Google Africa: Investment in Africa to Enhance Innovation

by with No Comment AfricaAfrican BusinessBlogging

Internet giant; Google intends to invest in innovation and get more users online by developing an accessible, relevant and sustainable internet ecosystem. According to the Policy and Government Relations Manager for Google Africa, Ory Okolloh, this will bring about merging innovations technology and the productive technology.

Speaking on Friday at the interactive sessions at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, Ory said this will cater for the rising generation of innovative entrepreneur’s activists and policy makers in transforming business and society from the grass root level.

“Reducing access as a barrier to all potential users, making the Internet relevant and useful to Africans and helping strengthen an internet ecosystem in Africa that is vibrant, and sustainable and self-sufficient in the long-term,” she said.

Ory said the most challenge faced by innovation is the access to the markets and that’s sitting below 5 percent of the whole total market that can absorb. “The future outlook o f Google is to see to it that they increase the market for innovation grows to at least 60 percent in the next 5 years”, she added.

She decried that fact that out of the global internet generation, Africa produces only 2 percent with a huge gap between the venture capital and the seed capital.

Ory said Google Africa will be in the fore front in unlocking Africa innovative potential by incorporating investors opportunities to enhance hi-tech and lo-tech people in building synergies.

Enhanced by ZemantaCredit: Word Economic Forum

Frustrated Innovation – Ory Okolloh; @KenyanPundit

by with No Comment InnovationsMobile TechnologyStartups

Africa‘s technology community will thrive only by facing up to the continent’s fundamental problems. – By Ory Okolloh
English: Ory OkollohAfrica is trending, if stories in the international media over the last year are anything to go by. And no story about “rising Africa”—many of us would argue it has “arisen”—is complete without mention of the role technology is playing in this transformation.
The rise of the mobile phone, disruptive SMS services like the money-transfer platform M-Pesa, and mobile tools for democracy like Ushahidi have been the subjects of numerous reports. Unfortunately, these good-news stories haven’t been accompanied by a more nuanced view of the opportunities being created and where they may take us (see “Kenya’s Startup Boom“).

Technology is the perfect refuge for African capability stifled elsewhere by badly run governments and years of misplaced foreign aid. Ubiquitous connectivity in a world without legacy infrastructure, together with the potential to learn coding or anything else online, has allowed technology entrepreneurship to flourish. The barriers to entry have been dramatically lowered. Startup incubators and app competitions are springing up throughout the region. However, there is a risk that the buzz, so good at attracting international attention, will remain only that.
If local technology startup companies are really to thrive and become sizable businesses, other areas need to experience their own versions of the technology sector’s burst of energy and freedom. Entrepreneurs today face challenges such as a nonexistent IP regime, poor infrastructure, high penalties for failure, and oppressive bureaucracy and shortsightedness, all of which stand between businesspeople and the huge market of a billion people that Africa represents.
A scenario I come across far too often is that a young African technologist with a great product for industry X, company Y, or government department Z gets a chance to demonstrate it, to wide acclaim. But to translate it into an actual business opportunity, the innovator is expected to hand over cash or a 40 percent stake in the business, to smooth things out with the “head of IT procurement.”
Too few entrepreneurs have managed to overcome these obstacles. Frankly, we need to spend more time learning from the successes of little-heralded businesses like Seven Seas Technology, an IT services company in Kenya, and MoTribe, which helps brands build their own mobile social networks in South Africa. Both of these have managed to become large and profitable companies, a goal that generally eludes those caught up in the African “tech is the promised land” bubble.
As I see it, tech in Africa 1.0 was the mobile-phone boom, and version 2.0 was about new apps developed in response to local needs. Tech in Africa 3.0 should be about those who are successful in transforming the chatter into real opportunities.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Ory Okolloh Joins Google To Shape Africa's Internet Policy

by with No Comment Africa

The success of Ushahidi as both an activist organization and as a technology startup is one that is widely recognized as Africa’s first big ‘garage’ startup success story. The organization was born out of the 2007 post-election unrest in Kenya when Ory Okolloh put out a call to map citizen reports of violence. Erik Hersman, David Kobia and Juliana Rotich all heeded the call and Ushahidi.com was born.

Ory Okolloh @ the launch of iHub Nairobi (c) AfricaKnows.com
In a blog post – Stepping Down as Ushahidi Executive Director; Ory Okolloh states;

For me, what has always been the most important aspect of the work we do has remained simple, building a tool that makes it easy for individuals and groups to tell their stories, and making it easy for these stories to be mapped/visualized.
Ushahidi has grown to be that and much more, thanks especially to the wider community – which saw potential uses beyond crisis reporting and who largely shaped our growth and direction to date be it through translation efforts (Ushahidi now available in 10 languages!), or custom themes, or pushing for a hosted version (Crowdmap), or challenging us to address the shortcomings of the platform (through tools like SwiftRiver and our community resources page).
Beyond the growth of Ushahidi as a platform and an organization, I always tell people that I am most proud of the fact that the Ushahidi story has provided an inspiration to other techies in Kenya and Africa – an example of the kind of talent the continent holds, but also a reminder that we have just scratched the surface. And so after 3 years, I feel it is time for me to take on the next challenge. Those of you who know me well know I’ve got a 1001 ideas floating in my head that I need to get out.

The Kenyan Lawyer and Activist answered the question; Where next and for what?

I will be joining Google in the New Year as the Policy Manager for Africa. The role will involve developing policy /strategies on a number of areas of relevance to Google and the Internet in Africa and will involve working with different parties including government leaders, policy makers, regulators, industry groups and so on.
It is a huge opportunity to bring Google’s resources to bear as far as the growth and development of the internet in Africa (and hopefully a reminder of why I went to law school in the first place!). I’m very excited about the move and I hope I can continue to lean on your support and insight in my new role.

Who takes over as Executive Director at Ushahidi? Guess, who?

Ushahidi co-founder Juliana Rotich will be the acting Executive Director. As Program Director (and pretty much since the very beginning of Ushahidi) Juliana has been our key interface with the wider community of techies, implementers of the platform and volunteers.
Her ability to be a bridge between the core of Ushahidi and the wider community (along with her uber-geek status!) gives me and the rest of the team every confidence that the transition process will be smooth and bigger things lie ahead for Ushahidi.

My friends at Afrinnovator did an interesting piece on Ory’s move to Google and also touched on a few relating articles worth taking a closer look at below:

Ory Okolloh Co-Founder of Ushahidi talks to CNN’s AfricanVoices Ory Okolloh, one of the founders of Ushahidi, talks with…
Ushahidi’s Ory Makes Top 40 Women Under 40 Ory Okolloh, one of the directors of the Ushahidi project…
Ushahidi/FrontlineSMS Talk at UoN It’s hard to talk about what’s happening in technology in…

For a full insight into the making of the Ushahidi platform; read Erik Hersman; @whiteafrican ‘s post: Making Ushahidi
 

Enhanced by Zemanta