One curious characteristic of the internet in rural areas of Africa is that spread of connectivity is often very closely related to the growth of hospitals. Medical centres for impoverished areas are high on the priority list for governments and NGOs, but in any attempt to practice modern doctoring these days some kind of internet connection is almost essential.
Take, for example, the island of Idjwi. A 70km long stretch of land in the middle of Lake Kivu, which sits on the border between Rwanda and the DRC (it belongs to DRC), Idjwi has always been a place of extreme poverty and subsistence living. But right now it’s a place of enormous promise and creativity, where “the lesser-known African creative minds are solving African problems” in a way that should be held up as an example of just how resourceful people living in the most extreme conditions on the continent can be.
That’s the opinion of Dr Jacques Sebisaho, who delivered one of the most impressive talks at TEDxSoweto this weekend…