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Leapfrogging

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Www.unep.fr/scp/marrakech/pdf/Leapfrogging_possibilities_SCP_Africa.pdf. Leapfrogging. Why is this important?

leapfrogging

The opportunities created by bringing to market completely new technologies and strategies has significant impact on incumbent business. Videos Nathan Eagle introduces “txteagle: Crowd-Sourcing on Mobile Phones in the Developing World” and how its unique relationships with hundreds of mobile operators puts it in a unique position to build a panel of 3 billion mobile users in fast-growing developing countries. Cellular phones are an example of leapfrog technology that allows many developing nations to skip the investment in fixed-line phone infrastructure while they derive economic benefits from a reliable and extensive communications network. Africa can invent: Leapfrogging in unsuspected areas. One only needs to pick up a magazine or leading newspaper to read about innovations that are sweeping across Africa.

Africa can invent: Leapfrogging in unsuspected areas

From M-Pesa, a mobile money transfer service invented in Kenya that has revolutionized African banking practices, to South Africa hosting the Square Kilometer Array, the world’s largest and most powerful radio telescope ever constructed. This is quite different from common perception. Should Africa’s attainments come as a surprise? Not really! Leading science and innovation has run in African veins since ancient times. Technology and development: The limits of leapfrogging. Leapfrogging. The concept of leapfrogging was originally used in the context of economic growth theories and industrial-organization innovation studies with specific focus on competition among firms.

Leapfrogging

It is based on Joseph Schumpeter's notion of ‘gales of creative destruction’.[1] The hypothesis proposes that companies holding monopolies based on incumbent technologies have less incentive to innovate than potential rivals, and therefore they eventually lose their technological leadership role when new radical technological innovations are adopted by new firms which are ready to take the risks. When the radical innovations eventually become the new technological paradigm, the newcomer companies leapfrog ahead of former leading firms. Tunneling through[edit] Millennium Development Goals[edit]