As we go into year 2012 here are potential areas that will make impact in the coming year and hopefully make a few more tech millionaires in the continent.

Enjoy!! and leave your comments.

1. Educational Technologies: Startups are springing up pretty quickly across Nigeria and Africa trying to solve myriads of problems from communication to agriculture, payment/commerce and so on yet there is a sector in the continent which is in dire need of the tech revolution; the educational sector. 2012 will be a nice time to see real tech ideas meant to make education a far easier, enjoyable and fruitful process. Real startups that will aim at providing quick, real time solutions to educational challenges in the continent will attract attention primarily because it will be doing something different and revolutionary. The startups to watch that may be already attempting to do something in that sector are few and far between. Skoola.com is one of them.

2. Digital Content Sharing Platforms: Quite a couple of years back Africans and Nigerians had to buy CDs to watch movies and listen to favourite music. Sharing videos was limited apart from Youtube. Now sharing digital content is becoming ever faster and easier and what’s more ground breaking digital content sharing is coming to Nigeria. IrokoTV, Sturvs, etc are gradually changing the way we watch movies and listen to music. In 2012 music distribution in Nigeria and Africa will go digital. Book publishing and distribution is still very much traditional and some of that will change. The fact that books (such as Steve Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson) are being sold in electronic formats and watched in digital devices like the Kindle show that content is going digital (written, audio, video, graphic). 2012 may usher in new startups that distribute the music content of Nigerian musicians on smart devices which people pay to download.

3. Collaborative Commerce: In today’s fast moving world it is either you get alliances or risk being ridden over. Commerce is becoming more collaborative and will even become more in 2012. Merchants and Product sellers will have to get used to price comparison mechanisms and applications where people can quickly compare prices with their mobile device before buying. Deals sites are looking to get merchants and sellers to offer specific number of deals to get more exposure and more things sold. Commerce will sure undergo more fundamental changes in 2012 and commerce and merchandise firms will collaborate more. Technology will affect shopping more than it has ever done.

Read complete list : http://nairabrains.com/2011/12/the-9-most-promising-areasniches-to-launch-a-business-startup-in-2012/

Totally agree on the Education side i was invited to test an educational video platform in london last december and what i saw amazed me. These guys are going to change education forever. The site of going live this January link is www.learnerscloud.com

Education is surely in for a revolution. I happen also to be somehow involved with a startup (http://skoola.com) aiming at simplifying the education process through technology. It will be an interesting year to watch things unfold.