Way-C, the first African tablet, was invented in the Republic of Congo by 26-year-old Verone Mankou under his company, VMK. The Way-C tablet, an African rival to the iPad, went on sale in the Republic of Congo on Jan. 30, 2012. The Way-C, which means "the light of the stars" in a dialect of northern Congo, is sold for just $300. Though the Way-C was designed in Congo, it was assembled in China, to keep the price low and because of a lack of factories in the central African country.
On the official Way-C website, Mankou who said "originally the idea was to design a low-cost computer to bring Internet access to as many people as possible," describes the tablet as being affordable without being a cheaply made product, and filling a gap in the market for a device catering specifically to Africans. According to him "in technological terms, this tablet is equivalent to all those to be found on the market." The Android OS tablet is a little smaller than the iPad, and weighs 380 g. It has a 1.2GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal memory and supports wifi. Battery life is 6 hours. Further specs include a 7-inch screen and a version of Android dubbed "Kongo" (based on Gingerbread 2.3.5). Mankou's aim is to keep the tablet accessible for the African market and says that although the tablet is for "emerging markets" it will be available globally. The Way-C can't compete specs-wise with the dual-core, 64GB monster from Apple. Well the good thing is that the Way-C doesn't have to. All it has to do is to grab a foothold on the African tablet market.
Tablets for emerging markets seem to be all the rage. India started the trend with its Akash tablet, and now the Republic of Congo has its own cost cutting touchscreen device. This is a monumental achievement for the Republic of Congo because if there was anybody expecting an African tablet this early it would have been from countries like South Africa, Egypt or Tunisia. My Question is "where is the so called 'Giant of Africa' in all these?"
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