News company Skoeps helps Africans register local news items through their mobile phones, and share them with the world. Through the fast growth of mobile internet, Africans can use Voices of Africa to report local happenings through text, photo and video without a computer with internet connection. This is now possible in four countries, and other countries will follow (an, Dutch). This is an ultimate example of social responsible entrepreneurship: you keep doing the same thing, but now also for the poor, unhealthy, or threatened people in the world. You use your core competences to help people. Normally you will let people pay for this - after all, you need to live off something - but every now and then you do it for free. Skoeps does exactly what it did before, but now also in Africa. Probably without earning much money, but as a long term investment in the people. A beautiful example. And at the same time, more developments become apparent in this action. The Africa Interactive Foundation‘s project Voice of Africa has been started at the end of May, 2007 and is now in its preparation phase. In four countries, test reporters have started working. They will get experience in uploading texts, pictures and videos in the next couple of months. Voice of Africa will show parts of their productions. Nana Kofi Acquah in Ghana, and Evans Wafula in Kenya, in the mean time have sent the first pictures they made with a Nokia N73. Besides, students from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands take part in this preparation phase. They have received a Nokia E61i, and they will test its usability on their journey through 20 African countries. In the near future, contributions are expected from the test reporters in South-Africa and Mozambique.
This development will have an enormous impact on the welfare, economics and decision-making processes on the African continent. As people get new information, the wish for participation arises. As people get new information, the wish for education arises. As people get new information, criticism of the decision makers arises. Because of its being so scattered, Africans economy has hardly developed. Since the start of the mass production era, growth was based mostly on the physical world and its physical infrastructure. It was all about making physical products, which were being transported through a physical infrastructure. It was almost impossible to make this a profitable business in Africa. However, as a virtual world evolves which can be entered relatively easy through mobile phones, Africa can develop again. It might take generations before Africa will have a level of wealth comparable to the rest of the world, but these kinds of projects make for a new start in Africa.
Update: 2019: video no longer available