A cocoa producer in Nkongsamba, Gabon, checks market prices on the Internet and closes a deal with a chocolatier in Brussels. A seamstress in Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire, downloads JPEG templates to design accessories for a fashion house in Paris. A group of schoolgirls in Tenkodogo, Burkina Faso, receive lessons on a community computer connected wirelessly to a server in Ouagadougou. A midwife gets instructions on a mobile phone to free an obstetric complication in Mamuno on the edge of the Kalahari in Botswana. Doctors in Mauritius relay the latest information on treating HIV/AIDS to the worst affected regions in Africa.

Some of the these scenarios may still be wishful thinking. But with Africa poised to be the most fertile ground for ICT investment in the world, these wishes could soon be reality. The proof as always is in the numbers. The annual telecommunication survey by ITU indicates that the number of voice telephony subscribers in Africa has more than doubled in the last three years. In 2003, Africa had 73 million total voice telephony subscribers (22 million fixed and 51 million mobile), up from a total of 35.4 million voice subscribers in 2000 (19.7 million fixed and 15.7 million mobile). This represents a growth rate of 100 per cent.

However, while the digital revolution has extended the frontiers of the global village, the vast majority of the world remains unhooked from the Information Society. Recognizing the need to bridge this digital divide, a multi-stakeholder partnership of governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society and - most important - business enterprises was brought together at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). This meeting of world leaders in Geneva in December 2003 included representation from 175 countries, with nearly 50 Heads of state and government present to lay the foundations of a truly inclusive Information Society. Most significantly, the Summit agreed on the importance of ICTs in addressing many of the major social, political and economical problems and the critical role that the free flow of information, ideas and knowledge plays in reaching the development aspirations of people everywhere.

Ensuring connectivity for all has particular importance in Africa where development goals need to be most urgently addressed. Fortunately African nations have been extensively involved in negotiations related to the Information Society, beginning with the first regional meeting in Bamako, Mali, where Minister for Education Adama Samassékou was elected to steer the preparatory process. In Geneva for the first phase of the Summit, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal proposed a Digital Solidarity Fund that attracted immediate pledges of over 1 million Euros to build the Information Society. Significantly, the next phase of WSIS will be held in Tunis in November 2005 where world leaders will review progress on the Action Plan agreed in Geneva and decide on a concrete agenda for further development of the Information Society.

Addressing the Summit, Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations agency mandated to take the lead role in WSIS, said, "Connectivity has the power to bind the global community into a cohesive fraternity, which shares the common ideals of peace and tolerance, growth and development. A concerted global effort must be made to ensure that there is no gap between the rich and the poor when it comes to flow of and access to information."

Building this Information Society will present many new business opportunities in ICTs, especially in Africa. As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in his opening address to the Summit, "The future of the IT industry lies not so much in the developed world, where markets are saturated, as in reaching the billions of people in the developing world who remain untouched by the information revolution. E-health, e-school and other applications can offer the new dynamic of growth for which the industry has been looking."

In response, business interlocutors have engaged closely with WSIS while promoting ICTs as future growth engines. Richard McCormick, speaking for the business community, stated that building the Information Society "requires investment, creativity and innovation - all of the things that business does best. And business stands ready to make those investments." It's now time for business to put capital behind this commitment.