What Is Africa's Unlimited Potential?

Today, Microsoft announced two new "Unlimited Potential" initiatives in the African country of Burkina Faso. My eWEEK colleague Peter Galli is there covering the news firsthand.

See eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli's report on his travels with Microsoft in West Africa.

Unlimited Potential is Microsoft's program for giving people access to technology in emerging markets and the poorest areas of major countries, including the United States.

As part of today's announcement, Microsoft is working with UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) to make technology and education more accessible to some African countries. Microsoft and UNIDO plan to establish computer refurbishment centers in Africa, with the first pilot center to be located in Uganda. There also is a plan to build a recycling facility for outdated PCs.

The program seeks to increase technology access, increase IT skills and generate jobs. My quick take: One of the biggest problems with African aid is the aid. An influx of clothing, food, computers and other donations creates problems because they're not channeled through the local economy. In fact, the aid can destabilize a local economy. While the PCs from Microsoft's program wouldn't be produced locally, local refurbishment and distribution introduce the technology products in a way that is more beneficial and less harmful to local African economies.

"This is the third collaborative program in less than a year under our partnership with Microsoft and, like the others, it is designed to enable new avenues of economic and social empowerment through access to innovative technology," Kandeh Yumkella, director-general of UNIDO, said in a statement.

"By providing computers, software and training to entrepreneurs, we aim to foster jobs and opportunities in small and midsize enterprises in rural Africa," he continued.

A community experience--OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso

Microsoft made the announcement during the first ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) Best Practices Forum for West and Central Africa. Microsoft also revealed that it would invest in an ICT training center for civil servants in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and offer other unspecified training and technology assistance to the government.

Burkina Faso borders Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali and Niger, among others. The country's population is quite young, with 17 being the median age; life expectancy is less than 50 years old. The Web site for the Burkina Faso U.S. Embassy, here in Washington, provides additional details on the country.

About the size of Colorado, Burkina Faso is considered to be one of the poorest countries in West Africa. Its population is about 1 million and the country's literacy rate is only about 27 percent.

See eWEEK.com's slide show on Africa's "unlimited potential."

The low literacy rate makes Burkina Faso a good candidate for some of Microsoft's more ambitious Unlimited Potential plans. During last month's WinHEC, Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, explained:

"One of the things we've been doing at Microsoft Research is looking for ways to use these types of screen and voice-based systems to be able to allow people to interact with computer activities even if they're illiterate. And so, we've been learning that by using speech and voice and video and symbology we're able to get people who have no previous training in computer-based systems, and, in fact, can't read or write to any significant degree, to be able to perform some significant tasks."

Mundie used the example of a young mother with a sick infant who could potentially obtain medical attention using a phone- and video-based system using icons instead of text. The phone would transmit information about the child's problem and "her identity to the medical facility in the village," he said. The phone could then show "her a picture and maybe a map and an indication with a video prompt that these symptoms could be serious and she should take her infant over to the infirmary."

The Burkina Faso bustle--OUAGADOUGOU

Peter Galli is in Burkina Faso now (he took the pictures above), traveling with Orlando Ayala, senior vice president of Microsoft's Emerging Segments Market Development Group. It's my understanding, strictly through hearsay and not directly from Peter, that he challenged Ayala about Unlimited Potential's potential, and Ayala invited Peter to see for himself.

Peter will answer the question, or so I assume, as he travels in Africa with Ayala. Please watch for Peter's news stories, reporter's notebooks and photos at eWEEK.com.

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