posted
One area African nation are far behind is in the area of computer technology. The reason; African Brain drain, where any African with prominent skills is exported outside of Africa by many of the world's largest corporations.
One of these corporations is the Sun Corporation which a few years ago purchased a company headed by an African Mathematician/Engineer who developed a new computer architecture for processing many multiple threads simultaneously. The architecture now is contained in Sun's most expensive products.
In the spirit of the open source movement, Sun has just released the RTL, or documentation to the public which allow anyone to develop their own versions of this Super-computer using off-the-shelf components which negate the need for a semiconductor fabrication venture.
This release presents itself as a fantastic opportunity for African developers to acquire the Intellectual Property (IP) free of charge, and develop "Africanized" versions for internal consumption.
Anyone interested in gaining a copy of the full specification can download the PDF or purchase a hard copy for ~$20. Following that, all one requires is a VHDL compiler abd a FPGA/ASIC to develop your own multicore, 64-bit processor that when complete, will run any flavor of the multiple available, free Linux distros such as Ubuntu or Suse.
Thank you for this bit of information. Do I detect a new elan, with Obama in the White House and all that? To me his election is very inspiring!
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by meninarmer: One area African nation are far behind is in the area of computer technology. The reason; African Brain drain, where any African with prominent skills is exported outside of Africa by many of the world's largest corporations.
One of these corporations is the Sun Corporation which a few years ago purchased a company headed by an African Mathematician/Engineer who developed a new computer architecture for processing many multiple threads simultaneously. The architecture now is contained in Sun's most expensive products.
In the spirit of the open source movement, Sun has just released the RTL, or documentation to the public which allow anyone to develop their own versions of this Super-computer using off-the-shelf components which negate the need for a semiconductor fabrication venture.
This release presents itself as a fantastic opportunity for African developers to acquire the Intellectual Property (IP) free of charge, and develop "Africanized" versions for internal consumption.
Anyone interested in gaining a copy of the full specification can download the PDF or purchase a hard copy for ~$20. Following that, all one requires is a VHDL compiler abd a FPGA/ASIC to develop your own multicore, 64-bit processor that when complete, will run any flavor of the multiple available, free Linux distros such as Ubuntu or Suse.
posted
Most web developers do also. They are after all, the inventors of Java. They make good products for hosting web sites, but a low end FPGA version of the chip would serve just as well as an X86 chip in the laptops above.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
south africa is not behind however,and maybe a few other african nations.i glad to hear that that other that africa howver now as awhole is catching up.
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
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South Africa may "integrate" a few computers, but overall, they have no real computer development industry. Intel has a large design and fabrication plant in Israel that designs and fabricates processors, but none have any in Africa.
This is by design. Europe and America wish Africa to remain totally dependent on them for computers, and for the most part, they are. As can be seen above, those African students are using US made computers designed especially for so-called, third world countries.
They would like to do the save to China, but China leaders are too smart for this and began building their own chip industry 10-20 years ago. Today, China have released 3rd generation x86 compatible processors labeled, Godson, to serve their own vast markets.
Chinese Academy of Science Institute of Computing Technology
New Godson Multi-Core Server-Class CPU • Petascale Performance Target by 2010 • Backed by China’s Government • MIPS64-Based with 200+ More Instructions for x86 Translation and Acceleration • 16 GFLOPS at 1GHz and 10W of Power • Earlier versions (non-HT), produced by ST Microelectronics and sold to 40 companies in set-top boxes, laptops, etc. 8-Core Multi-Chip 20W Version Possible in 2009 • @200 developers working on Godson HW, @100 on SW and Compilers
The University of Cape Town (South Africa) has a few modest projects but nothing approaching the scale of China, Russia or Israel.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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European, US sales hold back global chip growth
John Walko EE Times Europe (10/30/2008 8:02 AM EDT)
LONDON — The European and North American markets held back global semiconductor sales in September, according to the latest figures from the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Organization (WSTS).
Global sales were up 1.6 percent year-on-year to $23 billion, with month-on-month growth coming in at 1.1 percent for September, compared with $22.7 billion in August 2008.
Based on the three-month moving average figures and expressed in US dollars, year on year growth in Europe was down 1.5 percent in September to $3.48 billion, with the Americas faring worst, down 15.7 percent to $3.2 billion. Japan saw no increase during the period, steady at $4.26 billion, while the Asia Pacific region saw sales up by 9.2 percent, to $12 billion.
Month-on-month, European chip sales were up 0.9 percent in September , North America down 3.4 percent, Japan up 0.9 percent, and the Asia Pacific again faring best, up 2.9 percent.
According to the European Semiconductor Industry Association (ESIA), the exchange rate of the Euro compared to the US dollar "recently started a spectacular decline," which softened the impact on the growth data.
Measured in Euros, semiconductor sales in September 2008 were Euros 2.3 billion, up 4.1 percent the on previous month and down 9.5 percent compared with September 2007.
According to the ESIA, and expressed in Euros, year-to-date sales in Europe have experienced a drop of 10.8 percent compared with the corresponding period of 2007.
Most product categories confirmed the trend observed in August, said the ESIA, with logic and MOS Special Purpose Logic driving the market. Optoelectronics also grew in September, recovering after the weaker performance registered in August, back to the positive growth rate recorded in the first half of 2008.
Application specific analog ICs used in communications (+12 percent) and computer & peripherals (+6 percent) were the growth drivers during September.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
i disagree,south africa does have a advanced computer industry,nigeria is getting up their too but not as advanced so far,but it's there.this is just some of the examples of the countries i mention so far.Wed, 12 Jul 2006
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South Africa: open for business
South Africa is one of the most sophisticated and promising emerging markets in the world, offering a unique combination of highly developed first world economic infrastructure with a vibrant emerging market economy.
It is also one of the most advanced and productive economies in Africa.
Here are just some of the reasons for doing business in South Africa:
Sound economic policies Favourable legal and business environment World-class infrastructure Access to markets Gateway to Africa Trade reform, free trade agreements Cost of doing business in SA Ease of doing business in SA Industrial capability, cutting-edge technology Competitiveness Sound economic policies Since the political reforms of 1994, South Africa's economy has been undergoing structural transformation, with the implementation of macro-economic policies aimed at promoting domestic competitiveness, growth and employment and increasing the economy's outward orientation. Key economic reforms have given rise to a high level of macro-economic stability. Taxes have been reduced, tariffs lowered, the fiscal deficit brought under control, and exchange controls relaxed.
Government expenditure has also been restructured towards social services that are contributing to a better quality of life for all South Africans.
South Africa's central bank, the SA Reserve Bank, maintains its independence from government. The Bank's programme of inflation targeting has had positive outcomes, the real interest rate has stabilised and the currency is able to fluctuate at competitive levels. The elimination of the Bank's net open forward position (uncovered future foreign exchange liabilities) has also contributed to increased financial stability.
President Thabo Mbeki has made it clear that foreign investment is welcome in South Africa, and government policy supports the public pronouncements.
In 2005, the government began formulating a new strategy to boost the country's economic growth rate to 6% of GDP by 2014 and reduce unemployment. Implementation of the strategy - involving large-scale state investment in infrastructure, small business and skills development, and interventions targeting specific areas of the economy - has since begun.
South Africa's economic policies Favourable legal and business environment South Africa has a world-class, progressive legal framework. Legislation pertaining to commerce, labour and maritime issues is particularly well developed, while laws relating to competition policy, copyright, patents, trademarks and disputes conform to international norms and conventions. Sanctity of contract is protected under common law, and independent courts ensure respect for commercial rights and obligations. The independence of the judiciary is guaranteed by the Constitution.
South Africa's financial systems are sophisticated, robust and well regulated. South African banking regulations rank with the best in the world, while the sector has long been rated among the top 10 globally. Foreign banks are well represented and electronic banking facilities are extensive, with internet banking a growth feature of the sector.
The JSE Limited is the 18th largest exchange in the world by market capitalisation (some R3.3-trillion as of September 2005). The JSE's rules and their enforcement are based on global best practice, while the JSE's automated trading, settlement, transfer and registration systems are the equal of any in the world
World-class infrastructure South Africa has world-class infrastructure - including a modern transport system, low-cost and widely available energy, and sophisticated telecommunications facilities.
South Africa's infrastructure Access to markets Located at the southernmost tip of the African continent, South Africa is ideally positioned for easy access to the countries comprising the Southern African Development Community (SADC) - with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) in the region of US$160-billion and some 185-million people - the islands off Africa's east coast, and even the Gulf States and India. South Africa also and serves as a trans-shipment point between the emerging markets of Central and South America and the newly industrialised nations of South and Far East Asia.
Major shipping lanes pass along the South African coastline in the South Atlantic and Indian oceans through its seven commercial ports, which form by far the largest, best equipped and most efficient network on the continent.
These ports are not only conduits for trade between South Africa and her partners in the SADC and the South African Customs Union, but also function as hubs for traffic emanating from and destined for Europe, Asia, the Americas and the east and west coasts of Africa.
Gateway to Africa Not only is South Africa in itself an important emerging market, it is also a minimum requirement for accessing other sub-Saharan markets. The country borders with Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho, and its well-developed road and rail links provide the platform and infrastructure for ground transportation deep into sub-Saharan Africa.
Moreover, South Africa has the resident marketing skills and distribution channels imperative for commercial ventures into Africa.
The country plays a significant role in supplying energy, relief aid, transport, communications and outward investment on the continent. SA was the largest investor into the rest of Africa between 1990 and 2000, according to a 2003 report by LiquidAfrica Research, with investment averaging around US$1.4-billion, amounting to some $12.5-billion over the decade.
South Africa is also a dynamic force within the 14-member South African Development Community (SADC), and has been a key player in the development of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), the socio-economic renewal programme of the African Union.
Trade reform, free trade agreements Since signing the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1994, South Africa has become a player in the global trading system, and a series of trade reforms - including a tariff reduction and rationalisation programme - have been introduced.
Market access has been enhanced through free trade agreements with the European Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act by the US. South Africa is also seeking to develop bilateral trade relations with markets in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Market access under current trade agreements:
SA-EU Free Trade Agreement Provides 95% of South Africa's exports with duty-free access to the EU within the next 10 years. The agreement pertains to industrial goods and agriculture, with commodities such as steel, ferro alloys, aluminium, furniture and automotive products standing to gain substantially. In turn, South Africa is to remove duties on 86% of its total imports from the EU. The agreement makes provision for the establishment of new industries to produce for the EU.
SADC Free Trade Agreement To be implemented by 2008, the agreement will play a key role in fostering regional prosperity, as it encourages intra-regional trade and promotes investment and technology transfers.
Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) Supplements existing US programmes aiming to increase trade and investment between the United States and developing countries. Agoa expands the duty-free treatment under the GSP programme to September 2008, eliminates most of the limitations of the GSP programme for sub-Saharan African countries, and expands the product coverage of the GSP programme exclusively for products of sub-Saharan Africa. The Act includes duty-free treatment of 1 800 tariff line items (in addition to the standard GSP list of roughly 4 600 items currently available to non-Agoa GSP beneficiary countries), while providing duty-free and quota-free access to the US market without limits for apparel manufactured in sub-Saharan countries using US fabric, yarn and thread.
Cost of doing business in SA A recent survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked South Africa as highly cost effective (10th out of 31 countries surveyed).
South Africa's exchange rate makes it one of the least expensive countries in which to do business - particularly one with a first-world infrastructure and high living standards. Even though stronger local currency has strengthened against other major currencies in recent years, the rand exchange rate still makes commercial and residential property, quality hotels and restaurants inexpensive by world standards.
South Africa's energy costs are also among the lowest in the world. Eskom supplies most of Africa with electricity, and is known for its superior supply quality. The country also compares favourably for petroleum prices, with private sector and multinational oil companies refining and marketing nearly all imported petroleum products in southern Africa.
The licensing of a second fixed-line operator is expected to bring down the cost of telecommunications in South Africa. The new operator is due to begin operating by the end of 2006, giving state company Telkom its first taste of real competition.
South Africa's unit labour costs are significantly lower than those of other key emerging markets, including Mexico, Hungary, Malaysia and Singapore. In addition, recent years have seen a surge in the country's labour productivity. South Africa has a comprehensive labour legislation in place, facilitating labour relations and contributing to a marked decline in the number of man-days lost due to industrial action since 1994.
South Africa's corporate tax rate - down to 29% for 2005/06 - compares favourably against a number of developing companies, and the prospects of further reductions are good.
Ease of doing business in SA South Africa is among the top 30 countries in the world for ease of doing business, according to a 2005 World Bank report. The finding suggests that South Africa is making progress in creating an environment conducive to investment, which the government has identified as key to achieving a 6% growth rate.
The survey ranked 155 countries according to the number of procedures, time and costs involved in: starting a business; dealing with licences; hiring and firing workers; registering property; getting credit; protection for investors; paying taxes; trading across borders; enforcing contracts; and closing a business.
South Africa ranked 28th, ahead Spain (ranked at 30), Austria (32), France (44), Russia (79), China (91) and Brazil (119). Overall, SA had the highest ease-of-business ranking on the African continent.
Industrial capability, cutting-edge technology South Africa's industrial production growth is well above the average for developing markets.
The country's manufacturing output is becoming increasingly technology-intensive, with high-tech manufacturing sectors - such as machinery, scientific equipment and motor vehicles - enjoying a growing share of total manufacturing output since 1994.
SA's technological research and quality standards are world-renowned. The country has developed a number of leading technologies, particularly in the fields of energy and fuels, steel production, deep-level mining, telecommunications and information technology.
Competitiveness A number of industrial support measures have been introduced since 1994 to enhance the competitiveness of South Africa's industrial base. These include placing more emphasis on supply-side than demand-side measures (such as tariffs and expensive export support programmes).
The government has provided incentives for value-added manufacturing projects, support for industrial innovation, improved access to finance, and an enabling environment for small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) development.
Industrial development zones have been established in close proximity to major ports and airports, offering world-class infrastructure, dedicated customs support and reduced taxation.
South Africa has a well-developed and regulated competition regime based on best international practice. The Competition Act of 1998 fundamentally reformed the country's competition legislation, strengthening the powers of the competition authorities along the lines of the European Union, US and Canadian models.
The law places various prohibitions on anti-competitive conduct, restrictive practices (such as price fixing, predatory pricing and collusive tendering) and "abuses" by "dominant" firms (firms with a market share of 35% or more).
Authorities have been appointed to monitor implementation and adherence to the law, and regulators have been assigned to oversee natural monopolies and promote universal access to utilities.
SouthAfrica.info reporter, incorporating material from the Department of Trade and Industry
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Investor confidence grows South Africa is becoming the investment destination of choice of an increasing number of leading global companies:
British bank Barclays bought a majority stake in South African bank Absa for close on £3-billion (around R30-billion) in 2005 - the biggest single foreign direct investment ever in the country.
In March 2005, Indian industrial giant Tata announced plans to invest US$245-million (around R1.5-billion) in new projects in South Africa, where its business includes IT services, telecoms, bus body building and car distribution.
In April 2005, General Motors announced plans to invest US$100-million in its South African production facilities, after awarding its South African arm a $3-billion contract to manufacture a new global version of its Hummer sports utility vehicle for export to markets outside the US.
Also in May 2005, Belgian-owned Sander International Textiles announced plans to invest close to US$32-million in Coega, a new deepwater port and industrial development zone in the Eastern Cape.
In October 2005, German industrial group MAN Ferrostaal announced plans to invest about US$300-million in a stainless steel precision strip mill at Coega and an oil rig manufacturing plant at Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape.
In February 2006, British telecommunications firm TalkTalk announced plans to spend £20-million setting up two call centres, one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg, in the biggest foreign investment yet in South Africa's burgeoning call centre industy.
Also in February 2006, British communications giant Vodafone concluded a US$2.4-billion deal that gives it an 84% stake (and 90% effective voting interest) in South African investment firm VenFin, giving Vodafone access to VenFin's 15% stake in South African mobile phone operator Vodacom.
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I see nothing there about semiconductor or computer industries or even simple electronics manufacturing like solar cell, Light emitting diodes, transistors, or even passive components. Odd since Africa has more raw materials then any other place on earth.
Although South Africa has a large white built Electricity Plant and supplies much of the African market, nearly all of the turbines, Inverters, computer control systems, etc. used there are imported.
Intentional because Europeans wish to keep Africa in the dark and dependent, while raising the level of technology skills in other white or near white countries like Israel, UK, France, Spain, Russia, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Australia, Italy. Everywhere but black and Latin countries including Africa, the Islands, Haiti, Dominican, Cuba, South America, Brazil... The trend is easily correlated.
If African, with it's huge materials and resources, acquired semiconductor manufacturing skills, they could do so lots cheaper then Europeans and offer real value in their products creating a market which could free Africa from European dependence akin to China.
This is why no African nation, including SA have access to this capability and approx $40B/year market. The US, Europe, India, and China see Africa as future potentially big customers who will over time, add to their companies growth, not suppliers.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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South Africa: First Schools Get Connected to a New World of Learning
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
May 4, 2006 Posted to the web May 4, 2006
Lesley Stones Johannesburg
TWO secondary schools have become the first in SA to join an electronic network of 24 African schools with access to world-class learning material.
Ipetleng Secondary School in Free State and Thozamisa Secondary School in Eastern Cape have been connected by the Oracle Consortium under the e-Schools initiative, supported by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).
The initiative is designed to upgrade all of Africa's secondary schools over the next 10 years by providing them with information and communications technology hardware, software and content, and by training teachers to use the new facilities.
The consortium consists of 14 companies contributing various components of a hi-tech educational system to schools in remote areas that lack such facilities.
Oracle, which heads the consortium, installs the equipment, trains the teachers and supplies technical support. Other members include Mustek and Fujitsu Siemens, which supply computers.
Satellite connection and internet access is supplied by Sentech, and MultiChoice Africa installs DStv equipment.
Xerox provides printers, copiers, faxes and scanners.
Schools from seven countries stand to benefit from the initiative. SA is the fourth country to go online under the programme after Ghana, Lesotho and Kenya.
Mali, Gabon and Egypt will follow in the near future.
Programme manager Sanjoe Maharaj said that the schools were already seeing benefits by accessing learning material such as television programmes and specialist tutorials.
Schools were also using the photocopiers, printers and software to build databases to monitor student progress and improve their administration procedures, he said.
Relevant Links
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"With tangible benefits such as these, we are very keen to see the programme become pervasive in Africa," said Maharaj.
The e-Schools initiative is still in its early stages, with Nepad establishing and monitoring six e-Schools in each of 16 countries.
Through feedback, Nepad will be able to determine which technologies and systems are best suited for use in African schools as the project is gradually extended.
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The wave of technology is a metaphor for the rapid development, uptake, evolution and obsolescence of technology (and computer technology in particular) in modern societies. Technology transforms societies, provides new ways of communicating and interacting, creates opportunities for economic growth and betters the lot of humanity when used in an ethical way. The wave of technology is ridden by those who do research and development and those who use technology. It is exciting to ride and full of change and turmoil. Computer Scientists and--
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posted
As I suspected and stated earlier, only system integrators and distributors are located in Africa. No manufacturers. Meaning all these companies are dependent on purchasing European or Asian manufactured products which they in turn integrate or resell. To be fair, they have Egypt in a similar technology deficient state.
Take a look at Israel's electronics industry. The plan is to keep middle eastern countries behind in technology while bossting Israel's so that Israel will command the region by it's high level of technology.
Electronics Industry in Israel
Propelled by military compulsions, the Israeli electronics industry has emerged as the world’s second Silicon Valley. It has made its mark on the global level with the ability to incorporate varied industries and components in interdisciplinary areas.
Concerted innovations and cease-less endeavour in the field of electronics have transformed Israel into the world’s second Silicon Valley. The application of local engineers and scientists in devising leading-edge technologies and products is largely responsible for the changed face of electronics in Israel today. Coupled with the entrepreneurship of its managers, electronics has become the country’s most rapidly-growing industry. Also, Israel’s universities are acting as a catalyst by providing quality education in the field of electronics. Undoubtedly, the peace process and free-trade agreements with the US, Canada, EU and EFTA are the other factors that have contributed to its high growth. Electronics in Israel is a high value-addition sector. The average value-addition is 68 per cent in this sector as compared to 42 per cent in the rest of the Israeli industry. There are 43,400 people employed in this industry, including 24,800 engineers of whom 14,000 are university graduates. Twelve per cent of the employees are involved in R&D activities. The output per employee has grown consistently and stands at over $164,000 per employee for 1997-98 as against $63,380 in 1987. Positive trends in the telecommunications sector—specifically in communication networks and semiconductors—are to a large extent responsible for the dramatic rise in output levels. The dynamic growth in Israel’s electronics industry can be linked to the country’s strategic need for defence and electronic warfare systems. However, in recent decades there has been a shift from the military to the civilian sector and technology has been adapted for commercial applications.
Electronics Everywhere
The electronics sector in Israel excels at the ability of incorporating varied industries and components in interdisciplinary areas. Textile, printing, agriculture and medicine are a few of the industries that now have electronics at their core. In the field of communications, R&D-based applications include digital processing (DSP chips), transmission and enhancement of images, speech and data. The products range from advanced telephone exchanges to voice systems and telephone-line doublers. Israel is today a world leader in fibre optics, electro-optic inspection systems for printed circuit boards, thermal imaging, night-vision systems and electro-optic-based robotic manufacturing systems. The country has the world’s largest concentration of researchers and skilled manpower in electro-optics and lasers. A high level of specialisation has been achieved in the areas of electro-optic testing, measurement and imaging systems, laser materials processing, electro-optical component manufacturing and medical systems. Among the important companies in the field are Indigo, Scitex, Orbotech, ELOP, Lanoptics, Elbit and Laser Industries. Education in schools is enhanced by a variety of computer-aided instruction systems. Israeli-made computer-based imaging systems are also widely exported. While some of Israel’s software products are designed for use on mainframe computers, most have been developed for small- or medium-sized workstations.
Software Design
Israel has also emerged as a major software design centre. It is significant to note that the Israeli and Indian software industry started off at the same time, but the market value of Israel’s software listed on NASDAQ is $50 billion today. Further, one may add to this a conservative $10 billion in companies that are listed in the country or valued in private acquisitions. Software R&D centres in Israel include setups of multinationals such as Microsoft, IBM and Digital to name a few. Scores of Israeli companies are operating in the US market through joint ventures, OEM and marketing agreements.
Telecommunications
Telecommunications and datacommu-nications are the salient strengths of Israel’s electronics industry. This includes PABXs and access networks, satellite terminals, wireless LANs, ISDN terminals, ATM, LANB switches and SDHI (SONET), sophisticated antennas, voice and handwriting recognition systems, frequency hopping paging systems, USAT, video encryption and compression, vocoders, HDSL (2mbps), ADSL (6mbps), VHDSL (100mbps), small satellites and Leo launchers, CATV communications, etc. Telecommunications account for over 30 per cent of the total electronics industry in the country. The leading Israeli names in telecommunications are Elbit Computers, Rad Data Communications, ECI Telecom and Bezeq. Many top-notch companies are known to be seeking joint ventures in India. Bezeq is already in India as a service provider. Rad is being represented in India through the Bangalore-based MRO-Tech. India’s potential growth in telecom is a competitive area where Israeli companies can provide service and technology. Israel’s industry was hard pressed in the 60s to develop its own technology-base for the upkeep of its military machinery. But later, when there was lesser accent on military activities, large companies, which had serviced the needs of the defence, had to look for other markets. And in the 80s, these companies began to make an impact on the civilian sector. A host of start-ups tasted commercial success, marking a wave of high-tech debuts that eventually culminated in today’s vibrant export-driven telecommunications industry. Tadiran is a classic example of a company’s transition from military to civilian applications. It offers a unique wireless telephone system that is based on spread spectrum and the frequency-hopping technology in which the frequency changes at random at about 500 jumps a second. Tadiran had developed this technology for military purposes but today it is used in cabs and ambulances. The Electronics Group (TEG) is a world leader in defence electronics and aerospace applications, providing a full range of products, systems and services from concept-evaluation through programme deployment and ongoing integrated logistical support. TEG’s products include complete lines of missiles, radars, weapons and ammunition-control systems. TEG also produces point defence systems, optronic sensors and navigation systems. Israel is also a fairly large player in IT—the Internet I in particular. Multilingual Internet communication, voice and video communications over the Internet, wireless Internet access and communications, network management software, encryption technology, imaging and pattern recognition systems, fault-detection and analysis software are on offer by Israeli companies. Leading companies in IT and Internet are VocalTec, NetManage, Aladdin Knowledge Systems, Accent/Kivun, VdOnet, Ubique and Disc. Internet security products are their primary wares. Checkpoint provides Firewall, an Internet security product, which prevents a breach by creating a ‘wall’ between a trusted network and the Internet, restricting sites that employees can visit. Companies are also offering safe remote access software transfer. The Israeli electronics industry has also distinguished itself through innovations in multimedia. Over 70 firms are engaged in CD-ROM software development of which 90 per cent is exported. Prominent companies in this area are JeMM, Pixel, Edusoft, Edunetics, Onyx, Interactive, Levitech, Plastronics, Glymph, Multimedia, Makhshevet and Optibase.
Technology Tie-ups and JVs
In 1993, the Israel Export Institute signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with an Indian consultancy firm, Technova India, for the promotion of Israeli electronics technology in India. Under the terms of the MoU, Technova chose to confine itself to identifying and aiding collaborations and transfer of technology in the civil area. It was around the same time that Electronics Industries (ELOP), the Israeli market leader in thermal imaging and other esoteric areas, opened an office in India. ELOP made an unpublicised entry into India through a technology tie-up with an NRI-promoted company in the Noida Export Processing Zone. ELOP’s technology offered the capability of linking a computer-controlled vision system to a fruit- or vegetable-processing line to automatically sort and grade fruits or vegetables by size, colour and quality. That year also saw a number of Indo-Israel joint ventures in floriculture and drip-irrigation industries. However, the drift is now more in the high-tech direction of telecommunications and electronic machinery, medical equipment, education software and digital printing technology. These products constituted over 15 per cent of Israel’s exports in 1998 and an increase of 45 per cent over similar exports in 1997. A number of joint ventures are now being set up in areas like manufacture of high-speed modems, voice-mail systems and fibre optics. Even the regional and development centres for such ventures are being set up in India. It is significant to note that even low-profile companies like Gilat Satellite Networks are determined to tap India’s potential in communications through VSATs. Gilat is in the process of setting up a liaison office in Delhi and Magic Software is all set to cash in on the Indian ‘ERP solutions’ market. Alladin Knowledge Systems caters mainly for the software-security-against-piracy requirements in the market. Even giants like ELBI Systems are vying for this segment. A small but significant beginning was made at building tie-ups between the Israeli and Indian electronics industry in 1993. This association has now penetrated numerous areas that promise high growth in volume and value.
Government Assistance
Israel has an incubator programme, which has been a key factor in promoting inventors and innovators. This programme was initiated in 1992 to absorb emigrant scientists. Any Israeli national can apply for assistance on the basis of a promising proposal and the assurance of completion of the prototype within two years. Another such setup is run by Wiezmann Institute, which receives an annual budget from the Israeli government. The budget allocation in 1998 was $160 million. The institute encourages research even on technology that may not have immediate practical applications. It also offers a programme for commercial inventions that it operates through a separate company, Yeda. Under Yeda, researchers need not develop a prototype compulsorily as is mandatory in the incubator programme.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
contact south africa itself or nigieria or other african states,they could go into more details of what you are looking forhttp://www.southafrica.globalsources.com/gsol/I/Computer-Industry-manufacturers/b/2000000003896/3000000182296/-1.htm emails info@pcshopping.co.za customerservices@click2buyit.com kachi@accessoriesd.com
all i know is that there are african countries that make electronics and computers too. iknow south africa has one of the most advanced tech know how in the world and there is no need to import alot of the oustside stuff,but south africa doe expor too but more so to europe and othe arears than america.
other to contact and find out about what you asking for.that is all i could hepl you with * Afritec Ltd (Cameroon)
* Technology Network Solutions (Ghana) * Coast Data Systems Ltd (Kenya) * Mecer East Africa Limited (Kenya) * RED DOT Distribution (Kenya) * Hiperdist (Madagascar) * Burco Electronics Systems Ltd (Malawi) * Harel Mallac Computers (Mauritius) * Superdist Ltd (Mauritius) * Dataserv Lda (Mozambique) * Benchmark Technologies (Nigeria) * Sparnoon Nigeria Limited (Nigeria) * Zinox Technologies Limited (Nigeria) * RED DOT Distribution (Tanzania) * Service & Computer Industries (Uganda)
and here are someSouth Africa Distributors Pinnacle Micro Head Office Johannesburg Telephone number: (011) 265 3000 Telephone number: (021) 550-0100
here is something that sems to be up to date too. ----------------------------------------
Key South African import areas
While South Africa produces many products of world-class quality for export, it is also a major importer of diverse products from most countries. From pharmaceuticals to telecommunications, SA is an advanced consumer of the latest on offer from international sources.
Agricultural products South Africa supplements local agricultural production with imports, key among these being consumer-oriented products, forestry products and intermediate products.
One of the mainstays of the South African economy, the agricultural sector holds many opportunities with both large commercial and emerging farmers in areas such as capital investment, training, equipment and services supply.
Computer software & services One of the main areas of growth is the demand from small and medium-sized companies for high-end computer systems. This is set to become a major target for IT companies in the near future. The South African government is also expected to be a major purchaser of software.
South Africa imports some 80% of its software from the United States, with the balance from Israel, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. South Africa has always had a well-developed food and beverage industry, partly because of the country's major agricultural activity, and partly because of its relatively sophisticated food requirements.
During the apartheid years the food industry developed mainly to satisfy the domestic market and, as growth was limited by local requirements, a consolidation of the major companies took place.
Since South Africa has become a member of the global market, a number of multinational companies have formed partnerships with local food companies, and new opportunities have opened up.
Franchises Key sectors for development include: bBuilding, office and home services; automotive products and services; entertainment and leisure; hair, health and beauty; printing and photographic development; and restaurants.
Security and safety equipment
There is strong growth in private security industry technology, such as CCTV and digital surveillance equipment, sophisticated access control systems (smart card technology), and IT systems.
Many cities have introduced surveillance cameras, and businesses are increasingly updating systems with the latest technology. Home security is another key area.
Water & wastewater
The South African government is committed to ensuring that all its citizens have access to a minimum standard of potable water and sanitation. Many South African municipalities are looking to overseas companies to help them address these problems through concessions or management contracts.
There have been early successes, and it is expected that there are many more opportunities for water utilities and contractors to win future business. ------------------ Exporting SA boat builders riding high 11 January 2006 The latest product of South Africa's vibrant boat-building industry - a first-of-its-kind high-speed luxury catamaran that sold off the drawing board to an American buyer for R7.5-million - was launched in Cape Town recently ahead of its debut at the 2007 Miami Boatshow.
The Stealth 540 - dubbed the Flying Gurnard - is the most advanced power catamaran yet built in South Africa. The hydrofoil-assisted craft is equipped with "hysucat" technology developed by Professor Karl-Gunter Hoppe from the University of Stellenbosch.
'Q-speed' propulsion system According to Stealth Yachts, this combines the power of twin Man 800 horsepower diesel engines with the revolutionary "Q-speed" propulsion system - which means the propellors are surface piercing and never fully in the water - to give extraordinary speed and fuel efficiency. The Flying Gurnard is expected to achieve a maximum speed of 45 knots, but will cruise for up to 1 000 miles at 28 to 30 knots using only 55 litres of diesel per hour - compared to about 150 litres per hour for a similar power boat moving at only 22 knots.
The Stealth 540 will debut at the Miami Boatshow in February before heading to the Americas Cup in Valencia, Spain - where South Africa's Team Shosholoza will be participating - in May.
Eagle Technology Manufactures Data Acquisition & Control Products For Medical,
Keep Access Control Systems is a South African company, based in Gauteng, that specializes in security and access control in the domestic and industrial market. We
TWO secondary schools have become the first in SA to join an electronic network of 24 African schools with access to world-class learning material.
The consortium consists of 14 companies contributing various components of a hi-tech educational system to schools in remote areas that lack such facilities.
Satellite connection and internet access is supplied by Sentech, and MultiChoice Africa installs DStv equipment.
A Home Computer Industry
Nigeria is developing a local computer manufacturing capability for several reasons. These include the high cost of imported equipment, the need to standardize on hardware (and software), and the question of maintenance.13 Assessing these arguments, Pryce expressed the view that "the evidence points overwhelmingly to the local production of a clone of the IBM PC - a machine-type (rather than an individual machine) with a vast store of cheap software, with ample power for 95% of Nigerian computing applications for the next 5 to 10 years, and capable of being periodically up-graded in memory and speed by exploiting US and Japanese advances in chip technology. " 13
for more info mailto:femi@jidaw.com
One computer firm claims to be assembling the Modellor version of the IBM PC. But experience of the motor car assembly industry in Nigeria suggests that the nation should, from the start, look beyond mere assembly of computing equipment. The Nigerian government seems to have taken a stand on the issue. Dr. Chu Okongwu, the Minister of Finance, was quoted as telling a computer workshop at Owerri in Imo State that "the government is looking forward to the day when a 100% indigenous [computer manufacturing] company will be built and maintained in Nigeria.''8
A development that can be expected in the near future is the appearance of software houses producing application software for local needs. Many of the experts at the symposium reported on by Pryce believe that all requirements for indigenous production of quality software are already met.13 A commercial software venture can only be viable in Nigeria if it is preceded by a degree of standardization of microcomputer types, and, possibly, local manufacture. It may also be useful to consider the Iraqi model, where an information processing centre under the Ministry of Industry undertakes the development of software relevant to the needs of Iraq and distributes them at low cost to government-owned industries, all of which use standardized equipment.14
Industrial capability, cutting-edge technology
South Africa's industrial production growth is well above the average for developing markets.
The country's manufacturing output is becoming increasingly technology-intensive, with high-tech manufacturing sectors - such as machinery,
scientific equipment and motor vehicles - enjoying a growing share of total manufacturing output since 1994. SA's technological research and quality standards are world-renowned. The country has developed a number of leading technologies, particularly in the fields of energy and fuels, steel production, deep-level mining, telecommunications and information technology.
i know ivory coast and some other african countries have a growing electronics industry,most are not on average not as advanced as the u.s. but at least it is there and they just have to build upon on what they have.
Fri, 7 Nov 08
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Exporting SA boat builders riding high
11 January 2006
The latest product of South Africa's vibrant boat-building industry - a first-of-its-kind high-speed luxury catamaran that sold off the drawing board to an American buyer for R7.5-million - was launched in Cape Town recently ahead of its debut at the 2007 Miami Boatshow.
The Stealth 540 - dubbed the Flying Gurnard - is the most advanced power catamaran yet built in South Africa. The hydrofoil-assisted craft is equipped with "hysucat" technology developed by Professor Karl-Gunter Hoppe from the University of Stellenbosch.
'Q-speed' propulsion system According to Stealth Yachts, this combines the power of twin Man 800 horsepower diesel engines with the revolutionary "Q-speed" propulsion system - which means the propellors are surface piercing and never fully in the water - to give extraordinary speed and fuel efficiency.
The Flying Gurnard is expected to achieve a maximum speed of 45 knots, but will cruise for up to 1 000 miles at 28 to 30 knots using only 55 litres of diesel per hour - compared to about 150 litres per hour for a similar power boat moving at only 22 knots.
The Stealth 540 will debut at the Miami Boatshow in February before heading to the Americas Cup in Valencia, Spain - where South Africa's Team Shosholoza will be participating - in May.
One-third of global catamaran sales South Africa's boat-building industry is drawing increasing global interest. Almost every week now a new luxury catamaran is launched at Cape Town's Waterfront harbour before setting sail for its new owners, a large number of whom are based in America and Europe.
Reporting on the Stealth 540 launch in December, Reuters correspondent Wendell Roelf said it was one of a record 290 luxury boats expected to be launched from South Africa in 2006, with most local boat builders now averaging around four yachts a year compared to around one a year 12 years ago.
"A few years ago SA held only 0.5% of the sailing catamaran market," Roelf writes. "Today it accounts for 30% of global sales, says International Boating Industry magazine."
Besides sailing catamarans, Roelf reports, SA has also established a global presence in four other markets: power catamarans, large mono-hulled yachts, inflatable boats and ocean-going kayaks.
Bruce Tedder, chairman of the Cape Town Boatbuilding Initiative (CTBi), said the industry was now worth about R1.5-billion and employed about 3 500 people in the Western Cape, where most of the country's boat-builders are located.
Referring to Stealth Yachts' second high-speed luxury catamaran - the first was also sold to an American - Tedder said that while SA enjoyed a fair amount of respect globally when it came to boat-building, the industry had never been renowned for building high-speed luxury powerboats.
"We are, however, consistently raising the bar".
The Stealth 540, he said, was "a new style of boat and this is the first one of its kind in the world and a great vote of confidence."
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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The Stealth 540: the most advanced power catamaran yet built in South Africa (Photo: Stealth Yachts) Related links
* SA Boatbuilders Business Council * Cape Town Boatbuilding Initiative * Stealth Yachts * South African Catamarans * Admiral Yacht Manufacturers * Afri-Cat Marine * Dean Catamarans * Island Spirit Catamarans * Knysna Yacht Company * Matrix Yachts * Quiver Outdoor Gear * Rayvin Yachts * Robertson and Caine * Royal Cape Catamarans * Sky Blue Yachts * Southern Ocean * Southern Wind Shipyard * St Francis Marine
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by the SA Representative to the IFIP GA : Prof Basie von Solms ( basie@rkw.rau.ac.za )
1. President of the CSSA : Mr Peter Aspinall ( peter@sbs.co.za ) Web address of the CSSA : http://www.cssa.org.za
2. The last year saw a number of activities initiated and expanded as far as the SA IT industry is concerned. The CSSA was actively involved in all of these efforts - either corporately or through individual members.
This report will briefly refer to several of these projects.
3. The Department of Communication’s Green Paper on Electronic Commerce
This Discussion Paper has been prepared on behalf of the Department of Communications (DoC) of the Republic of South Africa to serve as a starting point for national policy discussions concerning the development of Electronic Commerce in South Africa. The paper is the result of extensive collaborative efforts by an initiative set up under the direction of DoC, with participation by a wide range of representatives of various government departments and agencies. The purpose of this paper is to present background and summary discussion of the many policy issues surrounding e-commerce, as a foundation for national deliberations on how best to formulate a coherent policy strategy. The various topics are discussed both from a general point of view and from the perspective of current policy and initiatives in South Africa, which might be expanded or adapted for incorporation into a national policy.
SAITIS is a joint bilateral project between the South African Government, as represented by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Directorate: Electrical Electronic and Allied Industries, and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
This is a three year, Cdn $3.5 million project to help develop a strong South African IT industry. The Project will promote the South African IT industry in a manner that will contribute to sustainable economic growth, social upliftment and empowerment.
A Project Steering Committee, chaired by the DTI, is directing all aspects of the Project, while a Canadian Executing Agency (CEA), contracted by CIDA, is managing it in its entirety. A Project Office was established in the DTI in May 1999 to implement the Project. PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC - Canada) was appointed as the Canadian Executing Agency (CEA).
5. ICDL
The ICDL has been very successfully implemented in SA, with growing interest in the rest of Africa. This CSSA is a very important player in this effort.
6. Schoolnet
SchoolNet SA is a national NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) developing and expanding the use of the Internet in South African schools.
A software research indaba, investigating the visibility and capacity of SA Software Research, was held in July 2000. The IFIP Committee of the CSSA provided a sound input to this Indaba.
9. IFIP Activities in SA
Several Workshops and Conferences, organized by IFIP Wags were held in SA during the last year.
The CSSA will be presenting its bid for the WIC 2004 at the Beijing GA.
10. The Foresight Project
The aim of the Foresight project is to help identify those sector specific technologies and technology trends that will best improve the quality of life of all South Africans over the next 10-20 years. The project encompasses technologies that impact on social issues and wealth creation through product or process development.
The CSSA is playing a leading role in the ICT component of the Foresight project.
The outcomes of the Foresight project, along with other policy initiatives, will contribute to new directions for science and technology in South Africa. It signals the government’s commitment to work co-operatively with the private sector and civil society to align science and technology with the economic and social needs of the country consistent with a growth and development strategy.
11. Summary
There can be no doubt that on all levels, National and Provincial Governments as well as Non Government Organizations, the strategic role of ICT is recognized, and many projects, of which some are reported on above, are initiated and continuing to expand this role to the benefit of the peoples of SA.
In all these activities the CSSA is playing a central role.
SH von Solms CSSA Representative to the IFIP GA July 2000
Nigeria: Nigerian-Made Computer Keyboard On Sale in U.S.
This Day (Lagos)
April 19, 2006 Posted to the web April 20, 2006
Lagos
The multi-lingual computer keyboard, invented by a Nigerian engineer, Mr. Walter Oluwole, has started selling in the United States.
According to Oluwole, based in the U.S., the product, named "Konyin"--meaning honey drops in Yoruba--has attracted encouraging patronage in the U.S. where a marketing company has bought the right to market it.
"D&H, one of the largest national distributors of computer products in the U.S. has signed an agreement with the management of the Lagos Analysis Corp. (LANCOR) Technologies to market the product in the US," he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the keyboard was unveiled in Nigeria in April last year its commercial sales started in September, 2005.
The wireless and multimedia model of the keyboard sells for about $199, while the basic model goes for about $55, according to the company's price list.
"We expect the Konyin keyboard to become the de facto standard in PC keyboard in Nigeria and around the globe," Oluwole said.
He said that the keyboard was the first complete computer keyboard technology designed to accommodate combined character-sets for multiple language groups on a single keyboard layout.
Oluwole, a native of Sagamu in Ogun State said that he was excited that his invention had gained international acceptance after what he described as several years of disappointments.
He said that he had started developing a version of the keyboard to be used in South American and European countries, including Germany, Italy and France.
The keyboard inventor said that the device had been equipped with characters and tonal marks to type various languages ranging from English, Spanish, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba.
"Now that this Nigerian invention is affirmed in the global computer market place, our government should move swiftly to standardise all computer keyboards imported into Nigeria around the Konyin keyboard," Oluwole added.
He said that the Konyin keyboard was formally presented to the federal government in January this year to popularise it among government agencies.
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote- Nigeria is one of few African Countries that Manufactures Personal Computers
Nigeria has State of the art Technological Institues Akutech has being completed and ATV is under construction
There is an ongoing project that will make Abuja the only city in Africa that has complete WiFi Coverage.
Uganda is rightfuly there, the Makerere University in Uganda is the first in East Africa to install new information and communication technology.
Ghana, Tunisia, Mauritius and S.A are also rightfully there. Nigeria may still not make it to the top Ten after all the things which I mentioned, but If Nigeria isn't in the Top 3 after ATV is completed, then something must be really wrong -------------------------- top read more from this guy,link link below.alot of these guys are from africa so they wouldknow more on average on what is going on there than folks in america.
here,enjoy yourself with this link.you make some good points but some of it is out of date or incorrect or not correct.here is a link and you could discuss this here with others too. i am bailing out of this one on this forum because i am to busy now with other things,that's why i have not been coming to this forum as much lately.peace. African ICT News
posted
Not to nitpick, but when a firm is listed as, Computer maker and is small, they are not making their own components, but purchasing them elsewhere and integrating them into a computer system. They in most cases purchase their motherboards from a Taiwan manufacturer, a CPU from Intel or AMD, the hard drives from Maxtor, etc.
For example, if you start a Home Alarm system company, you begin by purchasing materials needed from outside sources, integrate these into a box, add a little custom programming and resale. This is called, Value Added Reselling (VAR), or Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM). These vendors are dependent on the Integrated circuit (Motorola, Intel, Analog Devices, NEC, Samsung, etc) and board level manufacturers to source them product.
This is the topic of this thread, and the reason it is receiving so far posts is indicative of the absence of tier 1 technology firms in Africa. The picture posted above showing school children using US made computers is worth a thousand words. In China, there would be Chinese children with Chinese made computers in front of them.
Please try to cut down on the non-relevant portions of your cut&pastes.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
sorry,butyou are wrong on this one.It does not say anywhere in my post that components were made elsewhere.nigerian made computers is just that nigerian made,same with south africa and other states there.i will not assume otherwise untili read it for my self in update 2008 info. just read everything in this link,because alot of these guys would have more info on average about africa tech. see inside here and read every inside.take your time because it's alot.bye
posted
SAMES claims they are the sole IC manufacturer in Africa.
SAMES is the only commercial semiconductor manufacturing facility in Africa. It is an integrated operation undertaking the design, manufacture and marketing of high performance analogue and mixed signal integrated circuits.
They qualify the statement with commercial which may imply there may be a another manufacturer dedicated to military development.
The SAMES team of specialists works with you as a flexible extension of your company in developing customer-specific integrated circuits (CSICs).
Our services include:
* detailed ASIC implementation for digital, analog and mixed-signal designs * standard cell and full custom (both digital and analog) * software/mathematical modelling and testing * Verilog / VHDL code generation * Synthesis * simulation and functional verification * scan and partial scan insertion * production test generation * floor planning and layout * ATPG * technology migrations * cost reductions * FPGA development * high-performance testing and failure analysis
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
edited- i just addedmore info in general about african telecom technology.ok,look for more, ask in those countries what they are really doing because finding things about africa on the computer is sometimes hard and it's a long search sometimes.contact nigeria,ivorycoast, nambia and others and go to that i post sign up and ask questions.start a discussion and get email address from electronic and computer websites of every country.because i know there is more going on now.like i said see link below andread everything there.i will just leave at that.
Nigeria: PHCN Records New High in Electricity Delivery
Daily Trust (Abuja)
6 October 2008 Posted to the web 6 October 2008
Sunday Williams
The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) end of Septem-ber recorded the highest peak energy generation of 86,564.89 megawatts hour with a conti-nuous generation output of not below 3,400mw throughout the day.
A statement signed by the management said the record is the highest energy generation peak in the history of the electricity industry in Nigeria, adding that the highest level recorded in the past was 80,123.0MWH on 27th October 2006, (an improvement of 6,441.89MWH).
It said that the record was made possible through the on-going rehabilitation of existing power stations and manage-ment of water at the hydro dams.
"Also, improvement in the maintenance and management of the national transmission grid, and distribution network contributed to the feat. By this, electricity consumers nation-wide recorded the highest power consumption in one day in the history of the coun-try,"the statement said.
It added that with the deve-lopment, the Company has shown its further commitment to take the electricity industry to a higher level through its well planned and sustained prog-ramme to further boost the Federal Government's sevenpoint agenda which accords the sector very high priority.http://south-africa.suite101.com/article.cfm/durban_smartest_city_in_africa
May 31, 2006
While the project, known as the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), will by no means solve all of Africa's telecommunications problems, it is a foundational piece to the continent's communication infrastructure and a watershed event for African telecom politics. If the continent's governments cannot break such monopolistic practices now, Africa will continue to suffer from extraordinarily high telecommunications costs that will further isolate the region from the social and economic advances the Internet and other new communications technologies are bringing to countries around the globe. The price of bandwidth is a significant barrier to such improvements for the region, says Anriette Esterhuysen, executive director of the APC. Without rapid improvements in its telecommunications infrastructure, Africa will continue to suffer economic and social isolation. "The cost of international bandwidth almost certainly directly affects how Africa works; whether through the high cost of international calls-particularly to other African countries-or through the cost and speed of the continent's Internet connection," Esterhuysen says. EASSy consortium members include most of the national telcos from the various East African nations, including Telekom South Africa, Telkom Kenya, Zanzibar Telecom, Uganda Telecom, TDM Mozambique, Djibouti Telecom, Sentech, Telecom Malagasy, Rwanda Telecom, and Botswana Telecom, with about a dozen other likely participants. There are a few competitive carriers in the mix, but they are the small minority. Cheesman says Telecom South Africa is the most influential member of the EASSy consortium. The company is the richest and most powerful of the group, as well as having the most experience in building major infrastructure projects. Telecom South Africa drove the development of SAT-3 and maintains majority management of the cable as it continues to maintain artificially high access prices. Even today, the company is fighting its own government, the majority shareholder of Telecom South Africa. The South African government wants to regulate use of the SAT-3 cable in order to bring down the costs of Internet access and other telecommunications services in its country. The telco, however, has not responded to requests from the South African government for a copy of the agreement that governs the SAT-3 fiber line.
EASSy will bring direct broadband connections to most of the countries from South Africa to Djibouti along Africa's eastern coast, as well as many of the landlocked countries adjacent to the coastal nations. Planners expect the EASSy fiber cable to provide enough capacity for as long as 25 years.
The construction of an undersea cable, which is to serve South Africa’s bandwidth needs for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2010 soccer World Cup in South Africa, while also supporting sustained East and South African economic growth, is on track and in a mature stage of development, reports communications cabling systems contractor, Seacom.
NEPAD's East African Submarine Cable System which was recently renamed the Nepad Broadband Infrastructure Network (NBIN). The NBIN has two parts to it: a submarine part called UHURUNET which "will encircle the entire continent of Africa, with connections to Europe, Brazil, India and the Middle East" and which, according to FiberforAfrica website <http://www.fibreforafrica.net> seeks to connect "coastal countries in Eastern and Southern Africa to other global submarine cable systems: SAFE in the South Africa and SEA-ME-WE 4 (and potentially others) in the North" and a terrestrial part UMOJANET. Nepad recently signed an MoU <http://www.eafricacommission.org/uhurunet.html> with P-5 Holdings, a US company to construct UHURUNET. The cable is expected to cost about US$ 2 billion and be in place by 2010
EASSy, which is backed by private telecom companies in the East and Southern Africa region claims it has raised all its funds and has also awarded a tender to Alcatel-Lucent <http://www.eassy.org/downloads/EASSy%20-%20Press%20Release%20-%20J_burg%209th%20March%202007%20_3_%20_3_.pdf> with the cable expected to come online by the end of 2008 at a cost of over US$ 200 million. EASSy is also expected to benefit from an injection of up to US $32.5 million from IFC. Kenya Data Network (KDN) and Flag Telecom's fiber project from Mombasa to an undersea fiber junction off the coast of Yemen. Kenyan Government's The East African Marine System (TEAMs) that seeks to connect Mombasa to Fujairah in the UAE. The government has signed a contract with Alcatel-Lucent for the construction of the cable and it is expected to be in place by the end of 2008. Teams stands a high chance of succeeding because the Kenya government is positioning itself to act as the ICT Hub for the East African region and also because it is under pressure to provide connectivity for the budding and promising Business Process Outsourcing sector. SEACOM- the seacom cable financed by the private equity will run from South Africa to Europe and India with landing points in Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania and Kenya. The cable is expected to be operational in 2009 in time for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. This cable is the most advanced so far with mapping of the sea bed already underway. Neotel, South Africa's second national operator has entered into a partnership <http://www.neotel.co.za/neotel/view/neotel/en/page14?oid=44257&sn=Detail> with Seacom and "Neotel will own the cable landing station and all facilities within the South African territory." It was also recently reported <http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/business_power/Internet_cable_gets_boost.shtml> that the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development has also purchased a 25% stake in Seacom. SAT3/WASC/SAFE While many countries now have some internal fiber networks, there is only one trans-continental fiber cable system serving sub-Saharan Africa running from Portugal round the west coast of Africa to South Africa and onwards to Malaysia. This submarine cable system is called South Africa/West Africa Submarine Cable/South Africa Far East (SAT3/WASC/SAFE) cable system <http://www.safe-sat3.co.za/>.
This cable is owned by a consortium of 36 members inclduing 12 African countries and connects 11 African countries (Namibia although a consortium member has no landing point ) with 12 landing points (South Africa has 2 landing points). This cable system does not serve the East African coast.
Fiber Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) A few sub-Saharan African cities have seen the deployment of fiber MANs. These include Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa, Abidjan, and Lagos. Atlantis 2 Atlantis connect Europe to Latin America with 2 landing points in Africa: Dakar, Senegal and the Cape Verde Islands
this is it for me.this is my last post here and after this i will be moving on.check out th link and join to find out more.bye.
posted
Jeezus Kenndo, must you spam every thread with endless amounts of irrelevant cut and paste articles?
The topic of the thread is African computer tech.
You keep saying that's it, that's it, but keep posting more and more spam.
Like merinarmer said, with all the resources of Africa including Coltan and other things that go into electronics, Africa is last in terms of manufacturing such components.
And please don't post some more spam. There aren't many electronics manufacturers in Africa.
Posts: 8889 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Jeezus Kenndo, must you spam every thread with endless amounts of irrelevant cut and paste articles?
The topic of the thread is African computer tech.
You keep saying that's it, that's it, but keep posting more and more spam.
Like merinarmer said, with all the resources of Africa including Coltan and other things that go into electronics, Africa is last in terms of manufacturing such components.
And please don't post some more spam. There aren't many electronics manufacturers in Africa.
i would think south america,the caribeean ,australia and some other smaller regions would be last.
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Jeezus Kenndo, must you spam every thread with endless amounts of irrelevant cut and paste articles?
The topic of the thread is African computer tech.
You keep saying that's it, that's it, but keep posting more and more spam.
Like merinarmer said, with all the resources of Africa including Coltan and other things that go into electronics, Africa is last in terms of manufacturing such components.
And please don't post some more spam. There aren't many electronics manufacturers in Africa.
I quite like kenndo's optimism actually. It's refreshing and inspiring.
In fact, I now BELIEVE Africa has a much greater future in the computing industry than say, Europe. I know this because I am heavily involved in the industry in Europe and I'm not optimistic about growth since those in charge of the industry are old men who want to hold on to power but are unable to adapt to future demands (e.g. demands of the so-called Gen Y or Gen X).
I predict that in just 5 years or so, someone like Alive (an "Gen Y" example), would find much better prospects in a place like South Africa or Nigeria. Where he will recieve much higher pay (much less taxes ), and he won't have strange old white men trying to prevent him from flexing his creative muscles.
The future is bright for Africa. Please keep it coming kenndo, and drown out the pessimism.
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Gen Y, Gen X and the Baby Boomers: Workplace Generation Wars
quote: Think the generation gap went out with bell-bottoms and love beads?
Think again.
Take a good look around your IT department. Who’s that cohabiting in the cubes outside your door? Boomers and X-ers and Y-ers. Looks peaceful out there, doesn’t it? Don’t bet on it. What many CIOs fail to see are the generational tensions simmering among their employees that threaten to lower morale, increase turnover and hobble the IT department’s ability to produce wins for the business.
“One of the big struggles companies have is with people who are not playing well in the sandbox,” says Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing for Yoh, an IT talent and outsourcing services firm. “And it’s more pervasive when we talk about the situation we have between the generations.”
Relations among the generations seem to be at a low point. Gen Y (defined as people born after 1982) thinks Gen X (spawned between 1961 and 1981) is a bunch of whiners. Gen X sees Gen Y as arrogant and entitled. And everyone thinks the Baby Boomers (1943 to 1960) are self-absorbed workaholics.
None of this generational trash-talking surprises Linda Gravett and Robin Throckmorton, authors of Bridging the Generation Gap, which advises managers on how to minimize conflicts and miscommunication among the different age groups in order to get everyone working together.
“We had a sense that there was tension,” says Gravett, a human resources consultant. “This was confirmed in our research. We found there was a lot of generational tension around the use of technology and work ethics.” Working Hard or Hardly Working?
Gravett says their research showed that 68 percent of Baby Boomers feel “younger people” do not have as strong a work ethic as they do and that makes doing their own work harder. Thirty-two percent of Gen X-ers believe the “younger generation” lacks a good work ethic and that this is a problem. And 13 percent of Gen Y-ers say the difference in work ethics across the generations causes friction. They believe they have a good work ethic for which they’re not given credit.
Technology is another flashpoint. In a survey conducted for job site CareerBuilder.com last year, nearly half the respondents noted Generation Y’s preference to communicate via blogs, IMs and text messages, rather than on the phone or face to face, methods preferred by Boomers and Generation X. Technologically facilitated communication can feel abrupt and easily be misunderstood by Boomers and Gen X-ers. ...
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Jeezus Kenndo, must you spam every thread with endless amounts of irrelevant cut and paste articles?
The topic of the thread is African computer tech.
You keep saying that's it, that's it, but keep posting more and more spam.
Like merinarmer said, with all the resources of Africa including Coltan and other things that go into electronics, Africa is last in terms of manufacturing such components.
And please don't post some more spam. There aren't many electronics manufacturers in Africa.
I quite like kenndo's optimism actually. It's refreshing and inspiring.
In fact, I now BELIEVE Africa has a much greater future in the computing industry than say, Europe. I know this because I am heavily involved in the industry in Europe and I'm not optimistic about growth since those in charge of the industry are old men who want to hold on to power but are unable to adapt to future demands (e.g. demands of the so-called Gen Y or Gen X).
I predict that in just 5 years or so, someone like Alive (an "Gen Y" example), would find much better prospects in a place like South Africa or Nigeria. Where he will recieve much higher pay (much less taxes ), and he won't have strange old white men trying to prevent him from flexing his creative muscles.
The future is bright for Africa. Please keep it coming kenndo, and drown out the pessimism.
Record fab spending in '06, analyst says Asia Pac companies to account for nearly half of capital spending
Dylan McGrath EE Times (11/03/2006 7:39 PM EST)
SAN FRANCISCO — The value of new fab construction will hit an all-time in 2006, resulting in a record value for new fabs beginning volume production in 2007, according to a new report by market analyst Strategic Marketing Associates (SMA).
SMA's latest report on new fab activity projects that the semiconductor industry will start work on 36 new fabs before the end of the year, the firm said Friday (Nov. 3). The total value of the 36 new fabs when fully equipped is estimated at $59 billion, according to George Burns, SMA president. Twenty-five of the 36 projects are 300-mm fabs, Burns said.
"Growth in new fab activity—fabs starting construction, equipping empty shells or converting 200-mm fabs to 300-mm fabs—is breaking all records," said George Burns, SMA president, in a statement.
SMA's Quarterly Fab Report also lists 36 fabs that will begin volume production in the next four quarters, according to the firm. Twenty of these new fabs will be 300-mm, the firm said.
Of the $59 billion in new fabs starting construction this year, $44 billion will be in Japan, Taiwan or China, according to SMA (Santa Cruz, Calif.). Flash memory and DRAM fabs will account for 64 percent of the value of all new fabs starting construction this year, the firm said.
The value of new foundry fabs starting construction this year also increased significantly, from $3.8 billion in 2005 to $11 billion this year as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Hua Hong Electronics began work on new 300-mm fabs, according to SMA. This construction will lead to a growth of 12 percent in new foundry wafer capacity coming online in 2007, the firm said.
Flash memory and DRAM capacity will grow by 40 percent and 53 percent, respectively, in 2007, SMA predicted. By the end of 2007, DRAM manufacturers will have added more than 2 million equivalent 20-0mm wafers in monthly capacity since 2001, according to the firm.
Based on these record levels of projected fab activity, SMA forecasts that capital spending will grow by 15 percent in 2006 to more than $54 billion. Forty-eight percent of all capital spending will be by companies headquartered in Asia Pacific, according to the report.
"Within 5 years, Asia Pacific companies will be spending more than the G8 chip manufacturers," Burns said. "It's inevitable that they will be the top spenders."
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
Yes there is a positive side to everything, absolutely. But like merinarmer said, the fact that the latest initiative to build computers for African students were NOT produced in Africa is not a comforting sign.
Posts: 8889 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Basically, a country wishing to modernize and become active in the high technology semiconductor area cannot do so while;
1) The region is within an era of social, economic, and financial instability.
2) Dependent on internal private investment and non-aligned external resources
3) The internal educational system is not in line with this goal.
4) The country's government is not initiating and supporting the effort with a clearly defined national goal. See Japan, China, Europe
As can be seen with SAME above, this venture was initiated by South Africa's white regime and started up as a spin off of white executives from the Electricity plants to provide sourcing of analog and discrete components to the power plants. SAME's claim is accurate. They are the only true semiconductor manufacturer in all of Africa, and even they are limited to discrete devices which they source internally to their primary customer, South African Electric plants.
What African countries presently dealing with China should demand in their dealings with China, is that China fund and build semiconductor fabrication plants and factories to allow Africa to grow along with China as they over take Japan as the number 1 Asian semiconductor manufacturers. This should include building of schools and colleges focused on training it's students in Physics, engineering, and plant management areas. Once this kind of deal is in place, Africa's other infrastructural issues such as; water, electricity, roads, plumbing, ect. would fall in place since they are a requirement for meeting the objectives. Once China invests in these areas, and Africa is integrally tied to China's future Semiconductor manufacturing success, you'd see China and Asian have a huge incentive to ensuring these African regions become and remain stable to protect their investments which can be seen from the above EETimes article, represents an investment of 10s of billions of dollars.
To date, no country in Africa, including South Africa has any significant equivalent high technology venture to speak of, mainly due to the constant instabilities in their social, political, and civic infrastructures. As a consequence of this, any real talented technology focused African minds are brain drained into European, US, or Asian governments or manufacturing.
The first emerging mid-eastern countries to set-up and compete with Israel will be the emerging Arab UEA countries, one being Abu Dhabi which recently purchased a large stake in the world's second largest Semiconductor manufacturer, AMD, as well as a large stake in Sony. These investments will very likely propel the UAE past Israel investments, but will do very little for Africa, and may even make it more difficult for Africa to emerge in this area.
posted
African Technology Brain drain Viktor Oduba
While many African policy makers are in a panic about the "brain drain" - the departure of skilled professionals for more lucrative jobs and opportunities abroad, an analyst suggests how "brain drain" can be turned into "brain gain".
The departure of scientists and researchers is holding back innovation, investment, jobs and high economic growth in Africa. It is estimated that up to 40 per cent of the continent's top professionals now live abroad, costing the continent over US$ 4 million in consultancy and expatriate fees. No pay no stay
Most of the skilled Africans working abroad say that though they would like to come back home, many factors deter return. The professional fees and the salaries they earn abroad simply cannot be matched locally. Examination of the public sector pay structures in Africa reveals public sector employees are paid well below the private sector equivalents, unlike in the developed and high-growth Asian countries.
Declines in public sector wages in Africa have been sharp and potentially troubling. How can public institutions retain professionals, researchers, and scientists, in the face of such sharp declines in average real wages? How can they attract and retain the best and brightest citizens when wages are systematically lower than which individuals could earn as equivalents or after training in the OECD countries? It is small wonder then, that for every 100 professionals sent abroad for training, 35 fail to return. Not only does this cost the continent millions in training fees, it creates a huge personpower deficit.
The exodus however is not only limited to the public sector. The common problems transcend the private sector and include economic slump and job cuts, violation of principles of merit and competition in recruitment and promotion, perceived corruption and low respect for professionals.
African professionals tend to migrate to Western Europe and North America. Many are dissuaded from returning home by the economic and political crises that have bedevilled the continent over the last few decades. Failing economies, high unemployment rates, human rights abuses, armed conflict and the lack of adequate social services, such as health and education, are some of these factors.
The UN Economic Commission for Africa and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimate that 27,000 Africans left the continent for industrialized countries between 1960 and 1975. During the period 1975 to 1984, the figure rose to 40,000. It is estimated that since 1990 at least 20,000 people leave the continent annually.
A brain drain is said to occur when a country becomes short of skills when people with such expertise emigrate. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) notes that in Africa, the loss of medical doctors has been the most striking. At least 60 per cent of doctors trained in Ghana during the 1980s have left the country.
The phenomenon "is putting a huge strain on the continent," notes IOM Deputy Director-General Ndioro Ndiaye. To fill the gap created by the skills shortage, African countries spend an estimated $4 bn annually to employ about 100,000 non-African expatriates. "It is high time programmes and policies are put in place to reverse the devastating effects of the brain drain," she says.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Sibry Tapsoba, Regional Director for West and Central Africa, International Development Research Centre (IDRC) pointed out that the human dimension to development was not just another addition to the development dialogue.He deplored the state of capacity in Africa arguing that four decades after independence, education and training had deteriorated across the whole continent. He observed that in most countries, capacity deficiencies were interrelated. Without an efficient and skilled public sector, the economic, political and social environment and policies necessary for sustained growth could not be effectively maintained. The continent lacked the necessary human and institutional capacity to compete with the other continents. "How can we keep the best of our minds," he asked, "if we continue to pay less to our top researchers and experts than the youngest unskilled military personnel and our security guards"? He stressed that Africa should value and treat its experts as it does its foreign exports, and urged the Conference to explore avenues for keeping African brains in Africa, and to seek the ways of making the contribution of those in the Diaspora relevant to the development needs of the continent.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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Link: Intel's First Asia Fab Goes To China, Not India.
Intel has announced its plans to build its first semiconductor fabrication plant ($2.5 billion) in Asia in Dalian, China. Intel will be investing $4 billion overall in China and will be closer to the Asia Pacific market, which make up 50% of its net revenue, and customers in China such as Lenovo Group and Dell.
It's interesting to see the Indian perspective, as it pursues a fabrication industry to add to its already successful chip designing industry to complete a full semiconductor ecosystem. The Indian government has explored and announced incentives on semiconductor policy to attract fabs to be built and running by 2010. Unfortunately, Intel was one of those they were targeting.
On top of Intel's announcement there is already a growing semiconductor fab business in China as well as a great deal of design and backend work going on. However, my contacts in region are constantly screaming out for local semiconductor engineering talent. This is not just in China but also includes Singapore and Malaysia which both have growing semiconductor industries. How they deal with the growing wage pressure and fight for talent will be an interesting one.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
China starting to lure back its best brains
When Joseph Xie left Shanghai in 1983 and headed to the United States to pursue graduate studies, he had every intention of returning to mainland China to work after several years. But the opportunity never presented itself until recently.
"I expected to stay for four or five years to get my PhD, and then four or five years to gain some experience, and then I'd move back," said the 41-year-old native of Shanghai. But after finishing his doctorate, Xie joined a microprocessor development group at Intel Corp. After seven years he went briefly to Advanced Micro Devices Inc. then on to Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing in Singapore.
All the while, he waited for an opportunity that would take back to China. The hype about China's developing semiconductor industry seemed just that, but suddenly things started to click, Xie said. "I had been waiting too long for the China semiconductor industry to change," he said. "Then suddenly last year there were so many announcements about new fabs."
Soon thereafter, Xie got what he was looking for: a job as senior director of marketing for Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., a new contract chip maker in Shanghai that is part of China's hopes for establishing a globally competitive semiconductor industry.
China is looking for more people like Xie — overseas Chinese with EE degrees, several years of experience and a hankering to pack up and head back to the motherland, where they can apply all they have learned at places like Intel, AMD or Microsoft.
That notion was a pipe dream in the 1990s, when American and European companies with plenty of cash were hunting for engineers, and China presented too few worthwhile, challenging opportunities. Of the 320,000 Chinese who studied overseas from 1978 to 1999, only one in three has returned home, according to the latest available data.
Changes in attitude
But attitudes are changing in the government, in industry and among overseas Chinese.
The Shanghai government, for instance, is offering tax breaks to returning Chinese electrical engineers. More than 1,000 have settled in the Shanghai area, according to government data, and they have founded more than 150 companies, mostly small enterprises.
For its part, SMIC has built a primary school and spent more than $1 million on an indoor swimming pool with heated floor tiles. Although reliable data is hard to come by, one survey conducted last year noted that more than 60 percent of overseas Chinese are willing to return home within 5 to 10 years.
As the global information technology industry falters, China is still emphasizing the build-up of its IT infrastructure. Science parks dot the suburbs of Beijing and Shanghai, foreign capital is steadily flowing into research and design centers, and the raw talent from Chinese universities is in place. "We have a lot of good people wanting to come back," said one senior mechanical engineer. "Before Tiananmen Square, people hated China. They couldn't wait to escape. Now they want to come back."
Even the most optimistic, however, concede that things are moving quite slowly. There is a lot of talk about coming back, but not enough engineers have committed to doing so. And among those that have, there is not enough experience to make a noticeable push beyond the manufacturing sector and into chip design.
Battles to fight
To surmount this hurdle and attract more experienced, innovation-oriented returnees, other battles must first be fought, said Usha C. V. Haley, a China scholar and professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
"China's legal system is flawed and little respect exists for intellectual property," she said. "Almost all foreign investors in China have grave concerns about protecting their intellectual property rights and patents. This environment does not encourage locals, including returned Chinese, to invest in new technological breakthroughs."
There is support for this theory among industry players in China, some of whom have privately noted that most serious R&D doesn't happen in China despite regular news reports about new, foreign-backed R&D centers opening there. That has led to complaints about how it is harder for locals to get the experience they need. "We Chinese need training in doing more projects whereas others foreigners may need training in specific technology development," said Ding Qi-qi, director of R&D at Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics, one of China's larger IC design houses.
Ding is among those pushing for his engineers to go overseas, with the hope that they will return to Fudan and help the company design more sophisticated chips. "Those returnees that have more experience will be the leaders in projects, so he not only leads the project but is responsible for training the people within the team," he said. "After the project is over, the designing capability of the team will be greatly improved."
In semiconductor manufacturing, where China has made its boldest moves so far, returnees are playing a small but growing role. At SMIC, the key role of technology development chief is held by Simon Yang, a Shanghai native who worked at Intel for 14 years and served as the chip maker's director of device and process integration.
But many of the senior positions belong to Taiwanese. Sitting in his office, Xie said he is not sure if enough returnees have come back to build up a large follow-on generation of experienced engineers. "The reality at SMIC is we need not only those people who originate from China, but also those from Taiwan and Italy and others. With the help of those people from other countries, this will be successful."
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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FEATURE-Reverse brain drain as ambitious Nigerians come home
LAGOS, Aug 6 (Reuters) - From cocktails with hip-hop stars to sushi with smooth-suited bankers, it's no wonder Nigerians moving back after decades in New York or London feel right at home among the high-rolling elite of Lagos.
This urban sprawl of 14 million people, the chaotic hub of Africa's most populous nation, may epitomise what many foreigners fear most about megacities in the developing world: violent crime, corrupt police and crumbling infrastructure.
Yet legions of young Nigerians, educated at English public schools and U.S. Ivy League universities, are leaving highly paid careers with Wall Street banks and City of London consultancies to return to the Lagos hustle.
The draw?
Not just a pay package that approaches or matches what is on offer in the United States or Europe, but a dash of patriotism -- a chance to help fulfil an ambition of building world-class Nigerian businesses as an example to the rest of Africa.
"In the States, it's an established economy. You can't create another Apple, you can't create another Microsoft, you can't really create another Disney," said Michael Akindele, who left U.S. consultancy firm Accenture to set up his own business investing in Nigerian media and entertainment.
"I'm stepping away from that salary, that comfortable, stable environment where you have power all the time, you have water all the time. But here I can create the lifestyle I want."
Nigeria is the world's eighth biggest oil exporter but its economy has been hobbled by decades of endemic corruption and unemployment is high. A power sector crisis, which means much of the country can go without electricity for weeks or months, has closed hundreds of factories and cut thousands of jobs in sub-Saharan Africa's largest economy after South Africa.
Many wealthy Nigerians of Akindele's generation were sent to boarding schools in England or the United States in the late 1980s and 1990s, when Nigeria was a military dictatorship with little foreign investment and a disintegrating education system.
They watched with cautious optimism as it began to return to democracy in 1999 with the election of Olusegun Obasanjo after three decades of military rule, and welcomed the reforms he started to push through after winning a second term in 2003.
When Nigeria used $12 billion of oil savings to pay back debts owed to the Paris Club of rich creditor nations in 2005, and won the write-off of a further $18 billion in return, foreign investors and diaspora Nigerians sat up and took note.
"I was following all this from London and started to believe now was the time to start planning to come back," said Kayode Akindele, 28, no relation to Michael, who returned to work for United Bank for Africa's (UBA) investment banking arm, UBA Global Markets.
ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
Kayode Akindele, an Oxford graduate who lived in Britain for more than 16 years, was working on structured derivatives for Lloyds TSB in London when he was introduced to Tony Elumelu, chief executive of UBA, two years ago.
Elumelu was looking to build a world-class investment bank in Nigeria and Akindele's skills were exactly what he needed.
"There was a sense of patriotism. I have always regarded myself as Nigerian and planned to return to Nigeria eventually," said Akindele, now a vice president at UBA Global Markets.
Financial sector reforms in 2005 forced Nigeria's banks to consolidate, creating multibillion-dollar institutions with the capacity to branch out into sophisticated new markets and pay salaries on a par with some of their Western peers.
Banks have also seen explosive growth on the back of record oil prices and a growing middle class among Nigeria's 140 million people, and have been aggressively raising capital and increasing their capacity to lend.
Diaspora Nigerians -- with experience in banking but also the cultural knowledge to navigate the complexities of doing business in Nigeria -- have been in high demand ever since.
"I think there's a window that will be there for maybe another 18 months to two years," said Chuka Mordi, head of business development at First City Monument Bank.
"That's the view at the moment, that people moving back understand exotic products ... but it will percolate to the local sector and people will learn these things and there won't be any need to drag investment bankers from New York or London."
Nigeria's $95 billion stock market was one of the best performing emerging markets in the world last year, attracting private equity and hedge fund investors from Europe, Asia and the United States.
THE LAGOS HUSTLE
The world of vanilla interest rate swaps may seem a million miles from the realities of life on the streets of Lagos, where hawkers selling everything from phone charge cards to electric irons ply their trade among belching minibuses and moped taxis.
But bankers hope that building strong financial institutions will help open credit lines to millions of would-be entrepreneurs, allowing them to develop small businesses and lift themselves out of the informal sector, which accounts for a major part of the active workforce.
"When you see the hustle on the streets of Lagos, all those traders selling all those products, you know the street works," said Obi Asika, an Eton-educated entrepreneur whose own record label sells albums through market traders and street sellers.
"You formalise distribution in Nigeria today, it's a billion dollar business. Because everybody needs distribution. Everybody's got products," he said.
The idea of making money as a businessman in Nigeria -- long spurned by some of the elite as inferior to a high-powered job in the public sector -- is catching the popular imagination, demonstrating to an ambitious young generation that you don't have to be in the pay of government to get rich.
It is a point hammered home by "The Apprentice Africa", a reality TV show co-produced by Michael Akindele's Executive Group and Asika's Storm Media based on the hit U.S. series, in which aspiring entrepreneurs compete for a job with a top businessman.
"You get up in the morning and you see all of Lagos on the move, young boys trying to make ends meet. It's an eye-opener," said Isaac Dankyi-Koranteng, winner of the first series, aired on free-to-view TV in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria.
The government is still the largest official single employer in Nigeria, and the vast majority of people still live on less than $2 a day, but the new private sector elite hope that if they avoid the mistakes of their kleptocratic predecessors, Nigeria may haul itself out of poverty and corruption.
"There are issues. It's not Valhalla. We're not in Milton's Paradise yet," said Asika. "But I believe in Nigeria, I'm positive about this country."
-------------------------------------------- Nigeria: Zamfara to Build 19 Billion Naira Power Plant Daily Trust (Abuja) 11 September 2008 Posted to the web 11 September 2008
The Zamfara State Government is to build a hydro power plant that would generate 100 megawatts of electricity at the cost of N19.2 billion, Governor Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi has said. Work on the power plant is expected to kick off next month when President Umaru Yar'adua lays the foundations stone of the project, the governor said in Abuja when he visited the Executive Vice Chairman of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) Engr. Bello Suleiman.
He said the contract was awarded to the China Geo-Engineering and is to be completed within two and a half years.
It would be financed by the China Import-Export Bank with a guarantee from Sofitel Capital Corporation of the United States and Intercontinental Bank Plc.
Upon completion, the hydro power station will be connected to the national grid, he said.
The governor said the project has been sited at Gotowa Dam village in Shinkafi and Zurmi local governments.
The dam has a capacity of 2 billion cubic metres of water, and would be able to accommodate irrigation of about 10,000 hectares of land.
The project is the first of its kind by a state in the country and is cheaper to maintain as other power plants being built by some states are thermal plants.
Shinkafi said he was at the PHCN to inform the power regulator of the project and to discuss the power purchase agreement.
Suleiman commended the foresight of the governor and assured of the company's support to the project.
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Ibrahima Gueye has it all: A top executive job with a future. A two-story, four-bath deluxe home. Servants to cook his food, clean his house and wash his clothes. A live-in nanny for his children.
But not in Europe or the United States -- in Africa. Like a large number of African expatriate returnees, the 38-year- old financial analyst has given up his lucrative job in Europe, deciding West isn't necessarily best -- and the quality of life is at home. "People just don't realize that though you make a lot of money living in the West, you don't even enjoy all that cash," said Gueye, recalling how he spent most of his free time in France, where he lived for 14 years, working around the house ...
Nigeria: PHCN Records New High in Electricity Delivery
Daily Trust (Abuja)
6 October 2008 Posted to the web 6 October 2008
Sunday Williams
The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) end of Septem-ber recorded the highest peak energy generation of 86,564.89 megawatts hour with a conti-nuous generation output of not below 3,400mw throughout the day.
A statement signed by the management said the record is the highest energy generation peak in the history of the electricity industry in Nigeria, adding that the highest level recorded in the past was 80,123.0MWH on 27th October 2006, (an improvement of 6,441.89MWH).
It said that the record was made possible through the on-going rehabilitation of existing power stations and manage-ment of water at the hydro dams.
"Also, improvement in the maintenance and management of the national transmission grid, and distribution network contributed to the feat. By this, electricity consumers nation-wide recorded the highest power consumption in one day in the history of the coun-try,"the statement said.
It added that with the deve-lopment, the Company has shown its further commitment to take the electricity industry to a higher level through its well planned and sustained prog-ramme to further boost the Federal Government's sevenpoint agenda which accords the sector very high priority.
For thousands of Africans living overseas and seeking ways to contribute to the development of the continent, initiatives aimed at staunching the outflow of professional expertise are offering new possibilities.
Now, more than ever before, there exists "a major opportunity to transform the historical brain drain ... into a new African 'brain trust'," notes Mr. John Sarpong of the Digital Diaspora Network Africa.
He was among 130 heads of technology firms, non-profit organizations and UN agencies who launched the network in July 2002 as part of a resurgence of initiatives to reverse the loss of professional skills from Africa.
Among those being targeted are scientists, medical doctors, engineers, university lecturers, economists, information technologists and other highly skilled people in short supply on the continent.
Some initiatives use the Internet to attract skilled workers -- like the thousands of South African doctors living in Canada -- and make it easier for them to provide services to patients back home. Other programmes hope to entice skilled professionals to actually return to Africa.
African professionals tend to migrate to Western Europe and North America. Many are dissuaded from returning home by the economic and political crises that have bedevilled the continent over the last few decades.
The UN Economic Commission for Africa and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimate that 27,000 Africans left the continent for industrialized countries between 1960 and 1975. During the period 1975 to 1984, the figure rose to 40,000.
It is estimated that since 1990 at least 20,000 people leave the continent annually.
A brain drain is said to occur when a country becomes short of skills when people with such expertise emigrate. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) notes that in Africa, the loss of medical doctors has been the most striking. At least 60 per cent of doctors trained in Ghana during the 1980s have left the country.
The phenomenon "is putting a huge strain on the continent," notes IOM Deputy Director-General Ndioro Ndiaye. To fill the gap created by the skills shortage, African countries spend an estimated $4 bn annually to employ about 100,000 non-African expatriates. "It is high time programmes and policies are put in place to reverse the devastating effects of the brain drain," she says.
Experts on the continent are increasingly engaged in strategies and programmes to reverse the brain drain or retain skilled professionals at home.
They include restrictive policies aimed at delaying emigration, such as adding extra years to medical students' training. Various tax proposals have been put forward as governments realize that the large numbers of citizens living outside their borders are a potential economic resource.
Proposals range from one-time exit taxes to bilateral tax arrangements, which would require the receiving nation to tax citizens of another and remunerate the home country.
Another strategy is the adoption of international agreements by industrial and developing nations under which wealthy countries pledge not to recruit skilled people from developing states. However, the two most popular strategies involve transferring skills through networks of professionals and intellectuals and the time-tested approach of repatriation.
Building network
Because many people are reluctant to return to politically or economically unstable countries, some countries are now trying to find other ways to tap the knowledge and skills of their professionals based overseas.
This approach is popular because it does not require participants to relocate to their home countries.
The South African Network of Skills Abroad (SANSA) is an example. Through its website, it invites professional South Africans to sign up.
It reports that at least 22,000 graduates from five major South African universities resident abroad remain in touch with the universities.
SANSA estimates that about 60 per cent of the country's expatriate graduates are located in six countries, with Australia, the UK and the US accounting for more than half of them. Looking at the nature of their skills, the group estimates that about 30 per cent of the University of Cape Town's contactable doctoral graduates are living overseas.
They comprise significant proportions of the university's graduates in medicine, commerce, education and engineering, all areas in which South Africa has an acute shortage of skills.
Once professionals join SANSA, they may offer to train their South African counterparts or assist them to conduct research. They could facilitate business contacts and transmit information on research results not available in South Africa.
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SANSA members may also help to transfer technology to their home country, such as providing computers and software. This is already being done in other African countries. -----------------------------
The Africast Foundation, for instance, collects and refurbishes "retired" computers in the US for use in schools and poor communities in Ghana.
Relocating African expatriates
Other programmes to counter the brain drain involve the physical relocation of expatriate Africans either to their home countries or elsewhere on the continent.
A major limitation, however, is that such operations require large sums of money. Some expatriates may wish to be repatriated with their entire families. Others may request salaries comparable to what they earn in their host countries, along with up-to-date technological resources.
Another limitation is that repatriation only allows for the return of the individual expatriate and not the knowledge networks to which he or she may belong.
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Despite such challenges, the Kenya-based Research and Development Forum for Science-Led Development in Africa (RANDFORUM) has been exploring ways to repatriate African professionals and intellectuals, as requested in 1999 by the Presidential Forum on the Management of Science and Technology in Africa, a grouping of African heads of state.
That year, a taskforce led by a former Zambian president, Mr. Kenneth Kaunda, recommended that RANDFORUM and its sister organization, the African Foundation for Research and Development, identify overseas-based Africans interested in returning home to offer their skills.
Another RANDFORUM project aims to relocate professionals from "distressed countries" -- those that are faltering economically or politically, such as Liberia or Somalia -- to where they can be productive.
Rather than confine professionals and intellectuals from such countries to refugee camps, they are utilized elsewhere and returned once the situation in their countries normalizes.
Adapting to changing needs
Organizations involved in repatriation face the challenge of attracting larger numbers of participants. IOM's Reintegration of Qualified African Nationals Programme, which ran from 1983 to 1999, only managed to relocate about 2,000 nationals to 11 participating countries.
Immigration regulations are cited as one of the concerns of potential returnees, notes Mr. Chernor Jalloh of IOM. People are concerned, for example, about whether they would be able to return to their adopted country once they leave.
Immigration laws in some industrialized nations require migrants to remain in the country for a specified period or risk losing their residence status. On the other hand, those who have been naturalized in their new country often have to make a choice between that or their home state, as some African countries do not recognize dual citizenship.
At least 20,000 highly skilled Africans leave the continent each year
While past IOM programmes focused on permanent relocations, they are now evolving to cater for the needs of those Africans who prefer to remain in their new countries. Instead of permanent relocations, "we now use sequenced visits," says Mr. Jalloh, describing some aspects of the newly established Migration for Development in Africa programme. These may be short stays, on a number of occasions to service a particular need, for example.
Until recently, African governments had expressed little concern about the loss of skilled people, while development lending agencies often compounded the problem by obliging recipient countries to hire foreign expatriates, as part of the conditions attached to those loans.
Moreover, politicians often portrayed countrymen who opted to work and live abroad as unpatriotic. But the sharp rise in skilled emigration and the serious human resource constraints facing the continent have forced many to rethink their views.
With thanks to the United Nations' African Renewal magazine, where this article first appeared.
Please e-mail comments to comments@thenewblackmagazine.com
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Rather than blame departing professionals for the shortage of skills on the continent, SANSA views "these highly skilled South Africans located abroad as a potential asset," note Mr. David Kaplan and Mr. Jean-Baptiste Meyer. In a report for SANSA, they however stress that the success of networks depends largely on the commitment of expatriates.
The willingness of these experts to share their knowledge and financial resources would be "a powerful demonstration of their commitment to making a difference in women's lives," noted Ms. Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). "There is a wealth of untapped expertise among Africans in the diaspora, especially in the private sector," she told a meeting in Uganda in May, to launch the Digital Diaspora Initiative. UNIFEM is among a number of international agencies participating in the initiative, which is specifically targeted at improving the lives of women in Africa through the use of new information technologies and the expertise of Africans living abroad. Under the programme, African experts will be encouraged to contribute to policy formulation and financing information technology programmes with the aim of taking advantage of the sector's growth.
Growing political will
Until recently, African governments had expressed little concern about the loss of skilled people, while development lending agencies often compounded the problem by obliging recipient countries to hire foreign expatriates, as part of the conditions attached to those loans. Moreover, politicians often portrayed countrymen who opted to work and live abroad as unpatriotic. But the sharp rise in skilled emigration and the serious human resource constraints facing the continent have forced many to rethink their views.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo is one of the leaders actively attempting to address the challenges of the brain drain. On his trips abroad, President Obasanjo often meets professionals and intellectuals who have left Nigeria to ask them how they can contribute to their country's development. President Obasanjo also is one of the architects of the continent's new development framework, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
The New Partnership calls for the establishment of a reliable, continental database to determine the magnitude of the problem and promote collaboration between Africans abroad and those at home. An important NEPAD priority is to develop Africa's human resources and reverse the brain drain. Under NEPAD, African leaders explicitly call for the creation of the "necessary political, social and economic conditions that would serve as incentives to curb the brain drain...."
Daunting challenges
The challenges of establishing the necessary political conditions to retain and re-attract skilled personnel are daunting. While on one hand some countries are beginning to recover, on the other, some are engulfed in renewed crises. In Kenya, the recent election of a new president, Mr. Mwai Kibaki, has spawned a period of euphoria and a wave of returns by exiles hoping to rebuild a country that had all but collapsed under the weight of 24 years of rule by former President Daniel arap Moi. President Kibaki has been quick to invite Kenyans "who have been hounded out of our shores by repressive policies of our predecessors to come back home and join us in nation-building." He notes that the country desperately needs "the genius of its citizens wherever they are. It's time for healing and we need every hand on deck."
On the other hand, Cote d'Ivoire, once a migrant's haven in West Africa, has recently been embroiled in civil war. Another of the continent's better-managed economies, Zimbabwe, which also used to draw African immigrants in search of opportunities, is seeing a mass exodus of professionals under the current economic and political crisis. The Zimbabwe National Association of Social Workers estimates that 1,500 of the country's 3,000 trained social workers left for the UK during the last 10 years.
Engaging the African diaspora For the first time, the African Union has invited Africa's diaspora (those who trace their roots back to the continent) to actively take part in the region's development. Heads of state who met for the African Union extraordinary summit in February agreed to amend the organization's charter to "encourage the full participation of the African diaspora as an important part of the continent...." This followed active lobbying by members of the diaspora seeking recognition as agents for the continent's development.
Absent formal structures, African diaspora groups have generally relied on ad-hoc, disparate and small-scale programmes to assist in the development of the continent. Despite this, many have been able to help build schools, hospitals and roads, run training programmes, supply books and computers to deprived schools and establish scholarships to assist students.
But they operate outside the sphere of mainstream development agencies, even though they may be working towards the same ends. "Africa must develop a collective strategy for engaging the diaspora," noted US Ambassador to Nigeria Howard Jeter. He said there have been no meaningful attempts to engage the diaspora and no institutional connections exist. "Few African-Americans know about NEPAD. Why should that be?" asked Ambassador Jeter, in an address to the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in November. He observed that Africa is not utilizing African-Americans as a primary political constituency in the US. "Are African-Americans really being encouraged to do business with Africa? I don't think so." As Africa begins to map out a strategy to engage those in the diaspora, such questions need to be asked, he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Video training in Niger: To develop, Africa needs a wide variety of skills and expertise.
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For generations African women have had the slow and tedious task of shelling groundnuts by hand. The crop, a mainstay of rural commerce and diet in many countries, is hard to shell and commercial shellers are expensive, difficult to operate and unreliable. Several years ago, however, villagers in Mali developed a hand-operated sheller. Made of concrete, wood and scrap metal, it costs the equivalent of US$10. It can be run by a single person and meet the needs of a village of 2,000. With any luck each machine will shell groundnuts for about 25 years before it needs replacing.
Rugged, effective and perfectly suited to the demands of its operators, the sheller is a prime example of people across Africa innovating and adapting technologies to meet their needs.
NEPAD promotes science and technology Expanding science and technology capacity features prominently in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the continental blueprint for economic and political advancement. In 2005 the African Union (AU) and the NEPAD secretariat launched the Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action, intended to develop an African system of research and technological innovation in agriculture, the environment, infrastructure, industry and education. It envisions a science and technology sector built around 12 research “clusters,” each with a different specialty, ranging from biotechnology to developing Africa’s indigenous knowledge to adopting new information technologies. However, African leaders did not reach a consensus on how to finance the plan, which the AU initially estimated would cost $158 mn over five years. The need is great. According to the UN science and education and organization UNESCO, for example, almost 92 per cent of the rural population in sub-Saharan Africa and 48 per cent of those in urban areas do not have modern energy services. For years development planners have touted the advantages of solar technology as an alternative energy source, but progress in adopting it remains slow.
Sound policies, political commitment and increased investment, however, could allow African countries to leap forward to modern technologies. According to UNESCO, relatively small additional investments in countries such as South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Zimbabwe, which already have a science and technology base, could establish world-class facilities to advance the region as a whole.
With many African economies posting strong growth, some countries are making major investments in their educational and technology sectors, including newly democratic Nigeria. In 2003 it launched a satellite to monitor the environment. The following year the government asked UNESCO to help it analyse government policies and spending in the sector and review the curricula and capacity of the country’s 75 research institutes, 55 universities and 44 polytechnics. In 2006 the country approved a $5 bn endowment fund for science and technology development, drawn mostly from oil export revenues. Egypt and South Africa have also attained significant success, notes UNESCO, with South Africa investing over $3.1 bn in 2002 in aeronautics, nuclear engineering, chemistry, metallurgy, and agricultural research, while Egypt specializes in chemistry and engineering
The continent, says the ECA’s Mr. Janneh, cannot afford to waste more time. It must train and deploy large numbers of scientists, engineers and technicians and establish strong links between industry, academia and government to ensure that today’s innovations become the building blocks for tomorrow’s economic and social development.
--------------------------------------------------- department:science and technology republic of south africa
Department: Science and Technology, South Africa
From brain drain to brain gain
South Africa’s Minister of Science and Technology, Mosibudi Mangena, today announced a second cohort of 51 Research Chairs.doc in an initiative aimed at invigorating research and human capital development in the country’s National System of Innovation (NSI).
The South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI), launched in December 2006 with the announcement of 21 research chairs, is intended to boost research capacity by attracting world-class researchers to South Africa.
Minister Mangena said that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) had developed SARChI to retain and attract qualified research scientists, reverse the decline in the country's research outputs, focus capacity at publicly-funded higher education institutions, science councils and research institutions, and contribute to stimulating strategic research across the knowledge spectrum.
The main aim of the initiative is to grow high-level research capital and production capacity in the higher education sector, and of the 51 research chairs established, 16 (i.e. 33%) are new in the South African higher education sector.
Some candidates come from local industries and science councils, and others from countries as diverse as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands.
The Minister said that the strategy to turn South Africa's brain drain to brain gain was bearing fruits.
He added that, so far, 36% of the candidates appointed to research chairs were black. The target was to have 60% of research chairs black and 50% female.
It is envisaged that the programme, which has already been allocated R200 million, will produce 210 research chairs by 2010, developing targeted research capacity in support of the National Research and Development Strategy and other national initiatives.
“The 51 research chairs announced today are a remarkable achievement, bearing in mind that the plan was to announce 35 research chairs at this stage of the initiative,” said Minister Mangena, as he praised the initiative’s success in delivering so much more and so much sooner than expected.
The NRF CEO and President, Prof. Mzamo P Mangaliso, said SARChI would change the face of research in South Africa. “Our National System of Innovation is a complex system that is relied upon to help South Africa compete in the global knowledge economy, and SARChI constitutes a positive impact on research in the country.”
He said interventions such as SARChI and the Centres of Excellence would steer, guide and shape the NSI's delivery on its objectives. “The National Research Foundation is only too pleased to partner with the Department of Science and Technology on this important initiative,” added Prof. Mangaliso, acknowledging that while the establishment of 72 chairs was a material step forward, establishing the remaining 138 would take hard work.
Already, 59 MSc and PhD students have received DST-NRF bursaries, and are studying under the guidance of the 21 research chairs announced last year.
Research chairs have been awarded in disciplines as diverse as Poverty and Inequality Research, Urban Policy, Customary Law and Indigenous Values, Migration, Language and Social Change, Astrophysics and Space Science, Nanophotonics, and Immunology of Infectious Diseases in Africa.
SARChI's impact will be assessed through research performance outputs and human capital development achievements, particularly as they relate to the transformation of the country's scientific and technological workforce.
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Deputy Director: Communication and Media Liaison,
Copyright 2002. Department of Science and Technology, Private Bag X894,
The Department of Science and Technology, @ 012 843 6784, 083 399 0765 or celeste.tema@dst.gov.za. Or
Media Liaison Officer: National Research Foundation, @ 012 481 4068, 082 447 3232 or maupi@nrf.ac.za. News Technology Innovation Agency Migration 2008-08-04 Government's plans to promote intellectual property 2008-04-25 More news…
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The Abuja Technology Village was personally conceived by Philip Emeagwali in August 1997 in this 40-page speech. Ten years later, the Nigerian government approved its funding. [Photo: CABLE STAYED BRIDGE FROM AIRPORT EXPRESSWAY of Abuja Technology Village] --------------------------------
my comments here and below after folks read this. alot of this info is outdate in term of what nigeria is during now.things are moving faster than one thought in nigeria and for info on what is going on in nigeria today lick link below for african tech news.
this article is 1997 so folks kept that in mind please.thank you.
Can Nigeria Leapfrog into the Information Age?
by PHILIP EMEAGWALI
World Igbo Congress, New York. Since delivered on August 30,1997, the central ideas of this 40-page speech were widely debated and discussed and finally gave birth to the new:
African Institute of Science and Technology, Nelson Mandela Institution, and Abuja Technology Village.
Abuja Technology Village was first conceived and proposed by Philip Emeagwali as Africa's Silicon Valley specializing in offshore outsourcing.
I thank the organizers of this convention for inviting me to share my thoughts with you. On a personal note, I appreciate the invitation to be speaker and guest of honour. But more importantly, I believe that inviting a scientist to speak at this convention is a recognition of the potential role of technology in improving the standard of living in Nigeria and Africa. I would like to share with you my thoughts on how to formulate a strategic plan to launch Nigeria and other African countries into the Information Age, in order to achieve economic development and prosperity. I am particularly interested in the Nigerian Vision 2010 which I believe should have been used as a blueprint for leapfroging our nation from the Agricultural Age into the Information Age. Later, I will propose a three-track approach that will enable Nigeria to invest evenly in agricultural, industrial and information sectors. For a better understanding of where we are going, we need to retrace our steps. About 10,000 years ago, Africans in the valley of the River Nile entered the Agricultural Age when they discovered that cultivating the soil for crops and shepherding herds of animals would provide more food than just hunting animals and gathering fruits. This leap into the Agricultural Age motivated Africans to develop mathematics, chemistry, astronomy and medicine as tools for the new age. Our advanced technological knowledge enabled us to build majestic pyramids, the tallest buildings in the world for 3,700 years. These pyramids withstood all types of desert storms and still stand today, like the Rock of Gibraltar.
On August 30, 1997, the flagship AIT [African Institute of Technology] was first conceived and proposed by Philip Emeagwali to compete with MIT [Massachussetts], IIT [India] and AIT [Asia]. On March 11, 2005, the Commission for Africa [Chaired by Tony Blair], added its voice and instructed the World Bank to make AIT a reality.
Europeans learned our technology, used it to enter the Industrial Age and became more prosperous than we are. They learned to put capital together and mass-produce consumer goods. Unless Africa leapfrogs into the Information Age, the economic gap between Europe and Africa would widen because Europe is about to enter the age. In other words, to catch up, Africa must take two steps for every step Europe takes.
Many Nigerians believe that our country takes one step backward when other countries such as South Korea, Malaysia, and South Africa take one step forward. This belief is substantiated by the World Bank which now ranks our oil-producing nation as the 13th poorest country in the world; and has declared that the standard of living in pre-independence Nigeria was higher than what exists today. We have indeed, taken several steps backward. While acknowledging that we squandered and mismanaged our petroleum revenues and that we are no longer the "Giant of Africa," we must accept that now is the time for a new Nigeria.
Philip Emeagwali introduced the novel concept of Africa leapfrogging into the Information Age via offshore outsourcing. [Photo taken in the Washington, DC metropolitan area in October 2006.]
by PHILIP EMEAGWALI Already we have a master plan --- "Vision 2010," to work with. If we succeed, that will create a better society for our children and future generations.
The Nigerian Vision 2010 was inspired by the six-year-old Malaysian Vision 2020 plan. Shortly after her independence in 1957, Malaysia sent people to Nigeria to learn how to grow palm trees. Today, Malaysia employs Nigerian oil palm experts, produces and exports more than half of the world’s palm oil, and sells palm oil to Nigeria. This is one example of how the best Nigerian minds are helping other countries achieve significant economic growth.
The Abuja Technology Village was personally conceived by Philip Emeagwali in August 1997 in this 40-page speech. Ten years later, the Nigerian government approved its funding. [Photo: CABLE STAYED BRIDGE FROM AIRPORT EXPRESSWAY of Abuja Technology Village]
In fact, Malaysia has become so prosperous that its prime minister has projected that the Malaysian Vision 2020 could enable his country to become a developed nation by quadrupling its $9,000 per-capita income by the year 2020.
How did Malaysia, a multiracial nation of about 20 million people, become so prosperous? What lessons can Nigeria learn from Malaysia? What does Malaysia have that Nigeria does not?
Malaysia invested in manpower development through education, while Nigeria invested in a strong military, a new capital city of Abuja, and continues to maintain unprofitable state-run enterprises such as the Nigerian Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), the Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the ill-conceived $6 billion Ajaokuta steel complex, and oil refineries that have not solved the problem of fuel scarcity even inside of Nigeria.
Malaysia was thinking long-term while Nigeria was thinking short-term. After comparing the Malaysian Vision 2020 to the Nigerian Vision 2010, I have come to the conclusion that Malaysia is still thinking long-term whereas Nigeria is still thinking short-term.
The Malaysian Vision 2020 includes the development of a $40 billion Multimedia Super Corridor, a 750 square-kilometre (468-square-mile) technological city that will replace its vast oil palm plantations. The Nigerian Vision 2010 yet has no plan to build its technological city. Put differently, Malaysia plans to enter the Information Age by the year 2020 while Nigeria plans to remain in the Agricultural or Industrial Age.
The Malaysians have recognized the emerging Information Age and are poised to enter it based on a strategy that is similar to the one used to send astronauts to the moon. Because the moon is constantly revolving around the Earth at a speed faster than a bullet, astronauts select their flight path so that their spaceship and the moon will arrive at the same location at the same time. Like astronauts, Malaysians have calculated that the Information Age will arrive by the year 2020 and their goal is to bypass the Industrial Age and leapfrog directly into the Information Age by the year 2020.
Similarly, the flight plan for Nigeria should be to land us in the Information Age in the least amount of time. This is important because 60 percent of the wealth of many countries is presently derived from knowledge-based goods and services. In contrast, Vision 2010’s goal is for Nigeria to derive its entire wealth from agriculture and industry. Vision 2010 will make Nigerians the hewers of wood and fetchers of water for those nations that have arrived in the Information Age. My recommendation is that we should not put all our eggs in two baskets, namely agriculture and industry. Since, it is not necessary to become fully industrialized before entering the Information Age, Nigeria should use a multi-pronged attack strategy to enter the Information Age. Therefore, I propose a Vision 2020 for Nigeria in which a greater emphasis is placed on education and technology. Vision 2020 should be a supplement to Vision 2010 and should: (1) be formulated by the year 2000 to help improve the standard of living of Nigerians by the year 2020; (2) enable Nigeria to catch up with Taiwan, Malaysia and South Africa in 50 years; and (3) enable Nigeria to catch up with European countries in 100 years.
Night view of the Abuja Technology Village conceived by Philip Emeagwali in a speech that was widely hailed as visionary.
How can Nigeria take a quantum leap into the Information Age and catch up with the four Asian tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan)? We must realize that we do not have the resources to do everything we desire. Therefore, we must specialize and focus on doing a few things well.
The 1996 defence budget of Nigeria was greater than its education budget. Fifteen billion naira was spent to maintain an 80,000-man army. Less than fifteen billion naira was spent to educate 60 million Nigerian school children. Money can be saved and military coups discouraged by replacing our career soldiers with an all-volunteer citizen-soldiers or elite part-time National Guards. We should direct 40 percent of our budget to education and 10 percent to technology development.
After the United States defeated Japan in the Second World War, it forced Japan to redirect its resources to non-military areas. The result: Japan became one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Nigeria should never have built a massive army after its independence in 1960 and should have reduced its military strength, as soon as possible, at the end of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70). Germany, Costa Rica and many other nations have done well without a sizable army. Imagine where Nigeria will be today if all the military budgets since independence had been spent to educate our children.
Our students are taught how to read and write by uninspired teachers who are porly paid. Nigeria’s one million unemployed graduates should be retrained and offered attractive salaries to become primary- and secondary-school teachers.
Night view of the Technology Boulevard of Abuja Technology Village.
Education at the primary school level may be considered more important than university education for the simple reason that “Learning Builds on Learning” or “One Thing Leads to Another." A child who did not learn much in primary school cannot learn much in secondary school or at the university level. This is why the developed nations invest heavily in their children’s primary school education.
Since it is unquestionably a better investment to educate a great number of young students rather than a few elite university students, Nigeria should invest more in pre-university education. Adopting a compulsory period of 12 years of formal education will reduce the internal education gap between northern and southern Nigeria and make each one of us more useful and productive to our society.
Where can we find the good leaders for tomorrow? Where can we find the medical doctors to care for us tomorrow? Where can we find the civil engineers to repair our roads?
Education is a life-long process and Nigerians must continue their education at the public libraries. Most Nigerian students can only afford to buy books required to pass their examinations. Nigerians who do not read widely will not be politically aware nor concerned about reducing the moral decay, corruption and injustices in the country and in the world. They will not understand that it is a crime for a police officer to request bribes and a crime to offer bribes to a police officer.
Our 21st century vision should plan for every community to have a well-stocked public library so that our children can expand their mental and geographical horizons. Every library should be equipped with computers and have access to the Internet.
Our 21st century vision should recognize that technology is the engine that drives a nation’s economic growth and that science should be compulsory in Nigerian schools.
Although we live in the Information Age, most of our high school graduates do not understand how dinosaurs lived, how atoms are split, how microchips are built, the importance of DNA, and the pros and cons of exploring outer space. How can we compete in a Information Age when our students cannot differentiate between a television and a computer monitor?
some updated info since that speech years ago nigeria is moving faster now in technology,infrastructure and economic growth and let's hope they kept it up.it seems that they are leap frogging. their gnp ppp per capt. income will not be where western europe is at now anytime soon but at least the technology is catching up faster than one thought in 1997.it's income on average will be closer to malaysia sooner or later.
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THESE COMMENTS WERE MADE IN 1997.THERE AS BEEN MAJOR PROGRESS SINCE THEN.
Can Nigeria Leapfrog into the Information Age?
by PHILIP EMEAGWALI
Our 21st century vision should call for the increased funding of science education at the post-graduate level. Nigeria should spearhead the formation of a pan-African Institute of Technology comparable to the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. This new institute should (1) be operated on a cost-sharing basis by African nations, (2) have campuses in various African countries, and (3) conduct research relevant to Africa and have research hospitals that make it unnecessary to travel to Europe for medical treatment.
Sponsoring students at the pan-African Institute of Technology would conserve foreign exchange, such as the $40 million a year that was paid by the Nigerian government to American universities in the 1970s. If each African nation were to contribute $40 million a year, we would have $2 billion a year to operate a pan-African Institute of Technology that would be as good as the best universities in the United States, Britain and Canada.
In this 40-page speech delivered in August 1997, Philip Emeagwali proposed the African Institute of Science and Technology to reverse the brain drain.
Thousands of Nigerian scholarship recipients, who could not find employment in Nigeria, are making contributions to the United States economy. In 1979, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimated that each African professional between ages of 25 and 35 contributes $184,000 each year to the United States economy. Based on United Nations’ estimate, 50,000 Nigerian-American professionals are contributing $9 billion a year to the United States’ economy.
At the same time, 100,000 foreign technical experts are working in Africa. These foreign experts are paid higher salaries than their African counterparts. The foreign coach of the Nigerian Super Eagles was paid $100,000 a year while well trained professionals are paid $600 a year. In other words, “monkey dey work, baboon dey chop.” This low salary is one reason many Nigerian engineers and doctors have fled to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. No nation in the world has been developed by foreigners.
Nigerians are homesick and would like to return home and use our talents, experience, and expertise to develop Nigeria. However, they would like to be offered a salary that reflects their contributions to the nation. Many Nigerians would even relinquish their permanent residency or U.S. citizenship to return home. In Hakeem Olajuwon’s words: "There's no place like home. I will always be from Nigeria."
The deck of the proposed cable stayed bridge of the Abuja Technology Village which is adjacent to AIST [African Institute of Science and Technology].
The African Institute of Science and Technology was conceived by Philip Emeagwali in a 40-page speech that won critical acclaim.
The Abuja Technology Village was first conceived by Philip Emeagwali in this 40-page speech delivered in August 1997 in New York City. Emeagwali named it the "African Cyber Corridor" and envisioned it as a 300-square-mile African Silicon Valley. [Image: Masterplan of ATV]
The Abuja Technology Village was first conceived by Philip Emeagwali in this 40-page speech delivered in August 1997 to "become the Hollywood of Africa," now renamed "Nollywood." [Photo: MUNICIPALITY BUILDING of Abuja Technology Village]
Abuja Technology Village was first conceived and proposed by Philip Emeagwali as Africa's Silicon Valley specializing in offshore outsourcing.
On August 30, 1997, the flagship AIT [African Institute of Technology] was first conceived and proposed by Philip Emeagwali to compete with MIT [Massachussetts], IIT [India] and AIT [Asia]. On March 11, 2005, the Commission for Africa <commission-for-africa-report-march-11-2005-see-page-138.pdf> [Chaired by Tony Blair], added its voice and instructed the World Bank to make AIT a reality.
Philip Emeagwali introduced the novel concept of Africa leapfrogging into the Information Age via offshore outsourcing. [Photo taken in the Washington, DC metropolitan area in October 2006.]
Night view of the Abuja Technology Village conceived by Philip Emeagwali in a speech that was widely hailed as visionary.
Night view of the Technology Boulevard of Abuja Technology Village.
In this 40-page speech delivered in August 1997, Philip Emeagwali proposed the African Institute of Science and Technology to reverse the brain drain.
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Gumisai Mutume writes about the progress being made in reforming institutions throughout the continent:
While repressive governments are yet to be eliminated across the continent, significant change is taking place in a growing number of countries. Civil society is growing and applying pressure for better performance, the media are demanding transparency across all sectors of society and governments are realizing that the days of coercive politics are numbered...In a growing number of countries, citizens are calling for independent judges, effective parliaments, measures that address corruption and the devolution of power from central to local governments. "It is expected that proposed laws will be subject to public dialogue and debate before enactment and that those representing the people will regularly consult and seek the people's views,",Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. In a nutshell, Africans are demanding what is known among development practitioners as "good governance."...Narrowly defined, governance means the exercise of political power to manage the affairs of state. In a broader sense, it can refer to the various processes relating to leadership, such as policymaking, transparency, accountability, the protection of human rights and the relationship among the public, private and civil sectors in determining how power is exercised. --------------------------------------------- Emeka Okafor is an entrepreneur who lives in New York City.He was the director for TED Global 2007 that took place in Arusha, Tanzania and is the TED Africa Director. His interests include sustainable technologies in the developing world and paradigm breaking technologies in general. His blog, Timbuktu Chronicles seeks to spur dialogue in areas of entrepreneurship, technology and the scientific method as it impacts Africa. "Timbuktu is a city unsullied by the worship of idols...a refuge of scholarly and righteous folk, a haunt of saints and ascetics, and a meeting place of caravans and boats" -Al-Sa'Di
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
posted 10 November, 2008 03:07 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- posted 10 November, 2008 03:07 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Africa is beyond bemoaning the past for its problems. The task of undoing that past is on the shoulders of African leaders themselves, with the support of those willing to join in a continental renewal. We have a new generation of leaders who know that Africa must take responsibility for its own destiny, that Africa will uplift itself only by its own efforts in partnership with those who wish her well." ............Nelson Mandela
this is some of the update info i was talking about.i posted it here before but i think it's best to post it again after that speech to connect where africa is going at today since that speech was made in the year 1997.
so here is the some of the updates below and more were posted above before i posted the speech of 1997 . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=380181 icosium
quote- Nigeria is one of few African Countries that Manufactures Personal Computers
Nigeria has State of the art Technological Institues Akutech has being completed and ATV is under construction
There is an ongoing project that will make Abuja the only city in Africa that has complete WiFi Coverage.
Uganda is rightfuly there, the Makerere University in Uganda is the first in East Africa to install new information and communication technology.
Ghana, Tunisia, Mauritius and S.A are also rightfully there. Nigeria may still not make it to the top Ten after all the things which I mentioned, but If Nigeria isn't in the Top 3 after ATV is completed, then something must be really wrong -------------------------- top read more from this guy,link link below.alot of these guys are from africa so they wouldknow more on average on what is going on there than folks in america.
here,enjoy yourself with this link.you make some good points but some of it is out of date or incorrect or not correct.here is a link and you could discuss this here with others too. i am bailing out of this one on this forum because i am to busy now with other things,that's why i have not been coming to this forum as much lately.peace. African ICT News
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A circular cul de sac and residential area within Abuja Technology Village.
The deck of the proposed cable stayed bridge of the Abuja Technology Village which is adjacent to AIST [African Institute of Science and Technology].
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I'm still reading through your posts kenndo, so apologies if you've already answered the question.
When is the "Abuja Technology Village" building going to begin and when is it anticipated that it will be completed?
Also, are the organisers being careful to make sure they don't EMPOWER foriegners over natives? For example, who is going to be running the show? Are they going to give the work to Nigerian technologists or imperialists like IBM, Intel and Microsoft?
This is all good news but you Nigerians must be prudent and don't allow yourself to be "digitally colonised". You must own everything. I see Adenuga has done a fantastic job with Globacom (which he owns) so at least we know a Nigerian is supplying the network. But we can't stop there. Who owns the data centers? Who owns the IT services companies? We can employ foriegners here and there but ownership must be kept 100% by Nigerians and perhaps, other Africans and Disapora Africans can be brought in to share in ownership if it's a mutual thing.
-------------------- state of mind Posts: 1819 | From: odesco baba | Registered: Feb 2005
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The Abuja Technology Village will be built to international standard to enable it propel the nation into industrialisation and realisation of the Federal Government's vision of making Nigeria one of the twenty industrialised countries in the FCT Minister, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar made this revelation at the weekend in Abuja while receiving the management team of the National Incubation Technology Center led by its Director-General, Professor Gambo Laraba Abdullahi that paid him a courtesy call in his office.
The minister reiterated that the vision of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to make Nigeria one of the twenty advanced countries in the world by 2020 can be realised going by the structures being put in place by this administration. Umar restated that, "that is why my administration in the Federal Capital Territory is not leaving any stone unturned in ensuring that Abuja becomes one of the leading twenty cities in the world".
According to him, substantial amount of money had been appropriated in the 2008 budget to assist his administration in putting down solid structures that can stand the test of time and make that lofty dream realizable.
The minister recalled that when the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh visited Nigeria recently he promised that his country would support Nigeria in establishing the Abuja Technology Village which is a good omen.
His words, "the FCT Administration under me will expedite action on the setting up of the Abuja Technology Village to make it a one stop shop for all stakeholders."
Umar remarked that the world has changed to knowledge-based economy and that the FCT Administration has no option than to work towards that direction to enable it take its proper position as one of the twenty leading cities in the world by 2020.
He, therefore, assured that the FCT Administration and the Abuja Technology Village would collaborate with National Incubation Technology Center to achieve the set targets for the benefit of the entire country.
Umar promised to allocate a plot of land very close to the Abuja Technology Village which would be enough to accommodate the Center and to encourage mutual collaboration as well as exchange of ideas.
Speaking earlier, the Director-General of the National Incubation Technology Center, Professor Gambo Laraba Abdullahi disclosed that the Federal Government has approved the establishment of a Model Technology Incubation Center in Abuja.
Professor Abdullahi noted that the establishment of the National Incubation Technology Center in Nigeria is a step in good direction as it is the tool used by many advanced countries for rapid development.
West Africa Economy, Business and Finance ICT and Telecom Industry and Infrastructure
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Government approves Nigeria's Technology Valley The Federal Government recently approved the establishment of a Technology Village for software and manpower development in the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), in Abuja, Nigeria's federal capital. The tech village is expected to cost N52.8 billion, with government committing N5 billion seed money into providing infrastructure, and the balance coming from the private sector. According to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir el Rufai, who appears to be prime motivator behind the initiative, "what we hope to do with the village, which is going to cost us between $300 to $400 million, is to have the highest quality infrastructure attracting the best brains in information and bio-technology, pharmaceutical and IT research". The technology village is expected to provide employment for about 40,000 people, with the eventual aim of boosting growth and performance through information technology.
The Minister said though the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology had been working on the village since 2001, Nigerians in the diaspora interested in the village made it a reality by investing about $100,000 to do the business plan and feasibility study.
One of the aims of Nigeria's IT policy is for Nigeria to be an exporter of information technology products. India, which has already led other developing nations in this regard, benefits tremendously from the performance of its information technology industry. India is today the recognized and leading IT outsourcing hub in the world. With the global trend indicating phenomenal growth in outsourcing Nigeria can't afford to be left behind.
Some have dubbed the technology as Nigeria's Silicon Valley. The aim of the National IT policy and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is ensure Nigeria as a nation not just benefits from the advances in information technology, but also becomes a key player in information technology.
Outsourcing is an attractive option for a country like Nigeria. But apart from the technology village, for outsourcing to make sense for Nigeria, other issues such as standards, public power supply, project management expertise and incentives for professionals and investors need to be addressed .
While information about the technology village mentions the involvement of Nigerians in diaspora, reports indicate that it is largely a government affair with little or no input from local IT professionals. Also the details of infrastructure and assets that would constitute the village and how the village would be run have not been made public.
Interesting some active participants in Nigeria's ICT sector are not too enamored with the choice of Abuja. For instance, the Computer and Allied Products Dealers Association of Nigeria would have preferred a development of Ikeja technology market - also known as the computer village - in Lagos which is Nigeria's current IT hotspot. And for many involved in IT, Lagos and not Abuja is where most IT activities are currently concentrated.
However, to make a meaningful impact, it is expected that the tech village will be a collaborative effort that addresses issues involving all stakeholders. It certainly appears to be a positive step for information technology empowerment in Nigeria.
posted
Please stop spamming the thread with non-topic related material.
None of the 200 lines you've posted has anything to do with semiconductor fabrication. Not one sentence.
FYI:
IT is not IC Fabrication Electricity is not IC Fabrication PC integration is not IC fabrication Designing clothes is not IT Fabrication Telecom is not IC fabrication Hip-Hop is not IC fabrication
All of your post only prove the point that Africa is 99.9% dependent on European, US, and Asian IC fabricators. Not one of your many random examples has proven otherwise.
If you cannot contribute to the topic please start your own thread or go elsewhere.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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- It is extremely ironic that the South African government's legislative efforts that affect new technologies like voice over IP (VOIP) and wireless fidelity (WiFi) are actually working against the development goals it is hoping to achieve. This is the view of Bridges.org, an international non-profit organisation that promotes the effective use of ICT in the developing world, with the aim of reducing poverty and improving people's lives.
In a recent report, the organisation claims that unless government aligns its intentions with its actions, it may soon undermine the country's position as a technology leader in Africa, which would go against the ICT strategy laid out by South Africa's ruling ANC party.
One example is South Africa's strategy to create jobs by enticing international call centres to the country. These centres, which are common in places like India, provide outsourced services using high bandwidth connections and VOIP platforms, with the VOIP converting calls to data and carrying them like messages on any data network - including the Internet - which lowers costs, but can threaten the earnings of traditional telecommunications providers.
Bridges.org suggests that VOIP can also support socio-economic development more generally, by bringing the benefits of efficient data network use and lowered call costs to individual consumers, small businesses and community organisations, except that existing legislation limits the use of VOIP and stifles advances in this area.
- A lot of players in the call centre industry live or die by bandwidth and VOIP issues, so a change in legislation regarding this is very necessary for the industry to flourish, says Rod Jones, MD of Call Centre City. "Because the rates for fibre are more prohibitive, players want to turn to VOIP. If government were to relax the VOIP restrictions, it would drive down tariffs and allow South Africa to compete on an equal footing with call centre hubs like India," he adds.
- If we can compete evenly with India, we will win, as our infrastructure is far stronger than theirs, Mr Jones holds. "Not only that, but if we can compete, there is the potential for some 100,000 jobs to be created in our industry," he says.
Law inhibits WiFi Another issue raised by Bridges.org is that South African law also inhibits the use of WiFi technologies that could help bring the Internet to under-serviced communities.
WiFi creates a high-bandwidth network using certain radio frequency transmissions that cover short distances, and is cheap to implement, largely because it does not require traditional wire infrastructure, and can be used to extend the reach of telecommunications and "backbone" Internet connectivity at low cost.
There are huge cost savings to be gained in under-serviced communities by rolling out technologies that allow for both voice and data services on a single, combined, cost-effective network.
The organisation points out that South Africa is in danger of losing its status as Africa's technological leader, as other African countries – notably in East Africa – are moving to the forefront.
Algeria, Mauritius, Mali, Nigeria and Kenya have all legalised VOIP and WiFi and it seems that these progressive governments are embracing new technologies in order to gain the long-term benefits of ICT, despite potential short-term losses in revenue as incumbent telecommunications providers restructure their approaches.
The report points out that it appears as if government policymakers either do not understand the development potential offered by these technologies, or they are just not ready to let go of the entrenched revenue streams from Telkom's stranglehold on the market.
- East Africa is watching what is happening in South Africa and these nations are learning fast and deploying their own call centre operations to rival South Africa's, says Mr Jones. "The East African countries have strong IT and language skills and are now starting to come to the party in terms of their rates as well, so they could pose a huge threat to South Africa in the near future."
Bridges.org suggests that removing restrictions and allowing competition to thrive in the communications sector will lead to greater choice, lower prices, and the proliferation of innovative services.
Open approach needed - The Communications Users Association of South Africa (CUASA) has long made the point that the restrictions on VOIP are holding the country back and the Telecommunications Act is long overdue for on update, says CUASA spokesman, Ray Webber. "We have said this same thing so often that we're almost getting tired of constantly repeating ourselves."
He says CUASA can only support the view put forward by Bridges.org, because both organisations feel South Africa is beginning to fall behind because of these restrictions. "We definitely need a more open approach to technology if we don't want to find ourselves losing out to other African nations," says Mr Webber.
At present, all that is holding back the unlimited provision of VOIP services in South Africa is the public announcement of a date, at the discretion of the Minister of Communications, from which VOIP will be legal. "This has been the case for quite sometime already, and highlights the fact that nothing much has changed in this regard," he says.
- Now that the election uncertainty is over and the ministerial portfolios have been assigned, CUASA would like to urge the Minister to resolve the outstanding issues – notably VOIP, WiFi, the second national operator licence and the Convergence Bill – that are currently on her table, concludes Mr Webber.
posted
Voice Over IP (Internet Protocol) is not IC (Integrated Circuit) fabrication. Africa vendors purchase chips and software from US, Europe, or Asia to build these things.
Africa makes no ICs for VOIP, WIFI or any other network protocol. Instead, they are 100% dependent on purchasing from Europe, Asian, or US vendors.
The VOIP SIP protocol is owned by AT&T. The WIFI protocol is owned by IEEE and various US vendors. Note the last sentence in your last post states the need for a second national LICENSE. This LICENSE is obtained by paying a fee for the use of the protocols and chips, and requires Africa PAY European, Asian, or US manufacturers for their use. If Africa developed their own protocol and chips, they would no longer have to pay this fee, or be dependent on outside manufacturers. This is the purpose of this thread, taking advantage of Open Source materials to kick start independent development.
Keep trying, but I'll start a thread entitled, Telecom and Third party reselling in Africa. 99% of your posts will fit well in the new thread.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
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), and he won't have strange old white men trying to prevent him from flexing his creative muscles. 
The Abuja Technology Village was personally conceived by Philip Emeagwali in August 1997 in this 40-page speech. Ten years later, the Nigerian government approved its funding. [Photo: CABLE STAYED BRIDGE FROM AIRPORT EXPRESSWAY of Abuja Technology Village] 
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