© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.

One of the frequent criticisms of Google is that they have no strategy beyond search. Until now, I could see that, but as of today that argument should be officially dead with their announcement of the Google Chrome Operating System. It should be fairly obvious to all that Google is growing into it’s own as a software company (as opposed to a web services company or an advertising company). In other words, where Microsoft has failed to enter Google’s arena (search) for the past six years in any meaningful way, Google definitely is entering Microsoft’s in BIG form.

First, with Android, Google threw the gauntlet down to challenge Microsoft (and of course Apple) in mobile. Then with the Chrome browser, Google took on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari and another longterm partner, Mozilla Firefox. Not only that but Gmail and Google Apps have finally emerged from beta which are yet more offerings that compete with all of the aforementioned companies and more.

So where does this put Google’s overall strategy?

Google’s Web Strategy Search Adsense Gmail Apps/Docs Video

Google’s Software Strategy Google Desktop Android Maps/Earth/Latitude Chrome Browser Chrome OS

Of course Google is also experimenting with other types of business models like it’s phone services, print services, and hardware products like Google Search Appliance and Google Mini, but none of those services or products have serious market share for a company it’s size. However, it looks like Google is finally flexing it’s muscle in new areas of innovation. Smart, especially if Microsoft’s Bing keeps nipping at it’s heels in search.

My favorite related headline of the day “Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome“.

© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.

Recently there’s been an explosion in the relevance of ‘real-time’ applications like Friend Feed and Twitter. The ability to get information from the masses on one part of the planet to the masses somewhere else has never been greater. Still, despite all the wonders that devices like the iPhone, apps like Twitterific and search engines like Scoopler provide, does any of it really matter to billions of people who still send messages hundreds of miles by foot or auto-rickshaw because it’s their fastest option? Currently there are approximately three billion people on the planet who don’t have access to the internet or other forms of information technology. Even the most common knowledge you’d find at your local public library eludes them for most of their lives. At Questionbox.org we’re very aware of this and we apply technology in ways that ensures information is available to all the world’s people.

Question Box is a service being piloted in Uganda and India that allows anyone to call and ask questions to operators that speak their local language. Literacy both in written languages and especially in computing technology is a luxury for most of the people on the planet. In developed nations, we often take this for granted when developing solutions for the poor. If people can’t read, what good is it to bombard them with free SMS messages (no matter how informative they might be)? Likewise, if women aren’t allowed in places where men congregate (in some countries this is the culture), how can we ensure they have access to the same basic information as men, especially in areas of health and personal well-being? How do NGO’s and other organizations know where solutions might be better deployed if it turns out the data they’re using for scoping an area is outdated? These are the the types of problems that Question Box hopes to offer scalable solutions to.

Recently, I began thinking about the data we were collecting and of ways to make it more accessible. Because there was a real time-input (people calling the service), I decided I would try to offer a real-time feed of the questions coming in from people who have no computers, sometimes even no phones. How can they not have phones you ask? Well, in our current pilot with Grameen-Uganda, Question Box works by sending people called Community Knowledge Workers into the field to aggregate questions from rural communities. The CKW then dials a call center (located at Appfrica Labs) with operators on standby waiting to look up the answers. As the operators enter a search (complete with the demographic info of the question asker) the application is populated with those queries, as they occur in real-time. If you’ve ever been to Google’s Mountain View campus, they have a monitor displaying search terms as they are being entered by billions of people around the world, this is the same general concept applied to people who normally live their lives far beyond reach of the web.

The application is called World Wants to Know or WW2K. It’s an exercise in data visualization and offers insight as to the types of information these populations are interested in. Before you ask what the answers are, we do give them to the callers but to protect their identities as well as the interests of our pilot partners, that information (unfortunately) cannot be shared. Over the next few weeks I hope to add many new visualizations to the site based on the data we’re collecting in India and Uganda.

The WW2K application works by querying a server located at my office in Uganda which is currently on a 192kbps connection with spotty power, so please forgive the reliability of the data feed!

You can check out the World Wants to Know application now at worldwantstoknow.com.

_{The graph above (found on the worldwantstoknow website) shows the number of men and women asking questions in Uganda, and what categories their questions fall in.}

_{This map shows the region of Uganda we are collecting questions from. Right now the app is still buggy, but a real-time XML feed occasionally shows where the callers are located with green pins.}

© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.

Download or Stream the Podcast - MP3 | Subscribe | iTunes | YouTube | Zoopy

Links From the Show

World Wants to Know - real-time visualization of questions around the world

Grameen CKW Program - community knowledge workers

Grameen Applab - applying technology solutions to development

Google SMS Apps - SMS Search, SMS Tips and SMS Trader

Quincy Jones on MJ’s Death - Candid thoughts from Quincy Jones on his friend MJ

Uganda Wants to ban Used Computers - My thoughts

© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.

Football stadiums, shopping malls, schools and clinics have all been completed, while social housing schemes have created millions of jobs across Africa as a whole.

African firms have won a large proportion of the contracts on offer and the share prices of listed construction companies have risen strongly over the period. More

© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.

The mega companies have linked up to make what they say will be a “new exciting industry”. While being tight lipped about the exact products of the technology collaboration, the companies said they would deliver new mobile computing products that are beyond the existing smartphones, netbooks and notebooks.

Intel makes chips for Wi-Fi and WiMax networks and has previously lacked the technology to provide a complete package for portable device makers. Anand Chandrasekher is Intel’s senior vice president of its ultra-mobility group. He said of the deal…

With the convergence of the internet and mobility as the team’s only barrier, I can only imagine the innovation that will come out of our unique relationship with Nokia. The possibilities are endless.

Gerry Purdy, the chief mobile analyst at Frost & Sullivan agrees…

I believe this will impact the industry for many years to come and accelerate the adoption of smartphones in the world. At the moment they are at 10% of market share. I predict that will grow to 50-60% in the next five years as a result of this partnership.

The direction we are heading is more computing power. We are seeing some exciting iPhone-like capability out there like graphics interactivity, multi-touch, video, lots of multi-media and the like.

© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.

Two recent articles point to the scientific realities of the African continent and the potential it has for tremendously enhancing the sustainability of the growing world population. The first, published last year argues that the vastly uninhabited regions of the northern continent where the Saraha desert stretches, could be used to build massive solar farms that could theoretically power the whole planet. The second, published more recently suggests that Africa could also feed most of the worlds population with it’s vast stretches of fertile soil and uninhabited land.

When it comes to plans for solar, the concept would be to build a massive solar grid, using hydro-electric backup generators in the Mediterranean region to power Europe. The image above taken from treehugger.com shows just how little land it would take to power the entire world. The smaller box would be sufficient for contemporary Germany, the middle box represents powering the populations of the countries in the European Union and the largest box represents the land it would take to power the entire planet.

Here’s a mock-up of what the finished grid would look like.

The other report, suggests that there’s enough unused land on the planet, particularly in African and Latin America, to sustain the world population indefinitely.

“Some 1.6 billion hectares could be added to the current 1.4 billion hectares of crop land [in the world], and over half of the additionally available land is found in Africa and Latin America,” concludes the report, compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Models for producing new crop land already exist in Thailand, where land originally deemed agriculturally unpromising, due to irrigation problems and infertile soil, has been transformed into a cornucopia by smallholder farmers.

As in Thailand, future success will come by using agriculture to lift Africa’s smallholder farmers out of poverty, aided by strong government measures to guarantee their rights to land, say both reports.

AU’s Leadership Needed

The reality is that as various countries around the globe realize this (and as it becomes more necessary to sustain their own growing populations) there is very little to stop them from attempting to do so. It’s a logical, viable solution to one of the world’s rapidly growing problems. Foreign governments will shake a few hands and sign a few deals with African leaders, some of whom have historically simply been looking for the quickest way to subsidize their private jets and Swiss bank accounts. What will it take for this to happen while ensuring that Africa benefits from it’s own resources? The blame will fall squarely on the shoulders of AU leaders if they can’t see far enough ahead to make mutually beneficial deals fall into place.

After all, we don’t want a continent-wide repeat of Madagascar.

© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.

The Zain brand has only been in the Kenyan market for less than a year, but if developments within the Zain Group in the last few days are anything to go by, it may be on its way out.

On Tuesday, media reports indicated that the Zain Group, the Kuwaiti based mobile telecommunication company with operations in 22 countries in Middle East and Africa, may agree to a deal to sell its African operations to a French company for up to USD 12 billion.

The media reports about the impending sale first appeared in the Kuwait-based Al Qabas daily reports. People familiar with the matter told the paper that Zain was waiting for a reply from the French company this week.

If the deal between Zain and the French company does not go through, Zain will study bids made by Chinese and European companies. But if it sails through, the French company will also buy Celtel Africa’s debts, which will be discounted from the African telecom operator’s price.

Asked for comment, Michael Okwiri, Zain Kenya communication director, was noncommittal only saying there is no official communication on the recent development.

Read more at ITNews Africa

© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.

Editorials

Affect Theory

My editorial at the TED Fellows Blog discusses the role of education, investment capital and mentorship all correlate to a positive African future.

Techcrunch Goes to Africa

Sarah Lacey is in Africa, sparking a lot of excitment that Techcrunch would cover the local tech scene.

VC4Africa Mobilizes Investors Interested in Africa

One of our first startups Afridex announces a partnership with the 5,000 strong community of investors at VC4Africa!

News

Africa Does the Robot with Robonica

A south African robotics startup raises new capital and announces new products.

South Africa’s Billion Dollar Aids Scandal

Ponzo scheme hits the international Aids industry in a big way.

Is Wordnik the new Wikipedia?

An innovative new way of crowdsourcing the dictionary is useful for more than just that!

China Grants $90M for African Development

China wants it’s companies to invest more in African operations.

Are You Following @FricaFact?

Fricafact.com relaunches.

© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.

This is my second trip to Rwanda this year, and it’s clear there are many ways this country stands out from much of Africa, and many ways it’s still very challenged in terms of foreign investment.

Many of the greatest achievements have been social and societal. The country has admirably rebuilt itself since the 1994 genocide. It’s one of the only times in recorded history the victims of a genocide had to go live in the same land with the perpetrators, which was no easy feat given how much of the general population was guilty of the crime. Rwandans have amazingly pioneered a practice of accountability and forgiveness, which is all the more striking now that many of the killers are finishing their prison sentences and re-integrating themselves into the small, densely-populated country. A better write-up of that side of Rwanda is in a recent New Yorker, when Philip Gourevitch who wrote one of the more famous books on the genocide revisited the country 15 years later.

But the business side of the country is more nuanced. On the plus side, Rwanda has almost no corruption, an impeccably clean capital city, wide access to basic health care and primary school education, boasts some of the best roads in Africa, better cell phone access than much of Silicon Valley (cough, cough, Sand Hill Road, cough) and almost zero violent crime. On the negative side, it has one of the weirdest economies I’ve ever encountered.

I appreciate the fact that this woman, has nothing but praise for the progress of Rwanda as it’s possible to get thrown out of the country for being too critical on the Internet (one of my friends found out first hand two years ago). As someone who’s been, and who knows people, both expatriates and locals living there (not to mention that I live only a few hours away from the capital Kigali), the above statements, I feel, need further explanation.

• Rwanda does indeed stand out from the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa (especially East Africa) in terms of discipline, order and governance. But the statement that ‘there is no corruption’ there literally made me roll on the floor laughing. It’s great that she feels that way, but that statement echoes as falsely here as it does in China.
• The whole sharing land with perpetrators of a genocide thing, isn’t wrapped up in a neat bow. There’s still a lot of tension in the country both from the genocides but also due to countries past with Uganda and of course DRC. I’ve met quite a few people who are afraid to return to the country for reasons tied to that moment in history.
• The ‘weirdness of the Rwandan economy’ (sic) as Sarah puts, pales in comparison to Uganda which despite being bigger, with more trade, has fewer investments and costs much more to do business in.
• Rwanda does indeed take it’s environment very seriously. There are mandates in place to keep all plastics from entering the country, and that ask citizens to spend one weekend a month cleaning up their neighborhoods.
• Those inflated costs, here in Uganda, are referred to as ‘the Mzungu’ tax (the term mzungu means foreign traveler but is more often used to refer to Caucasian people) - the premium you pay for being a blatant foreigner. Despite being black, I too sometimes get that tax if I reveal my American accent too soon. =) I’m sure the rates do fluctuate, but a stay in Rwanda will usually cost way less than Uganda does.
• Rwanda can be a great place to do business. It’s a very forward thinking, progressive, upwardly mobile country in comparison to many of it’s neighbors.
• In Kigali, at least, the country is EXTREMELY wired. More-so than Uganda. The government is explicitly spending money to position itself to take advantage of the undersea cables on their way to provide bandwidth to the region. Wifi is everywhere in that city, at least more available than here Kampala, and if Sarah hasn’t had the chance to spend time there yet, I highly encourage it.
• Lastly, it would be nice if Techcrunch, one of the leading technology blogs in the world, would give the local geek scene a bit of love. I mean, If I’m a tech blogger and I go to South Korea, I’m not gonna suddenly start only blogging about rice. But hey, as a fan of TC’s normal coverage, I guess I’m biased.

Anyways, she meant well and hopefully she spends more time on research articles like this one (which was still largely devoid of tech coverage) instead of ones like this. Or as Erik puts it…

I’m not sure if the message comes across to people who don’t live in Africa, but we’re kind of sick of journalists coming here to write about ‘monkeys’ or ‘conflict’ but failing to notice the exciting emerging culture around them. If you’re here on vacation, fine, go see and blog about apes and monkeys but as Sara states in her article, she’s here for work. And since she works for TECHcrunch, I think it’s fair to ask for more of the former.

© 2008 - 2009 Appfrica International. Looking for more African tech? Try our podcast Appfricast which you can also find on iTunes.