It s easy to imagine similar devices for illiterate people. The energy situation is just as bad. Fewer than 10 per cent of Malians have access to electricity or telephones. In the short term we must settle for equipment that runs on batteries, for example. There s no question it s radio, which overcomes the dual problems of illiteracy and communication in the various national languages.
Transistor radios are small, cheap and battery-powered.
What the transistor radio is today, the mobile phone will be tomorrow. Soon the Internet will be accessible by mobile phone, and I m sure that will help us take a big leap forward. Mobile phones with Internet access will be tremendously expensive. True, but radios were also very expensive when they first appeared. It might seem illusory to picture the spread of mobile phones in Africa, but technology is developing very quickly, which brings prices down just as fast.