Africa is treated as a ‘Priority Market’ as investment floods in
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- JFunnell
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Other visionaries that took part in the elite debate included Sameer Dave, CTO & Chief Executive, MTN SA, Mohammed Sheik, Group Strategy Director, Zain, Mickael Ghossein, CEO, Telkom Kenya and Steve Bailey, CEO, Virgin Mobile SA who came together to unite the industry to capitalize on investor confidence. Innovation was clearly the buzz word during the discussions. Having one of the largest a growth markets in the world is clearly not enough for the developing continent, they want to build a sustainable network, a point clearly made by the Commonwealth Business Council and GSMA at the NGT summit. Such discussion on innovative technologies were lead by giants Microsoft, ITS and HDS who all see Africa as the ‘land of opportunity’ and played a pivotal role in educating the Executives present.
“African Telecom leaders have united this week at the NGT and are really embracing new technologies. Such pioneering development in ICT clearly sends out the right message to Global investors, as the continents ongoing socio-economic development continues to improve”. William Francis Austin – NGT Summit Director
But what is the next step for Africa, is the continent now stable enough to capitalize on its growth potential as Europe and the US become saturated and stagnant? Could an enhanced ICT infrastructure allow Africa to compete with Asia or South America? Only time will tell, such discussions are set to continue throughout the year until they rejoin at the next NGT hosted in Cape Town in June 2010.
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coconutjackson
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it is true that some of these huge multinational companies make alot of their money from the poor people. socio economic development still way behind.
- 2 years ago
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coconutjackson
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stupidy
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There is another side to this.
Exploiting the poorest people in the world, every where you go in Africa, every country, the marketing machine for these cell phone companies have been, even in the very remotest areas where coverage is non existent there are adverts telling the people how much better their life will be if they buy credit from a particular company. Houses, cars even trees dont escape this, they all get painted in the colours of Zain, Tigo, MTN or Vodacom.
People are buying credit before food for their families, or proper shoes for their feet, it is almost made like a stigma if your phone does not have credit. The marketing is so powerful and the advertising so strong that street crime has shot up as result. In Tanzania comunity justice is regularly dealt out on young boys and young men who have been caught by the public while in the process of stealing a cell phone.It is swift and it is final, then the people go back about their busines, no one having seen anything when the police arrive to remove the charred corpse.
Communications have improved, calling doctors or family in another area is a bonus, but is it all worth the increase in crime?
In Kenya you can buy credit for 5 shillings, we no longer have currency which equates to that small an amount, in the land where the average take home pay is less than $1 per day, the main benificeries of Africas sudden explosion in celular technologies is the shareholders of these multinationals. - 2 years ago
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stupidy
