

Africa’s Mobile Explosion - cleis
http://opensignal.com/blog/2013/02/22/africas-mobile-explosion/

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Kartificial
From my traveling experience in Ghana I can say that mobile usage there is
crazy big. Everybody has a phone, but almost always a really basic (partly
broken) phone. So except for the richer audience, smartphone are almost non-
existent.

This, however, does not mean that mobile internet is also non-existent.
Although data reception is pretty much bound to larger cities/communities, it
goes through the entire country. And sometimes I even had reception in the
most desolate places.

But the most interesting thing was that phones are actually used for calling
people. When you exchange numbers they just randomly start calling you to ask
you how you are and whatnot.

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svetha
Great thread! I run a nonprofit called New Incentives (newincentives.org) that
provides behavior-based cash incentives, known as conditional cash transfers,
directly to individuals living on less than $0.30/day in five developing
countries. My team is building a geolocation-based monitoring system to
determine whether or not the conditions behind our cash incentives are met. We
plan to license this technology to large-scale government-run cash incentive
programs that cover anywhere from 5-15 millions individuals. Does anyone know
if can get a person's feature phone (not a smartphone) to auto check-in and/or
receive push notifications? In case it’s helpful, you might think of an
application of what we are hoping to build as a child laborer in rural India
checking in to school and receiving compensation for every check in to support
his/her family. Our goal is for this monitoring system to operate in low
infrastructure settings and not have to deal directly with the
telecommunication networks in the countries we work in; and if possible, not
be dependent upon SMS. Any advice would be very much appreciated!

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pratagarwal
Wow, cool idea! From what I understand, you guys use cash incentives after a
particular job/work/behavior is done or result achieved.

Building a technolog like yours (sort of a foursquare for developing
countries) could have awesome implications for these countries. Keep us
updated on HN please. This is great!

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svetha
Thanks for the encouragement, your understanding is spot on. I'll definitely
keep the HN community posted!

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JamesCRR
One thing I've found interesting that I'd love to see explored in depth, is
the lack of interplay between the tech used in US/Western Europe (traditional
tech hubs) and Africa. It seems the apps that are important to one market are
not the same that matter in another - even in similar sectors (e.g. Square vs
MPesa) perhaps this is because one set of apps targets smartphones and fast
internet connections (not to mention processors) while another is targeted at
feature phones. As smartphones reach higher levels of adoption I'd love to see
African built apps taking on Western markets.

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danboarder
In large part it has to do with the level of tech available. Bandwidth in many
parts of Africa is very slow, so SMS is preferred as a workable solution for
data. M-pesa uses SMS on any low cost feature phone, while Square requires a
more expensive smartphone with apps and data plans. People use what is
practical in their context.

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mpunaskar
Friend(s) of mine in Mumbai are easily accessible using WhatsApp on their
android phone than they were on their home desktop machines and Instant
messengers.

Just like other developing countries, I think Next generation of India will be
skipping whole desktop and Laptop and move straight to mobile and tablet based
computing devices.

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lucian1900
Sadly, that means the barrier to actually creating things will be that much
higher. That concerns me.

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highrisein
I dont see any barriers they just need to cater to our needs. I think they can
innovate in their area of expertise like the mining sector or any resource
driven field. Lets not ignore the fact that many big corporations work in
Africa so they are exposed to technological advancements.

