Meanwhile, in Africa
Can you imagine your life before Midjourney? You know, Midjourney: the generative artificial intelligence software where using the prompt /imagine generates an image based on your description. You can unleash your imagination with prompts like 'completely confused person with no ability to make a decision' or 'armed, angry looking pigeon in full military dress'. This is all good, but…
As regular readers of my newsletter might notice, I have great fondness for technology which solves problems which actually helps people to live a better life.
This time, I wanted to check not only interesting technologies but also problems which I don't encounter in my daily life. To get a new perspective, I sometimes find it helpful to look at what’s happening far outside of my direct experience or physical location. This weekend, I was looking far beyond my home in the Pacific Northwest to halfway around the world. What can we learn from the challenges and innovative solutions coming out of many places in Africa?
Here’s the first example: I assume that you, my dear reader, have a home address. Maybe you also have an office address. I was surprised to learn that by one United Nations estimate there are 4 billion people without an address. That’s a big number - and a big challenge.
Now, try to count how many times a day you need to use your address. Did you use your credit card recently? Did you drive a car? Did you get Amazon delivery? Are you a registered voter? Do you have a bank account? The number of times you use your address is quite surprising and because you are used to it, you don't even know that it can be a problem that needs to be solved.
One of the companies trying to solve this problem is Lamah Technologies based in Libya. That country, until now, basically hasn’t had a postal system like we’re used to. Lamah built a mobile app, Makani, which combines Google Maps with GPS, where each building gets a unique identifier - in other words, an address. That address then can be shared and people can access government services, order from restaurants, get their paychecks sent out, place orders for deliveries from local shops, etc. You can imagine how something so simple will have a profound impact on their society.
For the second example, I chose a company in the data space. When one is trying to make a decision, it should be based on data. You might recall my article about the questionable future of hydrogen as a source of green energy or the one about the perils of the transformation from gasoline to electric cars. I’m always trying to base my opinions on the best available data.
That’s what made me sit up and take notice of Stears, based out of Nigeria. This company gathers data and provides analysis about trends in Nigeria and the rest of Africa. Their premise is - 'How can you solve a problem, if you don't know or understand the underlying data?' Once you learn that almost half of the population in Nigeria has no formal identity document, you realize how difficult it is to start any banking application, or get a government service, etc.
One final example: while many people get excited about Bitcoin and blockchain for storing value and conducting transactions, there are other options. In this case, I’m talking about M-PESA. This is a mobile phone-based money transfer service. Launched in 2007 it uses air minutes as a storage of value which can be exchanged for local currency. It is a mobile banking system without the bank. This system is now used by over 90% of people in Kenya.
These are just a few interesting examples of projects from Africa. Intriguing what you can learn on the Internet. The recurrent pattern here? Human ingenuity knows no boundaries and thanks to technology we can use it to solve problems to make our lives better. Just /imagine.