Economic Growth & Trade

High Capacity Broadband Submarine Cable for Haiti

Photo Credit: HaitiLibre

An initiative to connect Haiti with the rest of the world via Internet connectivity, two years after the devastating earthquake has been launched. The project which involves a construction of a US$16m 200km undersea cable is being undertaken by Digicel Group with technology and expertise from Alcatel-Lucent and Columbus Networks.

Communication in Haiti after the Earthquake

Much of Haiti’s communications network, including the country’s only subsea cable were destroyed or damaged by the January 2010 earthquake which, to date, have not been fully restored. As a result, the Haitian population and the Haitian economy have suffered from the lack of high-capacity broadband connectivity that is pivotal to business, public sector and social activity.

Digicel Group in Haiti

Digicel Group, a mobile network operator in the Caribbean, Central America and Pacific, was launched in Haiti in 2005 with the commitment to best value, network and service. According to the Digicel Group Director of International Business, Conor Clarke, “For more than two years now, Haiti’s recovery has been hindered by the lack of high-capacity broadband connections with the rest of the world. With the delivery of this critical undersea cable, the people of Haiti will see a truly dramatic improvement in the range and quality of communications services available.”

Photo Credit: sawpanse.com

Digicel’s undersea cable project is the latest in its ongoing recovery and rebuilding efforts in Haiti. As the single largest private investor in Haiti, Digicel has invested over U$600 million to date and employs over 900 people directly and more than 60,000 people indirectly. Once completed, the FibraLink Extension to Haiti will provide a secure, high-capacity subsea link with 21 other countries in the Caribbean region, as well as with the United States and the main Internet backbone gateway located in South Florida.

This comes at the time when Digicel Group, has acquired a Haitian mobile operator, Voilà, from its parent company, US-based Trilogy International Partners, for an undisclosed sum. Commenting on the acquisition, Colm Delves, Digicel Group CEO, said “Digicel’s acquisition of Voilà will see mobile users across Haiti benefiting from increased investment in even better mobile services and new technology in the future.”

Columbus Networks

Paul Scott, President of Columbus Networks the undersea fiber-optic cable network provider in the Pan Caribbean Americas region said; “We are committed to fostering the development and continuous improvement of the communication infrastructure throughout the region where broadband adoption rates are continuing to grow rapidly. This expansion will enable us to enhance broadband connectivity further and thus deliver reliable bandwidth services at cost-effective prices to a very large population base.”

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks

On the part of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, Philippe Dumont, the President said; “We are proud to be part of this initiative as one of the variety of other outreach programs to support Haiti’s recovery. The benefits that this undersea link can bring to Haiti can’t be over-estimated. We are pleased to collaborate with Digicel and Columbus Networks on such a critical endeavor.” Alcatel-Lucent originally deployed the FibraLink system which provides coastal and terrestrial connectivity from Kingston to Ocho Rios and Montego Bay in Jamaica with direct connectivity to the US by integrating into other part of the Columbus Networks infrastructure.

Visit here for more information on the initiative and the Digicel Group.

April 14, 2012/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Workforce Development

Kenya’s iHub gets Google funding

Technology giant Google has announced Sh28 million (R2.5-million) in funding for Nairobi’s tech innovation centre, iHub, and the Kenya Education Network (KENET).

Google has announced R2.5-million in funding for Nairobi's tech innovation centre iHub (image: iHub)

Google has announced R2.5-million in funding for Nairobi’s tech innovation centre iHub (image: iHub)

iHub plans to use the funding from the search giant to expand its infrastructure, while KENET says it will continue to “connect educational institutions with a private, affordable high-speed Internet” network.

“We have been partners with Google for about the last two years,” says Erik Hersman, co-founder of the iHub.

“This is just an extension of that, filling niches that the community needs. One of Google’s big drives is to increase the uptake of Internet in Kenya.”

iHub has received Sh12 million of Google’s funding, which Hersman says will be used to expand its infrastructure.

The iHub community also plans to set up a UX testing lab and an “ExchangeBoard Project”, which will display the latest newsfeeds within the tech community. An experimental supercomputer environment to host data-intensive applications is also on the agenda.

Meanwhile, KENET MD Meoli Kashorda said: “We are very happy with the partnership we have with Google to support innovation and technology in Kenya.

“This contribution will help KENET improve the Internet connectivity in six educational institutions in Kenya, leading to increased affordable broadband Internet access by students, faculty and researchers.”

Michelle Togo

April 4, 2012/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Workforce Development

African ICT job opportunities high, skills lacking

A new survey published on Tuesday reveals that as telecom jobs in Africa booms, the continent still lacks skilled workers, calling on universities and governments to do more to boost the output of telecom and IT specialists in Africa.

Landelahni CEO Sandra Burmeister. (image: creamermedia.co.za)

The 2012 Telecommunications Survey, carried out by global Amrop executive search group member, Landelahni Business Leaders, highlights the skills gaps in the African ICT sector.

“Information and communications technology is a pre-condition for socio-economic development and national competitiveness. However, a shortage of key skills is a huge constraint,” Landelahni CEO Sandra Burmeister said in the report.

“Opportunities abound throughout Africa, despite the challenges of poor infrastructure, disparate regulatory environments and ferocious competition. Spending on ICT infrastructure is expected to total more than US$23 billion a year over the next few years. South Africa and the rest of the continent need to skill up to maximise this opportunity.

“(South African) minister of science and technology Naledi Pandor has acknowledged that the telecommunications industry holds promise as the backbone of this country’s economic, industrial and innovative advancement. Similarly, the Green Paper for Post School Education and Training released in January (2012) states that ‘ICT is increasingly becoming a critical ingredient for participation in a globalised world’.”

It also called on governments to do more to boost young people’s ability to enter the fast-paced ICT world with the skills needed to bring Africa into the global technology world.

Joseph Mayton

March 29, 2012/by actualize

Business Enabling Environment, Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Innovation Africa Digital Summit gets underway in Ethiopia

One of Africa’s largest ICT gatherings got underway in Ethiopia today with the kick-off of the Innovation Africa Digital Summit in the capital Addis Ababa.

Aida Opoku-Mensah, Officer-In-Charge of UNECA speaking at a podium

Aida Opoku-Mensah, Officer-In-Charge of UNECA (image: Charlie Fripp)

Now in its tenth year, the summit aims to promote digital connectivity across all spectrums to the benefit of Africa as a whole. The event will also provide for a platform for Ethiopia to share more details on the country’s plans to for develope one of Africa’s largest and most ambitious ICT parks.

“This is an opportunity for us to share our best ideas, to learn about the latest developments and to form powerful partnerships. The theme of creating sustainable national and international ICT ecosystems is indeed a powerful concept which will transform the global socio-economic environment,” conference chair Madanmohan Rao said.

Aida Opoku-Mensah, Officer-In-Charge of UNECA (United Nations Economic Conditions for Africa) added to the welcome address by saying, “it gives me great pleasure to be addressing the tenth Innovation Africa Digital Summit, which comes at a moment when the African continent is experiencing tumultuous advances in the growth and development of the telecoms and ICT sector. We are of the view that in order to unleash Africa’s potential, special attention needs to be paid to innovation, particularly in ICT innovation”.

MTN CEO Sifiso Dabengwa said growth in the sector has been enormous over the years. “Africa has more mobile phones than fixed lines and is still growing. Mobile phones have become the defacto standard for telecommunications on our continent. The growth has had an enormous impact on commerce, connectivity and all other streams of life. The enormity of the socio-economic impact of the mobile sector in Africa cannot be over emphasized.”

IT News Africa is currently in Ethiopia covering and participating in the summit which runs until Thursday 29 March 2012.

Charlie Fripp – Online editor

March 28, 2012/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Workforce Development

American university to boost East Africa ICT

US-based Carnegie Mellon University has announced the opening of a new regional centre for ICT in Rwanda, aimed at increasing science and technology development across East Africa.

Carnegie Mellon University director in Rwanda Bruce Krogh. (image: cms.dyn.bci.tu-dortmund.de)

“Research and development in technology is now a global enterprise and Carnegie Mellon realised that education also needed to be a global enterprise to meet the demands of highly skilled engineers and innovators,” university director in Rwanda Bruce Krogh said.

Krogh said the west was not the sole source of technological breakthroughs anymore, “nor was it the dominant growth market for information and communication technology (ICT)”.

The university said they see East Africa as a beacon for ICT transformation, praising the region’s recent jumps in telecoms and IT infrastructure. Carnegie hopes to assist in continuing this success by bolstering ICT education.

He added that “for the case of Rwanda, there is a business-friendly, pro-ICT development program (Vision 2020) under which nation-wide fiber-optic cables will be installed throughout the country.”

Joseph Mayton

March 23, 2012/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

5 Gender-Integrated ICT Strategies for Trade!

Photo Credit: E-Cards

A 2007 publication by USAID on Gender Integration Strategies for Trade (GIST) argues that donors have developed an array of innovative programs for removing or mitigating gender-specific barriers to economic growth. Yet, moving from theory to action still remains a challenge for many program managers.

On this years International Women’s Day celebration, I would like to pick out five of these gender issues from the document for reflection.

1) Socio-Cultural Biases

Gender Issues: Are there socio-cultural biases that discourage women from entering the ICT sector?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Launch an educational campaign on the benefits of computer education and how women and girls could use the skills for a variety of careers: develop curricula on an experiential application of ICT, which studies show appeals more to girls.

Indicators: Number of people in target group trained in and adopting ICT before and after campaign, disaggregated by sex.

Photo Credit: Forbes

2) Level of Access to Market

Gender Issues: Do women and men have the same level of access to market and pricing information?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Business development service (BDS) training in ICT and other avenues for women to gain greater access to market and pricing information.

Indicators: Marketing practices adopted by enterprises as evidenced by a change in business plans, reorganization, product design, pricing, and strategic linkages with other firms or sub-sectors, disaggregated by size of enterprise and sex of owner.

3) Access to Training

Photo Credit: GCEP

Gender Issues: Do women and girls have equitable access to training at all levels, such as system design, networking, software development, content creation, web design, information management, maintenance, and system management?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Develop special ICT initiatives to train women, including those displaced from other sectors; include complementary interventions with training, such as job placement assistance, workforce development skills (hard and soft), and other ancillary services (banking for the poor, small “bridge” loan program, etc.).

Indicators: Number of displaced workers trained, disaggregated by sex; number of trained displaced workers hired for new ICT jobs, disaggregated by sex; levels of participant satisfaction with training, disaggregated by sex.

Photo Credit: Multimedia Learning

4) Affordability of Technologies

Gender Issues: Are technology choices affordable for women and men?; will technology be affordable? will prices be passed onto the consumer?; will rates be higher in rural areas where women predominate?; is there access in rural areas?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Address issues of access and affordability of ICT (e.g., fixed wireless rather than fiber optic cables, availability of mobile phones to promote connectivity in rural and poor areas, satellite or solar- and battery-powered connectivity, multiple-use computers) in project design and/or implementation; conduct gender analysis of telecommunications development fund activities to promote greater access and use of ICT for urban and rural women; conduct regulatory reform work to ensure continued affordability and accessibility of service.

Indicators: Number of users disaggregated by sex and geographical location.
Number of policy measures passed that deal with increasing affordable access to the rural poor.

5) Women’s Mobility

Tamil rural woman with a mobile phone facility

Gender Issues: How might women’s mobility affect their ability to access ICT?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Establish ICT access centers in rural areas and in locations in urban areas frequented by women, such as women’s bookstores, clothing stores, community centers, hair salons, or health clinics; consider establishing micro-telcos (telephone and Internet shops) as small businesses for women entrepreneurs located near health clinics, women’s stores, etc.; consider adding Internet service to existing telecenters; address women’s mobility constraints with mobile computer buses that travel to communities, or other mobile telecommunication projects, as a means of increasing women’s access to ICT.

Indicators: Number of centers established by geographical location; number and percentage of customers at telecenter, disaggregated by sex and telecenter location; change in user satisfaction of telecenters, disaggregated by sex.

The big question is how much of these do you have in your projects? Visit here for the detailed issues, design and implementation approaches and indicators.

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Workforce Development

FASTECH promoting Nigerian entrepreneurship education

The FCT Agency for Science and Technology (FASTECH) is currently partnering with an international NGO, Junior Achievement, to promote entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools in the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, Nigeria.

Woman holding plaque from Junior Achievement

Yelwa Baba-Ari, FASTECH Director, says their relationship with Nigerian NGO, Junior Achievement, should promote entrepreneurship. (image: file)

The partnership will include setting up clubs and organising entrepreneurship competitions in schools. Yelwa Baba-Ari, FASTECH Director, said yesterday building entrepreneurial skills is part of the agency’s mandate.

“If you expose them to entrepreneurship by the time they finish secondary school, they can assist their parents in paying the school fees,” she said.

“A lot of them are not exposed but this gives them confidence be it in communication or leadership skills and builds confidence in them to face the challenges of the society. We will partner to make sure that the schools become awake to its importance. We will collaborate with you to do competition for the students and to see that we establish clubs in more schools.”

Stressing on the importance of acquiring entrepreneurial skill, Baba-Ari said government in this country was a major employer of labour but now the economy encourages people to be on their own.

Segun Adekoye

March 2, 2012/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Pan-Caribbean CodeSprint : Development and Open Data

Competitive pressure could enable a culture of innovation that drives economic growth in the Caribbean, a region with debt profiles akin to Southern Europe’s. St. Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica and Barbados are among the 10 most indebted countries, as per Debt to GDP ratios. But tiny populations and relatively cash rich sectors such as tourism and mining, which are controlled by a few, puts all Caribbean countries, with the exception of two (Haiti and Guyana), into the middle and high income brackets.This broad economic tag renders these mostly fragile and heavily indebted economies ineligible for some kinds of multilateral and bilateral support, such as concessional financing and debt relief, given to other poor countries with similar socio-economic dynamics.However, the region is increasingly pinning its economic fortunes on the potent mixture of its cultural stock, tech capacity and youth. So committed to this process are some stakeholders that in 2010 Jamaica’s Ministry of Agriculture collaborated with the Kingston-based Mona School of Business (MSB)at the University of the West Indies (UWI) to make better use of agriculture data.MSB, already a stakeholder in the IDRC’s# Caribbean Open Institute, didn’t just go the route of traditional business intelligence analysis, it worked with the Ministry to mobilize an open data initiative that would maximize mileage from the data through the creation of value-added software apps and enabling the innovation process through public access to the data.

Four screen shots from a mobile application for farmers

Photo credit: AgroAssist

One outcome is the AgroAssistant, a mobile app built on the Android platform. This recently piloted app will aid Rural Agricultural Development Agency (RADA) Field Officers to remotely access farmer and farm information as well as identify crop production figures and prices islandwide. So significant is the potential for the app to be used to sort copious data into meaningful bits, that Matthew McNaughton(@mamcnaughton), one of the developers, says the depth of information collected about farmers, their output trends and profiles, could revolutionize the way local banks assess the credit risk of small farmers. This is arguable a watershed moment for many engaged in the business of microcredit for agriculture, as established assets-based methods of denoting credit worthiness impedes access to capital for expansion in a region where the average farmer is on the cusp of retirement (age 45) with few assets, if any, that they can afford to risk.

The wave of enthusiasm surrounding the initial agriculture open data initiative led to the formation of SlashRoots, a pan-Caribbean developer conference and community. Though launched just last February, SlashRoots(@slash_roots) is now a leader in the Caribbean’s ICT4D and Open Data for regional development space. SlashRoots’ iconic status isn’t by chance, according to the convenors, the name is a product of the merger of two powerful tech products with a cultural twist: Slash is taken from the once premier web hub for tech savvy folks, SlashDot; and Roots doubles in honour of the super user folder on a Linux machine and a contemporary Caribbean cultural expression of pride.

At inception, SlashRoots, in collaboration with MSB and support from IDRC, held a wildly successful conference that attracted nearly 450 persons and 45 developers from across the region—even John Wonderlich of the DC-based Sunlight Foundation, a tech gov watchdog, was in attendance.

The MSB agriculture initiative is only one of several IDRC-funded projects in the Caribbean Open Institute Initiative. Others include mFisheries in Trinidad and Tobago, which is being implemented by Caribbean ICT Research Programme at the Department of Engineering, UWI St Augustine, and the technology policy work of Fundacion Taiguey in the Domincan Republic. But the region’s open data for development thrust doesn’t end there, on January 26-27, the administrators of these three projects will host the Caribbean Open Data Conference dubbed “Developing Caribbean”.

The website describes the event as “the first regional Conference and Software Developer Competition of its kind, focused on Open Data and Social development. It uniquely combines a conference with the thrill [and competitive nature of] a code sprint, with the social objectives of government, NGOs and Civil Society”. The “Developing Caribbean” event is apart of a larger open data movement in Latin America, which also included the inaugural Developing Latin America event organized by Ciudadano Inteligente, an technology NGO in Chile, on December 3rd and 4th of last year.

The Conference and Codesprint will span three countries (Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago), with virtual sites for developers recently added in Barbados, Belize, Cuba and Guyana. Over the two days teams of developers will be building apps to solve prominent social problems in the areas of Agriculture & Fisheries, Regional Trade and Tourism. The ideas for the apps are being crowdsourced by the organizers from practitioners, NGO, government and other stakeholders to culminate with a potent combination of social expertise and technical wizardy over the two days of the conference.

Follow @DevCaribbean for details about the conference and the emerging Caribbean open data policy framework.

January 26, 2012/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Does Mobile Impact Economic Growth in Developing Countries?

Photo Credit: Webdesign Depot

A recent study reported by ITU/InfoDev reveals that investment in telecoms generates growth dividend because the spread of telecommunications reduces costs of interaction, expands market boundaries, and enormously expands information flows.

The study which was funded by Vodafone and the Leverhulme Trust was a collaborative research by some renown researchers from the University of Calgary and University of Toronto in Canada, and FTI Consulting in London. Using data from 92 countries (high income and low income) between 1980 and 2003, the researchers subjected the impact of telecoms roll-out on economic growth in poorer nations to a thorough empirical scrutiny by employing the Annual Production Function (APF) and the Endogenous Technical Change (ETC) approaches.

The results of the study show that in general the advent of mobile telephony has had a positive and significant impact on economic growth in both developed and developing economies. Key among these are:

A) Developed Economies

In the OECD economies, modern fixed-line networks took a long time to develop
Access to homes and firms at the time required physical lines to be built which was a slow and expensive process
These economies by and large had fully articulated fixed-line networks by 1996
The addition of mobile networks in these economies had significant value-added benefits by complementing the existing fixed lines.

B) Less Developed Economies

Developing countries may be said to experience a low telecoms trap i.e. the lack of networks and access in many villages increases costs, and reduces opportunities because information is difficult to gather
But at the same time, the impact of mobile telephony may be twice as large in these countries compared to developed countries
In these economies, mobile phones may be substituting for fixed lines
They are playing the same crucial role that fixed telephony played in the richer economies in the 1970s and 1980s
The growth dividend of increasing mobile phone penetration in developing countries is therefore substantial and far larger because mobile phones provide, by and large, the main communications networks
Mobile telephony therefore supplants the information-gathering role of fixed-line systems.

The study concluded that telecommunications is an important prerequisite for participation in the modern economic universe. The differences in the penetration and diffusion of mobile telephony appear to explain some of the differences in growth rates between developing countries. But given the speed with which mobile telecoms have spread in developing nations, it is unlikely that large gaps in penetration will persist forever.

Visit here to access the full report.

January 4, 2012/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How Indian IT companies are addressing the HIV/AIDS challenge

The information and technology (ICT) sector can play a significant role in addressing socio-economic challenges faced by people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA).

Dr. Joseph Okpaku, President and CEO of Telecom Africa Corporation, calls for a “bold, innovative and comprehensive programme to provide skills development and online employment for HIV/AIDS patients and their families.” The network capacity of ICTs, he argues, should be leveraged to support such initiatives.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic threatens to derail India’s economic boom and demographic change, says a 2009 World Bank Study. An effective response to this challenge requires the engagement of all sectors. The report reveals that the IT sector can play an important part in efforts for HIV/AIDS prevention, reduction of stigma and discrimination, but also for the care, support and treatment of PLHA.

IT companies are using their expertise, access to skills and resources, and vast networks to address this issue. E-learning, mobile gaming and call center are some of the innovative approaches used in this regard to raise awareness, educate, and provide counseling and information services for HIV prevention, care, and support efforts. As part of their corporate social responsibilities (CSR), these companies work with NGOs to improve the livelihoods of PLHA, carry out advocacy campaign on issues of stigma and discrimination of PLHA and educate the youth across India and around the world about HIV/AIDS.

Case study 1: ZMQ Software Systems

(ZMQ's Co-Founder) Elected Ashoka Fellow

ZMQ Software Systems develops socially relevant technology and uses ICT for social benefit. Staff allocates 5-8% of their time to develop IT-based learning programs on HIV/AIDS which reaches young people through mobile games. Some of its future programs include a Mobile Care Support and Treatment to support PLHA. Furthermore, the company presently invests 12 percent of its profits on social development and HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives.

Case study 2: AppLabs

AppLabs reaches out to its employees and to disadvantaged communities through awareness generation, educational campaigns, and by encouraging its employees to volunteer their time and skills to assist partner NGOs and PLHA. The aim, in particular, is to help improve the lives of individuals and families affected by the epidemic and to address issues of stigma and discrimination.

Why focus on the IT sector?

The Indian IT sector is critical to India’s booming economy. It contributes to six percent of overall GDP, employs approximately 2 million people, and indirectly created jobs for 8-9 million people.

Secondly, the issue of HIV/AIDS is of great concern for IT companies because the industry’s workforce is in the 21-45 age cohorts, with many in their twenties. Furthermore, 65 percent of the IT companies registered with the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) are based in states with high HIV concentrations.

Third, there is a great opportunity to encourage the private sector involvement in the fight against HIV/AIDS because IT companies are beginning to realize the extent to which they can contribute to changes in HIV/AIDS prevention and social well-being of their workforce and spheres of influence.

December 1, 2011/by actualize

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