Innovation

Introduction
Something that I am increasingly asked is what do I mean when I say that I am looking to foster innovation across Africa. To answer that I like to refer to IBM's Annual Report of 2003 - where the chairman states that "Innovation is not just an invention. It's what results when technical invention meets business insight. And it crosses fields of study, as well as industries". And when you couple that quote with a belief that innovation is confined to research laboratories but is equally (if not more) like to appear just about anywhere, especially where the need is the greatest, then you know that Africa is the place where it will happen!

Innovation in Africa
Look at the M-PESA offering from Safaricom (http://www.safaricom.co.ke/index.php?id=228), which is a mobile phone to mobile phone cash-transfer service. The lack of conventional bank branches and credit card machines in rural areas leaves people with few options for transferring money. Prior to this mobile cash transfer system, the choice was to send money via the post office or to send money via individuals who were travelling to the desired destination. However, the post office charges high rates, and many people do not have a permanent address. Personal messengers can be both slow and unreliable. M-PESA has changed all that! Technical invention + a lot of business insight = innovation.

The Way Forward
What I hope to accomplish is the establishment of innovation centres or hubs across Africa. These centres should strive to link the entire ecosystem of academia, businesses, business partners and government.

The common objective would be to provide an environment that fosters innovation. An environment that enables the active flowing of ideas, managed through a well defined process (innovation management process), that links innovators with business mentors and research partners (collaboration and partnering), to increase the chance that ideas becomes reality. Lastly, we need to provide the platform that makes this all work. This platform includes the technological enablers (infrastructure, software services etc) with the business integration thereof.

The Technology
I can't predict what technology will always be required to support each innovative idea but I know that it must include the following:

• Infrastructure provisioning to "making space" on the servers to host the application. Possibly delivered as a cloud service to reduce the end-user deployment complexity.
  
• Software services, especially those that enable collaboration. IBM's BlueHouse is a good example of something in this space.
• Platform services that make the underlying software stack easily available, from databases to messaging and integration.
• Application components. Once again these could be delivered as a component service for easy integration into a mash-up or more tightly integrated. The Google Maps API is an example of what can be achieved.
  

The idea behind the technology is simple: Make it easy to use; make it quick to integrate to; and use the technology to enable collaborative innovation.

Making it Work ... How?
Innovation is alive and happening ... we need only support it. This isn't only a business imperative but a social imperative. This continent is alive with possibility and I for one am thrilled to be here.