“Next Google and Facebook Have to Come from Africa”
Jan 19 2011, Ghana [GH], Kenya [KE], Netherlands [NL], eBusiness
- Source:
- Hilde Eugelink [heugelink(at)iicd.org]
- Country:
- Ghana [GH], Kenya [KE], Netherlands [NL]
- Sector:
- eBusiness
There are countless opportunities for the IT sector in Africa. This was one of the conclusions drawn by Google Ghana’s Country Manager Estelle Akofio-Sowah and local Kenyan IT entrepreneur Kamal Budhabhatti. Both were speaking in the Netherlands at the Fill the Gap event, supported by Dutch organisations IICD and Hivos.
Fill the Gap is an annual event about ICT for Development (ICT4D) with a different theme each year. This year’s theme was: IT entrepreneurship in Africa. Local IT companies are starting to emerge everywhere and major IT companies such as Google and Microsoft are expanding rapidly in Africa.
Keynote speaker was Google Ghana’s Estelle Akofio-Sowah. She explained that Google Ghana’s main goal in Africa for the coming years is to make sure people see the potential of information technology. “Internet and mobile can be used as a tool for leapfrogging social and economic development in Africa.”
Akofio-Sowah also told about Google's long term goals, saying that increasing revenue in Africa through advertising will be one of them. For now, Google's main concern is about how to get people on the internet and how to empower people through technology.
The Country Manager of Google Ghana began by working for a local Ghanaian company but switched to Google. “I saw my role as being a bridge between the local context and the Google, to help Google understand Africa.”
Fighting prejudices about Africa
The second speaker was Kenyan IT entrepreneur Kamal Budhabhatti, who set up the banking and microfinance software company Craft Silicon. He says that local African entrepreneurs constantly have to fight the prejudice that clients outside Africa have about Africa. “When doing business with the United Arab Emirates, for instance we had to use the name of our office in India, because they don’t want to deal with African partners.”
Both speakers agreed that there is a huge potential for IT in Africa, but it mainly needs to come from entrepreneurs in Africa and not from big corporations. “The next Google and the next Facebook have to come from Africa. Big players can help, but there are pros and cons. Some smaller companies might benefit from the presence of large foreign IT companies, but others might die because of it.”
For some more photos and highlights of the Fill the Gap event, go to http://on.fb.me/hhnDqT.