“We actually innovate everyday only we don’t throw $1million dollars at it and we don’t publish it in national dailies – but it’s innovation all the same”

Innovation immediately conjures images of classic renaissance -- inventing “brand new” things that had never been seen before -- ever! But that's so out of reach. 

A more realistic definition is: Using building blocks of already existing materials to create another brand new material, a brand new process or system. This definition tones down the “je ne sais quois” and prodigious qualities commonly associated with inventions by expressly pointing out that the building blocks of innovation are all around us.

For instance, an old abandoned chair can be subjected to two innovative processes: one is to simply chop it up and burn it as firewood. The other alternative is to pop out the seat, sanding and refinishing it and using it as a flowerpot frame. In both cases, the end product is totally unrecognizable as a chair both in usage and aesthetics – a new product.

This takes me to my story -- Google happened on a community of struggling third world humanity in Madurai – a city in Southern India. And here’s the innovation process they chose to go with.

"If the corporate world has a Holy Grail, it's innovation"

Hannah Clark, Forbes Online.

Innovation in the business context, refers to strategies that kick in after all low-hanging fruits have been picked. Innovation in the business world can be either business model (BM) innovation or Technology innovation or a little bit of both. BM innovation example is Netflix – delivering movies and not charging late fees – unheard of in movie rental business -- but had strong appeal to customers. Tech innovation examples often seen in telecom say Wimax – where all the benefits to a customer/user is inherent in the piece of technology. Example of a combination will be Crossover vehicle programs in the automotive industry where a sedan gets ‘crossed’ with a truck to yield a hybrid capable of being sold and used as either a van or truck.

Africa is often classified "virgin territory" – alluding to vast reserves of untapped resources or low-hanging fruits – and as such, doesn’t need much emphasis on business innovation. Resources or low-hanging fruit here of course, is not restricted to natural resources like oil, diamonds, or teledensity, but refers to the much wider theme of regional economic growth and development -- which turns on my favorite saying: When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge. Thus, the world awaits Africa. And merely watching her grow and develop, fuels all kinds of speculation on the opportunities that would suddenly emerge from currently inaccessible realms. What new aptitudes will come alive? What new skills and talents? What technologies will live? What business models will die? What New World will emerge?

Going forward on the premise that a nation is only as good as its people, SSA science and technology is only as good as her scientists and technologists. And it is not just the skills accumulated in each particular generation that’s going to determine how quickly Africa grows, but the succession of skills – the system of transferring skills, aptitudes and attitudes to the next generation.

"But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed…"

- 2 Peter, 2:12

After the Tsunami hit parts of Asia in 2004, thousands of bodies washed up the shorelines, huge decaying piles of human remains strewn around like driftwood and debris – totally gut-wrenching spectacle! We pray such never happens again – but prayers may not always cut it with Mother Nature. Like all other fickle creation out there, SSA is not immune to natural disasters.

As more details become available from Asia over how human and material losses in the Tsunami could have been avoided via early warning systems, you realize ICT can actually flip the script on Mother Nature. Herein lies the basic difference between man and lesser creatures (of instinct.)

Via Timbuktu chronicles, we meet RANET, "an international collaboration to make weather, climate, and related information more accessible to remote and resource poor populations. RANET undertakes this mission in order to aid day-to-day resource decisions and prepare against natural hazards."

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.

As Africa moves to improve connectivity with a view to making modern communication services more accessible and affordable, it appears that current efforts will achieve token results because, besides being under-funded, they tend to address only part of the equation. In most countries, efforts are concentrated on extending the telecoms network, or building community telecentres beyond major towns, while little is being done to boost the supporting infrastructure.

Besides the telecommunications backbone network that enables radio, television, and Internet services, the generic term ‘ICT infrastructure’ entails complementary infrastructure such as roads and electricity that help in spreading the usage of ICT. And if Africa concentrates on telecoms infrastructure while paying lip service to the complementary infrastructure, its efforts may not bear significant fruit.

According to latest figures from the World Bank, up to 77 percent of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa - a total of 526 million people - do not have access to electricity. In effect, these people are locked out of the information society and may remain so for several decades, even as governments seek to implement rural electrification programmes and to subsidise extension of modern communication services to rural and underserved areas.

Energy supply in eastern and southern Africa remains particularly low, but even if production were boosted significantly, there would be no guarantee that the majority of rural dwellers would afford electricity. More than 70 percent of the population in the region live on less than $2 a day, and few of these would afford electricity even if it were extended to their villages. Yet, electricity is needed to run virtually all ICT services available in the region, and its availability could potentially bring in some of the millions of Africans that currently are excluded from the information society.

Percentages of the population that have access to power are telling: In Rwanda it is less than five percent, and Botswana 22 percent, which is slightly above the 17 percent average for the Southern African Development Community (SADC). In Lesotho it is 5.6 percent, with Maseru district boasting of 13.1 percent, while in Uganda it is about seven percent nationally but in rural areas it is ...

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