Africa Tech · Méthode
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
The foundation
Cables and landings, exchange points, data centres, the energy feeding them, network coverage.
The rule
Data law, regulatory authority, national strategy, decisions actually published.
The people
Engineers trained locally, training pipelines, research, departures and returns.
The money
Local funding, payments, digital taxation, value that stays in the country.
The use
Real uses, languages of access to services, gap between the capital and the rest of the country.
Four words, and no others
The states
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
Six commitments
01
No figure attached to a country: no mark, no total, no average, no ranking.
02
Never the whole country. We say the rule is announced, never this country is average.
03
No country-to-country comparison. We compare states, not countries.
04
No map of the continent. Cards and a table, sorted by order of broadcast.
05
An announcement is not an activation. We count what works.
06
No 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.