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It's foolish to compare African markets holistically to say Europe or Asia, but in some characteristics - such as the optimal number of operators in a territory to guarantee sufficient competition and economies of scale, it's clear that Africa has far too many operators in many of its countries. Uganda for example has seven operators - from a total market revenue perspective, it's over capacity. Because ARPUs are so low, one of the key things that companies need to do - both within a territory and on a pan-Africa basis - is consolidate some of the back office functionality. For example, inter-continental minutes clearing; it's expensive for a small operator in a country like Uganda, but if you can consolidate that into a group like Zain or MTN, then it makes a lot of sense. It's still early days, and in most of the major markets it can be advantageous to be small, agile and commercial, and to let the consolidation happen at a later date. It can be difficult for large telecoms groups to come into markets like that and effect change that is positive and doesn't impede the process of customer acquisition. DT: So the investment that a larger player would bring to the market is not necessarily the right move for now? MG: Potentially, some of the economies of scale of a larger group - i.e. an operator working at 35% - 40% market shares - or the capabilities that it can bring will be advantageous. However, there are relatively few markets where that's true; South Africa and to a lesser extent Ghana and Kenya all have the foundations of competition established, but in the majority of areas that isn't the case.

Africans are active participants in the social media industry, here are a few examples: Motribe - This South African company enables you to create your own mobile social network with speed and ease and offers you great social tools to power your mobile social network MXit - A South Africa-based mobile social network. Over 27 million registered users, adding over 40,000 every day. Check out this cool infographic about MXit Adloopz - An innovative Nigerian startup that puts a social twist to advertising on the internet Personera - Personera lets you create custom artifacts from your content on social networking sites like Facebook Nikohapa - A Kenyan startup that offers Foursquare-like checkins made simple and that reward you with discounts for checking in to partner stores Ushahidi - Crowdsources information using multiple channels including social networking platforms like Twitter  Swift River - An Ushahidi project that adds super data processing to data coming from sources of unstructured information such as a twitter feed Zoopy - Another South African company that focuses on mobile video ForgetMeNot Africa: bridges the huge gap between the internet and mobile messaging worlds allowing any mobile phone to send and receive email and chat message on any carriers network. Quirk eMarketing - A digital marketing agency that also helps companies make use of social media for great results. Quirk has also spawned other cool companies in social media such as BrandsEye that creates great tools for online reputation management and crowdsourcing company IdeaBounty. And as far as group buying is concerned, Groupon has inspired many an African groupon clone. There are numerous African companies playing in this area - Rupu and Zetu in Kenya, DealDey in Nigeria, and a whole lot of others in South Africa

Erik Hersman has pioneered the use of technology to monitor crises, elections and services in Africa, and says it is transforming the continent faster than anyone predicted

Craft Silicon provides bespoke, cutting-edge software in core banking, microfinance, mobile, switch solutions and electronic payments for customers on four continents. The company services over 200 clients in 40 countries spread across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Clientele includes some of Africa's most successful financial institutions, and the company has offices in Kenya, India, Nigeria and the United States. Craft Silicon has an office in Silicon Valley - in Palo Alto, California - one of the very few Kenyan companies to achieve such a feat.

Silicon Valley is a  great place to be, but I'm increasingly becoming interested in what impact technology is making in emerging markets like countries in Africa. In these markets there are bigger problems to solve than building yet another photo sharing app (think Color). I sat down with  Mbwana Alliy who works with i/o Ventures to help startups think about emerging markets. He describes himself as the bridge between Silicon Valley and the Tanzania/Kenya technology scene.

Mambe Nanje is the founder of Njorku.com- a fast growing job search engine and aggregator that helps thousands of African job-seekers find employment opportunities in locations nearest to them. It's something like Google, but exclusively for African job seekers. The service went live on in late March, and within four months, Njorku is already attracting more than 5,000 unique users per week, a brilliant performance by Cameroonian standards.

The iHub is Nairobi's nerve center for technology; a place where we can grab coffee, create apps, find funders and build businesses. It's where the community of web and mobile programmers connect with each other, businesses, the government and academia.

Kenya is on the brink of becoming Africa's ICT hub due to the continued growth in Internet and mobile technology use in East Africa's biggest economy with investors flooding the country.

At the end of the week, there was a business competition.The four winning companies were: Bey2ollak - An iPhone app that provides live user-generated reports of traffic conditions on the streets of Cairo. It already has more than 50,000 subscribers and a partnership with Vodafone -- one of the largest mobile phone operators in Egypt. Inkezny (translation: rescue me) - An iPhone app enabling travelers to make emergency calls in any location in the world without having to know the local emergency phone number, as well as seeing GPS directions to and phone numbers for the nearest hospitals  Crowdit - A digital collaborative storytelling platform using real-time pictures, video, and social media reports to reinvent the way stories are told and shared online SuperMama.me - The iVillage of the Middle East, creating a community of mothers designed to connect and empower the women of the Middle East/North Africa region