Test your software in Africa

Erik Hersman makes an interesting comment about branding Africa for software development:

there is a real competitive advantage to developing and testing software in Africa. After all, if it works in Africa, it will work anywhere.

How many people (outside of SA), know that Mark Shuttleworth’s Ubuntu comes from this continent?

Innovation from Africa

This is something I hope Vinnie will put on this New Florence Innovation blog – essentially, an electronic bulletin board that operates without cables or custom software.

Here is where to read more about the Big Board project at the University of Cape Town.

Africa not open for social media

Shel Israel has published the findings from his SAP Global Survey. In Part 3, he reviews the world of social media by continents. Africa is the last one to be mentioned and has the smallest amount of comment. I was one of the Africa respondents of the survey.

I find it sad that my continent is still seen as the laggard in many areas of the technology and Internet space, despite the efforts of SA’s social media gurus, like Mike Stopforth.

Africa is fit for business

What I love about the blogosphere is how a stream of discussion starts and how facts and opinions get accumulated. This has happened recently starting with a blog by Jason Busch that claimed Africa is not fit for global sourcing. It was interesting to me that the opinion came from the US, a place not known for a good understanding of my continent.

A quick response came from South African ex-pat Thomas Otter giving lots of evidence why Jason’s view was mis-guided. Shortly after that, Dennis Howlett got involved in the debate, on the side of Thomas, even managing to reference one of my ‘good news’ blogs.

I am now very pleased to see a report from AMR referring to the rise of Africa. This is the view of global giant IBM who see Africa has a growth engine in the 21st century. The article mentions SA companies SAB/Miller, ShopRite, and Woolworths, and has some quotes that Jason should be aware of:

To the skeptic who still sees Africa as a hopeless mire of starving orphans and gun-toting thugs, consider what may be the most important fact of all: 25 years ago, Africa boasted only three democracies. Today there are 40. 

10 years ago, the likelihood of economic growth in Africa overall was 25% and decline was 22%.  Today the likelihood of growth is 45% and decline 12%.

Jason – I reckon Africa is actually very fit for business.