"While in Austin for SXSW, I took a walk over to BarCamp Austin to take in a presentation by Erik Hersman about the ingenuity of Africans, and that got me thinking about this issue on a much larger scale. The mobile web has the potential to bridge the digital divide at a much more rapid rate than grandiose plans for infrastructure and connectivity in outlying areas. For many Africans, keeping phones charged poses a bigger challenge than simply obtaining a phone. The above picture is from the Afrigadget blog where Erik is a contributor (fascinating stuff over there by the way). This shows the set up of a typical village mobile phone kiosk. Why would anyone want to wait for infrastructure in order to access information and tools for communication?" - Meryn Stol