Ericsson ranks Lagos first in ICT maturity improvement index

Ericsson has ranked Lagos first in ICT maturity improvement 2013-2014 index. Also, Ericsson in its latest Networked Society City Index, ranked Lagos (Nigeria) number 38 in a list of 40.

The index ranks 40 cities and measures their ICT maturity in terms of leverage from ICT INVESTMENTS in economic, social and environmental development: the “triple bottom line” effect.

For instance, researchers at Ericsson found that, Lagos and Johannesburg provide very good examples of cities where the populations, in the absence of well-developed fixed infrastructure, use new mobile technologies to enable a connected life, including the use of social networks and mobile payments.

These cities have the opportunity to overtake others, for example, choosing not to set up formal banking systems and other expensive physical infrastructures and instead using advanced mobile technologies.

In contrast to Lagos and Johannesburg, the index also identifies cities that experience low ICT usage compared to their infrastructure and affordability.

The relatively low performance in ICT usage of Beijing, Istanbul, Shanghai, Tokyo and Miami is largely due to their less developed e-governance compared to other index cities.

By developing better e-services, these cities could improve many aspects of daily life for their residents. Developing their open data resources could also spur innovation.

Source: Daily Independent