Jimmy Wales: $50 Android smartphones are disrupting Africa

http://www.techcrunch.com/2012/12/10/50-android-smartphones-are-disrupting-africa-much-faster-than-you-think-says-wikipedias-jimmy-wales/

by mtgx • 14 years ago

143 79 14 years ago

techcrunch.com

spindritf• 14 years ago

What's the disruption? What are the possibilities? At least, what model are we talking about?

mtgx5• 14 years ago

The disruption is that millions of Africans will be getting their first "computers" for $50, and these computers run the open source Android OS.

I believe it's this model or a variation of it: http://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_u8150_ideos-3513.php

Obviously it's not much, but these smartphones are getting into dumbphone territory, and are going to all but wipe out the Symbian dumphone market in these developing markets, much like it's already happening in China and India.

Next year's Cortex A7, which has Cortex A8 performance (2010 flagship chip) and much lower price, being 5x smaller[1] in size (the CPU core itself), and the fast Jelly Bean OS should greatly improve the experience of such low-end smartphones going forward.

[1] http://images.gizmag.com/hero/arm-cortex-a7-biglittle.jpg

w1ntermute• 14 years ago

> I believe it's this model or a variation of it: http://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_u8150_ideos-3513.php

From the specs:

> Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo)

It just won't die...

ck22• 14 years ago

Might be the U8230, slightly better features

http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Huawei-U8230_id5625

Figured it out from this screencap http://i.imgur.com/McJSj.jpg

compare: http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/phones/29267-large/Huawei...

Maybe the M835 http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Huawei-M835_id5204

because of the smaller top margin, but the buttons aren't shiny on the M835 http://i.imgur.com/Monkf.jpg

240 x 320 is far too low resolution for anything though

rmc5• 14 years ago

The main thing they get access to is the Internet. That's a massive thing right there.

dannyr• 14 years ago

When women basket weavers in rural Peru had access to SMS, they were able to cut out the middleman to sell their products. They got better prices and was able to communicate directly with the people that would sell their products.

Now imagine a smartphone, access to vast knowledge. So many more possibilities than a feature/SMS phone.

rmc5• 14 years ago

Internet access. That's the killer app for smart phones.

michaelbuckbee• 14 years ago

William Kamkwamba was 14 and living in Malawi when he built a windmill out of scrap parts based on a design he found in an old textbook.

Here is a quote from an interview[1] with him:

"So, when Tom told me I could find any information on the Internet, the first thing I did was search Google for windmills. I was amazed that I could find pictures and information — even instructions about how to build windmills. When I built my windmill I just used a book with pictures! I was amazed. Everything I needed to learn had been hidden in the Internet the whole time!"

Here is his TED talk about building the windmill:

http://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_how_i_harnessed_t...

1 - http://blog.ted.com/2009/09/23/how_my_windmill/

jaggederest• 14 years ago

I really hate the word disrupt used in this way.

$50 Android smartphones are enhancing the lives of millions, maybe? Titling it this way sounds like they are some sort of addictive drug or natural disaster.

danielbarla2• 14 years ago

I completely agree with your dislike of the word being used that way. Having said that, you may not be far off with the "addictive drug" comment; anecdotally, I can tell you that I know people living below the poverty line who spend on the order of 30% of their gross salary to have a mobile phone (Southern Africa).

The circumstances which lead to that are probably pretty complex, but I'd say they include: a not very competitive market, geographical and other factors making mobiles the only effective technology for communications, marketing and social norms making mobile phones almost a necessity, a lack of basic financial education for many, etc. While I'm sure that people's lives are enhanced in many ways, I'm also sure that there are more responsible ways of spending the little money they do have.

rmc5• 14 years ago

The circumstances which lead to that are probably pretty complex

The main one being the massive desire and need of human beings to communicate with each other, and to feel empowered about their lives. Don't downplay that, there is nothing irresponsible about that.

Alaskan0053• 14 years ago

True, IMO. They didn't disrupt anything because there was nothing to be disrupted. It's not like they had our version of Verizon, Comcast and DirectTV offering services in their village.

Smart/cellphones made it possible for them to get connected, if it was for wires, good luck waiting.

mtgx5• 14 years ago

Your point is different than his, in that it's not actually a "disruptive technology", as there was no incumbent technology to disrupt. To your point - maybe it's disrupting the old dumbphones in the same way the iPhone did in the western world? Or simply disrupting the old ways of communicating (by mail, etc)?

Also, his point was that the "disruptive" word is what doesn't sound right here, as it sounds like "phones are disrupting the lives of Africans", which has a completely different meaning. I also kind of disagree with him here, because it's pretty obvious that Jimmy Wales was talking about technological disruption, and how it's a good thing, and not about "ruining people's lives", which I guess it's what someone else could understand from this title, but doesn't sound very likely.

fpp2• 14 years ago

You should not underestimate the life changing effects (aka disruptive) the availability of cheap smartphones had for large groups of the population in Africa (where many still live on less than $2 a day).

Many for the first time could pay / receive money directly e.g. without a middleman who collects percentages - most people still don't have bank accounts and can now do their payments / get paid via smartphones.

They can now communicate (long distance - private, business, emergency, political), some started new businesses around these smartphones, some became rich (some even billionaires without the sleaze) and can now provide their families with a much more solid basis to survive. There are now more people with access to mobile phones than to electricity in many parts of Africa.

These smartphones are also having an impact on the daily lives of many in developed countries. Many of the smartphone payment systems that are available since recently / will become available soon have been field-tested in Africa.

neumann_alfred2• 14 years ago

"life changing [..] (aka disruptive)"

Nope. Everything disruptive is life changing, but not everything life changing is disruptive.

1. To throw into confusion or disorder 2. To interrupt or impede the progress, movement, or procedure of 3. To break or burst

The rest of your post may be true, but is utterly besides that point.

atirip• 14 years ago

Isn't just about everything that's dirt cheap & available a "life changing effect" in Africa? But disruptive?

rmc5• 14 years ago

$50 Android smartphones are enhancing the lives of millions, maybe?

Why don't you give up all internet/communication access and tell us how much of an impact it has on your life (yes that includes any laptop/pc at home).

Or do you think African people are special & different from us Western people and don't have the same desires?

brazzy2• 14 years ago

Re-read the post you replied to. It did not say what you thought it did.

megablast• 14 years ago

It sure seems like the first comment in every story is some simple criticism or nitpick. It is starting to make this community look petty.

This is really great news, these are devices that we can develop for, and provide some incredibly useful utilities. Look for some interesting startups to come out of Africa taking advantage of this, and producing utilities for people in that part of the world.

redthrowaway• 14 years ago

I've noticed the same trend, and have similar concerns. It's not that a clarification or correction isn't necessarily a high-content comment, but it's far from guaranteed to be the highest.

I think the "minor gripe" is actually HN's version of the meme reply: easily digestible, doesn't take much effort, and easy to agree with. Just as reddit's frontpage is dominated by imgur links, so too are the comments on HN dominated by easy criticisms.

ohwp• 14 years ago

I heard stories about hospitals locking cables into wall sockets because else people will use the power to charge there phones. So I think it can be disruptive. But I agree its a bit over the top to use the word disrupt in the context of the article.

ck22• 14 years ago

Found video of the conference, here he speaks in part 9, and he pulls out the phone at 9 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/_MVGnLZnMbs?start=549&autop...

Here is a screencap of the phone http://i.imgur.com/McJSj.jpg

namank• 14 years ago

I absolutely love how we are going to get to see the developing world become developed in our lifetimes.

And how the level playing field will force us to scale innovation rather than operation.

Man, this is the best time to be alive!!

lifeisstillgood• 14 years ago

Thank you :-)

(Assuming that level playing field cures malaria etc - but Singapore did just by getting richer and politically compete t)

narrator• 14 years ago

To me this is just another argument for The Great Stagnation. Don't get me wrong, it's fabulous that the lives of Africans are being improved by technology. However, what if Africa catching up with the western world is just a side effect of technological progress slowing down as Peter Thiel and others have commented about? We marvel at our smartphones, but so what. They make them in china for $50.

pfraze• 14 years ago

The affordable, wide-spread availability technology is not a negative indicator of technological progress. iPhones are less than 5 years old; it's a positive that they've distributed so rapidly.

warfangle• 14 years ago

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." - William Gibson

InclinedPlane2• 14 years ago

The modern smartphone is a 5 year old product. The fact that it's managed to penetrate into the developing world in such a short amount of time is nothing less than amazing. This has absolutely nothing to do with stagnation.

ars• 14 years ago

5 years? How quickly we forget our history.

The Treo 180 was released in 2002. You connected to the internet by essentially dialing a modem over the cell phone network. It had a built in web browser.

And GPRS showed up in 2000/2001 and was arguably the real beginning of mobile data.

mtgx5• 14 years ago

How can you call people getting access to technology for the first time "stagnation"? It's the exact opposite of that. Here's Ray Kurzweil showing a graph from 1800 till recently that demonstrates how technology has had a direct effect on the wealth of the nations and on the average "conditions of living" for everyone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zihTWh5i2C4&feature=youtu...

Also a relevant bit from Louis CK on how we take technology for granted at every step:

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/02/so_amazing_bu...

longer audio version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpUNA2nutbk

nazgulnarsil3• 14 years ago

>We marvel at our smartphones, but so what. They make them in china for $50.

look at those stupid roses, I bet they're cheap to produce and they're hardly the best thing I've ever smelled. I've seen award winning roses on the internet, your roses are unimpressive.

dagw2• 14 years ago

They make them in china for $50

Anybody who stops to think about it for a little while probably marvels far more at the technology and innovation that actually makes it possible to build such a device for a mere $50.

debacle2• 14 years ago

It's not the technology and innovation. It's the lax environmental regulations and labor arbitrage.

dfxm12• 14 years ago

And wouldn't they have to make them for much less than $50 if they are selling them for that much?

scanr• 14 years ago

I'm not sure this is the conclusion that I would draw. It appears you're measuring technological progress by the gap between what is available in the 3rd world vs. what is currently available in the 1st world.

I would argue that making $50 phones is an amazing sign of progress as it speaks to just how amazing the technology behind manufacturing has got.

In fact, it has almost been a side effect of Moore's Law (almost the de-facto measure of technological progress in the CPU space for a while) that processors have become cheaper as they became faster.

tangue2• 14 years ago

The killer product in Africa would be a 50$ solar powered smartphone I was in Madagascar and people there are walking huge distances just to go into a small shop where they can charge their phones.

nazgulnarsil3• 14 years ago

it will NEVER be efficient to integrate these two technologies. A phone is something you carry in your pocket, a solar cell is something you leave out in the sun all day.

Alaskan0053• 14 years ago

Yeah but it could recharge a small battery and that can recharge a puny phone.

tangue2• 14 years ago

Didn't think about that. The second part is still valid though : having the electricity is the exception rather than the norm in most parts of Africa.

veidr• 14 years ago

But what if somebody invented some kind of flexible and detachable tubular device, perhaps housed in a durable rubber, that contained some type of metal filament that was capable of transmitting electrical signals from A to B?

primitur• 14 years ago

In sunhsine-blessed countries, one does not have a pocket, and indeed I would be happy of my iPad-New if it were light, thin, and would recharge itself while I used it for shade ..

79522• 14 years ago

My guess is that you are more likely to have shops selling charging as a service where mains power is problematic. Also http://biolitestove.com/

vetler• 14 years ago

BioLite is amazing. In particular, I love this image: http://biolitestove.com/Media/HomeStove/Stories/Ghana-DSC_10...

mamu953• 14 years ago

We already have a lot of those in nigeria and also in other african countries. These charging shops are a necessary convenience and they provide jobs for the youths.

coryl• 14 years ago

Isn't the more sensible solution just a solar panel + outlet apparatus for charging anything? They could keep it at home.

fpp2• 14 years ago

That is already happening but more along the lines of 1-2 of those charging stations per "village".

mtgx5• 14 years ago

It is. And they don't even have to buy it for each home, as it's pretty pretty expensive for an average African, but at least for say one village. Certainly much better than travelling even longer distances. Africans will improve this one step at a time.

kamjam• 14 years ago

I'm just gonna plug this, cos they are a great charity and I really like how they are ground roots innovative and solving real problems.

http://www.thefullbellyproject.org/Products/SolarHandCart.as...

Guess all they need is a couple of USB sockets on there now... :)

linvin• 14 years ago

Leave aside first billion people. The next 2-3 billion people on the planet now have access to a computer that can truly help them in their everyday activities.

That seems like a disruption. But then, getting a ticket booked through a friendly travel agent over phone is definitely easier and affordable than using smartphone and using self service - effectively takes more time.

Self service is a compulsion in developed world due to play of economics.

Cthulhu_• 14 years ago

Self-service indicates that staff income is high; it's either self-service, or increase prices to the customers, which in turn lowers availability of the service and overall lowers income. etc.

netcan• 14 years ago

2 years ago I made this comment:

"Interestingly, outside the "1st world" mobile phones are quite common. The speed at which this technology trickled down is amazing, about ten years from yuppies in major cities to subsistence farmers in failed states. Even more amazing is penetration. Most things just don't go that far down the economic ladder at all. Basic, fundamental things like vaccination, artificial fertilizers, electricity or regular phone lines which our grandparents took for granted have been outpaced by mobile phones in many places.

Tablets may be similar enough to mobile phones for us to hope that the same economics apply and we might see the <$3-a-day majority benefiting by 2020. Hopefully."

So, where are we now? It really looks like smartphones might have the momentum to make it all the way down to the bottom. Lets hope it keeps going.

andyjohnson0• 14 years ago

African developers are building apps for diagnosing and tracking diseases in humans, farm animals, and crops. Also pest-outbreak tracking/warning, getting offer prices at local agricultural markets, disaster mitigation.

From August last year: http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/16/80-android-phone-sells-...

Also, Kenyans have been using phone credits as a form of exchangeable currency since the early 2000s.

Exciting stuff.

throwaway1979• 14 years ago

Just like obesity has become a major problem, I wonder what other blight will be wrought on the second and third billion by progress? My wife and I often close each others laptops or devices when we are doing a shared activity (e.g. watching a movie). We recognize we both might be a bit internet-addicted. We have a friend who has a strict "no computing devices in the living room" policy. I hope these problems don't go hand in hand with ubiquitous access.

mamu953• 14 years ago

Mister. Mo from mobility blog based in Nigeria gives his analysis on when android will take over the Nigeria market.

http://mobility.com.ng/when-will-nigeria-become-an-android-m...

I totally agree with him.

Jimmy Wales: $50 Android smartphones are disrupting Africa

Related Stories