Article by Ferry Biedermann 6.6.2017
For the full
article go to - http://tinyurl.com/yapgtsh2
Israel is paying renewed
attention to Africa over the last few years, not only as a diplomatic arena and
an area of cooperation on security but also as an increasingly important market
for its companies, with an emphasis on high-tech.
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu attended the West African economic community
summit in Liberia over the weekend, less than a year after he toured East
Africa, and he's due to attend another summit in Togo before the end of the
year.
While Netanyahu has said that he hopes improved
relations with Africa will prop up Israel's diplomatic position at
international forums such as the United Nations, that effort seems to
be supported by, and go hand in hand with, an economic drive. In Liberia,
Israeli solar power company Energiya Global announced a $20 million investment
in a new solar field to supply electricity.
Africa is expected to account for 50 percent of
the world's population growth through 2050, currently has the fastest growing
middle class and saw an explosive 58 percent mobile broadband growth rate from
2015 to 2016, according to 2016 a PwC report entitled, Disrupting Africa:
Riding the wave of the digital revolution.
Among the Israeli companies presenting in New
York last year were life sciences firm MobileODT, which makes devices and
networked solutions that allow medical diagnostics using mobile phones and
Water-gen, which makes devices that literally make clean drinking water from
the air. MobileODT is currently active in Africa while Water-gen sees great
opportunities, with 40 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa living
in water scarce environments.
"I think there is an amazing range of
opportunity, despite the fact that the market moves still a little bit slower
than Western and Northern markets, the African continent is an exceptional
place for companies to grow in," says a representative of MobileODT . One of the continent's advantages
is that it is able to "leapfrog" to new technology because older,
more established, and more expensive, systems are often not in place.
In Africa, MobileODT currently sells a device
it calls EVA, for enhanced visual assessment, that in combination with a mobile
phone can be used by non-expert medical staff to detect either cervical cancer
or oral cancer or can be used for sexual assault documentation. It sends the
information to centralized servers and follows up on the patient's progress.
"With a technology such ours, which is
small, affordable and significantly more powerful than existing medical devices
because of its connectivity and ability for collaboration and database
management and machine-learning, while the United States is an interested
market and we're able to sell pretty regularly there, in Africa the potential
to impact is so much more significant," says a representative of MobileODT .
Water-gen also has big plans for Africa once it
starts mass production of its devices to make water from the air later this
year. Executive chairman Maxim Pasik says that his company is currently talking
to African partners to start selling the devices on the continent. He sees
opportunities both in the form of aid projects and selling to governments.
"The most important is through government
projects. The people don't have a lot of money but the governments still needs
to provide water to drink because drinking water means stability for the
country," says Pasik. He also sees a big role for the UN and the World
Bank in helping to bring clean drinking water to African populations.
His company's products are ideal for Africa, he
says because they can be installed anywhere, can run even on solar energy and
are cheap in use. "We created a system that is affordable for Africa and
the rest of the developing world. Energy consumption is very low, it's around
300 watts per liter of clean drinking water. And the quality of the water, it's
the cleanest water you can have. There's zero chance of having bacteria
inside."
He's convinced his product can help prevent
millions of deaths from unhealthy drinking water and says that the company went
out of its way to make it affordable, also in acquisition.
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