A tepid stab at the taxonomy of mobile networking technologies and devices currently available in SSA (Technologies/devices that enable you access the WWW on the go.) would include; laptop computers and Personal digital assistants (PDAs), for devices. Networking technologies would include; Wi-Fi, Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN), WiMax (and the Korean twin, Wibro).

PDAs were traditionally narrow-band but now have available broadband options, enabled via Wi-Fi antennas. They are altogether, very versatile devices that can be used as mobile phones, organizers, camera, video cam -- the whole shebang. The size is both a blessing and a curse -- small enough to fit in your pocket, but too small to hold as much data as a PC, and you can’t work with it comfortably for long periods – gets pretty tedious typing on the tiny keypads. In short, it’s just not designed to replace your PC.

Wi-Fi technology is fairly well known in SSA – major hotels, upscale cafes/coffee shops, etc. However, the major limitation to public access via Wi-Fi? It imposes a pre-condition of laptop computer ownership. And since we are not quite there yet with the "one laptop per child" project, Wi-Fi hotspots for now in SSA, is bourgeois territory.

Anybody remember the cute little French word Enonchong used to describe a desirable criterion for doing ICT business in SSA -- “incontournable”? Telemedicine is a definite incontournable in the ICT4D world, even more so in SSA. 

Here’s a condensed presentation by Peter Corr, of the University of Natal ZA, which gives a quick overview on telemedicine: history, goals, definitions, applications, hardware and software requirements, etc.

It is interesting to note that the earliest application of telemedicine was in radiography, back in the sixties – a ‘relatively’ simple transmittal of radiographs from one hospital to another. As simplistic as sending a facsimile today – big deal, eh?  Today, the Radiology applications alone of telemedicine have grown into CT/CAT, MR/MRI, Ultrasound/Medical Sonography, Nuclear medicine, Angiograms/Arteriography, etc. A brief overview of a typical modern Hospital Information system (HIS) – more or less hospital ERP / CRM systems, will facilitate a more complete picture of current systems and practices in telemedicine.

 

Reiterating the obvious; telemedicine can provide much-needed respite in SSA, a region characterized by a dearth of medical professionals, allied health skills and applications -- Doctors, HIS, etc.

At the very basic, telemedicine can be as simple as an online chat/ consultation between a patient and a qualified physician (for-profit or pro-bono). An inexpensive ICT bridge across the health access gap, facilitated by a very simple combination of pre-existing ICT tools – the Internet and chat application. A 3^rd party could also conduct the chat session on behalf of a computer-illiterate patient. People are running with these ideas in SSA of course, Bridges.org has a bunch of real life examples of such ground level initiatives.

 

There’s a plethora of buzzwords in the myriad of technological innovation/process improvement circles out there; “thinking outside the box” (some college courses are actually totally devoted to this), Six-sigma, Knowledge (Insight and discovery) Models, abstract Mandala, Kaizen, etc. And they are all modern day abstractions of the age-old cogitation on how the early man invented medicinal treatments from leaves, tools and utensils like, Hammer, Spear and Spoon from sticks and stones.

 

Imagination is more important than knowledge. (Albert Einstein)

Just so you know I’m not circling point Zany in Gulag, this piece on artistic entrepreneurship by John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund group, has lots of science fiction qualities that stirred me into a fairly awkward mental deportment vis a vis moving SSA forward via ICT. And did I mention Mr. Bogle founded Vanguard Mutual group based on his senior thesis at Princeton? And how many companies can be founded on science fiction?

In pursuit of making  “real ICT impacts” in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the framework for technological innovation may incorporate solid facts along with certain degrees of information abstraction. On one hand, we gather facts and present them in logical, professional, and scientific manner/formats. Science fiction, on the other hand, leans heavily on (fairly loose) inductive reasoning – you take a little bit of fact, and extrapolate way into the future! Every so often bordering on fantasy. This fantasy quality however, does not diminish science fiction as a tool for innovation since the seeds of innovation subsist in imagination. Imagination is the greatest tool of the innovator.

 

Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth. (Archimedes )

According to Walter Mosley, in Black to the Future, “The power of imagination is the power to change the world …The [science fiction] genre speaks most clearly to those who are dissatisfied with the way things are: adolescents, post adolescents, escapists, dreamers, and those who have been made to feel powerless. And this may explain the appeal that science fiction holds for a great many [Africans].... Through science fiction you can have a black president, a black world, or simply a say in the way things are. This power to imagine is the first step in changing the world.”

Since I really strive to practice what I preach, If I were to join this African science fiction writing competition (strict SSA theme/focus). I think I have an idea what I would write;

 

The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions.

- Mike Krzyzewski

The question is: which item(s) on the SSA ICT agenda should we pursue first? What should we do now? What should we leave for tomorrow? What should we not do at all?

At the very basic, everybody wants to take all the guesswork [and superstition] out of decision making! A businessman wants to narrow the odds of a "buy-now" (or later) decision, Health departments want to have real time update on disease outbreak and spread, a surgical equipment entrepreneur wants to know how many doctors, hospitals or labs are in a target market area, graduating college students want to examine different aspects of career fields and figure out which is a best fit/has greater reward potential, Governments yearn to map resources to problems more equitably, etc.

ICT forms a bundle of terrific tools and devices that can take a lot of stress out of day to day decision-making, at home or work, in government or other administrative processes. On a grander scale, ICT promises to kick start/leapfrog entire SSA economies into higher prosperity realms! The SSA ICT jingle is 99.9% Jeff Burroughs on Science and social development; "Science has done more for the development of Western civilization in one hundred years than [superstition] did in eighteen hundred years."

 

I guess I jumped the gun somewhat, a couple of blogs back, when I said e-commerce

in SSA was greatly hindered by the dearth of local e-payment systems. A lot of products have actually been rolled out to that end.

Via WhiteAfrican, I am introduced to True African; the first company in Uganda to offer mobile based banking via direct partnerships with local banks. They also offer, via their website, downloadable music -- with licenses in place like iTunes, free SMS service -- which has attracted over 700k users, downloadable ringtones and logos.

Still on SSA e-payment systems, I learn via Timbuktu, of Fudamo, Celpay and Glo-Mo. All SSA based mobile banking services poised to take on the SSA e-payment challenge.