January 22, 2008 · 01:04 PM

Africa Revisited

The loop is completed: In the last session of DLD08, Africa is again in focus.

In the first DLD panel on Sunday, Martin Sorrell called Africa "the continent of opportunity" for further development in digital technologies.

We know that for poor countries, the so called digital gap is a serious problem. Western societies have access to new ways of communication, but with every new technology, the backlog of African countries becomes larger. On the other hand, isn't there a huge investment opportunity looming? Might Africa be the next continent to gain broad access to the digital sphere?

Entrepreneur June Arunga explains the difficulties to sell financial services in Africa. People usually don´t even have a postal address, they cannot be billed and they have too little income to pay for these services.

Telecommunication companies have to deal with this problem, too. An example is the dominance of cell phones with prepaid cards, as these phones give the opportunity to pay calls singly and not with one bill at the end of the month.

Fund manager Christian Angermayer, a pioneer investor in Africa, reports about his experiences in Ruanda. Going there, he immediately questioned the clichee that Africa means war, anarchy and catastrophes. Now, he is glad about his decision to open up part of his business in Ruanda.

Narrowing the digital gap, Africa won't be the continent of experience, but the "continent of opportunity". Runanda's ambassador to Germany, Eugène-Richard Gasana, invited everybody to visit his country. "We are not just friends, we are relatives, we are one family. And I invite you to come to Ruanda to see it with your own eyes."

For him, it would be a pleasure to have more collaboration with the bright minds the DLD community consists of. "So many things are changing right now, so why not start a cooperation on digital issues?" He was even dreaming of hosting a DLD conference in Ruanda.

 

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