Africa Tech · Method

Qualifying without scoring.

Five axes, four states, six commitments. The method is published before the first episode and does not change during the season.

The five things we watch

Five axes, five views

1The foundationCables and landings, exchange points, data centres, the energy feeding them, network coverage.
2The ruleData law, regulatory authority, national strategy, decisions actually published.
3The peopleEngineers trained locally, training pipelines, research, departures and returns.
4The moneyLocal funding, payments, digital taxation, value that stays in the country.
5The useReal uses, languages of access to services, gap between the capital and the rest of the country.

Four words, and no others

We do not give a mark. No country receives a figure, a total, an average or a rank. Each axis receives a state, at a date, and nothing more.

Absent: Nothing documented, or a text exists but no application is observed.
Announced: Decided, funded or inaugurated, but nothing is in service at the date of broadcast.
In service: It works, and control lies elsewhere: operations, funding, expertise or hosting outside the country.
Held locally: It works, and control is in the country.

When other countries come to connect to what a country has built, we say so. This is not a fifth state, and it adds to nothing.

What we do not do

01No figure attached to a country: no mark, no total, no average, no ranking.
02Never the whole country. We say the rule is announced, never this country is average.
03No country-to-country comparison. We compare states, not countries.
04No map of the continent. Cards and a table, sorted by order of broadcast.
05An announcement is not an activation. We count what works.
06No payment, no quid pro quo, no communication to qualify an axis.

Editorial charter

I host a technology programme and I run a company in the same sector. The rules I hold myself to are public.