Software Development in Africa
summary
Africa spans about 29 million km², more than half live on roughly $2/day and over 70% have no smartphone, so solutions target feature phones not flashy frameworks. Mobile projects like mHealth (MoTeCH) send weekly SMS to pregnant women and change behaviors, and mPedigree lets users SMS codes to verify fake malaria drugs. Rural constraints—9% electricity in parts of DRC, intermittent networks—drive designs with offline form caching/queueing and USSD; several pilots succeed in uptake but scaling and measurement remain work in progress.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Introduction and background
- 3:10Software development fundamentals
- 8:06Users and needs in Africa
- 13:10Mobile health and education services
- 18:53Mobile finance and digital inclusion
- 23:17Language diversity and digital organization
- 26:48Designing for Africa’s infrastructure
- 31:24Collaboration and community in Africa
- 35:32Education, innovation, and society
- 39:31Delivering value to users
- 41:25Q&A and closing remarks
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