Sowing the seeds of the mobile community - 30 Jan 2012

With the growth of mobile users on the continent, users in Morocco continued their upward push through 2011, with the number of users rising to 36.55 million. YoungAfricaLive, the mobile community that entertains and educates young people on topics of love, sexual health, gender and relationships affecting the youth has now also launched in Kenya and is available through the SafaricomLIVE! portal. Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation have partnered to provide more than 70 million Orange customers in Africa and the Middle East with mobile access to Wikipedia, without incurring data usage charges.

In the first reported ever attempt to comprehensively map the use of Twitter in Africa, a research report released last week revealed that 57% of tweets from Africa are sent from mobile devices. It also emerged that South Africa has the most active users, followed by Kenya and Nigeria, while Egypt and Morocco make up the top five.

In July 2012, Greenpop will host a reforestation project called 'Trees for Zambia' in Livingstone, Zambia, where over 5 000 trees are expected to be planted. In addition to the project, educational sessions for children and subsistence farmers will also take place.

In our 2012 Biz Trends Report Series, Dawn Rowlands forecasts five African digital trends for 2012 and Donna Rachelson provides six ways to boost your career.

PS: CNN International and MultiChoice have announced that the deadline for entries for the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist 2012 Awards has been extended to 22 February 2012. To make it more accessible to journalists across the continent, entrants can now complete an online entry form.

As I said towards the end of 2011, 2012 may look like the year of the mobile. Here's to plenty more innovations and successes surrounding the mobile sector.

Have a good week!

Evan-Lee Courie (@evan1985)

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