The Big Idea:
Use technology and free information, Ubuntu style, to change Africa. We are designing and building a simple and fast way for Afrikans and travelers to upload information about their villages through mobile phones and low-bandwidth computers. We want to take advantage of the astronomical growth in Afrikan mobile phone adoption and the current increase in broadband speeds to help get 1 billion people online and up to speed.

Problem:
While the west is swimming in a sea of data that it cannot organize and search fast enough Afrika suffers from a lack of data and services online. We all know that the Afrikan economy, with its 52 countries, 1 billion people, and growing economies is bustling with activity and opportunity. Very few consumers, sellers, and local markets are online and can thus only benefit people that are local and personally connected. The web 2.0 world is innovating so fast that much of the web's promise cannot be accessed via slow broadband connections and old computers - mostly in developing nations. We'll leave the task of aggregating existing online data and making it searchable to the incumbents -- Google, Microsoft etc. Our focus is to enable afrikans to create new online data by leveraging their knowledge and understanding local market structures, contact information, and distribution channels.

Afrika's increasing broadband and cellular coverage will need more value added services.

Solution:
A digital platform built by Afrikans for Afrikans that makes it dead-easy to upload, and also easily update, relevant data. We not only make it easy and fun to do this on almost any computer or in any internet cafe but we also use an africentric design and local understanding to organize the data and users the way Afrika works: village by village with regional differences.

This is a relatively inexpensive solution that will make markets more efficient and lead to more job creation and it can also illuminate local gems to the broader world and further education.

Opportunity
Afrika is awesome so we want to let others know about good service, kind people, and safe places. However, when we see a bad business, a corrupt official, or a dangerous place, we want to warn people. Join us to promote your village or your business and help other find, and review, what they are looking for.

This way, bad businesses die and good businesses flourish. The circle of life. Creative destruction. Better service. Afrika prospers.

By digitally mimicking existing communities we can become sustainable and do good by helping Afrika cross the digital divide. We love Afrika and we love technology, help us combine the two!