Going back to previous article, trying to analyse African needs and to offer specific solutions, starting from the context they were born in, I tried to figure out how technology could widely support some fields, if only somebody invested on them.

Education, medicine and energy in the first place.

Just think about education and online lessons for schools – considering that in Africa lots of schools, especially secondary and technical schools, are hard to reach and often very expensive.

Technology, the internet and the use of the band bring things closer: why can’t we imagine internet-connected schools, able to offer specific online lessons, basic courses about agriculture and lessons paid by the government? In western countries, thousands of people follow online science and cultural lessons, lots of students attend universities and masters without even entering a school class.

Think about all benefits technology development could bring to medicine: as we have already seen, in Africa health services are often private and therefore most people can’t afford them. Rural areas, which often lack any kind of qualified medical presence, would need an app which can offer tutorials, advice and instructions by Skype, as it was a little clinic, ready to suggest all basic procedures to better treat an infection, suggesting which treatments are the cheapest ones, say if it is necessary to call a qualified doctor. A kind of “doctor online”.

Some services like this are already existent, but don’t fit Africa’s fragmentation and are not as innovative as a made-in-Africa technological solution could be.

A great revolution could consist in the creation of the smart city of Konza (Kenya), the new eco-friendly and technological city planned by Kenyan government, which will be built on a 2,000 hectares land, 80 km from Nairobi, and should become the African Silicon Valley. Today it is only a project, but the first urbanization’s procurement has already been won by an Italian company, ICM Maltauro. So, they are doing it for real.

A draft of future Technology City.

Finally, energy. Because we must not forget that Africa is also the continent of sun, wind and water. Despite these available resources, Africa is often represented as a continent getting darker after sunset: you don’t need to be very forward-looking to think that green energy could be soon the definite solution to fulfil African energetic needs.

The world is gradually giving up with petroleum, to move towards green economy and Africa has the chance to do this in a full-scale way. Its resources could in facts fulfil small and big needs, from charging a mobile phone or a bulb out of their houses, to producing electricity in a more complicated way, which could provide a wide portion of land with services.

If Africa began to invest in its own potentialities, starting from the geographic and social context which they develop in, the situation could improve, and population’s growth could be channelled in courses of working and professional growth.

But at the moment, if not for Chinese investments, in Africa little will move.