For the last week or so, I’ve been pondering a thought provoking article in the July 2008 issue of Wired - ‘The Petabyte Age,’ by Chris Anderson. I call it thought provoking because Anderson asserts that current statistical and theoretical methods will be trumped by the availability of HUGE amounts of data - PetaBytes (1000’s of terabytes), and the ability to process it. The basic idea is that with enough amounts of data, the numbers will eventually speak for themselves. I suppose the other reason this peaked my interest is that about a month ago I wrote about 'Crowdsourcing and the future of crisis reporting'. With enough data, you’d be able to ‘quite possibly’ predict future human and environmental disasters! While large amounts of data exist, the problem to date has been how to process it, and that’s how cloud computing comes into place.

Cloud computing is a relatively new word. Some people have used the term grid computing to refer to the same thing. It basically refers to the outsourcing and consolidation of computing services and resources. I’ll explain some more so that you can understand. The biggest nightmare to most companies IT departments has been dealing with scalability and the processing power or storage that is required to address it. Enter cloud computing companies - which would basically provide you with on-demand capacity as you grow. Some big companies you know have already been providing such services for the last few years; Amazon, Google, IBM and many more, each striving to be the next general-purpose computing platform. Basic services like Google Docs and Amazon S3 are modest examples of cloud computing.

Lately I’ve been following Google’s forays into Africa. Especially interesting has been the introduction of the Google Global Cache (You can read more about it on White African’s blog). Google in their infinite wisdom has come up with a way to deal with the voracity for data on the African continent. Because bandwidth demand surpasses supply, they would store the web on their servers and serve it up to users based on the shortest path to location, thereby improving performance. Some would call this cloud computing at its best. This would save on bandwidth costs for ISP’s, and improve performance for their customers. Wow!

If you don’t already know by now, that ‘Wow!’ in my last paragraph was meant to be sarcastic. While I applaud google’s efforts, google is inherently a corporation whose goal is ultimately profit. Google China is a prime example of how this all comes into play. Search results for ‘Tiananmen Square’, ‘Falun Gong’ or ‘Tibet’ yield far different results within China than outside it. The fallacies of cloud computing start to become clear. If a whole continent outsources its computing needs, isn’t this data then open to manipulation by the 3rd entity (Google) and other political and profit motivated interests?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Africa stands to benefit a great deal from ‘this’ faster access, but I think this means we need to step up our efforts to increase bandwidth instead of depending on a 3rd parties for access to information. We are at the dawn of the age of information, opening up new paradigms of thinking (some jokingly call it the age of mis-information). Just as happened during the industrial age, new products and integrated services are jostling for attention and marketplace attention. Ultimately there will be just a few winners.

Friends, readers - Africa’s sovereignty is at stake.

I am - as always, indisposed to dipping into politics on this blog, but I feel that something has to be said about the situation unraveling in the heart of Africa. Before I go on though, I’d like to issue a disclaimer. “I by no means support Mugabe’s autocratic regime.” This article is also not about the constitutional and human rights that have been so blatantly violated - enough has already been said. By proceeding I’m well aware that I’ll be opening myself up to intense criticism, but I’ll take my chances.

Canada’s prime minister John Turner said “… once you yield the economic levers of sovereignty you eventually lose the political levers,” in response to the controversial NAFTA agreement. Turner felt Canada had sold out to the USA. Sadly it was the truth. In 1980 (the same year as Zimbabwe’s independence), the IMF began to impose Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP’s) on African debtor nations. SAP’s generally mandated:

• The removal of protections in the manufacturing sector
• The elimination of government subsidies for food and some other items
• Trade liberalization;reductions in barriers to trade, as well as foreign investment and ownership
• Increased role of the private sector in industry, which were previously owned by the government
• Reductions in government spending on health and education

The results were disastrous and the reverberations are still being felt today. Africa’s poverty grew at an exponential rate, along with increased dependency on richer nations. This in effect lowered the standard of living of most Africans and set a stage for an era of neo-colonialism (yes I said it).

So you ask - what does this have to do with Zimbabwe? Zimbabwe (and Mugabe’s) problem is 3-fold:

• Land Reform - The 3 month Lancaster House Conference of 1979, which concluded with Zimbabwe’s independence failed to address the most important item - land reform. Mugabe was pressured to sign and land was the key stumbling block. Both the British and American governments offered to buy land from willing white settlers who could not accept reconciliation (the "Willing buyer, Willing seller" principle) and a fund was established, to operate from 1980 to 1990. The Conservative Party led by Former British Prime Margaret Thatcher and later John Major agreed to fund the program, which was immediately crushed by Tony Blair’s Labour government. Some can still remember the letter from Tony Blair’s minister - Claire Short that said "I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests…” - A smack in the face of a fledgling nation. In 1996 Mugabe took the controversial stance of supporting the seizure of white-owned land without compensation in order to reverse the economic imbalances that disadvantaged the majority blacks.
• Rejection of the Structural Adjustment Programs - Abandonment in the late '90s of International Monetary Fund-mandated "structural adjustment programs" was ultimately the beginning of Mugabe’s problems. This is a stance few 3rd world countries have won. This too poses a threat to vested Anglo-American interests as SAP’s require intense privatization.
• Involvement with the SADC - The South African Development Community includes all the southern African countries - from South Africa to DR Congo and Tanzania. In 1998 Zimbabwe, along with Angola and Namibia sent 6,000 troops to Laurent Kabila’s Congo to save a fellow SADC member country from an invasion by Ugandan and Rwandan troops (backed by the US and UK). This inadvertently or not was yet another provocative move against the west, and there would be a steep price to pay. I’m starting to hear echoes of Patrice Lumumba and Mobutu Sese Seko - but that is a story for another day.

At this point I should step back and state that Mugabe is no different from the other despots Africa has had since the 60’s. Corruption and violation of human rights are the order of the day. Beyond that, the indirect (and direct) involvement of the west in Africa’s affairs after independence remains deeply disturbing. Africa’s claim on the future depends on it being able to handle its own problems.

Zimbabwe’s debacle is a lose-lose situation at this point. The 'Great Hope' - MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai has been bankrolled by a combination of western governments, corporate enterprises and ex-landowners. His stance on increasing foreign investment and supporting fair land reform sadly suggests we’ll see a return to structural adjustment programs, and NO land reform - this issue will expectantly be postponed for another decade (or longer). I should also point out that land reform is an open wound in countries like Namibia and South Africa, and continually threatens to rear its ugly head.

Finally, the continual meddling of foreign powers in Africa puts its sovereignty in question. Sometimes, I wonder - are we truly independent nations? Zimbabwe exposes Africa's true problems and the Wests deepest fears. Zimbabwe is the dog that went rabid and bit its master after years of having a chain around its neck.

Celebrities like to portray it as a basket case, but they ignore very real progress.

It's a dark and scary picture of a helpless, backward continent that's being offered up to TV watchers and coffee drinkers. But in fact, the real Africa is quite a bit different. And the problem with all this Western stereotyping is that it manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of some current victories, fueling support for patronizing Western policies designed to rescue the allegedly helpless African people while often discouraging those policies that might actually help.

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The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

Shikwati: If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.

Read the SPIEGEL interview here

Every enthusiast needs a skeptic around to keep them balanced. The power of positive thinking is immense—but so is its capacity for error, unless you take the time to answer the skeptics before committing yourself.

That said… I'll get to my point. The 'Cell Phones Are The Future' statement is very heavily clichéd at this point. It is said that the mobile phone is the one pervasive device that has penetrated some of the poorest economies due to the overwhelming demand for any form of telecommunications. Sure, but If you're an entrepreneur thinking of leveraging this mobile platform, consider the following:

• The mobile phone companies have invested billions in notoriously difficult economies in Africa and are currently raking in sweet profits. Trust me, they're not about to share the loot with just anyone after pouring blood and sweat into the current infrastructure. The barriers to entry are extremely high at this point… and I'm almost tempted to say that the current companies have ganged up in a cartel-like structure to protect themselves.

• Africa is the wild west. Interoperability issues are sure to be a big problem especially where m-commerce is concerned. Interoperability aside, I can't even begin to fathom the imminent fraud quandary.

• Seriously - all cell phones are good for at this point is calling and sending text messages. Outside the cell phone companies, the only other people cashing in are selling ringtones and graphics. Beyond that we have very few early adopters willing to try anything else.

Many of the new startups are spending ridiculous amounts of money on impractical schemes. Is anyone even studying the habits of the end user to determine if all this is necessary? Someone will make plenty of $$$$ down the road, but until then there will be plenty of burnouts on the side of the road.

I'm sorry for the pessimistic view, but that's just my 2 cents.