Kenya’s Silicon Savannah Spurs Tech in Sub-Saharan Africa
The role of technology in sub-Saharan Africa is growing. An emerging information technology (IT) ecosystem is reinforcing regional trends in business, investment, and modernization. There is a growing patchwork of entrepreneurs, startups, and innovation centers coalescing from country to country. Most discussions of the origins of Africa’s tech movement circle back to Kenya, which was home to several major technological innovations between 2007 and 2010. This innovation inspired the country’s Silicon Savannah moniker, and has provided an example for other African countries to follow.
In 2007, Kenyan telecom company Safaricom launched its M-Pesa mobile money service to a market lacking retail banking infrastructure yet abundant in mobile phone users. The product converted even the most basic cell phones into roaming bank accounts and money-transfer devices. Within two years M-Pesa was gaining nearly six million customers and transferring billions annually. The mobile money service shaped the African continent’s most recognized example of technological leapfrogging: launching ordinary citizens without bank accounts into the digital economy.
Shortly after M-Pesa’s launch, four technologists created the Ushahidi crowdsourcing app in response to Kenya’s 2007 election violence. The software that evolved became a highly effective tool for digitally mapping demographic events anywhere in the world. Ushahidi has since become an international tech company with multiple applications in more than twenty countries...
- Tags:
- abundant mobile phone users
- Africa's tech movement origin in Kenya
- African innovation hubs
- Aubrey Hruby
- digital sales
- digitally mapping demographic events
- East African broadband
- ecommerce startups
- emerging IT ecosystem
- Erik Hersman
- Facebook in Africa
- IBM
- Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Authority
- Information Technology (IT)
- Jake Bright
- Jumia
- Kenyan telecom company Safaricom
- Konga
- M-Pesa mobile money service
- MallforAfrica
- market lacking retail banking infrastructure
- Microsoft
- modernization
- money-transfer devices
- Nairobi’s iHub innovation center
- Pan-African movement of startup entrepreneurs
- roaming bank accounts
- Silicon Savannah
- sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
- technological leapfrogging
- undersea fiber optic cable project The East African Marine System
- Ushahidi crowdsourcing app
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