream the talk at whitehouse.gov/live.

It’s a fairly interesting initiative to undertake, with a slew of problems, as you try to engage with as many individuals in an open travel campaign as possible. At the same time, you know that any channel you open up will get absolutely flooded with incoming comments, questions and spam of every sort. In the end, the team decided that Radio, SMS, then Facebook would be the primary new media access points – and in that order.

Radio, SMS and Facebook

Radio is still the number one communications medium across Africa, and Ghana has a particularly vibrant and active one with a lot of local and national community interaction.

As everyone knows, mobile phone penetration has grown at an explosive rate in Africa, this means that SMS is a fairly democratic means for getting feedback from people of every demographic across the nation. (Funnily enough, not available to US-based residents – more below on that)

Lastly, there are no major homegrown web-based social networks in Ghana, and like many other countries across Africa Facebook has a decent amount of penetration. In Ghana, it’s at 100,000+, so it makes the most sense for the new media team to engage and interact without splitting their energy over too many services. Having Twitter on as a backup is natural, as there will be a great deal of chatter there as well.

The details (from the White House)

SMS. Weâ€™re launching an SMS platform to allow citizens to submit questions, comments and words of welcome (in English and in French) . Using a local SMS short code in Ghana (1731) , Nigeria (32969) , South Africa (31958) and Kenya (5683), as well as a long code across the rest of the world*, Africans and citizens worldwide will be encouraged to text their messages to the President. SMS participants will also be able to subscribe to speech highlights in English and French. Long numbers for mobile registration pan-Africa: 61418601934 and 45609910343.

This SMS platform is not available to US participants due to the Smith Mundt Act (The act also prohibits domestic distribution of information intended for foreign audiences).

Radio. A live audio stream of the President’s speech will be pushed to national and local radio stations during the speech. After the speech, a taped audio recording of the Presidentâ€™s answers to the SMS messages received will be made available to radio stations and websites. The President hopes to answer a variety of questions and comments by topic and region. The audio recording will also be made available for download on White House website and iTunes.

Video. The speech will be livestreamed at www.whitehouse.gov/live. The embed code for this video is available so you may also host the livestream on any Website.

Online chat. We will host a live web chat around the speech on Facebook (it will be at http://apps.facebook.com/whitehouselive). The White House will also create a Facebook â€œeventâ€ around the speech wherein participants from around the world can engage with one another. A Twitter hashtag (i.e. #obamaghana) will also be created and promoted to consolidate input and reaction around the event.

Obama talks about his upcoming trip

Part 1

Part 2

Where Africa and Technology Collide!