Micro-entrepreneurship and local ICT innovation ecosystem in Iringa, Tanzania

Creation of dynamic local ICT ecosystems, which effectively include and address marginalized communities and the poor, are at the heart of ICT4D efforts. Local take-up processes and mechanisms play a pivotal role in securing such objectives, especially when ICT products and services are to make inroads in economically sustainable way into poor communities. This paper investigates the roles played by different types of micro-entrepreneurs for local ICT innovation ecosystem in Iringa, Tanzania, and develops perspectives on a skills-based micro-entrepreneurship hierarchy in support of ICT4D projects. Our results cast light on how ICT4D can effectively include and address non-skilled people with entrepreneurial opportunities in developing countries, as well as how multi-national companies with advanced technological capabilities can network with local communities by creating non- or semi-skilled local micro-entrepreneurial opportunities. The research was based on four month ethnographic participant-observatory field research in Tanzania and desk research