Africa, Web Access: What Google's Doing Right

Of these countries, Malawi and Tanzania are among the most beautiful on the planet. Botswana, even with the scourge of AIDS, would make any list of the best countries on the planet -- no crime, beautiful people, a stable economy -- the Costa Rica or Switzerland of Africa.

Even crowded Zambia, its biggest city, Lusaka, teeming with millions of desperately poor people, has undergone a stunning metamorphosis in recent years. I used to look at the ubiquitous images of Zambian President Dr. Levy Patrick Mwanawasa and assume he was just another example of that scourge of African advancement, the "Big Man."

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But he proved to be anything but -- instead, until his death a few weeks ago, he fought endlessly against poverty and corruption, and was about the only African leader to come out publicly against his neighbor Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. If Zambia can now successfully transition to a new government, it too will be ready to break out onto the world economy.

That leaves only Zimbabwe, which sits like a cancer in the center of sub-Saharan Africa. But Mugabe is ancient, and one can't help but think that beautiful nation's nightmare will soon end … but, of course, Mugabe has surprised us before.

What all of this means is that though (and with good reason) we think of Africa as the Sick Man of the World, a vast region of the continent is now ready to make the leap to the world economy -- and if a beachhead can be made there, there's no reason it can't steadily spread northward over the decades to come.

With a growing tradition of political stability and increasing confidence with the rule of law, combined with the arrival of a sophisticated technological infrastructure as signaled by the O3b Network, the countries will soon be halfway there (and, indeed, in their big cities, thousands of professionals already are).

That leaves education -- elementary is already good, secondary fair and university level pretty poor unless you're white -- and capital. Africa is a land of entrepreneurs, who unfortunately have no access to either money or distribution.

What makes O3b interesting, and the arrival to widespread wireless broadband to Africa perhaps historic, is that its very presence may help to solve those last two challenges.

If a kid in Missouri can take courses online from Cal or Harvard, why not a kid in Malawi? And if the owner of a small business in Marin can sell craft items around the world via a Web site, why not a shopkeeper in Livingstone? And, once a venture capitalist knows that a local economy is safe from crime, government expropriation or the rule of bribery, why wouldn't he or she invest in a new startup in Botswana, in the same way that VC does now in China?