Might. Give us a morning. On a sort of. Like im talking. To describe this. Amount of money. In digital africa is booming. For shop across the continent a youthful homegrown digital start of scene has taken root. Children in the boston is a pearl in based consultant who seeks to connect digital entrepreneurs and activists around the world. She believes that local open and mobile technologies can stimulate fresh ideas and approaches they both in the old narrative of we here in the north. Its only in the last post im dumping a solution somewhere on the south and you can turn that around a little bit. And. 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 a car was connected to the International FiberOptic Network since then the market for Digital Solutions has soared. On the dr. Burkley a. Lot of debate and im not sure first time my. 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 i hope Innovation Center is our first stop. So this is where we have the meetings rooms and then the stuff he told this site. Boardrooms and then this is just legacy so you can see to anyway i have provided coworking Space Internet access mentorship. And training to nairobis budding tech industries. In twenty seventeen it was bought by a Venture Capital firm some said the hub had grown up. Others miss the old sense of community. You could come and be together you could talk to another person and wonder what board is what about someone else who are understand why would we to a job i have. To you know be something im going to be a part of some of it too so i support them and use them like the queen of mobile and of a share in the room here for quite some time now so how would you say status change the biggest thing i think that has changed now is. We have a lot of investors but does that change the mindset of the entrepreneurs i think people who cannot exempt impact enough its likely or fortune that you know because all the problems on my journey to the problems are we have yeah thats the sort of types of problems if its a decision for you if its if its even with just sticks and utilities its its just all about 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 sure he the platform the Data Visualization and mapping tool crowd source is information during crises situations angelo door long gotti is hes director of community engagement. Now working with the ordinary citizens to be the ones who are shamefast hundred points about anything thats happening around them right having them feel empowered in that theyre being able to protect that with by voicing out that opinions telling us what they think telling us what they 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 with the. 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. Incidents can be reported by s. M. S. Email twitter or online along with Source Information and videos. The report is assessed and then visualized on a crowd map. The software itself is open source and freely available. And shahidi 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 show haiti was used to monitor the disputed twenty seventeen president ial election. The idea behind. The project or this deployment was more of a preventive measure and really tapping into the collective intelligence of iraq. Angela says he received more than six thousand reports of election irregularities. That electoral period we saw a lot more security incidences happening in that particular area and i guess thats also like the power of open source that people can adopt a haiti and make them out of whatever use they have exactly that its easy you know its its easy available to everyone you know there arent any bias of entry when it began pushing haiti was a kenya made solution for a kenyan problem today im sure he is used around the world. In the afternoon we pay a visit to k one an entertainment spock that also hosts a flea market its a popular Meeting Point for nairobis arts and tech scene. I thank i thank i. Was playing. Thank. 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 play. The waste that we center on the edge of nairobi comes from kenya and neighboring countries. Kenya has no official 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 we know thats what we do some of them bring a chair where id actually have to go and collect them and then settle in jamba shows us some of the valuable Raw Materials contained in the waste the employees also recover components that can be reused. Thank you simple motors this little more from memphis to you and then its taken by one of the local partners to make you feel a deep interest im actually going to go see right from a. B. M. Treaty the friend of mine later on today is that ok if i take some of them yes your pay grade thank you very much. Thank you then most of this. Hour care most its time enough. We take the components with us to a. B. Three d. Which stands for africa born three d. Printing. It so 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 good yeah ok lets have another one just like that. And they tested. You know that and they will have cables. Heres the model on these plastic parts of the ones the prints yourself just all the blood all the read is printed here the only bible or twenty x. Number of you we send its literally a gold mine like me now well im going there scrambling for small parts because they want to impose other part or even just taking on the booking things and repairing them and using them again. Like the gentleman dont need to hear people dont give up on things i say but dont like it has to be done like fifty times before you sir and maybe 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 fetus which is used by midwives. This is listen to the babys heartbeat. And they being many hospitals have challenges with the supply chain of certain products so you know one entrant and one would have a three d. Printer in a hospital somewhere printing such things yeah and we have this i think sample of. Thinking africa would be you know leveraging new Age Technology to solve the problems we have such challenges with getting things or producing things locally that this potentially also those questions in that you can produce your unique things using the faster and less expensive. Roi 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. 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. The startup 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. Bricks latest project is ok 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 half mark come out when his team want to bring the digital revolution to rural areas and especially to children of action a person often technology destroys supporters from the western world to africa but even the cell phone signal sometimes is a problem yeah so how could we then crash the continent in a way that where the days connectivity on the students who still continue learning the disruption and the silly 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 the two needs that i mean our system the internet hires the cannon on to to destruction to 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. But what use are Online Learning programs when Internet Access is lacking or computers with Hardware Components that are fragile and impossible to replace. More apps that only work on smartphones when most people have push button mobile devices. Are come out has thought through these problems. Hes working not only for his target group but with them. Just. Learning a joke a now wait long 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 now you see what i did this is what ive done also that theyre showing each other things like sharing their biases the social divide you know and thats what i like about modern computing. Fair that the kids picked up Technology Much faster than the teacher and to avoid that. Power you balance me let the teacher first of all exclusive and all these factors that are environmental social and cultural have 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 theyre actually to the changer because all models just dont work. With. People like mark come out are using innovations 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. The news. We land 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 but. The state is also backing the digital revolution. We need with after a decent ghana director of the state financed k. Laugh. While youre doing you know just to make sure theres a new generation to put in because we focus on i think we also do things to empower those young people in compared to other places the government in the wind is very supportive of its tech and ecosystem the government of rwanda has put in place strong institutions that country to produce so like opening a company man that takes a few moments to. Its fruit 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 she. Gets from if you took Office History you know everyone has to school. She seems to have an efficient people who she was to do. A lino was it received support here in khela 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 to bring in technology busy in technology and young people to grow our i was society and economy and delighted to be really part of his journey. To get to our next appointment we use safe motos and on demand a ride hailing app that got it started a lab. Motorbikes 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 the yeah. The idea to start safe models started when i mean we were just sitting about our. 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 gear that what if the customer could be able to know if the driver was safe or before and been a motor driver is a very prestigious job to have because you have the freedom of movement and the freedom of walking yourself were very careful but privacy concerns so you know we make sure that you know there is not exposed to that and its like. If 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 martyr trial before so if you want to. Ive had very good experiences with sake motos. Yet has a platform 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 the people will know. Ive been able to set up a savings account and set aside more money in recent years we dont you know you. Need in your constituency because. During the rwandan genocide in one thousand nine hundred 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 in restaurants. Cafes is the norm. The hard won policy of reconciliation has encouraged rwandans to discard the sea and hutu ethnic labels. The Legal Process to bring the perpetrators to justice has ended. Who 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. From entering new yorker rudy came up with the idea so i want to show you live in where we are when six district but the one you go to be visiting is there because theyre all ok which 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 y. 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 forceful enterprise is the next step to n. G. O. S i think in jews have a short term approach and i think social enterprise a more long term and i think thats the buffer that is needed so some of the biggest fault or i believe the private sector needs to be built up in africa to solve a lot of the problems thats true in. 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 the. Entrepreneur as well. Should needs to share that information as much as the international one. Angry also trains young people like filament to work for his firm already. A company philmont or one of the new generation solar kiosks. Its run by marcel whos 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 whats the p. C. But other people just come here to charge their mobile phones i think my before. We buy a prepaid credit before heading out with fellow man to visit the vuvuzela at district how much do you get. For. The digital revolution is underway in rwanda twenty eleven of 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 their wanda has mobile three g. Availability. But without a reliable Electricity Supply access remains a problem. And district just thirty kilometers from. Most people earn a living from farming. One of the earliest kiosks leaseholders. Meanwhile it provide. Its her and her family with a livelihood. Thank you. We often have electricity outages then when many people from the village come to use my solar power. When theres electricity not as many come here the sometimes outages last for two days. They are not. Before i had this kiosk and i did the same work as everyone else and no one i cri vegetables and sold them kids. 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 missed kiosk my health is much better this kiosk 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. Are third and last stop has gone on the countries often regarded as one of the most stable and successful democracies in africa. In one nine hundred fifty seven it was the first african country to gain independence from colonial rule in comparison to kenya in rwanda ghanas digital seen as remarkably decentralized and highly networked. After touching down in the capital accra we head to the countrys second largest city kumasi. Thank you very much. Unemployment in ghana is high after leaving school many young p. People struggle to find a job. Despite the mobile boom only about sixteen percent of people here have Internet Access to 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 only one faced by working. We a Company George to the outskirts of kumasi. Divorcing in a crowd that kumasi is the real tech hub and gonna yes. Of course is their dad makes its. Because on the university. We had a spate of do it yourself because they. Just started to condone history recently that she didnt want to do to themselves. Because the clock was a classic but what may not be p. C. Tech so warm a magazine 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. As in kenya and rwanda hardware and machinery is imported. To swami magazine. Waste and scrap and 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 from a to kitchen name i suspect but he did learn by apprentice the good thing is that with you describe your idea to bury him. Conceptualized them build his ideas for them so you can get really customized pieces you can like im guessing the frames from the three d. Printers come from here exactly exactly. Its a part of what we do art. Come and do it so we work. To make all this does for you back. Here you still have a lot of these had crash trade and a lot of these. Other artists know that and if you combine that with the sort of digital revolution and happening and the maker culture theres a lot of power and that is actually speaks to the needs of the people better. Yet theres a lot of power that can be made out of it. Back in the 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 kumasi the kits are intended to foster the next generation of engineers and programmers. Science sets and. As a package and its nice new friend. We recently went to his home town with a bunch of. And some processing 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 that science and what this students came up with the university the showing us interesting is that they had built useful things that they had built for their rooms in their houses and we figured hey why not. Make this something that can be accessed by all. This private school began working with the science kits two years ago. At the equivalent of about eleven euros a piece there affordable for many of the students here. The decks kits offer hands on learning kind of miniature maker space for young people. Whats your vision for the roll out. Across every student should have it in the box. Playgrounds are going to close to. What you know one of the reasons why im. Interested in this project is because when i was you know theyre scared. One thing from a distance the first time ive been in the house one in one term this one resists starting new from buckys. And that really excited me a lot and i can trace back my. Identify yes i did by the way. This one light emitting diode so lets get. This is how you beat. Ok let me see theres no teacher giving a lecture this is hands on interactive learning is going to do this but. This is. The way this is so you see it has to be this week we ask a student what she wants to be when she grows up yes you have a. Scientist a scientist. Scientist a long in research or science is that cases so youre not only disliking them that are shallow how does your learning is different from to hear from a textbook about what you can let in for my kids you heres how it is from a book yes have you know like a picture. And this is pat you can touch it and see how you were. Able at this time. In Rural Regions access to information is often a challenge one of gone as older startups former 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 have visit to casey a cocoa farmer in northwestern ana. First in order not to say. It used to be that he had to get very. Cloudy before we. Were aligned we know when its going to rain even when the skies are clear for. It to me to. Star three nine nine number sign and hit send. The most and. Hello. Ok. Unique is a company that provide information to farmers i mean true would force india which the voice is trust that. We i mean its again your company. Or the employees from gonna. Have a. Week. And we have that kind of you know low cost touch where the farmers so we understand them we develop without not for them but with them. What is really changed for farming family live yeah double no i didnt say no no the best time for planting and went to work on the fields without encountering bad weather and with rain and strong wind. And famine and all crops are doing better because of good fertilizer they recommended to us and now it will all much to use when. Next we pay a visit to a startup thats still in the testing phase its drawing on a new technology thats raised hopes across africa blocked change. The mobile directs project which was cofounded by roundabout tang aims to install an Electronic Health records system using Block Chain Technology. Carol im around that i am thats me means it so you think the scene yesterday thats an interactive thanks for having me okey dokey if you do this one for us all. Look a lot of teach for a lot of time you can leave for weeks but that you have the details for so that you can easily access it everywhere actually telling them to do. The rex is a block chain database for Digital Health care records the data is not stored on a single computer but dispersed across several. Content which cant be manipulated. And encrypted but visible as a transaction. Brings us to the citys first paperless hospital. Im checking in thank you very much these incredibly great thank you so so its a bit out. There finds a healthy. Prattle on this interface i can see a picture and i could continue from the details i fell into into 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 would it be like make sense for you to even have funding from the private sector more from a Public Sector side theres a fully 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 blace is being used in health and a lot of the time is being used for Health Records because it is incredible because it can be time for it with so its a safe way of storing patient information so thats why how we got familiar with it other startups are also using Block Chain Technology for example and land registries and other forms of transparent governance. Weve returned to rwanda to touch base with a few of the people weve met these past weeks like many. They arent 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 of where things going to go oh so funny im gonna be in the government is gradually understanding how the time when bush innovator some tussle with them be we decide year we have day im shooting darts serious changes studies to generate any are coming forward to engage reverse the good thing theyre trying to put in place those police seize all those institutions to support in the printer is what i want a free copy will be dancing in the mayors yes we become all fellow not just some consumers of technology but most of corporate Producers Energy is there the vibe is there the willingness is there the technology is mostly there and. 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 this is it 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 dumont and there the more we should have the capacity to actually produce high quality hundred for here 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 a. Michel backing they still struggle with the poor 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 whove decided to take action themselves rather than wait for the state to step it up you need to go how to do it yourself sir that is being monitored printer so i just felt that ok lets start something lets start something. More free go International Talk show for journalists discuss the topic of the week journalists conservative party has a new leader and a great crime Current Power a protege of chance that angle of battle she could wind up succeeding her mentor as head of the government so what is the leadership change mean for examining and the most joyous song cluttery. Thirteen. Natural richardson. Precious resources. And a rewarding investment. Farmland has been called to conceal because of her. The country has an abundant supply of leases it to international joins. The government to his or her heart export revenues for the corporations high profit margin. But not everyone benefits from the booming business. Model ration environmental destruction or starvation law so many out of a country dead donkey god knows starts december twenty ninth on t. W. Plane. This is d w news live from her land relief and frappes as felice killed a suspected stross for Government Security forces tracked down twenty nine year old sharif shake up after a massive manhunt he was accused of shooting dead three people at the citys Christmas Market well go live to our correspondent in stross birth also coming up british Prime Minister theresa may suffers another blow after the leaders refused to make any changes to the brogues a deal they hope