Mobile Application Ideas for Africa

I saw a post on LinkedIn recently from somebody asking about what might be a good idea for a social networking application or service for Africa. Not quite sure if he meant good in the sense of being financially-successful, or good in the sense of being beneficial to everyday folks. Ideally, such a thing would be good at both. Here was my contribution:

A Twitter-like social networking service may be a good idea, just adapted to the differences of the local market and culture, and optimized for having mobile devices be the dominant client.

Also, a Craigslist-like service.

And some sort of discussion forums, organized by topic or region.

I think really simple services like this would be useful in every culture. Again, in this case, probably especially important to make sure that the enduser UI is optimized for mobile devices, particularly low-end cellphones rather than iPhones. The lower the device hardware capability requirements for the UI & data communication, the cheaper devices can run it, the more people can afford to access it, the more popular it will be, and the greater the benefit to African society.

Not truly a social networking application, but one thought I had would be that it could be really useful to have mobile applications that make it really easy to connect employers with job seekers, or to buy & sell items on an Ebay-like auction market. My understanding is that the power infrastructure and transportation networks in Africa are not as pervasive or as reliable as in the US, making it harder to travel and commute. And that not as many have full-blown desktop computers, so instead mobile devices like cellphones are really popular precisely because they allow individuals to get around that weakness. And cellphones are increasingly popular there for mobile banking, not just telephony. So jobs and markets/auctions could be the next logical step and have synergy with the mobile banking services and use cases.

If you enable online job markets and auction markets, it should make it easier for individuals and small businesses to find employment, and sell products & services -- without being limited to dealing only with who is in the local village or neighborhood. It should also amplify people's ability to leverage the advantages that come from differentiation and specialization, by being able to consume the fruits of the best provider of a given thing from a much larger region than before, or for someone who provides an esoteric skill or product to be able to sell that to a much larger region geographically, making an increasing breadth of job types financially viable. Diverse economies tend to be more efficient, and more resilient.