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most of the technologies that currently permeate Africa aren't terrestrial. There are very few telephone lines, but mobile penetration is higher than any other region in the world.

Instead, internet connectivity is distributed nearly entirely by satellite.

The developers who are coming up with solutions in the continent, the ones who are writing software or hacking hardware, are creating for some of the harshest environments and use-cases in the world. If it works in Africa, it will work anywhere."

Perhaps this thought is what motivated Google to invest in O3B Networks earlier this month. O3B Networks is an ambitious attempt to bring three billion people in the developing world (mainly in parts of Asia and Africa) online by launching sixteen inexpensive, low-orbit satellites. The potential benefits for Google are obvious. This is three billion new internet users, who will more than likely use Google to search, and who will potentially click-through Adsense links and use other Google products. An indicator that Google may be anticipating as much is their move into Africa last year. They've since opened offices and hired people in both South Africa and Kenya with plans to eventually operate out of all sub-Saharan African countries.

At the end of 2007 there were over 280 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa, representing a penetration rate of 30.4% Africa has become the fastest growing mobile market in the world with mobile penetration in the region ranging from 30% to 100% from country to country. Fastest growing markets are in Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt

The Democratic Republic of Congo, population 60 million, has 10,000 fixed telephones but more than a million mobile phone subscribers. In Chad, the fifth-least developed country, mobile phone usage jumped from 10,000 to 200,000 in three years.

Micro-payments and Mobile Banking

Mobile News Reporting

When Moroccan blogger Mohamed Erraj was jailed for disparaging the government in his online magazine, Hespress, it was through the efforts of other bloggers (like the writers at GlobalVoicesOnline) and people using applications like Twitter that his story made international news. The added pressure of having the whole world paying attention is perhaps what convinced the Moroccan government to let him free where traditionally his actions could have resulted in much harsher punishment.

The most exciting aspect for me, however, is the decreased reliance on developmental aid and foreign groups to provide these solutions. The number of African developers who are beginning to create applications that offer solutions for their own communities is increasing and that, more than anything else, will shape the future of Africa.

Technology unconferences and Barcamps have sprung up all over the continent, everywhere from Kenya to Nairobi to Madagascar to Uganda and Senegal.

The three biggest success stories of independent social media projects taking off in Africa are Afrigator (a South African aggregator of African blogs and news), Zoopy (a YouTube/Flickr like service also out of South Africa) and Ushahidi (an SMS crisis reporting and mapping engine from Kenya). All three have drawn international attention which resulted in a major investment for Zoopy and Afrigator's acquisition (ReadWriteWeb's coverage). Meanwhile Ushahidi has successfully raised several rounds of funding after winning the Net2 Mashup Compeition prize of $25,000.

Afrigator defines itself as "a social media aggregator and directory built especially for African digital citizens who publish and consume content on the web."

Zoopy is a South African social media tool created by Jason Elk that allows users to upload videos, podcasts, and pictures and share them on the web.

Ushahidi relies heavily upon GoogleMaps, which it uses for mapping reports of incidents. It's built on the Zend framework for PHP and uses a number of different protocols for SMS, GPRS and mapping data.

The applications to follow are definitely the ones that leverage the mobile telephony infrastructure. An overwhelming portion of African users have no convenient access beyond cellular terminals - and that has spawned very innovative solutions based on existing and widely accessible technologies such as SMS. Examples abound such as Mpesa, Celpay, Etranzact and everyone else who is thriving in that formerly almost entirely cash-bound insecure environment. Underdeveloped banking and underdeveloped fixed telecommunications infrastructures are huge opportunities.