ABN Digital (Africa Business Network) is “the continent’s first and only pan-African real-time financial and business television network.” In aiming to create an online platform for the financial story of Africa, ABNDigital often produces segments on telecoms. Most often, the videos are interviews with high-ranking telecoms officials, government officials, or tech experts of the region. Impressively, ABN Digital videos have been viewed nearly 1.2 million times in just less than 2 years. The popularity can in part be attributed to the high volume of videos posted – in the past week ABN Digital has uploaded nearly 20 videos daily. African business must really be booming!

In the past 3 weeks, two videos relevant to ICT have been posted. The first deals with applications of Kenyan crowd-sourcing (ie. gas price mapping, Ushahidi, election violence). The second is a chat with Access Kenya’s Managing Director about how the ICT sector can bridge the development gap between Africa and the rest of the world. Access Kenya claims a 42% Kenyan mobile Internet market share. Although the videos lean heavily toward the business end of the development spectrum, they are still worth a glance:

1. Innovation Boom in Kenya.
   
2. ICT Bridging Development Gap for Africa.
   

The only downside with this YouTube channel is that ABN Digital only focuses on nations with a substantial media presence. Accordingly, East Africa, South Africa, and Nigeria – the usual suspects – receive the attention. There’s nothing wrong here, but it would be great if another organization could somehow form a partnership within less-represented areas. Perhaps the business climate isn’t as suitable.

Don’t forget: Two videos posted on oAfrica come from ABNDigital: March 2010’s “East Africa Report – ICT Growth for Business in Africa” and November 2009’s “East Africa Report – Digital Marketplace.” In all, 36 videos are tagged with the term “ICT.”