New order

Finally, somebody got it. Or at least, there`s more than the odd isolated mention of the fact that Africa is a totally different kettle of fish when it comes to the use of technology, that there`s opportunity for progressive thinking of another kind in R&D labs out West.

There`s recognition of this in our roundup of announcements made at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. A Berkley-based researcher admitted that technology`s role as envisaged by Westerners is a bad fit in Africa. IT, he said, should help improve governments and their delivery of primary services, like health and education, and not just be a tool for Web access. Well, the light has gone on at the beginning point of the value chain.

But education is where one of the chief issues lies with Africans using Western IT. The researcher points out that the primary cost of ICT on the continent is not hardware related; it often has to do with environment and infrastructure.

This is an even more illuminating insight, one that is repeated in our training and recruitment section, further back. "Organisations in developing economies often cannot support the technical assumptions made by international software developers," says an e-learning expert in this section.

And that sums it up in the most direct way possible. SA companies have been reluctant to implement e-learning programmes, due to bandwidth constraints, broken connectivity, outdated hardware and the inability to integrate across key platforms.

So there is your opportunity, on both ends of the supply chain.

On a more personal note to iWeek, this is something of a landmark issue, comprising a whole eight pages more than usual. (How does one convey self-deprecating irony without a smiley-face emoticon? These things have their place. My wife, who, like me, is developing an interest in our children`s education, relates with well-articulated horror how educationists boast that children are now allowed to write their essays in sms-style abbreviated language. "As if it`s a good thing!")

At any rate, we feel something like validation on presenting our first biggish issue, something I`m sure will happen increasingly. We`re impressed that you like it so much!