Few organizations do as good of a job as Praekelt in creating well-designed applications that are used by millions of people in the continent. A couple times a year, they take that same level of quality and create new videos and resources to better showcase Africa’s tech statistics. Here’s their newest video.
Good interview of Maliyo Games founder and the opportunity in Africa’s gaming space.
Why do you think the African audience is looking for African games instead of Farmville or Mafia Wars?
“Itâ€s not so much what they are looking for, more what is being pushed to them. Our games ‘Okada Rideâ€, ‘Mosquito Smasher†and ‘Adanma†have far more local relevance than Mafia Wars. Nigerian music and Nollywood movies have a strong appeal to the local and diasporan consumers. We are riding this trend and thus far we are seeing traction.â€
Check out Maliyo’s website to get their games.
Opera puts together a great resource of user-based statistics [PDF link]. It’s a country-by-country breakdown of mobile penetration, user growth, top domains and top handsets used. Here are a few of the interesting tidbits:
UC Berkeley has created a mobile reporting field guide, useful for people doing data collection and research as well as activist types.
PyCon South Africa – Cape Town, Oct 4-5
DEMO Africa – Nairobi, Oct 24-26
Tech4Africa – Joburg, Oct 31-Nov 1
AfricaCom – Cape Town, Nov 13-15
Mobile Web Africa – Joburg, Nov 28-29
(If you know of other tech events coming up before the end of the year that you think belong here, put it in the comments and I’ll add it later.)
If you have an upcoming tech event, contact me and let me know the following information:
I know there are some Barcamps and local tech events upcoming around East and West Africa. Get them to me to add to the calendar. It seems like it’s all South Africa at the moment.
[sidebar: yes, I know it’s not pretty yet, I’ll get to that as I can… I’m using Dan’s Gigs Calendar WP plugin for this.]
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