National Content and Applications

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National Content and Applications
ITU African Internet and Telecom Summit 5-9 June
2000 Banjul, The Gambia Mike Jensen mikej_at_sn.ap
c.org
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Principal Tools/Applications

• Email/mailing lists - async one to one, one to
  many comms
• Realtime messages - SMS/Text chat/IRC/ICQ - one
  to one, one to many comms
• Web (inc audio/video streaming) - info
  entertainment
• VOIP - realtime one to one comms

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Tools Applications (2)

• Video/audio conferencing - realtime one to many
  comms
• E-Commerce
• File sharing
• Group Games Gambling

4
Web Presence/Content

• African web space is expanding rapidly
• Almost all countries have some form of local or
  internationally hosted web server, unofficially
  or officially representing the country
• Increasing numbers of organisations have a Web
  site with basic descriptive and contact
  information
• But very few actually use the Web for their
  activities

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Government use

• There are a few notable official government web
  sites, such as those of Angola, Egypt, Gabon,
  Mauritius, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and
  Zambia.
• But, there is as yet virtually no discernible
  government use of the Internet for existing
  administrative purposes.

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Regional intergovernmental agencies on the web

• So far ACMAD, ADB, CEDEAO, COMESA, ECA, IGAD and
  SADC have all built web sites with a substantial
  amount of information on their activities and
  their member states.

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Externally aimed sites are more common

• Web presence is higher in some sectors,
  especially tourism and foreign investment - these
  often have more mature sites, aimed at developing
  an international market presence.

8
News Media

• Well represented on the web.
• Over 120 different African newspapers and news
  magazines are now available on the Internet, of
  which over 60 percent are published on the
  continent.
• African news agencies online - SABA, IPS, PANA.

9
Language trends

• French speaking countries have a far higher
  profile on the Web and greater institutional
  connectivity than the non-French speaking
  countries.
• Have benefited from assistance by the Francophone
  support agencies and the Canadian and French
  govts, who are concerned about dominance of
  English on the Internet.

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The main Francophone content support
developersACCT's BIEF andAUPELF-UREFs Centres
SyfedBoth are assisting in building Web sites
of local information as well as providing access
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• Restricted web use is partly explained by
• The limited number of people that have low-cost
  access to the Internet (and thus the relevance of
  a web presence to the institution)
• The limited institutional skills for digitising
  and coding pages
• The high costs of local web hosting services

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Ecommerce

• Standard goods services
• Reverse Marketing
• Banking
• Call centres
• Teleworking

13
Content Control

• Normal laws should be extended to cover digitial
  pornography and sedition
• ISPs are not responsible for content
• Liberia, Mauritius, South Africa are happy to
  become gambling hubs

14
Increased use of Open Source

• e.g. Linux, Netscape, HTML
• Large numbers of developers volunteering their
  time
• Many users, applying and testing the software in
  wide range of environments
• Rapid distribution of new versions and bug fixes
  via the Internet

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Other Features of Open Source

• Better reliability and faster performance than
  commercial software in some cases
• None or trivial up-front cost - anyone can try
  it, anyone can become a developer
• Access to the code and independence from a single
  source of supply
• 'Freedom of Information' beliefs, as well as the
  'beat Bill' phenomenon EU support

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Open Source Links

• Free Software Foundation httphttp//www.fsf.org
• Open Source http//www.opensource.org
• Apache http//www.apache.org
• Linux http//www.linux.org
• Open Netscape (Mozilla) http//www.mozilla.org
• Open Directory http//dmoz.org
• Open Content http//www.opencontent.org
• Itrain - http//unganisha.idrc.ca/itrain
• OpenClassRoom http//www.openclassroom.org
• Project Gutenburg http//promo.net/pg

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Thank You

• mikej_at_sn.apc.org
• http//www3.sn.apc.org/africa
• Karaiba Hotel, Room 825