May be the prophecy that Ethan Zuckerman made when i spoke with him @ Berkman last summer is coming to pass @ http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/ blog/?p=1003 When asked about the currrent invasion of Africa by Chinese and Asian companies, Ethan turned the question on the head to beat the rhetoric by saying "wait till African begins to invade the rest of the world and that is certain and may be the last invaision". We went ahead to pronounce some of our mutual agreement of areas where Africa is leading the rest of the world "Asked about uniquely African innovations in telecoms, I offered four areas where I thought Africans were leading the rest of the world: - Narrowband - innovative connectivity solutions that use very little bandwidth, like the Ghana “Javelin” project, or Fidonet nodes in Zimbabwe - Localization - Translation of open source software into a wide variety of languages, especially through the help of organizations like Translate.org.za. Localization of software for challenging environments in projects like Ubuntu. - Radio - Use of community radio for information dissemination, integration of data and radio in projects like Geekcorps Mali. - Urban wifi, with huge wifi networks in Accra, Bamako and other African cities. Eric here On 15 Jan 2007, at 11:36, Brian Longwe wrote:
I am extremely impressed and encouraged to see Wananchi online's bid to takeover African Lakes and all their holdings which include all of Africa Online's branches as well as a number of infrastructure and internet licenses across the continent. Could this be the emergence of a truly African Mega-ISP?
Considering the attrition that the ISP industry is facing continent- wide, which was very aptly commented on by Russell Southwood in his article "The African ISP is dead - Long live the African ISP" where he spoke of the encroachment of the mobile operators into internet services and the threat that this posed to the ISP as we know it today. In this article he clearly indicated some of the survival strategies that ISPs would have to consider, including consolidation, divestiture into other revenue generating areas e.g. content production and regional expansion. It is interesting to note that Wananchi seem to have taken the prescription wholesale and are aiming to act on almost all of these areas.
For me on a personal basis I am very happy to see an indigenous African-led transaction of such magnitude in the ICT sector - which has in the past been dominated by "foreigners" who didn't really understand african markets. I can't wait to see what else Wananchi have up their sleeves!
Regards,
Brian
Begin forwarded message:
From: Joseph Mucheru <mucheru@wananchi.com> Date: January 15, 2007 9:23:47 AM GMT+03:00 To: "brian@inhand.co.ke" <brian@inhand.co.ke> Subject: FW: Press Announcement
From: Wananchi Online Ltd <announcements@wananchi.com> Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:42:06 +0300 To: <All_Wananchi_Online_Ltd_Customers@wananchi.com> Subject: Press Announcement
Wananchi Online creates a new Group Structure
On 28th December 2006, Wananchi Online together with a group of Kenyan, British and American investors announced its intention to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of the African Lakes Corporation (TALC). TALC is the holding company of Africa Online Limited and UUNET Africa. The success of the acquisition will see the creation of Africa's largest consumer broadband company and goes a long way in achieving Wananchi's vision of being "Africa's leading Internet Communications Provider". The bid is being made through a special purpose vehicle registered for this purpose in the UK, The African Telecoms Company Limited.
The full text of the announcement can be found at this url:
Short Url: http://urlx.org/londonstockexchange.co.uk/fd1e5
Long URL: http://www.londonstockexchange.co.uk/LSECWS/IFSPages/ MarketNewsPopup.aspx?id =1372930&source=RNS
The conclusion of the transaction will see the creation of a group holding company of which I shall become Chairman and Joseph Mucheru will become Deputy CEO. We will be joined on the board by amongst others Mark Schneider, a seasoned American Media Entrepreneur who will become Vice Chairman and Richard Bell, a seasoned East African ICT Entrepreneur who will become Chief Executive Officer. Going forward the company will implement a strategy to create the largest wireless ADSL broadband network in Africa delivering consumer broadband services to Wananchi across the continent.
As part of this process and in order to allow Joseph to focus on this ambitious project, we are restructuring elements of the existing Wananchi Online operations to align them with this strategy. To this end I am pleased to announce that with immediate effect Sandeep Mangat will be taking over the day to day operations of Wananchi Online and Hamish Govani will be assisting him as Chief Financial Officer.
I am also pleased to inform you that Richard Bell has been appointed to the board of Wananchi Online to assist in making sure that the companies strategies are aligned with the bigger picture which I have already outlined. Richard is a former director of TALC, founder of Swift Global Kenya and Uganda, founder of Kenya Data Networks, founding Chairman of TESPOK, KIXP and KENIC. He is currently the Managing Partner of East Africa Capital Partners a private equity firm which specializes in Technology, Media and Telecoms investments. He became a Sloan Fellow of the London Business School in 2005.
We are please to tell you that limited broadband coverage is already available in parts of Nairobi and Mombassa and we will be providing special offers and a limited amount of free equipment to existing customers when the full rollout begins. So I do encourage you to renew your dial- up and/or email subscriptions now so that you can take advantage of these offers when the time comes. Those whose subscriptions have lapsed or who fail to become WOL customers in time will be time barred from these special customer loyalty offers.
We will continue to keep you informed as our plans develop. For further information you can contact Sandeep Mangat on 020 329 2000 or email sunny.mangat@wananchi.com
--
James Gachui, Chairman Wananchi Online Limited
Eric M.K Osiakwan Executive Secretary AfrISPA (www.afrispa.org) Tel: + 233.21.258800 Fax: + 233.21.258811 Cell: + 233.244.386792 Handle: eosiakwan Snail Mail: Pmb 208, Accra-North Office: BusyInternet - 42 Ring Road Central, Accra-North Blog: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/eric/ Slang: "Tomorrow Now"