There’s a great New York times article that discusses the growing tech culture in Kenya.

IN the republic of innovation, life is unfair. A relatively small number of places — all in wealthy countries or in China and India — create nearly every important technological advance….

Nairobi’s challenges are many. Internet use is relatively expensive and slow. Power failures are common. The city also lacks a world-class technical university. Mr. Mworia’s professors don’t offer lessons in the latest computer languages; he must learn them on his own.

Political instability can be a problem, too. Earlier this year, Kenya suffered widespread violence after its disputed national election. For weeks, work in Nairobi came to a halt….

Still, Nairobi is home to a digital brew that invites optimism about its chances for creating unusual innovations. The city has relatively few wired phone lines or networked personal computers, so mobile phones are the essential digital tool. Four times as many people have them as have bank accounts. Text messages are far more popular than e-mail. Safaricom, the dominant mobile provider, offers a service called M-pesa that lets customers send money with text messages. Nokia sells brand-new phones here for as little as $33.

The prospect of marrying low-end mobile phones with the Internet is earning Nairobi notice from outsiders, who wonder whether the city might emerge as a test-bed for tomorrow’s technologies. One intriguing possibility is broadcasting local television programs on mobile phones.

The obvious question, then, is whether or not Nairobi and the rest of Kenya will follow South Africa in becoming the continent’s best hope for innovation and advancement in technology?

Via Erik an Emeka

About the Author: Jonathan Gosier (Founder) is an American-born software developer, writer and social entrepreneur. He currently lives in Kampala, Uganda where he is working on two fronts: to encourage western businesses and investors to engage African entrepreneurs and to encourage the adoption of computers, programming and use of the internet in the developing regions of Africa. He is a huge advocate for promoting the ways in which a semantic web will benefit emerging economies in the world.

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