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INSIDE AFRICA

Georgia Inst. Of Technology Students Help Out in Liberia; Wireless Banking for Lower-Income Workers Debuts in South Africa

Aired April 7, 2007 - 12:30:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FEMI OKE, HOST: Hello, I'm Femi Oke, and this is INSIDE AFRICA, your weekly look at life and news on the continent, coming to you this week from the Innovation Hub in Pretoria. It's actually South Africa's first science park. So here, there is a collection of businesses involved in information computer technology, biosciences technology, research and development. In fact, I'm feeling smarter just walking around here.
Our show this week is all about staying in touch. So we will be highlighting some of those cutting-edge projects that help keeping Africans connected.

We start in Liberia, with an unusual partnership between the Liberian government and some American students, who are very keen to help the country recover after its civil war. So our story begins in Atlanta, Georgia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELLEN JOHNSON-SIRLEAF, LIBERIAN PRESIDENT: So I'm delighted to acknowledge an emerging set of ICT collaboration between techs and Liberia.

OKE: President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia visiting the Georgia Institute of Technology last year. The president calls visits like this hustling for her country, as she appeals for help to bring Liberia up to speed. Kipp, Edem, Ellen and Jarrah (ph) are answering that appeal. All grad students at Georgia Tech, their enterprising professor sent them to Liberia to work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is how Liberia has been devastated by the war. Most of the buildings are (inaudible).

OKE: Shooting video might not be the team's strong point, but as they set to work studying Monrovia's telecommunications, they got a very clear picture of how Liberians cope with the challenge of everyday life.

KIPP JONES, GEORGIA TECH STUDENT: What got me was because a lot of people don't have power, they have mobile phone, but they have no way to charge it. So one example is, there is a hair salon that advertised, "get you a haircut and charge your phone."

EDEM WORNYO, GEORGIA TECH STUDENT: I went out to do some survey in the night, and I saw these kids who were studying. Because they had no light at home to study, they came on the street side, and they were studying under the street lights.

OKE: Kipp and Edem were collecting information about the state of mobiles, computers and Internet connections in Liberia. So when President Johnson-Sirleaf is looking for investors, she has something on paper to show them.

JOHNSON-SIRLEAF: I therefore wish to start a dialogue with you on how the knowledge products, services, and promise of information in communication technologies can advance and accelerate our national reconstruction process.

OKE: After three weeks in Monrovia, the grads got a sense of what it was like to live in a country recovering from conflict. Not much electricity, no hot water, sometimes no water, and no air conditioning.

WORNYO: I got involved just because I wanted to help Liberia develop.

OKE: Georgia Tech students are still working in Liberia. Their professor, Dr. Michael Best, tells me it would cost the government thousands if the work was done by a private consultant. But Liberia gets the expertise for free.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: I say thank you to 2Cee (ph) for helping us out with the music for that report.

Let me tell you this: This happens in South Africa the whole time. People are always on the phone.

(CROSSTALK)

OKE: When it comes to keeping in touch, you can't really beat a mobile phone, and in Africa, cell phones have really taken off. Listen to this.

In 1998, there were just 2 million mobile users on the entire continent. Since then, the numbers have rocketed from 64 million people in 2004 to around 152 million people today. That's in an estimated population of close to 800 million. That still leaves plenty of non-users, but industry experts say cell phone usage is still growing faster in Africa than in any other region in the world.

Not only is growth remarkable, but so are the ways people are using their mobile phones, from running businesses to checking on the news and stock prices. Cell phones have it covered. And in counties where many may not have access to banking, they're changing the industry.

Alphonso Van Marsh has more on Wizzit, South Africa's virtual bank, and how they're tapping into a market of millions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALPHONSO VAN MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Cosmo City is a community under construction, but the Johannesburg suburb already has residents, mostly construction workers who have little in the form of stores, banks or other neighborhood staples.

That's why lunch time here is business time for Envor Macer. He's selling South Africa's first cell phone banking service.

ENVOR MACER, WIZZIT BANK SALESMAN: These people here, they work in these construction company, but where do they save their money?

VAN MARSH: Macer says, save it in his virtual bank. First, deposit money, then use text messages or SMS to buy groceries, pay bills or send money home.

Day laborer Zeitz Moyo (ph) is signing on to use his cell phone as a bank in his pocket. Moyo's boss can now transfer his salary into his new account, and that means no more long bank lines on payday.

Communities like these are part of what's called "the unbanked." People who either don't have a bank account, or only go into one when they need to cash a paycheck. There are an estimated 12 to 16 million unbanked people in this country, and Wizzit bank wants them to move their estimated $1 billion in savings from under their proverbial mattress and into a virtual bank.

Sophie Matlhare likes to send her granddaughter a little spending money when she can. She doesn't like spending time and cash on a ride to and a wait at the bank. Then have to pay transfer funds charges. She's trying Wizzit because she also doesn't like carrying cash.

"There are so many criminals here, and sometimes they can steal the money. It's not safe," she tells me.

At headquarters, future Wizzkids, or salespeople, learn how to make their commissions. They'll compete with South Africa's big banks, which now offer their own virtual bank services. All make money on low transaction charges, but Wizzit doesn't charge the monthly fee, and its target is different.

BRIAN RICHARDSON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, WIZZIT: The big banks have focused on the upper and middle income groups, and traditionally, they really haven't found it within their revenue model to bring affordable banking to the mass market.

VAN MARSH: The service has some obstacles to overcome. People used to cash are worried about relying on technology. Cell phone service is not reliable everywhere in South Africa, and deposited checks can still take days to clear. But services like Wizzit can help a vast and underserved market perform transactions that used to cost time and money with just a few pressed buttons.

Alphonso Van Marsh, CNN, Cosmo City, South Africa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: Wizzit is now making a big effort to help farmers bank in rural areas, and it's a job that requires some unusual sales methods. This is Bayas Katzia (ph) you see in the photograph. He heads up the farming division, and he flies in and out of rural areas, opening accounts with the help of his little (inaudible) plane.

Well, there are many more exciting projects still to come on INSIDE AFRICA. Giant progress on small computers. An ambitious laptop project is taking off in Africa. And instead of throwing away your computer's old hard drive, how about putting it to good use. We'll tell you how recycled computers are changing the lives of some Africans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ethiopia's Ministry of Trade and Industry says the country is fast becoming the most attractive country to international flower companies. As flower exports drop in Uganda and high taxes threaten Africa's number-one flower producer Kenya, Ethiopia is edging its way to the top of the market. Close to 1,000 hectares of Ethiopia's land has been covered with flower production, and there are plans to cover 3,000 more in the next four years. If Ethiopia hits its target, it could bring in more revenue from floriculture than it does from agriculture.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has approved the construction of a new airport to help revitalize tourism and business in Nigeria. The airport, which will be built in the Cross River State area, aims to help accommodate visitors to Nigeria's new $350 million U.S. dollar Tinapa business and leisure resort.

Kenya, Burundi and Madagascar have received $164.5 million U.S. dollar grant from the World Bank to provide Internet network. Right now, the countries are relying on costly satellite for an Internet connection. World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz says low-cost, high quality communications are essential to economic competitiveness in Africa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: Good to see you again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA, from the Innovation Hub, South Africa's science park. Every day, computers are made obsolete by faster, better computers, and they're completely thrown away.

Experts estimate that in the last 10 years, as many as 300 million computers have ended up in landfills, but they could be put to good use. Christian Purefoy reports on how old computers can bring progress.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From a trash pile in the West to a repair center in Nigeria. An old computer is given new life, and in the process it might even change one as well.

Ajahri Ibrahim is living proof. With seven children and no secondary education, she had little chance of supporting her family. But with the help of computer training and an old refurbished computer, Ibrahim now has a job in microfinance, and the means to earn a living.

AJAHRI IBRAHIM, MICRO-FINANCIER: This job helped me a lot. Before, I was thinking how to train my children in the school, their education, but with this work I'm doing everything, training them now.

PUREFOY: Her saving grace was the Fantsuam Foundation in northern Nigeria, which says that it has so far given some 9,000 women computer training, access to refurbished computers, and as a result, often access to jobs.

KAZANKA COMFORT, FANTSUAM FOUNDATION: They have a say in their family. The community now recognizes them because of their financial status, which is something impressive.

PUREFOY: They're not the first to realize the power of old technology. Across Africa, refurbished computers are helping alleviate poverty through education. They're helping farmers project the weather, open businesses to new markets, and in some cases build businesses on old computers.

And now, the Fantsuam Foundation has come up with an even better solution: The solar computer, encased in wood and running off solar power or car batteries.

COMFORT: The present computers we use were not designed for Africa. The heat and the dust affect them.

PUREFOY: The foundations hopes the solar can help them spread their support for women like Ibrahim even further.

IBRAHIM: So I'm computer literate now, and I'm fine now.

PUREFOY: It's also perfect example of the saying, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Christian Purefoy, CNN, Lagos, Nigeria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: The vision was ambitious and the task daunting: To give children in developing countries a laptop of their own. Now, after two years of planning, the first laptops are on their way to youngsters in Nigeria and Rwanda.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: In January, 2005, the co-founder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unveiled an ambitious program at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Nicholas Negroponte announced the One Laptop per Child Initiative. The project aims to give children in Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia a laptop of their own.

NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE, FOUNDER, ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD: One Laptop per Child program are to do nothing less than provide each child with a connected Internet laptop experience that they can use for entertainment, for education, for play, for study.

OKE: The first 1,000 laptops were built in November 2006 by Quanta Computer. And now this month, the project is distributing the first 2,500 laptops. Some of these first computers are going to Nigeria and Rwanda. An advisor to the project believes these laptops will give children there an opportunity to lessen the digital divide.

SEYMOUR PAPERT, ADVISOR TO ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD: If you think of a village in Africa compared with Boston as a knowledge environment for kids, here we have libraries, book stores, museums, movie theaters. All sorts of channels of access to knowledge. In this village in Africa, none of those.

OKE: The computer is dubbed "the X-O," and it does not rely on conventional power sources. The laptops use very low power, allowing children to generate the power themselves, either with a hand crank or a cool (ph) cord.

The X-Os also have built-in Wi-Fi antennas, allowing them to connect wirelessly to other X-O laptops within radius of half a mile or 800 meters. But when machine is within range of the server or satellite connection, probably at the local school, then all the laptops will be online as well.

KHALED HASSOUNAH, DIRECTOR, ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD: The laptops, when you turn them on, they immediately connect to each other, and form a mass network. And that mass network allows all of the kids to connect to each other and to communicate with each other.

OKE: Countries must commit to buy one million laptops at around $100 each. Critics believe this project could turn into a financial burden for some of them, where food and medicine are more important than computers. But the founder for One Laptop per Child says education is the key.

NEGROPONTE: The only way to get rid of poverty is education. It's awfully simple. Unfortunately, it takes a long time. And the best way, in my opinion, to have good education is to create the passion for one.

OKE: And the Rwandan president agrees. President Paul Kagame issued a statement saying "Rwanda wants to transform into a knowledge-based economy, hence the need to provide schools throughout the country with computers." Mass production of the X-O for use in other developing countries will start in July.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: I do love that story.

Now, before we continue on INSIDE AFRICA, I have to show you a very cool piece of technology involving my thumb, and this entry right here.

So, place your finger for identification, please. Remove finger, analyzing -- welcome, Femi Oke identified. Isn't that excellent? If you think that's good, you should see what's coming up after the break. We'll be taking a look at one of the world's most modern wireless networks, and it's been built in Rwanda. We'll see you in two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OKE: Hello again, you're watching INSIDE AFRICA.

Now, Rwanda is one of the poorest countries in Africa. But it could become a model for a connected continent. U.S. company Terracom is going into phase two of its wireless network, which connects up schools and homes and hospitals. Isha Sesay spoke to Jim Daley, editor-in-chief of "Edutopia" magazine, who's been following the development closely.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM DALEY, EDITOR IN CHIEF, EDUTOPIA: This essentially is an attempt by an American entrepreneur to create the -- the fastest and most widespread wireless network throughout the -- throughout the entire continent of Africa, but focused on and based in Rwanda.

The goal is to connect, for instance, about 100,000 Rwandan schoolchildren in about 400 schools throughout the country. They've got about 40,000 or 50,000 of those right now. They have about 350 miles of high-speed Internet cable laid, and that's about half to maybe a third of where they want to go.

This is going to be a project that's going to go on throughout this decade into the next decade, and -- but the beginning is -- has gone off very, very well.

ISHA SESAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What about the computers and how do people in Rwanda gain access to them? Do they have them to begin with?

DALEY: No. Recently, they announced to deal with a Korean, a South Korean, a technology company to distribute very, very inexpensive cell phones, which will -- which will have Internet technology on them. They will go for about $30. But essentially he's using what's called a thin client model, which is instead of using a personal computer and all the gear that comes with it, it's essentially a screen which is attached to a central server.

SESAY: There are those who say, this is a second tier priority.

DALEY: The Rwandan officials say they can't afford to take a development or the redevelopment of their country in a very linear manner right now. They have to do a lot of parallel processing. They have to develop the health system, they have to develop the social infrastructure, the security infrastructure. And they have to develop the tech infrastructure simultaneously.

Once you begin to have that -- that tech infrastructure, which is fairly sophisticated, you begin to have outside investment dollars, you begin to have an opportunity for the people of the country to form businesses and to create inter-relationships with other economic powerhouses throughout the country. So it's a way of bringing Rwanda very, very rapidly, almost from about the 17th century to the 21st century.

SESAY: How do ordinary Rwandans see it? How -- how are they welcoming it and receiving this project?

DALEY: As far as I've seen, very, very well. I mean, they're quite happy to -- to pull themselves up and to build back their country, a country which they feel was taken away from them. It's a mineral-rich country, it's got oil, it's got a lot of things in there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: When South Africa launches its second satellite into space later this year, it will literally bring the voices of South African youngsters with it. Isha Sesay reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm the voice of the South African youth. We are knocking on the door of opportunity, marking our place in the orbit of space research and communication. Hear us! Listen to us!

SESAY: The first South African voice heard in space isn't that of a top scientist or rocketeer. It's the voice of a student. As researchers prepare to launch South Africa's second satellite, they embrace on ways to get young South Africans interested and involved. They came up with ideas for two contests: One to record a message to be played in space, the other to name the satellite.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When most of us were growing up in this country, there was never an opportunity to find out about all these options that are there for (inaudible). All of us assumed, if you're doing science, you're going to be a medical doctor, or you're going to work in a laboratory, but now we've at least introduced a career option to them.

SESAY: Anton Kutzi (ph) wrote the phrase that won him the chance to be the voice of South Africa's youth in space. A prize of a fully loaded laptop computer encouraged more than 3,000 students to enter the naming competition. The winning name -- Sumbandilla Venda (ph), for "Lead the Way."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The name (inaudible) that should represent the Africanness of the satellite, but also represent something that means progress or getting forward.

SESAY: Built by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and by University of Spellenbach (ph), Sumbandilla's main purpose is to take high-resolution pictures that could help prevent and manage natural disasters in South Africa. The satellite would be launched from a submarine in Russia this summer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: And that's our show for today. But I hope you'll join us again next weekend and let INSIDE AFRICA be your window to the continent. I'm Femi Oke. Until the next time, take care.

END

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