Across the world, the conversion of information into a digital format – also called “digitalisation” – has increased productivity in the public and private sectors. As a result, virtually every country in the world is working towards a digital economy.
East Africa attracts millions of tourists every year. Over the past 10 years, its earnings from tourism have doubled. Compared to the rest of Africa, the region is experiencing healthy economic growth. This makes it a promising investment destination.
When one talks about young Africans using smartphones, the dominant narrative is that these gadgets serve mostly as platforms for connection so that users can communicate and share greetings and information via text and images.
Mobile services have had an important and positive impact on developing countries where they are the main means of connecting to the internet. However, mobile services have capacity constraints. They use limited radio frequency spectrum, which means that mobile data typically has usage limits. They also have high prices per unit (per gigabyte), which results in lower use per connection.
There are more than a few new startups in South Africa that are shaking up the status quo. Two of…
Toby Shapshak speaks to Max Cuvellier from the GSMA mobile development division. The programme is developing access to mobile in Africa by establishing tech hubs across the continent.
Digital technology has created new opportunities for businesses in sub-Saharan Africa to compete on a more equal footing. However, these businesses have yet to enjoy the full benefits because of a difficult operating environment.
Digitisation refers to everything from delivering farming advice via text messaging to interactive voice response. It also includes smart phone applications that link farmers to multimedia advisory content, farm inputs, and buyers. And it covers the use of drones and satellite systems to inform farmer activities, such as crops and times to plant; and types and amounts of inputs to use.
Africa’s burgeoning reputation as a source of programming talent got a major boost last month when Microsoft launched its Africa Development Centre (ADC) that will invest $100-milliion over the next five years.
Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that attempts to understand and apply mathematical, verifiable rules to the behaviour of nature at the smallest end of the spectrum – on the scale of atoms, electrons and photons. It was first developed at the beginning of the 20th century, and has been very successful in describing systems on the microscopic level.