Africa 3.0 – Live from South By Southwest

South by Southwest is a huge festival in Austin, TX that looks at unique and groundbreaking work being done in the interactive, film and music worlds. Part of the excitement of the festival is to see what is going on outside of our daily world to learn what is changing and what to expect in the future.

This morning, TMS Ruge took a look at Africa and the “Cheetah Generation” that is not willing to accept the current political and economic situation. He argued that technological revolution is a foot for a few reasons:

1. Broadband is coming: By 2011 the African Undersea Cables will arrive to Africa increasing the internet speed from its current unknown and abysmal access to 17 terabytes. This access is just taking into account cables. In addition to the cables o3b satelittes sponsored by Google will be delivering internet via satelittes to 3 billion of the world’s underserved population, many of them in Africa.

2. Population: The population is heavily skewed towards innovation with 1 billion people in Africa, 450 million of them under the age of 15.

3. Mobile Growth: Conservative estimates is putting mobile growth at 12% a year through 2013. This technology is being used to know where to sell crops, to inform people about corruption, crime, illness and more.

4. Accelerating Online Participation: 67 million Africans currently use the internet making up 3.9% of total internet traffic. However, Africa is leapfrogging the laptop. The mobile phone is the 1st interaction of most Africans with technology. Fiber cables are going to cell towards to enable fast internet access and put millions online through cheap, easily accessible technology in the mobile phone.

All of these trends are being supported by a burgeoning system of technology parks. There are plans in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and other places to build research parks where new start-ups and businesses can be incubated and accelerated. With the unique experience of jumping in to technology through the cell phone, Africans have a unique user experience. This leapfrogging produces different needs that American and European companies are not producing because they don’t understand the needs. With a huge market of new users in developing countries, Africa is poised to create unique products for a growing online community in developing countries.

Along with this growth are a number of new businesses and resources. Appfrica Labs in Uganda, Limbe Labs in Cameroon, Banta Labs in Senegal and iHub in Kenya are all building the groundwork for the future of African-based  entrepreneurism and development.

With positive energy, it is possible to see technology being on the forefront of development. Better information can lead to better decisions and connectivity can lead to larger markets and faster innovation. All these developments should be welcomed, shared and nurtured to improve innovation for everyone.