Due to its wide availability, the mobile phone continues to be explored as an e-Learning delivery tool of choice by many across Africa. However, the mobile phone still presents various challenges including the size of the screen, the cost of data and the availability of high speed 3G networks in the continent.

In East Africa, the mobile phone coupled with the age old culture of storytelling, has been exploited to come up with iCall. iCall is an application that offers educational content with basic GSM network connections through story-based learning.
iCall presents audio episodes in much the same way a soap opera on a mobile phone. Interested users call in a number and are presented with an opportunity to listen to a story. The flow and endings of each audio tale are different as the user interacts with iCall along the way to choose decisions which then determines the next point in the story. This application has been developed by Arndt Bubenzer, a consultant at common sense – e-Learning and Training Consultants in Austria and Dennis Joseph Mazali of Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania.
iCall is currently under deployment in Tanzania with a focus on maternal services education in the country. Tanzania has a high maternal mortality rate of 545 deaths per 100,000 people and a health staff shortage of 1 nurse per 100,000 people. Japan in comparison has 50 nurses and 6 maternal deaths per 100,000 people.
In Kenya, iCall has partnered with United Nations agencies and National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) to develop an audio episode on waste recycling. The episode features 2 house helps who discover they can make money by separating and recycling waste. The service is currently available by calling +254 20 360 2600 and will soon be available on Safaricom with the potential of handling up to 100 simultaneous users.
iCall is built on open source technology and will be available to learning institutions for free. The application also has a plugin into the popular Moodle e-Learning platform.
In Botswana, smart phones and mobile applications are been utilised for provision of diagnostics and health care. Ryan Littmann-Quinn says the project is a partnership between the Botswana government, Orange and the University of Pennsylvania amongst other stakeholders. Botswana has 40 doctors per 100,000 people compared to 340 doctors in Germany and only 20 per 100,000 in Tanzania.
The Botswana telemedicine program running is running on the ‘myTouch’ 3G Android phone. Ryan says the choice of the phone was due to its screen size and the quality of the camera. Applications for use are downloaded for free or at a fee from the Android Market with Dynamed, a 5 minute diagnostic application emerging the most popular.
Adoption of the phone has not come without challenges as users were not comfortable typing on the phone without a physical keyboard. This was solved through purchase of slide out keyboards.