In December 2009, the Government of Finland, Nokia and the World Bank/infoDev launched a major new program on Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy. In the first phase of the project, the partners will work to establish a regional mobile applications laboratory in Africa. It will serve to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in this emerging field. The services to be offered will include training and accreditation, certification, a competition for ideas, replication and scaling up of successful ideas, mentoring of developers and acting as a repository for knowledge of application case studies. The lab will be complemented by a program on mobile social networking, facilitated by Mobile Monday, to help identify promising new applications.

Hosted by iHub, Nairobi’s innovation Centre, this Focus Group (which follows earlier ones held in Kampala and Johannesburg) will bring together mobile applications developers, mobile operators and other stakeholders for a brainstorming of ideas surrounding the creation of the lab. The session will be animated by Tim Kelly, Lead ICT Policy Specialist and King’ori Gitahi, Nokia Research Africa. There will also be inputs from iHub and the team behind the Nairobi chapter of Mobile Monday. The aim is to seek inputs from participants on a series of questions, including:

·         Does Africa need a mobile applications laboratory?

·         What services should it provide?

·         Where should it be located?

·         What existing initiatives exist in this field?

·         Which applications are likely to prove successful in Africa?

·         With which partners should the lab work?

·         What would be the measure of success?

For more information about the project, see www.infoDev.org.