Africa is indeed rising but this has not always been the case.On the 13th of May 2000, an international current affairs magazine, The Economist, had on its cover page a portrait of the African continent, within it was the image of an armed guerrilla fighter; its caption read: “The Hopeless Continent”.

Within the pages of that edition, the prognosis on Africa encapsulated the prevailing beliefs held  by the majority of those living outside African borders, and by those that considered themselves ‘trapped’ within it. Africa – a starving, poor, disease ridden, fractured, war-torn, corrupt, dying mass of humanity … a former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, had described Africa as a “scar on the conscience of the world”.

Fast forward a decade; December 3rd 2011, The Economist magazine caused quite a stir when it came out with a cover titled ‘Africa Rising’ together with an illustration of a boy flying a rainbow-coloured kite the shape of the continent.

Within its pages the magazine paints a scenario of dynamism, resilient entrepreneurial activity, fledging…yet growing economies, nascent…yet stabilizing democracies, a population getting healthier and more educated, an expanding middle class signifying a potential to even out the distribution of wealth.

An Africa, that is “getting its act together”. 54 countries of different ethnicity, culture, language and different levels of development, home to 1.1bn people, the second fastest growing regional economy (second to Asia) and home to more than half of the world’s fastest growing economies.

But not without its challenges, Grand Challenges I must admit.

These include technical and infrastructure challenges in area like education, access to water, energy, healthcare, financial inclusion, public safety and transport and agriculture.

The combination of an Africa Rising and one that still has to overcome challenges represents a significant opportunity for mobile research in African.

In January 2014, Industry Solutions Program Director Mark Walker, IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey offered pieces of advice to any company that wants to play in the African IT, especially mobile ecosystem thus, “Strong GDP growth and high ICT spending levels makes Africa an attractive investment destination in 2014, but as users are becoming more sophisticated and demanding, suppliers need to be more focused and resilient in the year ahead.

Despite a number of constraints, African IT departments have been and will continue to be fairly innovative in their approach to newer technologies.

ICT infrastructure development across the continent will accelerate in 2014, as collaboration between private and public improves, demand for access grows, and competition intensifies.”

Why Africa and Mobile Research?

        i.            Mobile subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa, alone, are forecasted to exceed 635 million by the end of this year (2014) and predicted to rise to around 930 million by the end of 2019.

A survey conducted by Ericsson supported this submission thus: “Total mobile subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa stood at about 70% at the end of 2013, compared to about 92% globally, and digital technology is “fast becoming a part of everyday life” in the region.

      ii.            In the first quarter of 2014, Nigeria and South Africa were still the leading sub-Saharan countries in terms of mobile subscription numbers, followed by Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ghana.

The survey said. “In terms of net additions per country, Nigeria leads, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Ghana.”

The increase in the number of mobile subscribers has fuelled increases in mobile internet use in Africa and {we are considered to be at the cusp of a mobile internet revolution}.

Ericsson: “The region’s mobile data traffic is predicted to grow around 20 times between the end of 2013 and the end of 2019. Globally, mobile data traffic will grow 10-fold during the same period.

    iii.            Predictions are that mobile internet use in Africa will increase twenty fold in the next five years … {this is double the estimated growth rate in the rest of the world}.

    iv.            Lower Priced Devices (in particular smartphones and tablets less than $100), increase investment in network infrastructure, and increase availability of spectrum for mobile broadband, are among the factors that will drive this growth.

      v.            Mobile Subscription statistics: Ericsson reports: In 2013, 99% of subscriptions in Nigeria were prepaid, as were 98% in Kenya and 83% in South Africa, which the survey said are amongst the “top mobile markets in the region in terms of mobile subscriptions”.

Other countries in the region “follow largely the same trend”. (Source: ERICSSON MOBILITY REPORT APPENDIX http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2014/emr-june2014-regional-appendices-ssa.pdf)

    vi.            One report that highlights this potential predicts that the Internet can contribute up to 300 billion United States dollars to Africa’s GDP by 2025; and this is from an estimated 18 billion in 2013.

This translates directly to opportunities to generate income, to create wealth, to create jobs, new business opportunities, economic expansion, etcetera.

  vii.            The very opportunities African governments are looking for and need to transform their economies and the economic lives of their populations.

viii.            Bridging The Gap Of Limitations From Insufficient Network Coverage And Connectivity

The sing song among the region mobile operators is that the death of necessary infrastructure to operate optimally has formed the subterfuge for poor service delivery.

Some equipment vendors and managed service operators have revealed strategies to overcome the shortcomings giving hope to new entrants in the market.

Some of the strategies include:

–           Full passive and active maintenance sharing of cell sites / towers.

{All operators need towers and it is not cost effective to have towers built next door to one another and pass cost to consumers as it were, networks must go beyond passive sharing of towers and power at the towers to active sharing of both the physical and electronic components of the cell sites including radio, antenna etc. and bring down operating cost.

When three operators do this, their cost will come to a third each}.

–           With collocation strategy come improved operational availability of individual sites: the  length of time the site is able to provide voice and data services to customers, how the sites can be kept running for much longer and faulty components replaced or repaired much faster; all these can aggregate benefits for operators and its subscribers.

–           Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Chief Executive believes that when everyone is on the Internet all of our businesses and economies will be better and FB launched its Internet.org project last year to connect billions of people without Internet access in places such as Africa and Asia by working with phone operators.

Understanding What Optimal Mobile Research Design For Africa Should Include:

o          African mobile market has always had a huge purchasing potential and can build a strong affinity for value-driven products only if Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) vendors understand the peculiar needs of the African market space. Products must be tailored to meet Africa’s unique infrastructural challenges and consumer behaviours.

o          Power challenges must be factored in and the fairly nascent infrastructural development across the continent in the design of mobile products.

o          Many of the continent mobile network service providers have infrastructure that struggle to deliver quality voice connections across a wide range resulting to the advent of dual-SIM mobile products by discerning providers.

o          Telecommunications infrastructures for landline services are underdeveloped and overburdened and cannot meet Africa’s overwhelming need for voice connections hence the dual-SIM philosophy.

o          The product offering must incorporate affordability, aspiration and originality to deliver value to price conscious African consumers the low-end mobile.

o          Quite important, the new wave dimensions being introduced into the market requires special skills.

For instance, cloud computing: Vendors or OEMS should endeavour to transfer the requisite knowledge for optimal harnessing of the analytics and for growth.

o          Therefore, mobile research techniques require skills that must be transferred or shared for the benefit of the OEMs, the researchers and the end-users.

Africa has made giant strides in the past decades in telecommunications and seek Mobile giants partnership in the rise from the ashes.

Africa is now one of the world’s fastest growing economies averaging an annual growth rate of more than five percent with a growing middle class that craves premium smart phone experience.- the low and  middle end mobile devices very ideal.

Security Challenges In Protecting Mobile Research Assets – Men, Material, Machine In Africa:

Running the network on a day-to-day basis involves facing stakeholders such as communities, touts etc and managing their expectations can be challenging.

–           There are lots of people in the value chain that must be partnered with to help maintain the correct engagement with customers.

Local communities can be used to help make sure local customs are understood and respected, support communities where possible and generally be seen as a friendly face in those communities and a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

Engage with the communities so that they understand what the operators are trying to achieve and find a way to work with them for the mutual benefit of all parties.

On the 2nd of September 2014 African leaders during the 455th African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) mull special fund to fight terrorism.

Poor energy supply inducing economic crisis and literal death of night economy: Inadequate energy supply from central grid in the continent force industrialist/entrepreneur to provide their own energy at extra cost to live and to produce goods and services – leading  from low profit, to loss and even premature closure of businesses.

Various Countries of the continent in the spirit of Rising Africa are awake to the challenge – Recently, South African Energy Minister, Tina Joemat-Pettersson unfolded plans to address weaknesses in the process of commissioning renewable-power projects, seeking to cut the use of coal for electricity and building Africa’s two largest coal-fired power plants.

On the 3rd of September 2014, the Federal Government of Nigeria ratified a Thirty-Year National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (NIIMP) that would cost $3.05 trillion to execute.

The plan will among other things address the lack of linkages in the infrastructure sector including energy, transport, housing, water and ICT.

National Agency For Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in Safeguarding the Health of the Nigerian Nation launched Mobile Authentication Service (MAS) for checking quality of Drugs, Putting the power of detecting counterfeit medicine in the hands of the CONSUMERS … How to use ‘MAS’…. Scratch Card to reveal PIN Text PIN to any of the Numbers on the product, Wait for an SMS response before you pay/use the medicine.

Above all, it is a transformation time. However,

         Technical Knowledge Gap: Maintaining Well Trained, Motivated And Properly Equipped Staff

–           The African continent is blessed with abundant human and natural resources; however the dramatic advancement of technology over the past five years has resulted in a gap in IT competencies and skills availability in the continent.

At a recent gathering of experts in San Francisco, United States, for the 2014 Oracle World, a global ICT event, which brings the technology community together, African governments were again urged to create an enabling environment that would encourage growth of ICT skills.

–           Ability to maintain a staff strength that is well trained, motivated and properly equipped to do the key jobs in ICT and mobile research industry is a key challenge in Africa.

Today our stock of graduates is still highly skewed towards the humanities and social sciences, while the share of our students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) averages less than 25 per cent}.

African young generation must be equipped with the modern skills and knowledge they need to find African solutions to Africa’s challenges.

African Universities must produce home-grown excellence that bridge the gap between what is being taught in universities and the realities of the market place.

Africa’s new partners in this regard – such as Brazil, China, India and Korea can play important role in building human capital in Africa.

The continent needed to build a roadmap for skills development in ICT then much of the work will be done by people on the ground that are trained and motivated to work safely and effectively.

Organisations must have ready access to people capable of sitting up and maintaining systems and develop ability for adequate Talent management.

Slok mobile phone had been built to be sold in Nigeria and across Africa by Slok Group – a utility phone focusing the lowest end of the mobile phone market that represents larger proportion of the Africa population.

Being paper presented by Kanu iroegbu at inaugural mobile research marketing world conference (MRMW) 2014 held in South Africa recently. http://mrmw.net/speakers-capetown2014