ICTworks by Inveneo

South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya will be the key players in the African ICT sector in the next five years. A survey conducted by Africa Business Panel among 800 business professionals involved with Africa shows that these 3 countries were earmarked as the continent’s favourites when it comes to the future of the ICT sector.

Ghana, Egypt, Rwanda, Botswana, Angola, Uganda and Zimbabwe are the runners up and complete the top ten countries out of 53 economies on the African continent.

Virtually all African economies show promising year-on-year growth. This is attracting the attention of the international investor community who increasingly see Africa as ‘the last frontier’ for attractive growth opportunities. Research and numerous survey results among the international investor community consistently indicate that investors expect over half of the ten fastest growing economies in the world in 2011 to be African.

The Africa Business Panel has published a month-on-month Africa Business Confidence Index since January 2011. The index results for Africa based on surveys of 800 business professionals from more than 30 countries on the continent consistently show growth. Calculations are based on the purchase managers index methodology used globally.

The outcome of the business confidence index for the African continent is consistent with the trust of the international investor community. The manufacturing business confidence index for June is 53.9 and for non-manufacturing 60.4 for the same month. Any number over 50 indicated growth.

The top-10 key players in the African ICT sector in the next five years

1. South Africa

2. Nigeria

3. Kenya

4. Ghana

5. Egypt

6. Rwanda

7. Botswana

8. Angola

9. Uganda

10. Zimbabwe

“South Africa is far ahead in ICT technology, infrastructure and culture. It can only continue to grow barring any economic shocks.

Nigeria is rapidly growing rapidly its ICT culture and infrastructure. Power continues to be a challenge but, as always, Nigeria has the population to support most of the business opportunities available and at play. Kenya is increasing its ICT footprint too and, has a some local innovative talent to drive some heavy growth in the sector,” says Whenkeremma Okezie, CEO at Geomarine Systems Limited in Nigeria.

“I’ve been looking at the figures of BPO’s coming up in Kenya and it’s phenomenal. It wouldn’t be possible without the ICT investment that’s being put into the country’s different sectors.

Rwanda is a country that has shown hunger for anything that can boost its growth and the government has lent the ICT sector a hand by partnering with not-for-profit organizations that have shown interest. South Africa has the largest resource base in the continent and would not hesitate to use it in an industry with such promise,” says James Njoroge, Financial Consultant at Pan Africa Life Assurance Limited in Kenya.

“South Africa has always been number one in innovations in Africa. The country is stable politically and financially, thereby making it the first destination for foreign partners seeking low-risk environment. It’s citizens also seem to be ICT savvy.

Nigeria on the other hand would have been number one, if it had a semblance of political stability. The mind-burgling 150million population still makes the country difficult to resist for investors because of the amount of traffic you could generate from such huge population. Nigerians are quite business savvy.

Ghana is more like a rising South Africa, with a very stable political and economic system. The country also boasts a far better security position than the two countries earlier mentioned,” says Caesar Onejeme, Business Development at Fleet Technologies Limited in Ghana.

Source:http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2011/07/who-are-africa%E2%80%99s-ict-key-players/

Are you an IT professional? Do you rock at your work? Then you might think about moving up to the big leagues - as Business Daily reports, big name companies are hiring.

The companies have embarked on a massive recruitment drive in Africa in search of new growth opportunities in the ICT sector.

Over 100 vacancies are currently open at high tech firms such as IBM, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, promising to increase focus on the African talent pool in coming months. Among the firms that are aggressively pursuing talent are IBM and Google, who are collectively seeking to fill over 60 vacancies. Other firms such as Oracle and Microsoft seek to strengthen their existing position on the continent, while relative new-comers such as Internet advertising firm InMobi are on a quest to deepen their presence regionally with management expertise.

Facebook, the most successful social media network that currently has over 27.4 million African users, is recruiting a Growth Manager for Africa who will be based in either Kenya or Nigeria. Research carried out by Business Daily indicates that the companies are mostly seeking personnel with strengths in business development, marketing and sales, as well as those with technical skills who can tweak the products that the firms offer to suit the African landscape.

Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria are attracting the most demand for talent, with two thirds of vacancies required to fill posts in Nairobi, Cape Town and in Lagos; cementing the three countries status as technological hubs on the continent.

This is Africa as visualized by Facebook. You could find it depressing if you looked at the world and saw that compared to the USA or Europe, Africa is still "dark". Or you could take a positive view, like I do, and recognize that Facebook is driving ICT adoption in Africa. But why take my opinion? Let us go for an authoritative source like Russell Southwood's Balancing Act:

Facebook has become the single biggest non-mail client product in Africa. Over the last seven months user numbers have doubled in many countries and the smaller countries where it was barely visible, now have significant numbers of users. It is the number one or number two site in every African country. But as Christian Hernandez, Head of International Business Development, Facebook told Russell Southwood, this is really only the beginning of what the platform is setting out to do.

Facebook has three objectives for the platform and these cover its development in Africa. Firstly, it wants to acquire more users. Secondly, it wants to monetize this use by attracting advertising: for example, it already has agents in African countries selling its online advertising space to ad agencies and clients. Thirdly, it wants to have developers write more services for the platform. For example, the latter already includes what it calls Social Widgets like the Top articles shared by friends button on CNN.com. It wants African developers and entrepreneurs who will use tools like its social widgets and APIs to create local products and services based on Facebook.

Currently Facebook has 500 million active monthly users, of which half use it from a mobile phone. Its research shows that the latter group of users are twice as engaged in terms of use as the PC users. As Christian Hernandez sees it: "We know mobile is an important tool to drive engagement and in developing countries we start with mobile."

Now let's go to the numbers that Russell points to from Facebook and think to yourself, "How can I monetize this usage trajectory?"

Egypt - 6.58 million
South Africa - 3.8 million
Morocco - 3.2 million
Nigeria - 2.9 million
Tunisia - 2.35 million
Algeria - 1.39 million
Kenya - 1.03 million
Ghana - 906,540
Senegal - 447,840
Cameroon - 355,860
Uganda - 280,600
Tanzania - 259,120
Mauritius - 254,680
Angola - 184,660
Madagascar - 151,100
Ethiopia - 146,020
Namibia - 127,260
Zambia - 117,520
Botswana - 112,180
Mozambique - 105,820

Utilising cutting edge techniques and taking advantage of market-leading expertise, Digital Life offers both a lens on the digital world and the frameworks required to make actionable business decisions within it. It can be used to drive global strategies or inform local tactics.

Through combining survey information with Clickstream data that passively measures actual behaviour, and unique ways of mapping consumer needs, we can access a more accurate and complete picture of both what consumers are doing, and why.

Below are four African analysis: Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa. Click on any to see a larger image.

In 2010, Google really started to engage with African countries. One of its highest profiles moves was to start a YouTube South Africa channel targeting the largest economy in Sub-Sahara Africa. So what were the most watched videos in South Africa last year? Here's the top 10 list curtsey of MyBroadband.co.za:

Die Antwoord’s ‘Enter the Ninja’ with over 8.5 million views (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc3f4xU_FfQ, 8,638,552) and ‘Zef Side’ with over 5 million views (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q77YBmtd2Rw, 5, 258,927) proved hugely popular.

Other videos that drew significant interest included ‘6 Second Poison’ by Locnville(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIBljX4VPuI, 667,170) , 'Show Dem (Make the Circle Bigger)' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM_Ew6zsnDY, 223,944) and Jack Parow’s ‘Dans, Dans, Dans’ featuring Francois van Coke (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yWeMIALolY, 419,100).

South African politics and current affairs also fascinated YouTube fans. Favourites include the AWB’s ungraceful exit from an e.tv studio during a live interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmMj72bQuDI, 338,438) and Julius Malema dismissing a BBC journalist from a press conference (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpIcwctC7nQ, 174,684).

While the AWB incident prompted the ‘Don’t Touch me on my Studio’ remix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOFkSktQDFQ,91,568) Malema’s reaction inspired the creation of the popular ‘Julius Malema Song’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0B_nz539wo, 117,621).