AO: This article proposes that Nairobi's nickname of "Silicon Savanna" stems from "Kenya's love for IT." The author then goes on to suggest that the moniker "neatly encapsulates the themes of its [Kenya's] rising influence on global technology: mobile and rural and filling some wide-open spaces in infrastructure and democracy."
This ties to an earlier paragraph of the article where the author claims that "[l]ack of infrastructure — few hospitals, landlines and roads; little power, education or running water; small banks; sparse insurance; tiny stock exchanges — is a large part of what economists mean when they say poverty. And much of Africa is a giant, dark infrastructural void, as anyone who has flown over the continent at night can attest."
This depiction of Africa as "terra nullius" or unoccupied land evokes long-standing settler colonial discourse about the continent and its vast emptiness. (The text is also built on racist notions of the underdevelopment of a "dark" continent full of deficit). Here, the author suggests that technology is helping to fill this "giant, dark, infrastructural void" insinuating that (global? American?) technology is bringing greater democracy, innovation and infrastructure to a "dark continent."
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Paragraph 2: "Cell phones have taken all the world forward, but they are positively transforming Africa. Lack of infrastructure — few hospitals, landlines and roads; little power, education or running water; small banks; sparse insurance; tiny stock exchanges — is a large part of what economists mean when they say poverty. And much of Africa is a giant, dark infrastructural void, as anyone who has flown over the continent at night can attest."
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Paragraph 12: "Kenya's love for IT has earned it the nickname Silicon Savanna. The moniker neatly encapsulates the themes of its rising influence on global technology: mobile and rural and filling some wide-open spaces in infrastructure and democracy. Pivot25, for example, is exclusively focused on mobile-phone apps because it's becoming clear that mobiles are how the developing world connects to the Web. Half of all Africans — and 92% of Kenyans — go online through a mobile phone. (Not many expect to graduate to a desktop. No African manufacturer makes standard computers, but already two — one in Nigeria, one in the Republic of the Congo — are building tablets.)"
This excerpt from the TIMES article repasted below explains that Nairobi was seen as attractive for American technology company, Google, to set up a regional office because of government support for the Internet and a charasmatic champion of all things ICT within government (Dr. Bitange Ndemo).
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"As the most developed country on the continent, South Africa is the obvious hub for online Africa. And yet when Google was looking for a regional base, it went first to Nairobi. Why? Because Kenya — notably its government and specifically Ndemo — embraced the Internet as few other nations have. Unlike other African regulators, who often see protecting state telecom monopolies as their duty, Ndemo was an early and enthusiastic liberalizer of telecoms and fiber networks and was instrumental in Kenya's decision to lay its own national undersea fiber cable when talks on a regional link failed. Ndemo says the state's ultimate aim is free mobile calls and e mail for every Kenyan who wants them, which he estimates at 60% to 80% of a population of 40 million. The driving principle behind his digital zeal, says Ndemo, is that "the Internet is a basic human right" and a necessity for economic growth."