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."

Africa appears to be in a catch-22 as far as Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are concerned. Should it have tighter regimes so as to attract foreign investments and encourage technology transfer? Or should it have softer IPR policies that encourage greater access to knowledge and technology?

It may seem like a chicken-and-egg scenario but in the meantime stakeholders in the East African region are moving to create IPR policies that reward innovation and encourage foreign investors to put their money in the region. Critical to the debate on science and technology capacity has always been the issue of IPR protection.

"In recent public policy discourse, there are those who argue that developing countries such as those of East Africa need to provide strong IPR protection regimes as a means of stimulating technological innovations, facilitating technology transfer and attracting Foreign Direct Investment," said Ronald Naluwairo, Research Associate at the Uganda-based Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE).

"Yet others have challenged this assertion pointing out that the utility of IPR policy, legal or administrative regimes lies in their ability to harness IPR as a policy instrument for achieving clearly set development policy objectives," he added.

Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. The World Intellectual Property Organisation

(WIPO) divides intellectual property into two categories. One is Industrial Property (IP), which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs.

The other is Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs.

Some experts say with globalisation and changing technological environments fuelled by continuous innovation, we are currently living in an information society where a wealth of knowledge and information is available at our fingertips simply by searching the many Internet and World Wide Web sites, databases, and other information services.

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Africa appears to be in a catch-22 as far as Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are concerned. Should it have tighter regimes so as to attract foreign investments and encourage technology transfer? Or should it have softer IPR policies that encourage greater access to knowledge and technology?

It may seem like a chicken-and-egg scenario but in the meantime stakeholders in the East African region are moving to create IPR policies that reward innovation and encourage foreign investors to put their money in the region. Critical to the debate on science and technology capacity has always been the issue of IPR protection.

"In recent public policy discourse, there are those who argue that developing countries such as those of East Africa need to provide strong IPR protection regimes as a means of stimulating technological innovations, facilitating technology transfer and attracting Foreign Direct Investment," said Ronald Naluwairo, Research Associate at the Uganda-based Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE).

"Yet others have challenged this assertion pointing out that the utility of IPR policy, legal or administrative regimes lies in their ability to harness IPR as a policy instrument for achieving clearly set development policy objectives," he added.

Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. The World Intellectual Property Organisation

(WIPO) divides intellectual property into two categories. One is Industrial Property (IP), which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs.

 

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.

 

Why does a dog wag its tail?

Because it's smarter than its tail

If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.

 

SSA telecom/ICT buzz seems to be centered all around stretching teledensity rates; placing a mobile phone in the hot little hands of Sub-Saharan Africans.

The arrival of new telecom technologies, along with encouraging gestures from different SSA Governments such as; deregulation, privatization, etc., of telecom sectors, along with increased provider competition, all yielding telecom service costs reduction, thus paving the way for the next level of ICT uptake in SSA corporate operations/functions. The next level will be characterized by increased automation of organizational data and work processes -- regardless of industry taxonomy: logistics, financial, manufacturing, etc. Labor/skill requirements will become more sophisticated and Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Customer relationship Management (CRM) systems gain ground. (See a Bridges.org sampler on a rudimentary CRM system in South African health sector here.)