[computerworld Interview with Rebecca Enonchong]

Why should [Foreign] companies want to do business in Africa?

Look at what's happening in the U.S. economy: The market is shrinking. Africa has new, untapped markets. A lot of formerly government-owned enterprises are being privatized. Economies in Africa are growing at a rate much more rapid than in the West. They have a greater [technology] gap and greater need [for high technology] than in the West. There are great opportunities for any company offering goods and services.

Is there a digital divide within Africa?

There is. Countries in southern Africa like South Africa, Botswana [and] Zimbabwe are more advanced. Then you have the northern African countries that are also more advanced. In the middle-what would be considered black Africa you've got this huge gap [cutting a thick swathe in the middle of the continent], and that's the area of greatest opportunity, because it's neglected in general by [International investors and] companies.

[For some regions in this belt there are extenuating circumstances like extreme poverty and political instability - Sudan, Somalia, etc.]

They say, ‘When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge!’ But that’s only half the story. The other half is a Pandora-boxful ranging from divine to diabolical possibilities; what does this New World look like? How do you live in this New World? How do we get ‘e-ready’?

In this article, our recently fêted e-government initiative in Botswana sprouts a bug in the human/cultural piece of the ICT device;

"The weakest security at the heart of e-government, the Internet, is the human firewall..."

According to wikipedia, Amateur or 'Ham' radio has "made significant contributions to science, engineering, industry, and social services. The  economic and social benefit derived from research by amateur radio operators has founded new industries, built economies, empowered nations, and saved lives."

BYP transmitters is one nifty and inexpensive technology that can stimulate greater amateur media participation of private citizens in SSA via  prolific Podcasting -- this might just be the dawn of amateur or ham radio  (equivalent) era in SSA.

The sole purpose of speaking is to be heard and understood, and hopefully evoke some kind of acknowledgement and action from the target audience. Global News media (CNN, Reuters, BBC, etc.) is no good if via unbalanced global coverage they fail to communicate at all, or communicate issues in a biased manner and evoke mistaken acknowledgements and erroneous responses! With all due respect to animal lovers -- I don't really see the merit in so many US media houses spending so much airtime on Molly the cat last month. Who cares if an asinine, meow meow rat-catching cat took a vacation in more constricted corners of a building in New York, vis a vis more newsworthy events in 3rd world regions, such as 10,000 daily HIV mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa - 3x mortality rate in the 911 attacks or 6x Katrina death toll in the USA.

Botswana gets a big pat on the back for making all 16 volumes of Botswana laws available to the online public. A harbinger of greater sub-Saharan advancement on the e-government frontier! 

According to the Information Technology (IT) manager at the Attorney General's Chambers on the need/purpose of this e-government initiative, "We receive many calls at our office [from people who want to access] our laws. That is why the website was introduced - to ease the congestion of demand for copies of the volumes. Even though they are not yet available to the public we are aware that laws should be accessible to the public."

The website has been temporarily blocked to public access while they add some finishing touches.