Electrifying Africa

G. Pascal Zachary writes:

The journalist John Dvorak is one of the shrewdest observers of the computer scene. In an article for Marketwatch, he manages to both highlight the folly of the so-called $100 laptop and reinforce my view that electricity is the most neglected technology in Africa. Efforts to promote the Web and wider computer usage are well and good, so long as even more energetic efforts are being made to promote access to electricity...“The fact that these people need electricity more than they need a laptop is only part of the problem,” Dvorak quotes me as saying. “The real problem is lost mind share. The [African] people are harmed because these sorts of schemes are sopping up mind-share time of the people who might be doing something actually useful.” The challenge of spreading electricity beyond African elites in cities is a challenge that is both expensive and management-intensive.