Useful applications for Africa

The topic of the week is undoubtedly 'bridging the digital divide`. With the International Telecommunications Union conference running the whole of this week at Gallagher Estate, the access disparities between the developed and the developing world is foremost on most people`s minds. And one thing that has been rather obvious at the conference is that the task of bridging the gap is not going to be easy, by any stretch of the imagination.

One end-user solution that does make sense is an open source project to develop a royalty-free telecentre software package.

Alastair Otter, Journalist, ITWeb

In the many sessions looking at the question of wiring up the African continent, speaker after speaker has alluded to the inherent difficulties in deploying new generation technology on the African continent. Despite the ever-hopeful possibility that the continent may "leapfrog" old technology and join the rest of the world in the information age, the reality of this is sadly still a long way off.

This is not to say that the case is a hopeless one. Judging by the participants at the conference, there are more than enough initiatives in the pipeline to give us hope. The few that stood out are the AfricaOne project that plans to lay 32 000km of undersea optic fibre around the entire continent, and the Gilat Satellite Networks plans for developing satellite for the entire continent.

There are, obviously, many other projects of this type destined for our shores and while it is a not an inconsequential start to the information revolution on this continent, the harder part of the process, I suspect, will come in developing the correct types of services for the African user population.

Given literacy levels and needs, it makes no sense to simply duplicate the models that have been used in other parts of the world. After all, data services are largely useless on a personal level for a large part of the continent, yet it is critical on a business level in order to deliver improved services comparable with the rest of the world.

One end-user solution that does make sense is an open source project to develop a royalty-free telecentre software package. Being an open source project, it has no specific vendor, but has been initiated by members of the ITU Focus Group 7 (FG7), a group set up to investigate the continent`s application needs. Clearly, telecentres are going to become an ever-increasingly important part of the equation in wiring up Africa and it is heartening to hear that the open source software movement is putting its weight behind the project.

One of the most important conclusions of the FG7 has been that interface design is going to become a crucial point in developing applications for the African continent. Applications and services in the developed world are largely designed for individual use and personal consumption. Whereas in Africa the need is for services and interfaces that cater to entire communities as well as language differences and cultural expectations.

There are many reasons to be hopeful when it comes to wiring the continent, and broadband access could well become a reality in the very near future for all of the population. Let us hope that what this increased access brings is truly useful services that can be used by as broad a range of users as possible.