People like Bill Gates and Hu Jintao tour these countries, seeking to improve existing situations and relationships. China needs raw materials, and Western countries are interested to see what Africans can do with technology beyond the ultimate tech device--the mobile phone--which is already in evidence.

Reporter Rebecca Wanjiku from Computerworld Kenya wrote this week that Kenyan banking security regulations are forcing banks to invest in disaster recovery and data centers to remain in compliance. "Kenyan banks offer mobile-phone based and online applications," wrote Wanjiku, "and disaster recovery has become a major concern." She also quoted Francis Hook, manager, IDC East Africa: "With increasing IT sophistication, the dependence on IT becomes greater--if a bank was to suffer a hacking attack or even a fire at its data center, to protect the customers, it is under obligation to store data at a remote site and have a disaster recovery plan."

No, we're not talking Switzerland or Australia, we're talking Kenya here. Those interested in developing markets have long been fascinated by "BRIC" (Brazil/Russia/India/China, frankly, Russia isn't in the same class as the other three but "BIC" is a pen-brand). Now we have the "VISTA" (Vietnam/Indonesia/ South Africa /Turkey/Argentina) group. Everyone wants a piece of the future stars while they're still in the formative stage. But few are looking at central Africa.