
Why Africa May Never Produce a Facebook, Groupon, Zynga or Google  - OoTheNigerian
http://blogs.forbes.com/mfonobongnsehe/2011/04/07/why-africa-may-never-produce-a-facebook-groupon-zynga-or-google/
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perlgeek
So because there are no VCs _now_ , Africa may _never_ have some?

"Never" is a pretty big word, don't use it unless you really mean it.

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PakG1
To be fair, the title was "May Never", not "Will Never".

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runevault
In anything other than perhaps a human life, Never just feels too definitive.
The may just makes it sound wishy washy.

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Maro
"I recently read Parmy Olson’s interview with Yuri Milner on Forbes’s recent
Billionaires issue... But as I read the article, I could not help but ask
myself the pertinent yet habitually unanswered question: What about Africa?"

Why would you ask "What about Africa?" I don't get it. This article is so
generic. Yes, you need a lot of capital and a large, advanced market, and you
don't have that in Africa. You also don't have it in about a 100 other places.

Much more advanced countries in Europe can't do it, why would you ask "What
about Africa?"

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wicknicks
Because the author was born and raised in Nigeria.
<http://blogs.forbes.com/people/mfonobongnsehe/>: _I was born and raised in
Nigeria_

Its more of a personal article and a call to VCs from around the world.

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ez77
Still it begs answering this question first in order to understand the nature
of the problem: why hasn't rich Europe produced Internet giants like Google,
Yahoo and Facebook?

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Maro
Markets aren't that big, not enough investors/capital, different culture.

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chug2k
The article starts to hint at one thing I think is really interesting about
Africa and other developing nations: by having leapfrogged some past
infrastructure-heavy tech, they're in a unique place to get huge bang for your
innovation dollar, both access-wise and out-of-the-box thinking wise.

The article cites a lot of examples from South Africa, which is actually a
pretty developed country. CIA Factbook has it as the 26th largest GDP in the
world, ahead of countries like Greece and Austria. Obviously that's only one
metric, but I would guess that some VCs will give it a look eventually. The
more interesting question is what will happen to less developed Africa
countries - i.e. the ones, whether for better or for worse, you imagine when
you read the headline.

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Fritzinger
South Africa is in the unique situation of having developers and business
communities with access to all of the resources and education of the West
living as little as 20 minutes away from townships with millions of people who
are as under-resourced as any in Africa (well almost - they do still have
access to a well-funded government). It is the perfect proving ground for
applications for Africa.

Obstacles against success are in brief:

\- Schizophrenic government policies, swinging from incredibly enlightened
consumer protection legislation to, "We should establish a regulatory body for
the press to prevent them from embarrassing government officials when
corruption scandals occur"

\- A legacy of underinvestment and draconian regulation in telecommunications.
My 10Mb line costs me > 100 USD / month, and that's the fastest connection
money can buy here.

Another country worth singling out is Kenya, which has produced incredible
innovation like Ushahidi (<http://ushahidi.com>) and MPesa
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa>). Technology is a focus of government
investment there, probably more so than SA.

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mrfu
How about corruption and lack of political stability ?

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ozziegooen
Not all of Africa is corrupt and politically unstable. It's a pretty big
place.

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mrfu
I totally agree that each country is different (I am half-african and I've
lived in a west african country for more than 15 years). The issue is way more
complex than it appears. But as far as my experience can tell, corruption
makes every single effort required to build something a real pain.

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ozziegooen
I'm frustrated that so many VCs want to make a "Next Silicon Valley" in New
York, Chicago, or another part of the U.S. The rest of the world needs one
significantly more.

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richardw
[http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2011/03/goog...](http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2011/03/google_opens_af.php)

"Nur Bremmen reporting on Memburn writes that Google has chosen Cape Town in
South Africa for a pilot startup incubator called Umbono - Zulu for “vision”,
“sight” or “idea”."

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Fritzinger
Here's a blog post I wrote this week about a Samsung initiative to provide
capital and equipment for promising projects out of the University of Cape
Town (in South Africa).

[http://onesizefritzall.blogspot.com/2011/04/samsung-
smiles-p...](http://onesizefritzall.blogspot.com/2011/04/samsung-smiles-
part-i.html)

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farrel
Ironically enough Naspers, a major South African media empire, owns 35% of
Tencent and I believe 28% of DST.

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arijo
Ubuntu was produced in Africa.

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JoachimSchipper
The word, yes. The code, not so much.

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davidw
Mark Shuttleworth started his company in South Africa, and he has bankrolled
Ubuntu with what he got from selling it. So while "made in Africa" isn't quite
right, there's a component there, in a somewhat roundabout way.

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JoachimSchipper
Ok, but Canonical has directly or indirectly written, what, 0.1% of the code
in a typical Ubuntu install? Maybe 1%? There are _tons_ of hardworking (and
overwhelmingly non-African) programmers that are forgotten every time the
press writes another breathless piece about Ubuntu. (Or, for that matter, Red
Hat - their contributions are much larger, but still a _tiny_ part of the
finished product.)

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davidw
No argument there, but I wasn't talking about the code.

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JoachimSchipper
No argument there, but I _was_ talking about the code. ;-)

Seriously, though, good point.

