South Africa is in the unique situation of having developers and business communities with access to all of the resources and education of the West living as little as 20 minutes away from townships with millions of people who are as under-resourced as any in Africa (well almost - they do still have access to a well-funded government). It is the perfect proving ground for applications for Africa.
Obstacles against success are in brief:
- Schizophrenic government policies, swinging from incredibly enlightened consumer protection legislation to, "We should establish a regulatory body for the press to prevent them from embarrassing government officials when corruption scandals occur"
- A legacy of underinvestment and draconian regulation in telecommunications. My 10Mb line costs me > 100 USD / month, and that's the fastest connection money can buy here.
Another country worth singling out is Kenya, which has produced incredible innovation like Ushahidi (http://ushahidi.com) and MPesa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa). Technology is a focus of government investment there, probably more so than SA.
Here's a blog post I wrote this week about a Samsung initiative to provide capital and equipment for promising projects out of the University of Cape Town (in South Africa).
Awesome! Another South African on HN. Not in the US but I think our guys have gotten a lot of things right (Cape Town software house):
1) The view - I'll be impressed if anyone can better this - the flat side of Table Mountain on the one side, the sea on the other, at night the lights of Long Street stretch out in front of us, and a good view of the stadium if that's your thing. I think that's just luck of the draw though, the company moved here before the CTN foreshore became fashionable.
2) There is no such thing as too many whiteboards, although glass walls with writing on them is also pretty awesome.
3) Great canteen with space to prepare food if you aren't into buying, but on a related note...
4) Close to decent food places, including one favourite that sells sandwich ingredients for a good price
5) A decent number of meeting rooms with whiteboards (the more I work the less I want to use projectors.. but we do have those too)
6) Unlikely that anyone else here would think of this, but you'll know why I bring this up: safety at night... again, luck of the draw but there's a CIDC station positioned half-way between us and the car park, and often a fair number of people around after dark. For me being able to work late (as opposed to early) is A Big Deal.
7) Not my thing but other people like proximity to gym - some cycle to work and shower before coming into the office, others hop in the pool during lunch.
8) There's a TV per floor with one or the other DSTV lite package, basically sports + discovery + Music channels (Mythbusters is most popular lunchtime viewing). The console of some sort that gets close to zero attention
9) (Soft) drinks fridge that is rapidly shortening my lifespan + fruit juice that runs out very quickly
10) A cleaner who brings real character to the office, as well as clean dishes
11) EDIT: forgot, we do have what looks like a decent coffee machine (does foam and stuff) but I'm not a good judge as I'm the only HN reader who doesn't drink the stuff. It is in constant use though.
12) EDIT: forgot some more... WATER COOLER FTW... I like that it is the kind that filters tap water and not the kind that takes those huge bottles of environmentally unsustainable mineral water.
Disclaimer... we're not a huge company but definitely not startup anymore, +-50 in our CTN office.