 So yes, my name is Geraldine. I'm based in Berlin, Germany in a company called New Thinking Communications And I have a background working in media and technological development in Africa And I'd like to share a little bit of information and experience on that with you today In general when speaking about these topics innovation media technology Africa is often left out of the discussion However today, we're going to change that and turn our focus onto the region particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, so countries below the Saharan Africa and ask the question what we can learn from current developments taking place there Now the topic of our track in general who's next who's next in terms of future media consumers and developers and if you'd ask this young Man on this picture behind me in Ghana Accra. He would say it's most definitely him So today One billion people live in Africa and we sometimes tend to look at the continent and speak about it as if it was just one One lump one general entity and of course, that's not true South Sudan is the latest of 54 countries in total to gain independence and international recognition and the continent is as diverse in culture language resources and stages of economic development as one could imagine of Course many countries in Africa are still suffering from stark differences in terms of access to education health and finance services and Stark differences in terms of income and living situation and also access to technology and the so-called digital divide Now 15 years ago. I don't think many people would have guessed that of all technologies It would be the simple mobile phone which would have such an unprecedented impact on the continent's development The growth in mobile telephony in Africa has surpassed the most optimistic predictions in 2002 there were merely 49 million phones across the continent and Now there are over 500 million This spread has made a huge impact as mobile phones cover areas other under what otherwise completely non-covered and It's important also I think to say that there are only an estimated 7 million smartphone users a very very small minute minority of people using mobile phones have smartphones and Unlike Europe brand leaders there and Nokia and Blackberry Smartphone manufacturers are slowly starting to tap into this market and Google launched very recently the ideas Android smartphone in Kenya priced at under a hundred dollars, so it will be interesting to see how that market is going to change in the near future It is however the low-cost 2g internet capable phones that make up about half of all the handsets across the continent Now Nokia is by far king of the handsets and has about a 70 to 80 percent market share Followed by Samsung, Sony, Elixin and LG It's very important to see that it is these simple phones that are allowing the masses of African people to access the internet straight from their phones Opera is the farthest used Phone browser and their very recent statistics say that now over a hundred and fifteen million people Access the internet via their phone only using opera mini browsers This number has increased by over a hundred percent since June 2010 so just within one year and Just to give you one country example Speaker Barry will join me on stage in a few moments comes from South Africa South Africa is one of the countries of the world where already a few years back more people were accessing the internet through their phone than over computers and Today statistics say that 39% of all urban based South Africans and 27% of all rural based South Africans are browsing the internet with their mobile phones And these are really important developments on a whole as Africa still has much catching up to do when it comes to internet connection as you can see Really just over 10% of the whole population is connected to the internet via computers And this is leaving Africa far behind the world averages I think the world global average is about 30% of people connected to the net and the developing country average 21% so you can see Africa is far behind even that Now until a few years ago It's not surprising that this was the case because until a few years ago Africa was completely Unconnected in many areas, especially Eastern Africa to international submarine cables Large parts of the continent only really recently gained access to international backbone infrastructure with a connection of new submarine cables And this has made huge changes I have a friend for instance living in Uganda and a few years ago when we were comparing what I pay and what he pays For his internet connection. I don't know I mean you're sure you can all compare this with what you pay for your home broadband connections as well Maybe 20 maybe 30 euro a month. He was paying $600 for a satellite based connection to have any decent and Not even really stable internet connection going so you can see how new infrastructural connections and these being Then connected to the countries along the coastlines Bringing wholesale prices down is is going to really impact on the continent And and we're just starting to see the beginnings of that now So what I think though is my strongest point I'd like to make is that Africa is not just a new market. This is not about European and US based telecom Operators finally realizing that there's a lot of money to be made out there and investing in these new markets What's exciting about it for me is that Africa is creating Islands of innovation and really local solutions for local problems new applications and new business models So in many countries across the continent, especially of course in capital cities such as Nairobi and a craft for instance We're really starting to see such hubs of innovation appear. Unfortunately one of the speakers Couldn't join us today. Jessica. She's actually manager of one of the physical spaces Called an innovation hub in Nairobi Basically one of these spaces this could exist in I'm sure in Malmö and Berlin just the same as a space for Breeding innovation and incubator but also for co-working bringing together Entrepreneurs techie people creative people and giving them the opportunity to come up with their own ideas and business models And if you'd like to know more about all these topics, please approach me later I'd like to share a few links with you also if you're interested because there are really cool websites out there where you can see this for yourself For instance the site afregadget which shows what people do with very few resources, but fantastic creativity to create really Really everyday helpers lifesavers with the technology that's out there and being used already I'd like to give you just a few brief examples I said that mobile phones have made a huge impact on the continent and I would just like to explain how By going across some of the different sectors And you see some of the logos of the better known projects or brands up there for me Ushahidi was mentioned this morning in the keynote and it's probably the well most well known of the developments Innovations that have come out of Africa and really have spread across the world But impacts are really to be seen in all kinds of different sectors Let's first have a look perhaps at the political side of things one really interesting development That I've been following for a few years is the use of mobile phones for election monitoring. This was first The first case of this that I found was in Nigeria in 2007 where a local NGO used frontline SMS technology and Please ask questions later or come up to me if you'd like more details about these systems that I'm speaking about They used a very simple technology Basically to enable citizens to become reporters from their local polling stations and to really crowdsource the whole process of election monitoring It was a huge success in 2007 already with over ten thousand SMS being sent back and Being aggregated and being Reviewed to see what irregularities they were happening across the country and where things were going well and where things weren't going well and later this was matched with observations of international election monitors and Found that this was really really helpful instrument and and they came to many of the same results So you can see this is something really simple to be done But to actually motivate participate participation from the people and to promote transparency in a country where it's desperately needed like Nigeria Mobile phones are also being used in social services for instance education and health and have become really practical valuable tools there You must see that there are huge Like I said divides between the axis of service that people might have in an urban area or in a rural area and often healthcare and rural areas is on the shoulders of health workers That travel to find and visit remote patients and are not really Connected to clinics or hospitals the way the way we would expect it here So for them a mobile phone can be a really very powerful tool to transmit information back to the clinics or also receive Information to perhaps take a photo and send it back for a diagnosis They won't be able wouldn't be able to do by themselves or for patients also to Get sent reminders to take medication or transfer information back and an easy to use and already quite wide spread system Is called medic mobile? This is also based on frontline SMS, but a number of other open source platforms such as open MRS and Is today serving more than 4.5 million people in 11 countries including Mali and Malawi am So this is actually making a really big difference to people's everyday lives Just as mobile phones are doing for economic development And there are a number of really good examples out there the service was a Mazau is just one of them where entrepreneurs or farmers small farmers or Producers in rural areas can get information via SMS where the best market prices are to be gotten for their produce can also advertise via SMS and it's basically just a knowledge sharing service for rural farmers and local producers and My next speaker is going to be talking about How mobile phones are impacting on the financial set of services? So I'm just going to introduce this very very briefly, but maybe some of you have heard of the service and PESA already This is truly an African innovation that is only starting to really be used in your European contexts as well So in many countries in Africa, and this was the case or is the case in Kenya as well where PESA was first created People do not really have access to formal financial institutions and banking systems people don't have accounts There is no way to actually transmit money without physically doing it and PESA Was a product created to enable mobile transactions. So people sending each other electronic money via their mobile phones And this has been really a huge success story. It's captured a huge market share And I read up that today almost 11% of Kenyan GDP goes through the M. PESA service More path cash goes through M. PESA than all can Kenyan banks put together So you can see the tremendous impact this has had and the system is really simple to use You can basically transfer money onto from phone to phone and there are little outlets the way you would go and buy credit somewhere that act as Like M. PESA kiosks where you can then actually exchange this electronic money for for cash if you'd wish to do so So these are just a few very brief examples to show you all the different ways that mobile phones are being used today and Already impacting and like I said many creative ones out there, which I think we can learn a lot from So I originally invited two people to come and speak with us today And I said I said Jessica unfortunately couldn't make it Basically due to visa issues, which is sad but true as it goes to show that in the globalized world with all the digital connections We have very physical and true borders still exist that are very hard to surpass But I'm very very glad to welcome Barry who's the next speaker in this session and is the chief executive officer of I very payment technologies the company was founded in 1998 so Barry has been in this industry for a significant time and Has spent the last decade developing IT solutions to improve transaction banking in Africa So it's really a pioneer in the field Very active still and has a lot of information for this to share On how this actually works and Barry and I were making few jokes The other at last night basically saying that we're probably the two least immediate people in the room here But then before becoming a banking person Barry had a former life producing music videos So there are different Different histories to all of us. So please give an applause for Barry Welcome to the stage. Thank you