Mobile Technology Increases Social Entrepreneurship in Africa
Mobile technology is growing by leaps and bounds in developing countries around the world. In Africa, access to mobile technology, specifically mobile apps, is helping to replace traditional ways of doing things and improving the lives of Africans.
If you talk to mobile strategist Rudy De Waele of Nyota Media, a PR firm assisting African entrepreneurs and start-ups in technology, he’ll tell you, “their are more innovative mobile tech solutions available to Africans than ever before. This is a good sign of growth for the mobile tech field in Africa”.
According to De Waele, M-Pesa, Kenya’s SMS mobile money solution, is gaining considerable market penetration in the mobile tech industry because an increasing number of Kenyans 
utilize their app to transfer money on a day to day basis. “The use of technology in this way and the capacity for self-sufficiency creates a key element of social entrepreneurship in Africa” says De Waele.
“In a global context, and especially in Europe, I think the old not for profit model of raising funds to distribute to other people is dead, or is dying”, said De Waele in a recent interview with The Guardian. “Big NGOs need huge marketing campaigns and that is a huge overhead. It doesn’t really work anymore. With access to the internet and crowdfunding, people can choose what they want to fund. Of course it’s a good thing that big NGO’s do things like distribute food, but in the end they aren’t helping to make people self-sufficient, by growing their own food for example.”
It is exciting to see the growing rate of mobile technology in Africa and more importantly the different ways it has enhanced communications and social enterprise opportunities on the continent. At this rate, the mobile tech industry on the continent could soon be leveraged to make Africa less of a “developing” world and more of a “developed” continent ripe and appealing for investors and investment opportunities.
