Africa will export some of the world's best innovations over the coming years as people find solutions amid challenging conditions. So says Jared Cohen, head of Google Ideas, who addressed delegates at the My World of Tomorrow Conference in Johannesburg today.
"The world's brightest innovation will come from areas where the efficiency of technology use is unlike any other area of the world." He pointed to mobile payment solution M-Pesa as an indicator of the transformative nature of innovation for people who had not been involved in banking.
He added that digitisation will create hybrid communities in which connectivity is the common denominator that facilitates people's experiences, as is the case in China.
"As [China] is among the most populated countries in the world, the growing number of people coming online will create populations that are physically rural but digitally urban."
He added that increased access to information and ideas has created a common space in the digital sphere - something that has potential to manifest in other parts of the world.
Speaking to ITWeb recently, Mark Walker, director of insights and vertical industries at the IDC for Middle East, Turkey and Africa, noted African innovators often have to overcome challenging infrastructural and economic hurdles. Walker added African innovators generally find that "if it can work here, it can usually work anywhere".
Kenya has, in recent years, experienced a surge in technological innovations and investments, thanks to its links to undersea fibre-optic cable systems from Seacom.
Walker said the east African nation is an attractive destination for technology start-ups as well as new investors looking at the region. "South Africa was, for a long time, the most attractive destination and ? even though this economy is still bigger than Kenya's ? they outfox us from a technology innovation point of view."
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