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The proliferation of innovation centers on the iHub model has been driven by mobile and internet penetration: between 2000 and 2017, Internet growth on the continent is over 4.5 to 4.5 billion users. This last figure represented 35.2% of the total population. Nearly half of the inhabitants of countries such as Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa are online, Kenya exceeding 85%
The use of the Internet is related to the penetration of smartphones. to the GSM 2018 Mobile Economy Report (GSMA). The organization represents the interests of mobile network operators around the world.
The digital divide is largest in sub-Saharan Africa, says the report. Last year, the penetration of the mobile Internet in the region had reached 21%. It is expected to reach 40%, or 280 million users, by 2025. This is the largest increase in the world.
By 2016, the Silicon Savannah Nairobi – the term refers to the technological ecosystem of Kenya – has been firmly established. IBM has invested $ 100 million in the creation of an African research center with its own supercomputer.
Today, Fab Foundation, in collaboration with BongoHive, maintains a registry of 226 innovation centers, technology collaboration areas, "makerspaces" and "hackerspaces" across Africa – from 170 in 2015, when the registry was set up.
GSMA has its own list of 314 hubs operating in 93 cities across 42 countries – though half are concentrated in SA, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria. Some of them are simple online collaborations, others are fully serviced suburbs. Together, they have 1.5 million Facebook followers
And Silicon Valley's venture capital is flowing rapidly toward these initiatives: Aubrey Hruby and Jake Bright, authors of The Next Africa, say they "plan to less $ 1 billion in venture capital investments in African tech start-ups for the period 2012-2018. "
The GSMA report says:" Mobile operators such as Vodacom, MTN and Orange have formed a number of successful collaborations with start-ups in Africa. "He gives the example of Orange Digital, which has launched an investment fund of 50 million euros. for African start-ups last June.
Other recently launched technology hubs include MTN Yello Startup in Ivory Coast, MTN Space Solution in SA and Orange Fab In addition, the UK and Australian governments have teamed up with a program Ecosystem Accelerator to provide equity-free financing, technical badistance and mobile operator connections to technology start-ups in Egypt, Senegal. Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique wrote: "Incubators and Accelerators – which provide start-ups with resources and business support services for businesses. help reach the scale – represent almost 60% of these technology centers. "According to Du Boucher, they facilitate access to skills, funding and networks – three essential resources for start-up companies.
Other types of technology centers also play a role in the business. Innovation ecosystem by facilitating access to technologies and digital tools A technological hub like Black Girls Code, for example, that allows young girls to have access to computer technology in Johannesburg , illustrates how the support of technology centers goes beyond traditional incubation or acceleration programs, he says.Some initiatives, like Jokkolabs, which started in Dakar in 2010 and which now have centers active in Cotonou, Ouagadougou, Abidjan, Banjul and Casablanca, become transnational.
However, only SA, Egypt, Morocco, Kenya and Ghana and Mauritius have so far managed to implement place an outsourcing viable business processes and computer service industries
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