Tonny Omwansa, lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT) spent five weeks at a workshop at University of Witwatersrand in South Africa working with a team of lead researchers in economics of technology in Africa. The workshop which ran from 4th February to 8th March was organized by Research ICT Africa! (RIA!).

RIA seeks to fulfill a strategic gap in the development of a sustainable information society and knowledge economy in Africa by building information communication technology (ICT) policy and regulatory research capacity needed to inform effective governance.

RIA! partners include tertiary institutions and development agencies in Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Mr Omwansa headed a team that researched on airtime transfers as a substitute and complement of cash in Africa. The team analyzed data 23,000 households and individuals gathered from surveys conducted in 17 African countries. The findings of the research will be presented at the ITU Telecom Africa conference in Cairo, Egypt from 11-18 June 2008 among other conferences.

Key observations from the analysis of airtime transfers and Mobile Transactions were:

• Education positively impacts sending airtime. On the receiving side, people with tertiary education and beyond are less likely to be sent airtime.
• Age negatively affects airtime transfers. Young people (less than 35 years old) are likely to send airtime
• Men send more than women while women receive more airtime than men
• People in urban areas tend to send more airtime and receive less. Rural people send less and receive more.
• Married people are more likely to send airtime and less likely to receive.
• People with bank accounts are more likely to send than and receive airtime.
• People with higher disposable income send more airtime and receive less than people without disposable income
• Using South Africa as the reference country, people living in all other countries are more likely to send and receive airtime than people living in South Africa.
• Airtime is mainly sent to friends and family members (social network)

The research implies the concept of airtime transfers appeals more to the poor than to the rich. Other research topics that were explored at the workshop included digital poverty, ICT and gender, elasticity of ICT demand, and adoption of internet and mobile technologies in Africa.