
Africa is becoming a testbed for commercial drone services - protomyth
http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/22/africa-is-becoming-a-testbed-for-commercial-drone-services/
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ajpgrealish
Africa's a hotbed for technology generally not just drones. Mobile money has
really taken off in Kenya, becoming the preferred option for business taking
payment and the technology has been very quickly spreading across the world.

Solar power systems with integrated GSM connectivity build in to enable
financing are also taking off with a huge amount of investment being made into
companies providing these such as BBOXX, Mobisol and M-Kopa.

What I really like is that most of these technologies are not just being
transferred from the Western world, they are technologies developed for the
context and bypass the outdated technologies used elsewhere. Even more
importantly they are being developed to be commercially viable and not
dependent on aid money or donor funding.

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mdolon
For those curious, two companies/services to look at in these spaces are
M-PESA
([http://www.safaricom.co.ke/personal/m-pesa](http://www.safaricom.co.ke/personal/m-pesa))
and M-KOPA ([http://www.m-kopa.com/](http://www.m-kopa.com/)).

I spent this past February in Kenya working with a tech startup and all of my
expectations about technology in Africa were completely shattered. Nearly
everyone I met (both in Nairobi and in smaller towns) had smartphones with
data plans, used mobile banking and were very willing to try out the latest
technologies. I used Uber to commute to the office every day and get around
the otherwise sketchy parts of town at night, the service is doing so well
that traditional taxi drivers were rioting on the streets. Sub-Saharan Africa
is a hotbed of opportunity ripe for disruption.

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reitanqild
We are also into M-PESA.

(And as before I am interested if anyone has other good (micro-/mobile
)payments providers they would recommend in an around Kenya, India/Pakistan
and rural southeast Asia. Same goes for cheap reliable non-GSM comm stacks.)

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ajpgrealish
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by non-GSM comms stack but if you want
comms for IoT like devices then LoRa could be of interest. I don't know of any
large scale networks active outside of Europe and the US but it's quite
feasible to operate a base station yourself.

If your looking for something targeted at consumers then Facebook have started
a large scale wifi project in Kampala:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35000544](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35000544)

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reitanqild
Thanks!

