The Rise of Silicon Savannah and Africa’s Tech Movement | Hacker News Reader

The Rise of Silicon Savannah and Africa’s Tech Movement

techcrunch.com

36 pointsdoublerebel14 comments

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.

Please see http://www.feld.com/archives/2012/04/the-tragedy-of-calling-... for a good rant on this topic.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Don't most startups only becoming interesting when they receive investments?

You've chosen to conveniently ignore the word "foreign". As in, "foreign investments".

I'd personally be quite interested to see African technology startups getting domestic investment. Foreign's good too, though.

Yes, the point still stands.

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/ for an example.

Another good one is www.techcabal.com

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