A youthful homegrown digital startup scene has taken root. In touch. With your team the best and is a berlin based consultant who seeks to connect digital entrepreneurs and activists around the world so. She believes that local open and mobile technologies can stimulate fresh ideas and approaches for example from this old narrative of we here in the north are living in the last years of dumping our solution somewhere on the south and we turn that around a little bit. Pretty. Good we accompany her to three african countries. Our first stop is kenya home to one of africas most vibrant tech scene. We want to meet some of the people driving this innovation and find out more about their work. In two thousand and nine after co was connected to the International FiberOptic Network but since then the market for Digital Solutions has soared. A lot and drive. Down a lot of debate i love tax time. Mobile payments are commonplace in nairobi ten years ago it was the m. K. Some obama Money Transfer service that launched the countrys digital revolution beyond help Innovation Center is our first stop. So this is where we have that meeting groups and then the staff see told this site. Boardrooms and then this is his legacy so you can see to anyway i have provided coworking Space Internet access mentorship and training to nairobi budding tech industries. In twenty seventeen it was bought by a Venture Capital firm some said the hub had grown up. Others missed the old sense of community. Coming together you could talk to another person who understands what gordons what about someone else who i understand why would we take a job to come and. You know be somebody and go you know your parents. My day to day so i support them and youve been like the queen of more well innovation in nairobi for quite some time now so how would you say status change the biggest thing i think that us changed now is. We have a lot of investors but does that change the mindset of the entrepreneurs i think people you can like to exempt in fact enough to let you be or which in the you know because all the problems on my journey to the problems how you have the best sort of types of problems if its a decision flame if its if its even logistics and utility as it is theres all of that equal mass is huge but if you look at the things people buy in the platforms its not entertainment based stuff. One Success Story is the open source or he platform the Data Visualization and mapping tool crowd source is information during crises situations angelo door long gotti is a hes director of community engagement. Theyre working with the ordinary citizens to be the ones who are showing fast hundred points about anything thats happening around them right having them feel empowered in that theyre being able to protect that would by voicing out that opinions telling us what they think telling us what the see and the way that were able to raise these voices is through collection of data through various means s. M. S. Tends to be the easiest way to actually engage people if you think of someone like my grandmother she might not have access to a laptop might not have access to a smartphone but she has access to s. M. S. Incidents can be reported by s. M. S. Email twitter or online along with Source Information and videos. On the report is assessed and then visualized on a crowd map. The software itself is open source and freely available. And it was sure hed. Map was used by search and rescue teams after the two thousand and ten earthquake in haiti. And by environmental activists after the Deepwater Horizon Oil rig explosion. In kenya to show he was used to monitor the disputed twenty seventeen president ial election. The idea behind a election money project or this deployment was more of a preventive measure and really tapping into the collective intelligence of the. Angelus says he to receive more than six thousand reports of election irregularities. That electoral period we saw a lot more security incidences happening in that particular area right and i guess thats also like the power of open source the people can adopt a haiti and make a match whatever use they have exactly that its easy you know its its easy available to everyone you know there arent any bad as of n. T. When it began to shake haiti was a kenya made solution for a kenyan problem today all shahidi is used around the world. In the afternoon we pay a visit to k one and entertainment spots that also hosts a flea market its a popular Meeting Point for nairobis arts and tech scene. I laughed. I. Thank. You. Thank. You. Thank you. The dark side of digital progress is also on evidence here. Globally we generate an average of some six kilos of waste per person per year. But a european generates about eight times as much as an african. And the waste at least center on the edge of nairobi comes from kenya and neighboring countries. Kenya has no official the Waste Recycling program was just a way of assuring kenya in general awareness on properties but often its been expressed used to very low so we create awareness for those who know that what we do some of them will bring a chance why does he have to go and collect and settle in jamba shows us some of the valuable Raw Materials contained in the waste the employees also recover components that can be reused. Like use simple motors this from what turned out from princess if you. Can buy one of the local partners to make the deep interest unless you going to go see her boyfriend avi fraidy the friend of mine that im a bit of tape i take some of them yes theres been a great thank you very much on the strength of thank you you have been muslims yeah a lot there most its time enough. We take the components with us to a b three d. Which stands for africa born three d. Printing. Its a one stop shop that manufactures three d. Printers and offers materials workshops and open source designs. Founder royal believes three d. Printing is an affordable home grown solution for africas shortage of manufactured products. These umbilical cord clamps will be used in hospitals. Because three d. Printers are expensive roy builds his own incorporating recycled materials. Is a good yeah ok lets do another one just like that. And then test the so theyre working and they will have cables. Heres the model like these plastic parts of the ones that you print yourself just all the blood all the red is printed here you only buy of electronics. And its literally a gold mine like me now well im going there scrambling for small parts because they want to have those other part or even just taken on the booking things and repairing them and using it again. Just like the general mentality here people dont give up on things once they break down like it has to build only fifty times before you sarah and it may be three d. Produces other medical products such as prosthetic devices customized spare parts and scientific models like this molecular structure used in schools. In his trove of products roy also finds a feature scope which is used by midwives. This is listen to the babys heartbeat when its several reindeer and they dia being there many hospitals have challenges of their supply chain of certain products. You know why dont you print and when i have a three d. Printer in a hospital somewhere printing such things yeah and we have this. Thinking in africa i would be you know leveraging new Age Technology to solve the problems we have such challenges with getting things are produced. Things locally that this will tend to be on so those questions in that you can produce your unique things easily foster and less expensive. Roy is also planning to use recycled plastic bottles to make the three d. Printing filament. Environmental protection is now on the map here and sustainability has become a key driver of innovation other entrepreneurs are using innovation to help ensure that ordinary africans are not left behind. Like mojo which bills itself as internet for everyone. The free public wifi network is the brainchild of Brick Communications hardware startup. Mojo has already been rolled out in three hundred city buses. It helps people who have a cell phone but can afford data plans for Internet Access the connection on the bus isnt completely stable yet but were able to get wife i access. Helps to bring free wifi to all of nairobi and then expand to the rest of kenya and other countries. To start up specializes in Hardware Solutions made in and for africa. Imported hardware often doesnt work well here due to problems with the electric supply dust and humidity brix latest project is it its a digital classroom in a box. Complete with rugged tablets a router and power station which can withstand heat water and just. Take off this magic hat mark come out when his team want to bring the digital revolution to rural areas and especially to children actually most often Technology Just runs bordered from the western world to africa but even this cell phone signal sometimes is a problem yeah so how could we then crash the content in a way that where there is going to be on the students who still continue learning without disruption and these are the challenges you face in africa that we had to design. A single plug connects the box in its forty tablets to an electricity source. Solar energy works too and the tablets charge up overnight the super brick router contains educational content learning games and wicked pedia things many schools here dont have access to in some ways you also doing a little bit of the governments job if we dont were losing a Generation System quality education and were losing but you need to use that of the nicest of the internet cars to canonize to destruction you go and. In the past other projects have tried to Bring Technology into local schools but usually the hardware wasnt developed with local conditions in mind. What use are Online Learning programs what Internet Access is lacking or computers with Hardware Components that are fragile and impossible to replace. That only work on smartphones when most people have pushbutton mobile devices. Are come out has thought through these problems. Hes working not only for his target group but with that. I just. Want to know you ok now wait no good wait until the blue lines loading completely ok there it is its loading. Who hasnt seen it yet. I am. Aware that it is there we did see you now you see yes i did this is what ive done also that theyre showing each other things like sharing their bias so yeah its a social device you know and thats what i like about modern computing. Say that the kids picked up Technology Much faster than the teacher and to avoid that. Power you balance we let the teacher first of all exclusive and all these factors that environmental social and cultural come to design for. When i started talking about unix and human centered design and people asking what the heck is that but then today i feel like they are jews are changing because old models just dont work. With. People like mark kamau are using innovation to solve local problems despite the dearth of public funding the startup scene is thriving and its beginning to catch the eyes of investors. Though African Companies still have little access to International Sources of financing. And. We landed in kigali more than twenty years after the genocide rwanda has its sights set firmly on the future. Nearly all children enter Primary School and the country has universal health insurance. The state is also backing the digital revolution. We need with our produce more time ghana director of the state financed k. Lab. While youre doing not just to make sure theres a new generation to prove its because we focus on i think weve also been trying to empower those young people in compared to other places the government in the rand is very supportive of its tech and ecosystem the government of rwanda has put in place strong institutions that kind of pull in to produce so like opening a man that takes a few moments to. Its. Like a lab Tech Innovation hub has drawn many young entrepreneurs it offers workspace wife i. X. s support and mentorship twenty four sevenths the difference. Its into shes trying you know everyone comes to school. She says that if we have a vision that i was to do. A lino was a received support here and kayla now shes passing on what shes learned to other entrepreneurs especially young women who want to found startups. My main motivation is to be part of the people who are bringing solution to our country. We have a president who started from somewhere but we need a young generation so bring in technology and this in technology and young people to grow our i was society and economy and i had to be really part of this journey. To get to our next appointment we use safe motos and on demand a ride hailing app that got it started. Motor bikes are among the most affordable and accessible means of transport in rwanda. But road accidents remain africas second leading cause of death. The app was conceived as a lifesaving digital solution. Special sensors in the cell phone use telematic data to measure real time Driver Safety including speed braking behavior and handling on curbs. Passengers also rate the drivers and pay using yeah. I do too if modern started when me and nash we were just sitting in a bar. Having a conversation and we discussed and every time you would get in the back of a motorcycle within the first ten seconds you could tell if the driver was good or bad so we had a dear that what if the customer could be able to know if the driver was safe or before and been more driver is a very prestigious job to have because you have the freedom of movement and the freedom of what can yourself we are very careful but privacy concerns so you know we make sure that you know that there is not exposed to this and its like. There is valuable to us. Stephen has more than eighty points out of a possible one hundred a ranking that shows hes a safe driver hes been working with safe motors for four years now. The app also provides drivers with other options like a digital savings account. Whats changed for you what is different now than being a motor drive a before so if you want to. Ive had very good experiences with motos look at. The phone we can use to save money. Just like a digital bank account. Because you have to do for most of our passengers use mobile Payment Systems crash that money goes straight to my account which is very helpful because i feel when i. Would say photos ive been able to set up a savings account and set aside more money recently as we did you know we. Just wasnt because. During the rwandan genocide in one nine hundred ninety four nearly a Million People were killed including much of the countrys elite. More than twenty years later rwanda has been transformed the capital kigali is dotted with construction sites free public wifi and restaurants. Cafes is the norm. The hard won policy of reconciliation has encouraged one ins to discard the sea and hutu ethnic labels. The Legal Process to bring the perpetrators to justice has ended. The want to wants to become africas tech powerhouse by twenty twenty but it has a long way to go. Private Broadband Access costs more than the average monthly wage. While more and more people have a cell phone at least sixty percent of homes have no electricity. To tackle this problem a local entrepreneur has come up with a mobile solar electricity kiosk. There are now more than thirty kiosks that can be used to charge mobile phones go online and make utility payments. Came up with the idea i want to show you live in where we are when things district but then when you go to be visiting is that because theyre all ok with the south of kigali is about forty forty five minutes. Henry attended university in the United States and has founded a number of startups. The kiosks are equipped with retractable solar panels they have why fi access cell phone charging stations and can be used to access government institutions pay taxes and purchase electricity credits each kiosk is a micro franchise also providing jobs and income enterprise is the next step to n. G. O. S i think in jews of a short term approach and i think social enterprise a more long term and i think thats a buffer that is needed so some of the biggest problem or i believe the private sector needs to be built up in africa to solve a lot of the problems thats real. Passion is and my passion is also passing the knowledge and information to the next generation which is a big problem we have in africa where we dont have the Younger Generation to learn from and so they learn from this and they learn from the. Entrepreneurs but. It needs to share that information as much as the International One does. An re also trains young people like filament to work for his firm. A company filament or one of the new generation solar kiosks. Its run by marcel has been here for four years its a good location near the main hospital. And most of my earnings come from prepaid cell phone credits. Thats what you see but other people just come here to charge their mobile phones so i think i might if. We buy a prepaid credit before heading out with filament to visit the blue because theyre at district and i see you get. A. Lot of. The digital revolution is underway in rwanda twenty eleven in the country completed the first stage of its nationwide fiber Optic Network. In rural and isolated regions cell phones remain the only way to access many business educational and Political Services and information. Most of her want to has three g. Availability. But without a reliable Electricity Supply access remains a problem. District just thirty kilometers from kakali most people earn a living from farming. Gloried one of the earliest kiosk leaseholders. Meanwhile it provide. Her and her family with a livelihood. Thank you. We often have electricity outages and many people from the village come to use my solar power. When theres electricity not as many. But sometimes outages last for two days. Before i have to. Do the same work as everyone else in the rye and i carry vegetables to consult the markets and i thought i was out on the fields all the time but then i developed Health Problems and couldnt manage the heavy labor. Now that i have this kiosk my health is much better this is an old model i hope ill get a new one soon which will draw even more customers. In the booming rwandan economy Data Protection and privacy sometimes falls by the wayside. The state is the major mover and investor behind the tech startup scene although internet communication laws were passed in two thousand and sixteen little is known about what happens with the wealth of personal Data Collected by Public Wifi Networks and apps such as save motos. Our third and last stop is gone the countries often regarded as one of the most stable and successful democracies in africa. Nine hundred fifty seven it was the first african country to gain independence from colonial rule in comparison to kenya and rwanda ghanas digital seen as remarkably decentralized and highly networked. After touching down in the capital across we head to the countrys second largest city kumasi. Thanks very much. Unemployment in ghana is high after leaving school many young p. People struggle to find a job. Just find the mobile boom only about sixteen percent of people here have Internet Access a lower rate than in kenya and rwanda. The Digital Divide between urban and rural young and old men and women is a chasm. In commodity we meet with george apia hes the founder of the hive which bills itself as a maker space for entrepreneurs the owner of long face fire coming. We a Company George to the outskirts of. People are saying in a crowd that kumasi is the real tech hub in guyana yes. Dad makes its ted cobb because of the universe the. Look at his ears he had this point of doing so because they. Want to condone history christian or that she didnt want to do it to themselves. Because my mom was a classic but i mean im a p. C. Tech so warm a magazine which is one of the west africas largest informal industrial clusters that given the high Unemployment Rate people here have been forced to create their own jobs. Has in kenya and rwanda hardware and machinery is imported. Swami magazine. Waste and scrap is salvaged turned into new products. Because this informal system provides a livelihood to more than two hundred thousand mechanics welders and electricians. Or digital innovators so while my magazine is a treasure trove a. Components and expertise george comes here to work with the local artisans they dont have for my education are you my respected by the apprentice the good thing is that with you describe your ideas of them yeah able to what conceptualize them build those ideas for them so you can get really customized pieces you can like im guessing the frames for the three d. Printers come from here exactly exactly. Its a part of what we do. Come and do it so we work with the ways we make all this does for the fact that. Were talking a lot of these hand craft raids and a lot of these. Artists know that and if you combine that with the sort of. Revolution thats happening and the maker culture theres a lot of power in that. Because then it speaks to the needs of the people better. So yeah theres a lot of power thats coming out of it. Back in commodity hive we pay a visit to dexter. The start of makes lab in a box science sets for schools all the components are made in commodity the kits are intended to foster the next generation of engineers and programmers. Yet. The science sets and. As we unpack its nice new prime. Minister who went to his home town with a bunch of. And compasses and resistors and then we just taught the children how to build very simple safe kids and teach them the very simple laws of physics and then it was exciting what the students came up with the university showing us interesting incentives that we had built useful things that they had built for their rooms in their houses and we figured hey why dont. You make this something that can be asked. Just by all. This private school began working with the science kits two years ago. At the equivalent of about eleven year olds apiece there are affordable for many of the students here. The decks kits offer hands on learning kind of miniature maker space for young people. Whats her vision for the roll out. Across gonna every student should how is it in the box. Its a question. Of. What you know one of the reasons why im so interested in this project is because when i was you know. One thing from a distance the first time i went in the house one one turned. One resists time from barking. And that really excited. I can trace back my my engineering prowess to the less identified yes guy who identified the doorway with this one we get to light emitting. Light. This is how you beat. Ok let me see theres no teacher giving a lecture this is hands on interactive learning as i say you want to do this but. This is. This is so you see it has to be discreet we ask a student what she wants to be when she grows up yes you have a. Scientist a scientist. Scientists a Long Research scientist. So you know just. How does your learning is different from to hear from a textbook about what the cat let in for my kids you know your spirit and how it is from a book yet have you know like a picture in your mind. And this is part you can touch it and see how you were. Able at the start but. In Rural Regions access to information is often a challenge one of ghanas oldest startups farmer line distributes information and nine languages to eleven countries. Weather forecasts current market prices and farming techniques are sent to cell phones. Since its by voice it can also be used by farmers who are unable to read we pay a visit to casey a cocoa farmer in northwestern on a. First summer did not. Used to be that he had to get very. Cloudy before we realized. We were really lucky pharma line we know when its going to rain even when the skies are clear of food and fans who need it to me to remember i dial star three nine nine number sign and hit send i should know i must send. Hello. Unique as a Company Provide information to farmers i mean truly force india on which the voice is trusted. I mean this again your company. Or the employees from ghana if i speak. We we understand and we have that kind of touch with the farmers so we understand them we develop without not for them but with them. What is really changed for farming my family live yeah double no and inside no no the best time for planting and went to work on the fields without encountering whether it was rain and strong wind. And family and all crops are doing better because of the fertilizer they recommended to us and now its all much to use for. Next we pay a visit to a startup thats still in the testing craze its drawing on a new technology thats raised hopes across africa blocked change. The most direct project which was cofounded by roundabout tang aims to install an Electronic Health record system using Block Chain Technology. There im running that i its not sweet place means its face to face today thats the exact thanks for having me if you could listen to a few to this one first off. Look at outreach for a lot of time it made Good Progress so its better to have the details for so that you can easily access it everywhere actually an entire year to do. The rx is a block chain database for Digital Health care records the data is not stored on a single computer but dispersed across several of. The content which cant be manipulated. And encrypted but visible as a transaction. Brings us to the citys first paperless hospital. Ill check in thank you very much its incredibly quick thank you. So so much of the docs around. Here find a healthy. Writes on this into office i can see a picture and i could question from the details that i want to and developing it together with medical professionals like yourself but also with some of the patients so weve done Market Research to understand what are the needs of the individual so they need to have access to their medical records as conveniently as possible they want to have access to their doctor as easy as possible so weve done that Market Research part of it in terms of their input were going to be doing the beta testing once weve developed the first phase of the op wouldnt these like make sense for you to even have funding from the private sector will move from the Public Sector side theres definitely the aspect of social good thats being done with this app theres also the business side of the app as well the data that is being collected can be used to make Good Business decisions for these house Institutions Health institutions is very interesting to be able to see how it is being used in health and a lot of the time its being used for Health Records because it is in corruptible because it can be time for it with so its a safe way of storing patient information so thats what how we got familiar with it other start ups are also using Block Chain Technology for example in land registries and other forms of transparent governance and weve returned to rwanda to touch base with a few of the people weve met these past weeks like many entre. Nursed they are content to let others lead the way instead theyve decided to seize the initiative and find solutions for the challenges confronting their communities in the. Tradition. Of you all come from different political backgrounds khana kenya and here are one what so whats your vision where things going to go oh say finally gonna be the government judge really understanding how the time when bush innovate is sometimes so weve been be we decide we have day im shutting down scenarios change history strange an update and youre coming forward to engage with the good thing theyre trying to put in place those police seize all those institutions to support interpret what i want a free copy. In the mess he is we become not just some consumers of technology but more support for producers and energy is there the vibe is there the willingness is there the technology is mostly there. Its just how they all come together and make it work for the people of this continent or respective countries it has to be within reach of that in which. Weve reached the end of our travels along the way we met many of the movers and shakers of africas startup scene. Their remarkable spirit of innovation and commitment to social projects suggest a vibrant and empowering alternative to traditional forms of development work. And kenya we found effective in sustainable projects that are tailor made to local needs and local contexts. The more we have the demand and there the more we show the capacity to actually produce high quality hydrogen in africa then hopefully we can start opening my eyes. In rwanda we found startups that are tackling social and Development Problems head on. But despite. Fishel backing they still struggle with a four Regulatory Framework and lack of funding. Unfortunately the majority ninety percent of all the money still goes for n. G. O. S and it has to be shifted. In ghana we found young movers and shakers who decided to take action themselves rather than wait for the state to step in illegally how to do it yourself and see if that isnt being an entrepreneur so i just felt that ok lets start something lets start something. What keeps us in shape what makes us see and how come. My name is dr carlson because i talk to medical experts. Watch them at work. And i discuss what you can do to improve your health. Stay tuned and lets all try to stay. In shape and clergymans. The natural riches of precious resources. And a rewarding investment. The farm land has been called to seal because gringos. The country has an abundant supply and leases it to international giants. The government sector high export revenues and the corporations high profit margins. But not everyone benefits from the booming business. Exploration environmental destruction starvation place selling out of a country dead donkey. Starts december twenty ninth on t w. This is d w news live from above and a breakthrough date yet but the u. N. Says warring pockets of agree to a cease fire in the red sea a look at the data but will it bring been linked to hundreds of thousands of japanese from the brink of stoppage also on the program. Britains Prime Minister in brussels a day after surviving an attempt to oust top five members of a medical topic reason may once do you need us to help site of threats if theyre. High speed crash into the us high speeds