Expert views on stimulating mobile apps in Africa as a creative industry

The potential and promise of mobile app development depends in large part on the creative capability of the app developer. In Africa, despite the explosion of mobile phones over the last few years, there is uncertainty regarding the state and need for more relevant apps. In this paper, we draw from a focus group discussion of African based experts and decision-makers from international agencies, academia, industry and the creative industries, to scope out a research and policy agenda for mobile app development in Africa. The guiding question for the group was how to stimulate an enabling creative environment that supports local African app development. The discussion was facilitated and analysed using Delphi-type techniques from collaboration engineering. We found that the expert groups viewed local relevance, demographics (of app developers, app users and app development training organisations), app demand, innovation, the app environment, stimulants and inhibitors as the main areas to be addressed. The highest importance was regarded as understanding the app ecosystem and creating locally relevant apps. The least important was on the app demand. The results underscored the need for flexible research and policy directions for a developmental role of ICT, particularly apps, in Africa. The paper further makes a contribution to transdisciplinary research to show the effectiveness with which ICT can mediate experts from different disciplines to create new realities, while at the same time meeting rigorous methodological requirements.