A recent discussion on the mHealth Working Group mailing list mentioned four organisations working in the area of healthcare education on smartphones and tablets. They look really interesting. Continue reading
In less than a decade MTN has taken 40% market share in Nigeria largely as a result of letting informal entrepreneurs resell its products. In a fascinating article on How We Made It In Africa, Robert Neuwirth describes how they did it. Continue reading
Last night I attended Talking Heads at the Africa Centre, and it was fantastic. One participant described it like speed-dating for the mind: four twenty-minute conversations, each with three other people, each led by an expert in their area. Each table’s participants are randomly selected, so you have no idea beforehand who you’ll be speaking to. I was there as an ‘expert’ to talk about the future of books in Africa, and I called my presentation “Every book within walking distance of every home within 5 years”. I prepared notes, but only as a guide to the conversation, each of which was completely different. This is what I prepared.
There is something about Worldreader, a project putting ereaders into classrooms outside Accra, Ghana, that bothers me. Every time I see a Worldreader tweet, I get a little sick feeling inside.
Ereading has the potential to make a huge impact on learning in developing countries. Digital textbooks could solve many of our distribution and price problems, as long as the rollout of computer labs in libraries and schools continues apace, and the cost of computing continues to drop. With that infrastructure in place, there are five key challenges to making meaningful progress, and each challenge presents at least one business opportunity.
