21–30 of 40 posts
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roving gangs of looters I've live in South Africa my entire life, but have yet to encounter a "roving gang of looters". Citation?
From people in the country I've heard that there is often a lot of violence that spills out of the slums around election time.
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"South Africa, on the other hand, is not really all that much different to a middle of the road Western country." How many western countries have 30% unemployment, roving gangs of looters, and an average literacy level of 2nd/3rd grade?
roving gangs of looters I've live in South Africa my entire life, but have yet to encounter a "roving gang of looters". Citation?
My wife was born in South Africa and always wanted to go back (her family left when she was a baby), so when an opportunity came to make a sales trip there she jumped at the chance. This was perhaps 5 years ago. One evening in Johannesburg she and a Brit were driving back from dinner when, stopped at a traffic light, they saw gunmen step up to a car ahead of them, one on each side, and force the passengers out with their hands behind their heads. IIRC, it was a one-way street. Luckily for my wife and the Brit, they were the last car in the queue and were able to make a u-turn and zoom out of there.
Was that a "roving gang of looters"? I don't know, but they exemplify Alex's point.
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I agree with regard to the payment gateway, but its been a very long time since I met someone who said they wouldn't use eCommerce. Most people I know do a lot of online shopping, and I am not talking about my tech friends.
Im fresh out of Varsity(UJ) and i have done surveys (informal) at varsity ,all the people i have surveyed (black,coloured and indian) have never bought a single thing online.I ask them why and they tell me ''We dont have credit cards'',i then tell them ''but you can use bank deposits '' they still wont budge.Now if these groups of people who make up majority of the population and aslo the group with the largest buyin…
As a South African, this is really awesome news! There is however a far bigger problem than just funding here, I have never even heard of the Twangoo (Acquired by Groupon) mentioned in the article. I suppose its down to the almost total lack of any sort of hacker/startup community, and I don't know how that is going to be fixed.
WooThemes is from SA - http://mixergy.com/woothemes-adriaan-pienaar/
Here in South Africa, as other commenters pointed, we still don't have a strong software industry, neither from the academic side, nor from the hacker culture side.
However, in comparison to other African countries, we have a developed infrastructure. We have fast broadband access (although only recently), and access to current technology (smartphones etc), which is not as much the case in north african countries. That means that the sort of startups could be on the same global level, as opposed to targeting different (region specific) problems or technology.
We also have strong universities that could become strong software universities, given enough pressure.
One other significant difference that I've come to realize after lots of thinking about it, is that South Africa is one of the very few countries in the world that is first language English...outside of America and England (Australia would be the other). This obviously makes a huge difference in terms of potential for first class membership in the same industry / network. So to some degree we have had South Africa almost hiding away as an unattended asset in this regard. This is probably acts as a large hurdle in European / Asian / other African countries and puts SA in a different category.
Also noteworthy, is the fact that (as far as I know) this is Google first proper incubator project anywhere in the world. Viewing this as part of Google's "Africa Project", for all these reasons, would be looking at it from completely the wrong point of view (IMO).
Missed a word in the title: South Africa. That changes things a lot. If it were in Kenya or Nigeria, this would be a bold move. South Africa, on the other hand, is not really all that much different to a middle of the road Western country. As a result, this news is more on par with opening an incubator in New Zealand or Italy. Certainly cool to hear, but not really "Startups in the Congo" cool.
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Im fresh out of Varsity(UJ) and i have done surveys (informal) at varsity ,all the people i have surveyed (black,coloured and indian) have never bought a single thing online.I ask them why and they tell me ''We dont have credit cards'',i then tell them ''but you can use bank deposits '' they still wont budge.Now if these groups of people who make up majority of the population and aslo the group with the largest buyin…
All true... But how many of them even have access to the internet, let alone credit cards?
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I'm surprised you missed Twangoo. Facebook, Megavideo and my friends all blasted it at me. It's a popular site in SA.
I don't spend any time on Facebook, so I thought that may be a reason why as well, but I asked my wife (Who most certainly DOES use Facebook), and she had also never heard of it.
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roving gangs of looters I've live in South Africa my entire life, but have yet to encounter a "roving gang of looters". Citation?
From people in the country I've heard that there is often a lot of violence that spills out of the slums around election time.