Digital Africa’s dynamic development

Africa is seeing an unprecedented rate of digital development. Connected to the main submarine digital arteries, and benefiting from an increasingly dense mobile infrastructure, an entire continent is now moving to the digital beat. A strong trend that thousands of agile and extremely

dynamic entrepreneurs are getting involved in. A (r)evolution is underway, and our development strategy at Orange, which aims to support and accompany local ecosystems, is really coming into its own. Time to take stock.

postcards from digital Africa

To take us on a journey to discover digital Africa, we called on an expert: Samir Abdelkrim, who founded StartupBRICS.COM , a blog focused on Tech, Innovation & Start-up news in emerging countries, and above all, is the promoter of the TECHAfrique project. After spending more than nine months heading out to discover Africa 2.0, he shares his travel log with us here.

Following his meetings with entrepreneurs in various tech communities, start-up creators, incubators, innovators and young talents in the digital field, Samir offers us a fascinating snapshot of the digital scene in Africa. With more than a dozen countries investigated (three of which are still to be visited), some, where Orange is present and others where it is not, he offers a broader perspective. Let yourself be guided through this fascinating immersion in Africa’s digital ecosystems. While they reveal some very different realities, all the different players involved share these same characteristics: desire, agility, a sense of urgency, ambition, intelligence…and incredible energy!

what about other countries?

Technological innovation can be seen across the African continent. From Morocco (which is leading the way in North Africa in terms of the start-up spirit) to Egypt (which has many outstanding incubators), Mauritius (and its areas that are attracting large numbers of ICT firms) and Tunisia (which was one of the winners of the Orange Awards for Social Entrepreneurship in 2013 for its innovative startup, Chifco), its Orange Developers Program (with more than 3,000 people already introduced to mobile application coding) and its coaching actions (with the Orange Developer Center).
Other initiatives that are helping improve life for Africans thanks to digital capabilities also deserve to be identified and showcased: in Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic or Guinea-Conakry. Other countries also have vast potential, from Nigeria to Algeria, Congo Brazzaville, Namibia and Tanzania. More to follow…for a future trip?

source:starafrica