It reads like a movie script. Thieves broke in a rural neighborhood in Kenya, plan in hand to commit somewhat a familiar illegalities. Little did they know that a neighbor was on his phone sending a distress call through his Twitter account. Dozens of followers, who received the tweet through an SMS text alert, responded to the message and foiled the robbery attempt.
In Egypt social media including twitter, helped the revolution which saw the government of the day being overturned. This is how powerful the potential of social media is for Africa.
“It’s all about empowering the local person on the ground with information,” Kariuki told CNN. “Before I decided on this, I asked around: how can I reach all my people in one time at no cost to them?” Twitter was the answer.
This was not the first time the chief has used twitter to inform and alert his locals of what is happening. He has sent many tweets to mobilize his residents to a cause, at very little cost. According to a research by Portland Communications and the trend-analysis group Tweetminster 57% of tweets from Africa come from mobile phones.
This means the future for internet penetration for Africa still largely depends on mobile devices.
