Africa’s Mobile Explosion | Hacker News Reader

Africa’s Mobile Explosion

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21 pointscleis12 comments

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.

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!

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!

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

Yes it will be possible to have a user with a feature phone to auto check-in but that will be from an application level. My company http://www.saya.im has a chat application tailored to feature phone and one of the features is a geo-location chatroom. We are able to do this using cell-tower id's and triangulations and augment that with the phones IP address. There are open-source cell-tower id databases like http://www.opencellid.org/ which can be of help. Also you may want to think of a Java ME app to implement this.

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.

Interesting question. As a developer working in Africa you read about the latest technologies on HN. Then you have the added task of working out whether the technology you just read about will work in Africa. This is easier said than done but nonetheless very interesting.

EDIT: grammar

I expect language/cultural barriers are a larger factor. With a local alternative, why would you use an app made by someone that doesn't speak your language or understand your needs?

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.

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.

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

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.

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