What can Google do for Africa?

For one, they can start a Google Africa Blog (Hat tip: Giulio Quaggiotto). Google announced the release of this blog earlier this month. So far there are stories on an open source prize, World Environment Week, and a gadget competition (in English and French, of course). From Google's announcement:

We believe that the Internet is a transformational force for societies. And it's making us all much more powerful as individuals, regardless of whether one is in New York, Stockholm, Bujumbura, Ouagadougou, or Cape Town. Regardless of background, education, social status, gender, age or economic situation, online access to information enables people to create opportunities for themselves. Seeing a student in a cybercafe doing his research using a search engine, a businessman chatting with a colleague abroad with instant messaging, or a young woman posting her photos to a social networking site - it's clear the extent to which academic, business and social life is fundamentally changing all over Africa.

Reactions from the blogosphere at White African and do good well.

Update: Fellow PSD blogger Giulio Quaggiotto pointed out to me that that's not all Google is doing in Africa. The company opened a development office in Nairobi last September. The New York Times notes that

[t]o be truly creative in a technological backwater is to defeat geography. Even as powerful a technological force as Google might not succeed. But dreaming of greatness, Kenyans are pushing Google to expand into completely new areas.