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The internet's next billion users
At Google, we have a team called Next Billion Users who travel the world to hear about people’s Internet pain points and think up new solutions.
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Google has a team called Next Billion Users who travel the world to hear about people’s Internet pain points and think up new solutions. (Shutterstock/Chonlachai)
F
or many years Nigerian writer and entrepreneur Okechukwu Ofili was frustrated with the time it took the traditional publishing industry to put out books from local authors.
It created a kind of traffic jam for writers. So Ofili took inspiration from Nigeria’s okada motorcycle taxis — which can cut through Lagos’s traffic whenever it’s slow — to design Okadabooks, a nimble mobile app that lets Africans quickly and easily publish smartphone books. Today, Nigerians can get 10,000 titles on the app, many of them cheaper than an actual okada ride.
Like many company founders, Ofili found a new solution to an old problem by tapping into the smartphone revolution that is transforming the world.
But he also represents something new — a global spirit of technological innovation where local entrepreneurs are tackling local challenges themselves rather than waiting for tech from other regions to reach them. Ofili — along with many Nigerians, Brazilians, Indonesians and Indians — is part of a trend that is about to redefine the Internet: “building for billions.”
Building for billions means designing new technology for everyone from the very start of the design process.
The people coming online through smartphones are using the Internet in radically new ways, and there is a massive potential for creativity and innovation in trying to help them solve their problems with the technology they have in their hands.
The future of the internet will be written by people like Ofili and by the people he’s building for. More than ever, high-tech companies like Google need to focus on reshaping our apps, services, and platforms to work for the majority of the planet.
