IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

In terms of the capacity to use IT, Africa cannot be looked at as a single homogenous region – some areas are still under-developed and some are far along the development path. Most developing regions (and Africa is no exception) abound in examples of systems that are not used for lack of basic ICT education, a lack of secondary equipment, reliable power supply or adequate communications infrastructure.

Standard commercial PCs and IT equipment require "normal office conditions" to function effectively – reasonably temperature-controlled, relatively dust-free environments with stable power supplies. In rural areas, which constitute the greater part of Africa, these conditions simply do not prevail and do not suit the use of the typical, inexpensive, off-the-shelf PC.

Over the past two decades, Chinese companies have come to dominate the telecom infrastructure landscape in emerging markets. Around 50% of Africa’s 3G networks and 70% of its 4G networks are built by Huawei.

The Clean Network initiative was the central Trump administration policy aimed at curbing the expansion of Chinese technology infrastructure but has only found success in getting European countries to agree to use non-Chinese infrastructure in expanding telecom networks. Countries such as the United Kingdom (UK), Czech Republic, and Poland, as well as telecom companies such as Orange and Telstra, notably signed on to the initiative.

Ninety percent of rural Africa lives without electricity and majority of the population have to walk many miles to overcrowded schools without desks to learn. Few communities have libraries or resource centres and are thus socially and economically deprived of the much-needed resources of information, even information about their own country! There is no sense of belonging to the wider global village.

Data centre growth around the world is booming and business is on the cusp of a revolution, said Sanjay Kumar Sainani, SVP & CTO of Huawei’s Global Data Center Business.

Sainani, who has 30 years of experience with data centres, said that there are a few major trends emerging specifically in the segment of data centre facilities.

Technology has opened up new prospects in every aspect of our lives.

When Covid-19 struck, technology provided new platforms in education – dramatically changing the way learning and teaching was conducted.

The pandemic transformed ways of working, living, and relating on a global level. As a result, the education sector has had to adapt, driven by the need to digitalise education and training to remain competitive and provide high-quality education.

Connecting the unconnected and recognizing Africa’s women trailblazers will be focus at Africa Internet Summit.

The Internet Society (InternetSociety.org) will call for the adoption of policies and frameworks that expand access and create greater demand for the Internet during the 4th annual Africa Internet Summit (AIS) (InternetSummitAfrica.org) in Gaborone, Botswana from 29 May – 10 June, 2016. Urging policymakers to grasp the opportunity offered by the expansion and growth of the Internet across the continent, the Internet Society will advocate for greater collaboration by all Internet decision-makers in creating an accessible, trusted Internet that benefits all Africans.

For years, Kyle Spencer has been devoting countless hours of his free time to his passion: online gaming. The gaming community in East Africa, where Spencer lives, is woefully underdeveloped, but he has been doing his best to bring players together. It has always been an uphill battle; for games that rely on quick reflexes, the issue of latency makes connecting with other gaming enthusiasts across the region all but impossible.

The cables have gone a long way towards connecting the continent, says Ibrahim Guimba-Saidou, senior vice-president of SES Commercial Africa, but in themselves are unable to bridge the digital divide.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone begin 2015 still carrying the burden of Ebola, with total cases nearly touching 20,000 by the end of 2014, and over 7,600 deaths.

The dilapidated health care systems in these countries, plus denial and turf wars among the various health agencies in the region have been blamed for the lethargic response.

As I understand it, it’s what NGO’s do in places like Africa and Asia, but if the same things are done in poor communities in the US or Europe, it’s not called ICT4D, it’s called civil society innovation or a disruptive product.

I’ll be the first to say that I think more communications and technology tools in the hands of ordinary people is good, it’s what we need. For this reason I didn’t come down on the OLPC project, not because I agreed with it’s strategy or reason for existing, but because I simply think that getting more computers in kids hands is good idea.

Around the world, cities are exploring how they can best make use of technology to improve quality of life for their citizens, run public services more effectively and provide businesses with a springboard for growth. The various applications of Smart City technology are numerous, from managing a city’s waste or road networks to making citizens safer or improving sustainability.

It’s time that we start to embrace that in Africa. We’ve already started, with deployments across Africa with the City of Tshwane and Western Cape in South Africa setting examples for municipalities across the country to follow. It’s great to see that there is government level support too, with municipalities going digital in their efforts to boost service delivery.

The event, aimed at facilitating and promoting information and communications technology development through knowledge-sharing events, is scheduled for Maputo, Mozambique, from 23 to 25 March.

Come Jan. 1, Africa will be home to the largest free trade area in the world. Although the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), doesn’t go so far as to create a common market or customs union like the European Union, it represents a major step in that direction. That trend presents an opportunity for a forward-thinking first-mover nation to follow Estonia’s example in Europe and become the e-Residency pioneer for Africa.

Given the country’s tiny population, post-Soviet Estonia could never hope to enjoy economic influence in Europe like that of Germany and France, or even smaller nations like Sweden and Czechia. To remain competitive in an increasingly integrated Europe, Estonia focused on developing transformative, technology-driven government services.

While the Internet has not wrought the similar types of profound, broad societal changes in Africa that it has in other parts of the world, the connectivity landscape in Africa is in fact changing very quickly in many places, with macro-level announcements about progress with new fibre optic cables coming on what seems like a weekly basis.

Mobile money services, which are all the rage in Africa, come in handy here.

The ubiquity of mobile phones makes them the e-commerce platform of choice for many citizens, most of whom lack access to electricity to power computers, that is if they can afford them.

Intel and Futures Group are working together to transform eHealth in order to improve healthcare in Africa through information communications technology.

Government officials from Zambia, Namibia, Malawi and Tanzania have been to Uganda to see for themselves what the country is doing, with the aim of using the Ugandan experience as a blueprint for their respective countries.

The African continent is the fastest-growing cellular phone market of any region over the last five years, but has not been able to replicate that success with the Internet. Fewer than four out of every 100 Africans have access to the worldwide web.

Wacs aims to reduce the cost of connecting the west coast of Africa to the high-speed global telecommunications network.

It joins other submarine cables such as Seacom and the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System, also targeted at increasing bandwidth capacity and reducing the cost of communication in Africa.

African healthcare providers are gradually recognising the convenience and cost benefits of adopting patient portals integrating financial and clinical data, according to Frost & Sullivan, giving a boost to a number of startups operating in the e-health sector.

In its Patient Portals in Africa analysis, Frost & Sullivan said healthcare providers were realising such services offered easy and secure access to patient data, while also reducing cost of care and eliminating penalties such as readmissions.