Opportunity and innovation in African health care

Abstract

Africa is often seen as an underdeveloped and third world continent that lags behind upper income countries in the adoption and use of information and communication technology. Whilst Africa certainly has challenges with regard to technology adoption, including low literacy levels and meagre individual and national incomes, Africa is also a continent that utilises ingenuity and innovation to overcome these challenges – often leading the world in some technology spheres. The advent of mobile banking is an example of challenging environments leading to technological innovation. Whilst most upper income countries rely on smartphones and ‘‘apps’’ to do their banking, utilising the high-speed internet connections so readily available in these countries, Africa does not have this luxury. Driven by the demand for electronic banking, and without access to advanced mobile phones or cheap and plentiful internet bandwidth, Africa has, perhaps unwittingly, become an example to the rest of the world in the development of the mobile wallet. Customers deposit money through the purchase of credits and can pay for goods or transfer money just by using the receiver’s mobile number – simple, effective and so popular, that by the recent estimations of the GSM Association, in June 2012, mobile money transactions ac