Most of the talks covered how wireless application and innovation is needed to connect the wider African community with Internet, with only about 6% + Internet penetration. In Uganda it is alot lower and it was highlighted that the government are too slow in connecting schools in Uganda which is critical if kids are to be educated and help develop Uganda as they grow older.

SMS the killer application
Interestingly with all the high tech talk going on about 3G, wireless and infrastructure, it was highlighted that SMS is still the killer application in Africa. Good to hear what we have always believed at FMNA, the key focus must be on the 80% of the African market who cannot afford a smart phone or a data contract.

These people need to be connected now and cannot wait for prices to come down or connectivity to improve for this to happen. Thankfully our two way email and chat service on every mobile phone is helping to bridge this digital divide NOW and we look forward to connecting all Africans.

Lesotho’s highly literate population struggles to access vital information, such as
healthcare, travel and educational resources as according to the International
Telecommunication Union only 3.4 per cent of the population use the Internet.
Expanding the country’s access to email via entry level, low end mobile phones will
consequently improve access to information, communications with friends and family,
and trade.

Econet Telecom Lesotho is the first African mobile service operator to enable their
entire customer base to send and receive email via ForgetMeNot Africa’s Message
Optimiser service. The new service, which goes live on 28th September 2009,
enables Econet Telecom Lesotho to offer two-way email to their entire mobile
customer base, without the end user requiring any Internet access, device upgrades
or application downloads.

Mpine Tente Head of Department Retail and Customer Service of Econet Telecom
Lesotho said: “We are proud to be one of the first companies in Africa to significantly
improve the population’s access to email via ForgetMeNot Africa’s Message
Optimiser service which opens up email communications to our entire subscriber
base irrespective of what phone they are using. Our mobile phone customers can
now use email to share important information, communicate with family overseas or
friends in another country, or even do business with people just a few miles down the
road, all for the cost of a local SMS. Message Optimiser sends and receives emails
via SMS to any mobile phone.”

ForgetMeNot Africa is a specialist in unified messaging for telecommunications
operators. Their unique Handset Initiation (HI) technology bypasses the need for
Internet access and opens up the service to all mobile phone users, even those in
the remotest of areas.

Jeremy George, Chief Operating Officer of ForgetMeNot Africa commented:
“Currently Lesotho’s population has to share access to a little over 2,000 PCs
connected to the Internet, most of which are in urban areas. Availability of
smartphones, laptops and even fixed line Internet connections is very low for this
highly literate country. Using ForgetMeNot Africa’s Message Optimiser, Econet
Telecom Lesotho will bring mobile email to the entire Econet Telecom Lesotho
subscriber base of both post and prepay customers across the country. The service
will transform the country’s low grade mobile phones into a stepping stone across the
global digital divide.”

Our 2 – way email and IM to SMS technology, Message Optimiser (MO) received a great reception from the West African telecom operators.

Visitors were amazed that something so simple does not currently exist, without the use of high end phones and many asked where could they avail of this service.

Following the very positive response it wont be long before West Africans can send and recieve email from a low end phone via SMS. The ForgetMeNot Africa team are striving to help Africans bridge this digital divide and our Message Optimiser technology will act as the first stepping stone accross this divide. This will empower people to communicate in an exciting and new way from a low end handset.

The conference included presentations by the Hon. Prof Dora Nkem Akunyili, Nigeria’s Minister of Information & Communications, and representatives of the Nigerian Communications Commission.

Lack of power a major issue in Africa and one of the biggest barriers to closing the digital divide was covered with a number of solutions proposed including wind and solar options.

It was an interesting conference with many key issues debated and we look forward to rolling out Message Optimiser in West and Central Africa.