WhiteAfrican writes about technology startups and investment in Africa, especially Kenya and the Silicon Savannah scene.
Commenters discuss its views on Big Tech and Africa; one finds it too negative, saying large firms underinvest in poorer regions generally.
This article bugs me a bit, since it seems to be a "Big Tech Hates Africa" article, whereas I think the reality is more "all large companies are spending minimal resources on poorer areas of the world". It certainly does make Africa look a left out on a map, but large areas of Asia are equally not targeted by large companies, but the geo-political layout is different.
While it is odd that so many large tech companies haven't highlighted their presence in Africa, there are some notable omissions from that list. Microsoft, for example, have clearly listed contact points and targeted support pages all over Africa, including Kenya[1], and SAP has a number of operations across Africa[2].
The reason for Google not listing their Kenya office seems to be to do with the type of office it is[3]. They do have quite a few jobs listed in both Kenya, and the author's own city: Kampala in Uganda[4].
Perhaps when the tech industry matures, we'll see the kind of coverage a large manufacturing company has[5].
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/worldwide/phone/contact.aspx?country=Kenya
[2] http://www.sap.com/contactsap/countries/index.epx
[3] http://whiteafrican.com/2008/07/04/google-kenya-and-the-google-global-cache/
[4] http://www.google.com/jobs/africa/
[5] http://toyota-africa.com/cars/new_cars/index.asp
'baraza' is Swahili for forum/meeting place. It was very much Yahoo Answers, targeted at the African market - here in Kenya, most people only have internet access via mobile connections, often using feature phones, hence the minimalistic stylesheet.
Baraza never really took off.
More about it here: http://whiteafrican.com/2010/10/05/google-baraza-qa-for-africa/
We surely can. It a matter of we sitting and deciding what product we can come out that best fit and solves most of our continent problems. If african hackers can come together, certainly sure we can be giants like Google, Facebook or Microsoft. Take a look at this post, it tells you we're getting somewhere. http://whiteafrican.com/?p=992