Wake-up call on mobile technology

USINESS and the government need to take the power of mobile communication in Africa more seriously to take advantage of opportunities to do business, disseminate information and enhance service delivery.

This was one of the core messages by speakers, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, pubic service administration minister Lindiwe Sisulu and Gartner technology analyst Andrea DiMaio, at the GovTech 2012 information technology and communication (ICT) conference in Durban last week.

They all spoke about the huge opportunities that mobile communication was offering Africa, saying it was up to the government, business and other organisations to develop mobile applications and use social media and other technologies to make a difference.

Wales said some of the most innovative mobile technology was coming out of Africa and that mobile technology was playing a big role in bridging the digital divide. This was giving people on the continent the opportunity to communicate and get information in some of the most remote regions.

“Today mobile penetration

Bin Africa is so high that on average there is more than one mobile or cellular phone per person. Devices are becoming cheaper and more people are getting smart phones. You can get an $85 smart phone and access the web, Facebook, Twitter and pay bills with your mobile.

“Internet and broadband costs are dropping dramatically and services are becoming better. This is having an enormously positive impact on Africa and it’s an incredibly exciting thing,” he said.

“It’s becoming all about ‘mobile government’ and governments must take this seriously by providing more services through mobile channels… We must think outside the box and begin thinking about building participatory platforms.

“It is all about collaboration and openness, whether you’re a business or government. Technology is doing this. It is no more about top-down communication.

“Governments need to use technology to be more responsive to their citizens and in service delivery. Over the next 10 to 20 years, we will see more people collaborating across the world through technology and coming up with amazing innovations for social good.”

Wales co-founded Wikipedia a decade ago as the world’s first “internationally collaborative” free content encyclopedia on the internet.

Sisulu also said issues such as the Limpopo textbook crisis may not be a major challenge in years to come, with ICT offering the opportunity for pupils to potentially learn through innovations such as ebooks and other e-learning devices.

Gartner’s DiMaio said social media and other channels and technology applications were becoming the options of choice for people to interact with businesses, government and other organisations.

Stafford Masie, SA technology entrepreneur and former head of Google Africa, speaking at the recent SA Council of Shopping Centres annual congress in Durban, expressed similar sentiments to Wales and DiMaio.

He said companies that did not adapt would eventually go out of business, as would governments that did not embrace new-wave technological thinking.

“Cheap computing and ubiquitous connectivity are turning the world into one big Smurf (Sensory Membrane of Ubiquitous Real-time Federated Subsystems) village. This is creating a global, intelligent fabric of network services and applications that will transform the way we live over the next three to five years,” he said.

See Network next week for more on Wales’s and Masie’s view of where technology is heading.