John Momban
TechInAfrica – Africa is on the verge of something big. This seems to be a quiet, cautious consensus in some investment communities. The past year has been peppered with stories of tech startup hubs emerging across the continent, from Lagos to Kigali to Agadir. The model of American tech entrepreneurship looks to be slowly sparking a renaissance in the Silicon Sahara.
As the gaze of America’s VCs begins to settle on African entrepreneurs, many open questions are left unanswered. Will Africa play host to the tech world’s next gold rush? Can these markets stay stable enough to grow the next billion-dollar Internet companies? Does Africa have what it takes to emulate Silicon Valley? The answer is a resounding “Yes.” Big things are ahead for African tech.
But to understand the rising star for Africa, you first must understand why the road to Africa goes through China.
The Chinese credit crunch and the crash of the Shanghai Composite should have come as a surprise to no one… with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Beginning in the early 1990s, the Chinese economy grew at a consistently monstrous rate of between 8 percent and 16 percent, year over year (only dipping to 7 percent following the global financial crisis). This happened mainly because the west began to outsource and offshore its traditional manufacturing in favor of less expensive Chinese producers.
