Re: Reports on few conferences in Africa

Hi Gjalt,

Thanks for your answer. It triggers lots of interesting questions.

 > Thanks for sharing these insights. Your finding that many projects share
 > PC+internet approach (and not going for a mobile data service platform)
 > also is similar with TNO's capacity building through ICT project.
 > Important for rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa is always the
 > issue with 'ownership' of a service: PC's plus a VSAT internet
 > connection present a tangible solution that can be adopted by local
 > people. A mobile phone service is still something 'far away' and mostly
 > 'built by people that haven't shown their faces here'.

What you are saying is very interesting. I would be happy to understand 
that. I was in Uganda 2 weeks ago, and what i heard was exactly at the 
opposite: i was in a rural community, 600 km/12hours away from Kampala 
the capital, in the mountain without sealed road. One NGOs installed a 
while ago a tele-center with few PC+VSAT.
People rapidly understood that using some services on the web saves time 
and money. That said, the cost of the minute was just twice the price of 
1mn airtime. But then, they had to go for a training, they had to queue 
for an available PC, they have to rely on electricity and so on. So 
having access to the same services from their phone, even if it is twice 
the price (which is really close) would help them a lot.

So for now, in my own view, there are 2 worlds those believing in 
PC+VSAT and those believing in mobile platform. My own opinion is that 
there are probably use cases for both approaches, and it could be very 
interesting to understand in which conditions one approach is better 
than the other.
So as i trust TNO experience, i would be happy to understand more in 
details both assertions you made:
"PC's plus a VSAT internet connection present a tangible solution that 
can be adopted by local": are you talking about sustainable business ? 
or are you just considering the infrastructure ? what do you mean by 
"adopted" ?  can a community afford it ?
I recently read an interesting article ([1]) on the nokia-siemens 
Networks village connection. In my view this is somehow the same 
approach as PC+VSAT for mobile phones. What do you think ?

[1] 
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/information_technology/report-83669.html
http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Microsites/Entry_Event/Materials/Nokia_Siemens_Networks_Village_Connection.pdf

Then "A mobile phone service is still something 'far away' and mostly
  'built by people that haven't shown their faces here'."
I need also to understand that. Are you talking also about ICT services 
on mobile or infrastructure ? So far all the users i met were really 
happy with mobile phones, and adopted the device. But i agree that if an 
area is not connected, then building the infrastructure in terms on 
mobile telephony may be harder except with the above mentionned solution.

 > people
 > Cultural aspects like those are very important for adoption by Africans;
 > we've seen projects fail simply because of this aspect. Hopes this adds
 > to your understanding!

That an interesting point. I've the feeling that we could develop 
expertise in understanding both successes and failures. Do you have any 
report/documentation/ressources that describe such failures and the 
related analysis ?


Best Regards
Stephane

Loots, G. (Gjalt) wrote:
> Hi Stephane,
> 
> Thanks for sharing these insights. Your finding that many projects share
> PC+internet approach (and not going for a mobile data service platform)
> also is similar with TNO's capacity building through ICT project.
> Important for rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa is always the
> issue with 'ownership' of a service: PC's plus a VSAT internet
> connection present a tangible solution that can be adopted by local
> people. A mobile phone service is still something 'far away' and mostly
> 'built by people that haven't shown their faces here'.
> 
> Cultural aspects like those are very important for adoption by Africans;
> we've seen projects fail simply because of this aspect. Hopes this adds
> to your understanding!
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Gjalt Loots
> TNO ICT
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-mwi-ec-request@w3.org [mailto:public-mwi-ec-request@w3.org]
> On Behalf Of stephane boyera
> Sent: maandag 18 juni 2007 13:39
> To: public-mwi-ec@w3.org
> Subject: Reports on few conferences in Africa
> 
> 
> 
> Let me try to make this list a bit more active !
> 
> I'm just back from 4 weeks around africa going to different conferences
> and events, and also meeting associations and visiting people. So It is
> time to make a quick summary. (beware, long mail ahead !). 4 parts: one
> about ist-africa conference, one about the W3C Southern Africa Office
> Opening, one on the 3GSM east&central africa conference, one about some
> data i gathered in Uganda about gsm cost and connectivity.
> 
> 1-Ist-Africa Maputo, Mozambique
> (http://www.ist-africa.org/Conference2007/ )
> 
> Audience
> This conference is funded by the EU commission (this one was the 2nd
> edition) to gather representatives from all over Africa and Europe,
> focusing on ICT for development.
> There were around 350 people.
> 
> Program
> 4 parrallel tracks during the 3 days, with a mix of technical
> presentations, business presentations (about sustainability), research
> topics and use cases.
> Lots of different topics focused on how ICT can leverage countries
> development, mostly: e-learning, e-government, e-health, e-infrastucture
> (internet deployment) (also few other session of eu opportunity for
> funding, environmental risk management,...)
> 
> My comments
> The biggest value of this event for me was about the networking. I met
> lots of very interesting people, representatives from governments,
> universities, or NGOs from all over africa (mostly southern).
> About the technical aspects of the program, i was more than surprised. 
> All the people i met in Bangalore workshop were believing hard in the
> mobile platform, and its potential. They were all convinced that it
> would be almost impossible to deploy PC and wired internet. So i
> sincerely believed that this was a shared analysis. But this is not the
> case. As of today, most of the presenter, particualrly those
> representing governments, are still thinking that ICT=PC+wired internet
> And there are lots of project specifically focusing on developping
> tele-center with few PC around the countries. All those projects always 
>    emphasis on the limited impact of such solutions to reach rural
> communities, and particularly nomad populations, and also the problem of
> maintenance of PC, availability of wired internet,...
> Just few presentations are considering the mobile platform for the
> future. Just 2 presentations were about using mobile phones but for
> e-learning only.
> 
> About my talk (http://www.w3.org/2007/04/sb_ist/all.htm ), there were
> about 40-50 participants in the room, but i didn't attract the right
> crowd imho, because i was in a session called e-infrastructure, burried
> between people talking about satellite networking and the eu-africa
> research network. so clearly, nothing related to the topic i was
> addressing. However, the chair of the session was very interested, and,
> in order to seed the mobile web idea, i will explore how to organize a
> track next year on the topic of using mobile phones for ICT.
> 
> 
> 2-W3C Southern Africa Office Opening, Pretoria, South Africa
> (http://www.w3.org/News/2007#item94 )
> My talk: http://www.w3.org/2007/04/sb_saopening/all.htm
> 
> This event was organized by W3C as the launch event for its new office
> opened in South Africa, and covering the whole Southern region of
> Africa.
> 
> Attendance: ~70-80 people, majority from Meraka Institute, but also
> people from country around (Mozambique, Botswana,...) Industry and
> academic.
> 
> The format was quite successful: 3 sessions: one on the opening itself,
> then 2 more technical.
> For me it was the most successful office opening meeting, for the
> format, but also because at the end of the day the office has a roadmap
> defined by the discussion during the day (a workshop, with a defined
> audience and defined set of topics).
> This successful output is imho due to the presence of a meeting
> facilitator. I never heard before of such existing job, but the guy
> drove all the discussion session and he was really good.
> 
> For me, i discovered lots of the activites taking place at the Meraka
> Institute(http://www.meraka.org.za/ ), and i was impressed by the whole
> organization, thier strengths, and their outgoing work. I dind't know
> before that there was a research center of this quality. That's
> encouraging to have contacts with people that will play an important
> role of relay between W3C and local activities. This relay will be
> bi-directionnal, promoting the usage of W3C standards and also to
> provide requirements, uses case, applications to W3C. Relying on such
> strong players locally is, imho, a key success for any work we will do
> in the area of the digital divide.
> 
> 
> 3-3GSM east & central Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
> (http://www.gsm-3gworldseries.com/newt/l/gsm/events/ecafrica/ ) My talk:
> http://www.w3.org/2007/04/sb_3gsm/all.htm
> Attendance:
> quite a small audience
> *about 250 people-almost 90% salesman afaik, around 100 people in the
> conf room (plenary) and about 50 people in my session (2 tracks the
> second day)
> 
> *about 20-30 booths: 80% on network technologies(tower, antennas, sim
> card producers, how to place the relay,...), nobody from the content
> providers side (except music as such or as ringtone and games). mobile
> web browsing is almost 0%.
> 
> Overall comments
> Some of the talks, particularly the plenary were very interesting to get
> the picture.
> An interesting talk from the Africa chairman of GSMA V. Olunga. few
> excerpt from his talk:
> -integration of internet access in strategic plans -africa mobile
> subscribers: fixed line vs mobile ration 1:10 -a tool of business and
> administration -60% of africa covered - 70% by the end of the year 10
> countries has more than 90% coverage -problem is still rural africa
> 
> Another one from Mrs Mbongue (research analyst) -200 millions subcribed
> reached 1Q07 (1 year from 100 to 200): nigeria, SA, Algeria top 3 big
> markets -growth drivers is mobile browsing
> 
>  From Marc Rennard (orange, responsible for Africa Asia & middle east):
> - the trend is to go to free simcard (free subscription) and charge on
> service use
> - 95% of revenue from africa is voice and SMS
> 
> Except these plenary talks, in terms of contacts, it is disappointing. 
> No real interest now, despite what said in plenary talks, on developing
> internet access from mobile phones among participants. Just one very
> interesting (ie relevant to the mobile web topic) presentation made by
> Dr Fisseha Mekuria, head of telecom engineering dept, GSTIT (telecom
> schools) in Ethiopia, about specific usability context in Africa, and
> usability of mobile applications in rural areas .
> 
> What was really disappointing for me was the current trend of
> considering mobile browsing only for high-end phones and 3G network. 
> People may be interested to read mu thought on this topic in an article
> i wrote last week : 
> http://www.w3.org/blog/MWITeam/2007/06/06/enabling_web_browsing_on_emerg
> ing_market 
> 
> 
> Eventually i made one very interesting contact with someone working
> exactly on the same area of the work i presented :  Dr Fisseha
> Mekuria,head of telecom engineering dept, GSTIT (telecom schools),
> Ethiopia fisseha.mekuria@gstit.edu.et . He is a potential host of one of
> our workshop in africa. He is focusing on usability of mobile
> applications in rural areas.
> My overall feeling is that it is not really worth the cost and the time
> to participate to such localized event. I will focus on the big 3GSM
> Africa event taking place once a year in Cape Town. I will give a talk
> there next november.
> 
> 
> 4-Uganda
> I was there mostly for vacation but i found lots of very intersting data
> i wanted to report. I was amazed to see that almost 100% of the zone i
> visited (the whole west uganda) was served by gsm, including national
> park !
> What was also a discover is the most widespread phone is the motorola
> c113, the one who won the GSMA emerging market handset program, sold at
> 25$ (i thought about buying one for myself !) in phones shops (without
> any operator deal).
> I was also interested to see the price of internet cafe in rural area: 
> around 100shilling/minutes (0.05eur) while phone credit is around
> 200shilling /mn (0.1eur) so this is not a so huge difference. In town,
> internet cafe are around 20shilling/minute (0.01) and here the phone
> cost is then 10 times higher.
> 
> 
> I will try in the future to make this list more active by posting
> information about future events, or new relevant to this topic.
> 
> I will also in the next few weeks rework the wiki and try to make
> different sections as i've a bunch of ressources to share on different
> subject (some events, emerging market handsets, ...).
> 
> I encourage also other participants to also post information, comments
> they have !
> 
> Feel also free to tell me if you think that such report are useful or
> useless.
> 
> cheers
> Stephane

-- 
Stephane Boyera		stephane@w3.org
W3C				+33 (0) 4 92 38 78 34
BP 93				fax: +33 (0) 4 92 38 78 22
F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,		
France

Received on Tuesday, 19 June 2007 09:40:01 UTC