Headline Aug 18, 2014/ '' AFRICA GOES IDE ON COMPUTING POWER '''

'' AFRICA GOES IDE ON COMPUTING POWER '''

''Swamped''  by great heroes and students,  so please, allow me, to just say this to the Pakistani students :

Here's looking at you.............. O" Pakistani  students ! Straighten out your minds.  You are falling behind!  Your country is many years behind India-!

And your country is decades behind Singapore and China. And almost a good half century behind Japan? 

Should I go on and on and on?! 

O" students how will you lead your country,  -Pakistan, to success in the region and beyond?

Should Pakistan stop to run numbers and content, what would it show? Where is your next frontier?

According to  Mckinsey  Global Institute, the master consulting firm's research unit:

In 2002,  only   32%  of Africans had secondary  or  tertiary education,  but by  2020,   48%  will have.

The office n Senegal is just one sign that  IBM  believes  Africa will bring billion. It is no newcomer:

It sold its first gear there to South Africa's railways in  1911   and a  mainframe computer to  Ghana's  central statistics bureau in 1964. Lately it has been special attention to the continent.

In July  2010 it won a ten-year  $1.5 billion contract to provide  Bharti Airtel, an Indian mobile phone company, with information-technology services in  16   African countries.

Since mid-2011 it has set up shop in Angola, Mauritius and Tanzania, as well as Senegal. In all, it boasts, it boasts a presence in more than  20  of Africa's   54 countries.

Last August it opened a research lab  in Nairobi,  one  of  only  12  in the world. And in 2013,  between February  5th  and  7th   Ginni Rometty, its chief executive, and all of who report directly to her met dozens of African customers, actual and prospective, in Johannesburg  and the  Kenyan capital.

It was, Mrs Rometry said, the first time the whole top brass had assembled outside New York since she became the boss just over a year ago.

Big Blue may be ahead, but it is not alone. Just later, Eric Schmidt,  Google's chairman,  spent a week in sub-Saharan cities. He enthused about Nairobi, which, he wrote,  ''has emerged as a serious tech hub and may become the  African leader.''

Orange, a French mobile operator, and Baidu, China's answer to Google, recently introduced a jointly branded  smartphone  browser in Africa and the Middle East.

Orange also sponsored that year's Africa Cup of Nations, a football tournament, in South Africa.

The very next moth, Microsoft, which has offices in  14  African countries, unveiled a  smartphone  to be sold in several African markets. It is made by China's Huawei and uses Microsoft's new operating system.

In Kenya Microsoft intends to places that do not yet have electricity, using solar power and  ''white spaces'',  Or  spare broadcast-television frequencies.

With a year, says Fernando de  Sousa, the general manager for Microsoft in Africa,  6,000  people in the Rift Valley  will have access to broadband. Similar projects are planned elsewhere. Since, that October, Microsoft has been running   ''app factories''  for programmers in Egypt and South Africa.

Mark Walker of  IDC, a research firm, says that in the past three or four years multinational companies have adopted a  ''completely fresh approach''.

They have a ''lot more skin in the game: investing in the local people. so there's proper knowledge transfer, investing in country offices."

Companies  are in it for the long term now, rather than quitting after a bad-quarter or two.

Africa's chief attraction is that it has been growing while richer regions have stalled.

Its demographic prospects are promising, too.

As America, China and Europe age, Africa can expect a bulge of workers in their productive prime.

Though the skills are in short supply, they are becoming more abundant.

By any measure  Kenya  is rising and the keenest of all the African countries. In 2006,  frustrated by the slow progress of a regional plan to lay a fibre-optic cable along the east coast of the continent:

Kenya negotiated its own kink to the United Arab Emirates. The Gulf cable landed in 2009.

The regional link, in which Kenya remains a partner, followed the next year.

So, Pakistan, where is your IDE?

The Honour and Serving of the Post continues. Thank you for reading. And see you in the following one.

With respectful,and loving dedication to: Mariam, Rabo, Dee, Aneela,  Hussain, Ali, Ehsan, Shahzaib, Salar, Haider, Mustafa, Aqsa, Eman, Hazeem, Ibrahim, and  the Students and Leaders of Pakistan!

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of Africa.

See Ya all on  !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:    

''' The Real Frontier "'

Good Night and God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless