Sanaga Peregrinations

GOOGLE has i nterviewed over 13,000 people in urban centers of 6 key African countries - Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda - to understand their habits, the usage they make of the internet and the barriers to a bigger penetration in the continent. The results are publicly available on InsightsAfrica ( www.insightsafrica.com) for free and give us a pretty good insights regarding what's driving (or slowing) the advance of internet in our continent. Their credo is simple : " Explore the media habits of consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa ". On the site, one may find information regarding online penetration rates, usage patterns amongst the online population etc... A real wealth of information to understand where Africa does stand on the digital divide equation. For example, I've learned that when it comes to emailing or using social networks and searching, people in Ghana, Kenya or Nigeria use more their mobile than their computer. The...

The tale of two Britons from African descent : Mo Farrah and Kweku Adoboli ( Sahara Reporters ) The 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa  and the 10 Youngest Power Men in Africa : we'd wish to have more people from francophone Africa and less US educated fellows. Kudos to Ory Okolloh (Kenyan Pundit) and Acha Leke (McKinsey Partner) for making the list and working hard on improving the continent. As for Kabila and Rajoelina, these two are highly debatable picks from Forbes. The Bourgi 's scandal shook France's political class. ( Canal Plus )

source : Wall Street Journal According to the African Development Bank Group , the middle class now accounts for  nearly 34% of the total population, which represents 313 millions people. It's a great uptick (more than 60%) since the beginning of the last decade, but major improvements remain to be done to enlarge further this group and include more the too many people that remain standing at the bottom of the pyramid . Expanding from the data of the African Development Group, the Wall Street Journal contends that       A New Class of Consumers Grows in Africa . " Sustained economic growth in Africa has produced for the first time a broad middle class, one that cuts across the continent and is on par with the size of the middle classes in the billion-person emerging markets of China and India. The rise of a middle class in the world's poorest continent is a dramatic marker for the global economy. At a time when the U.S., Europe and Japan are struggling to grow...

Via Fast Company " Erik Hersman, director of operations at the non-profit Ushahidi, today announced the launch of a network of startup incubators and tech communities throughout Africa. Dubbing the new venture Afrilabs, the network is meant to connect a thriving scene of tech entrepreneurs involved in such outfits as iHub in Kenya, Hive Colab in Uganda, ActivSpaces in Cameroon , Nailab in Kenya , and Banta Labs in Senegal . In addition to integrating incubators throughout the continent, Hersman and his colleagues are also in the process of starting an investment fund for seed capital investments "that are accessible to startups that come through the different labs," Hersman tells Fast Company ." A great initiative that shouldn't go unnoticed. This is the first collaboration of tech incubators on the continent, as far as I recall. It would help connect the actors (investors and innovators included) of the African technology community. more on this here .