Bitcoin Forum

https://i.imgur.com/V86DAF9.jpg

Can the internet reboot Africa?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/25/can-the-internet-reboot-africa (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/25/can-the-internet-reboot-africa)

With smartphone use and web penetration soaring, Africa is set for a tech revolution – but only if its infrastructure can support it

<< You can buy sunlight with your phone, conduct an eye test on someone 100 miles away and attend a church service on your iPad. There are apps for investing in cows, for sending parcels and for mapping unrest. And soon you'll be able to deliver blood and medicines by drone. There's free Facebook, mobile banking, and the promise of cashless societies and digitised land records. And from Accra in the west to Kigali in the east, a spray of "tech hubs" talk about "leapfrogging" technology and incubating start-ups.

Such are the giddy promises of Africa's "fourth industrial revolution" – a giant step forward into the digital world which the Guardian is reporting on for the next two weeks. Some are salivating that it will amount to the renaissance of a marginalised continent, while others soberly warn of the hype.

By 2020 there will be more than 700m smartphone connections in Africa – more than twice the projected number in North America and not far from the total in Europe, according to GSMA, an association of mobile phone operators. In Nigeria alone 16 smartphones are sold every minute, while mobile data traffic across Africa is set to increase 15-fold by 2020 (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/mobile-white-paper-c11-520862.html). Twenty per cent of the continent (https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=721eb3d4b80a36451202d0473b3c4a63&download) already have access to a mobile broadband connection, a figure predicted to triple in the next five years. The mobile industry will account for 8% of GDP by 2020 – double what it will be in the rest of the world. And internet penetration is rising faster than anywhere else as costs of data and devices fall. >>

This can be easily explained. To many people in Africa, the cost of owning a mobile phone line is one tenth of their monthly income. Or more to the poorest folks. This isn't like Europe...

Internet is now essential to all people. Especially on businesses. Cause its a very powerful way of communicating and also marketing. Since more and more consumers are using the Internet to shop, browse and purchase various products and services, it only makes sense that businesses want to go where their customers are. Africa should develop their technology starting on internet so many establishments will be build and more africans can have work for a living.

give them another few billion years

http://s3.zoochat.com.s3.amazonaws.com/medium/2010_0402feb10-0126-91993.jpg

This cute ape is a creature of God, and thus is perfect. Comparison to it is not true.

---

They rejected our colonialism and thus shouldn't be helped in any way. They will never be able to achieve anything if we're not behind planning and organising everything.

Code club Senegal, where women are leading the way

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/26/code-club-senegal-where-women-lead-the-way (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/26/code-club-senegal-where-women-lead-the-way)

<< The young female creators of land-rights app Sigeste are part of a push to get girls coding in the west African country. >>

Interesting statement but I don't agree.
For a tech revolution many more things are needed, not only infrastructure.
You need security, stable political system, no corruption, very good education, stable and developed Internet etc.
I'm afraid that still many countries in Africa can't reach that level. 

Africans are not as dumb as that!

Its not just africa - its poor countries in general that dont have the resources to know whats going on...

Think about it - if you grew up in a poverish country and expect to know what an iphone 7 youd be way ahead then most in that country since you know the internet.

Its about the resources that is available to them.

Given that, should be colonialism be something good, for both of us ? They wanted a pseudo-liberty and now they pay the fact that nothing changed except than they have now strictly nothing.

I agree with you. The Internet has revolutionized the way the world does business on both a local and global level. From recruiting employees to gathering data on the competition, the ways businesses utilize the Internet are numerous, as are the benefits of the Internet to the business community. If only the government of Africa make way for this. Welcome to the future.

Well, culture is really important. If your culture isn't promoting advancing economics, chances are, there's not going to be progress. Let's see what will happen in Africa though.

But so is technology. (See: ethereum)

Africa is very interesting without internet, people who don't have any education have many different cultures and traditions, internet will kill this stuff at my opinion.

No, it isn't. Far from it. Today's Internet shows the dominating culture. When you anything on google, it gives you results related to the context, built from your previous searches, or pages you've already visited, or results which are trending at the particular time of your search. facebook is even worse. The Internet will only accelerate the destruction of African culture, but that had started way before the Internet was invented.

Africa's top 10 tech pioneers: "We have become an internet-consuming culture"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/25/africas-tech-pioneers-we-have-become-an-internet-consuming-culture (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/25/africas-tech-pioneers-we-have-become-an-internet-consuming-culture)

<< Africa's digital transformation would be nothing without the tens of thousands of people who have invested, and continue to invest, energy into propelling it forward. They are the leading lights driving change in infrastructure, mobile connectivity, online activism, e-commerce and financial services. Some are opening up digital cultural spaces or working to bring in investment for tech startups.

As part of the Guardian's focus on technology in Africa we've listed 10 individuals who've been pioneers in the transformation from Tanzania to Tunisia, with the three of sub-Saharan Africa's big tech hitters – South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya – particularly well represented. And in a bid to look forward we asked each of the 10 pioneers to predict the next development in Africa's digital transformation and to each nominate an emerging talent to watch. >>

I more like Africa without internet, sometimes I dislike internet and smartphone and back to natural, like real social, cultures, religions and traditions

There are theories and then, there are facts.
African culture is losing ground fast all over the continent, and part of that change take its roots on the web.

In most markets in Africa nowadays, you see products to whiten the skin, or hair products, so that black women can have their hair look like a white woman, or Obama's wife. African women watch Sex and the city on TV, and they've changed their behavior. In many African countries, there used to be nothing wrong between a 40-year old man and a 12-year old girl, but nowadays white man's culture, which the Internet brings, say it's bad.

In Kenya, there are muslim preachers who say Internet's evil, like everything which comes from white men, but the young adapt to the foreign ideas brought by the Internet, and they dump their traditional culture.

on the internet we can get all the information we wanted. I believe if the internet in Africa will now be able to give change to people africa. africa will begin to escape poverty. I believe.

Africa is changing. Life quality for Africans could increase, but it depends on wars and foreign influence.

Look at a typical African city:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.visitcapitalcity.com%2Fimagens%2Fcity%2FDar-es-Salaam%2FDar-es-Salaam.jpg&f=1

GDP of African countries:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-pPsx3OFFxzM%2FTklts5DRYQI%2FAAAAAAAABQU%2FFaZLqk9lQHs%2Fs1600%2FEast%2BAfrica%2BGDP%2Bgrowth.png&f=1

No, sir. This isn't your typical African city. Far from it. Is this Lagos? That's only the bright side. There are some rich folks there, I know Honda has a factory which assembles Accords in Nigeria, but there are also millions of people who barely have anything but the clothes they're wearing. And the poor vastly outnumber the rich. Internet will help, but much more is needed to make Africans richer.

No doubt the Bitcoin can make things much better there, through a more dynamic and fair economy.

I just hope more people join us from Africa and other places.

Seems like the 1st world cant appreciate bitcoin enough, and many shills are against it, but the 3rd world that needs money will love it.

So bitcoin has better chances in Africa than anywhere else.

Its Dar-es-Salaam. What I meant to say is Africa is changing. There are more cities like this.

Never been to SE Africa, but there are also nice places like this in Lagos or Abidjan. But you never have to go far to find yourself on a dirt road where the houses don't have running water. Yes, Africa's changing. Fast.

I think that Internet can be useful for some individuals who use it appropriately but at a large scale (African countries), I think it's more complicated than that because corrupted systems will control any use of technology against them to maintain their power on oppressed people and nothing will change  :-\

There is still cheap labour there and any bitcoin company can hire workers from there.

There are job opportunities there, not just online but physical too. Some african farmers setup a shop in bitcoin and sell the vegetables.

Yes there is a lot of resources there that can be used, and if not for the wars and gangs, africa would already be very rich.

Hopefully they dont fall into the shitty socialist illness that the west has.

The place to start is Western Sahara. Those people are so low in poverty that they will do anything to get out of their hole.

8)

Nobody said it would be easy. But you know how it goes... no pain, no gain.

8)

Internet alone can't reboot africa.
In order to really help this content we have to solve really a lot problems.
Political corruption is the biggest problem.
Political instability is second biggest in my opinion.
Other problems are hunger, AIDS, no education for the most people, undeveloped countries, no infrastructure necessery for business like electricity, Internet etc.
I can continue here but already enough said.
Internet alone really can't help them.

facebook is having it's own agenda in africa

There are much poorer places in Africa. The coast of Western Sahara is under Moroccan control, then there's a war zone. It's a road and you can't put a foot out of that road because there are mines. Also, there are terrorists out there.

Maybe.  This country will be more informed, people will know their rights, will be aware of their surroundings by the use of modern technologies like smartphones.  And since they will know what a smartphones capable of, bringing anything and everything on just a touch, there will be lesser crimes, less case of HIV.  Africans will know everything and anything.  These things will help their country and of course their lives to reboot again.

all the technology is wortheless if they still promoting the same despots who sell out the country.