This page features panels at SXSW Interactive 2013 that will be presented within the BiT House at the Hilton-Garden Inn.
Additionally - this page includes panels that will take place outside of the BiT House that self-selected BiT as a tag, or have panelists or subject matter that we think is of particular interest to blacks in tech. If you would like to have a panel included on this page, please email the SXSW schedule page url to us at info@wearebit.com.
Innovation in Africa is the purest form: innovation out of necessity. Not Angry Birds, the innovations emerging from Africa allow farmers to check where they can get the best price for their produce, fishermen to be warned about storms, people to check whether medicines they are buying have expired, and rural cellphone users to send mobile money to each other using text messages. Even the pay-as-you-go payment system was pioneered in Africa.
Mobile phones are one of the great success stories of the world, and nowhere is this more evident than in Africa. They are the 21st century equivalent of the railroad. Except it’s a bullet train. Africa is the world’s fastest growing telecoms market, second in size only to Asia. More people in Africa have a mobile phone than electricity. Africa is a mobile-first continent, but it really is a mobile-only continent.
