

The Rise of Silicon Savannah and Africa’s Tech Movement - doublerebel
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/23/the-rise-of-silicon-savannah-and-africas-tech-movement/

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ChuckMcM
Can we stop calling these "Silicon" ? Silicon Alley, Silicon Savannah, Silicon
Valley, Silicon Prarie, Silicon Forest, Silicon what-have-you.

It was called silicon valley because all the semiconductor companies were
located there. Now all the cool kids want to be in San Francisco, which is
very much _not_ Silicon Valley and very much _is_ something like "Info City"
or "Social City" or "AmazonEC2 ville" or something.

Maybe we could call the whole region "Technology Bay", yeah, throw a little
location love over toward the East Bay as well.

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mooreds
Please see [http://www.feld.com/archives/2012/04/the-tragedy-of-
calling-...](http://www.feld.com/archives/2012/04/the-tragedy-of-calling-
things-silicon-blah.html) for a good rant on this topic.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Oh that is awesome. I wish Brad would answer my email.

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funkyy
So many rises in last 2 decades. Africa, South-East Asia, Central America - I
hear about them monthly. But no real global impact by any of those "rises" can
be seen. Seems like this is a great way to boost readership by Techcrunch and
others.

~~~
warfangle
So many valuations in the last 2 decades. Netscape, Pets.com, Tumblr,
Instagram, Klout, Worldcom, AOL, Broadcast.com, Solar City. I hear about them
monthly. But no real global impact by any of those 'valuations' can be seen.
Seems like this is a great way to boost readership by Techcrunch and others.

What you're missing is that they're having local impact, in a region that most
of the tech industry has almost no impact in.

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funkyy
Bad example. Many valuations are actually good. And if you say there is no
global impact by Tumblr or Instagram, then you need to learn more about
foreign markets.

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warfangle
And if you say there's been no global impact by mpesa .... then you need to
learn a thing about emerging markets.

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seunosewa
A cynic would wonder if African startups only become interesting when they
receive foreign investments. What would you say to that cynic?

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mooreds
Wouldn't surprise me if African startups only became interesting to _sites
like Techcrunch_ when they receive foreign investment. I bet there are African
startup news sites that have been reporting on startups there for years. Yup,
see
[http://www.itnewsafrica.com/category/startups-2/](http://www.itnewsafrica.com/category/startups-2/)
for an example.

~~~
shinamee
Another good one is www.techcabal.com

