OMG Visits Mobile Africa Conference
On September 30th, Enviu attended the Mobile Africa conference in Helsinki (Finland). This event organized by the Mobile Brain Bank is the “Europe’s largest happening on mobile opportunities in Africa”, and as Enviu is currently busy with the Our Mobile Generation project, we thought we had to be there and get the insights from those working in this industry. It was a great event where we met lots of interesting people that will help us bring OMG even further.
The conference gathered almost 300 people from some 24 countries, including start-ups, corporations, policy makers, supranational organizations like the World Bank, students, NGOs.
After the opening keynote of His Excellency, LMS Mngqiaka, Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa in Finland, four speaker brought their experiences to the stage, including; Esko Aho (Executive Vice President, Corporate Relations and Responsibility, Nokia), Hossein Moiin (CTO Nokia Siemens Networks), Marlon Parker (Social Entrepreneur, founder of JamiiX), Jessica Colaco (TED fellow, iHub manager, Kenya).
We learned a lot and took many notes during the event. A report with conference notes is available for download. Here we offer you a curated selection of those:
- The key factors that have ensured such high levels of penetration worldwide include: low cost of ownership, infrastructure, and market liberalization;
- Growth potential of mobile industry in Africa is higher than anywhere else;
- A unique aspect of the mobile industry is that it empowers users and “does good” (connectivity means productivity) while making business sense;
- Key drivers for a digital society require the balance of government and business agendas;
- Democratized innovation means that non-western models also apply;
- Areas of consideration for mobile innovation in Africa are: community, relevance, economic, entertainment, education, livelihood, services, health, and maps;
- Mobile content for the African communities is much needed; local content;
- It is a game between operator, OEM, and platform developer. It is a very diverse industry, which makes things quite complex. There is a need for the players to work for the ecosystem, not for themselves.
We would like to thank to Petra Söderling and the Mobile Brain Bank network (http://mobilebrainbank.org) for the support provided, the entire team did a great work and managed to bring a really interesting group of people together.
