By Rebecca Aboagyewah Oppong | Veebeckz Tech Media | Published on 12th November, 2024
Walk through a modern cocoa farm in the Ashanti Region today and you might be surprised. Nestled among the trees, you’ll find tiny soil sensors buried in the ground. A solar-powered weather station sits quietly by the edge of the field, beaming data to the cloud every ten minutes. The farmer, once reliant only on instinct and tradition, now opens a dashboard on his phone to track rainfall, temperature, and moisture levels. This is not fiction—it’s the Internet of Things in action. And it is slowly but surely changing Africa.
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the network of physical devices—“things”—embedded with sensors, software, and connectivity that enables them to collect and exchange data. While it might sound futuristic, it’s already at work in many parts of the continent, including Ghana. From agriculture and transportation to energy and healthcare, IoT is offering real-time visibility and control like never before. For a continent long underserved by traditional infrastructure, this could be revolutionary.
One of the most compelling use cases for IoT in Africa is in agriculture. With over 60% of Africa’s workforce involved in farming, yet only a fraction having access to reliable agronomic advice or climate forecasting, IoT tools are helping to bridge this gap. Ghanaian startups like Farmerline and AgroCenta are deploying IoT-based weather sensors and mobile platforms that deliver timely alerts to farmers. In East Africa, Hello Tractor uses GPS and IoT sensors to create a “Uber for tractors” model, allowing smallholder farmers to rent nearby machinery when needed. These innovations are improving yields, reducing post-harvest losses, and ultimately increasing food security.
In the energy sector, IoT is providing smarter, more sustainable solutions. In countries like Nigeria and Kenya, off-grid solar companies like M-KOPA and Lumos use IoT-enabled meters to manage home solar systems. These meters allow customers to prepay for electricity using mobile money, monitor their consumption in real time, and alert technicians remotely if something goes wrong. Ghana is also seeing movement in this space, especially in peri-urban areas where solar-based mini-grids are integrated with IoT dashboards that optimize load sharing and track usage patterns.
Water management, a growing concern in both rural and urban communities, is another sector ripe for IoT transformation. WaterGuard Analytics, an initiative under Veebeckz, is developing solar-powered sensors that monitor water quality in rivers and reservoirs. These sensors can detect heavy metal contamination—a problem often linked to illegal mining—while transmitting real-time data to farmers and fishers downstream. With tools like this, communities can act quickly to protect their health and livelihoods.
Urban centers are also catching on. In Nairobi and Kigali, smart traffic systems are using IoT-enabled cameras and road sensors to manage congestion. Ghana’s capital, Accra, is experimenting with smart street lighting and waste monitoring systems to better manage public services. By embedding sensors in everything from bins to buses, cities can optimize routes, reduce energy usage, and plan proactively—rather than reacting after a problem emerges.
In healthcare, the promise of IoT is profound, particularly in maternal care and remote patient monitoring. Wearable devices that track vital signs, blood glucose, or blood pressure are enabling community health workers to monitor patients in real-time—even in the most remote locations. In Rwanda, IoT-enabled cold chain sensors ensure vaccines are kept at optimal temperatures from the central warehouse to the village clinic. This kind of granular visibility wasn’t possible just a decade ago, and its impact on public health could be historic.
But with all the opportunity, the challenges are just as real. One of the most glaring is infrastructure. IoT devices require reliable electricity, internet, and sometimes cellular networks—all of which remain inconsistent in many African regions. Without connectivity, sensors are just expensive gadgets. Similarly, data from IoT devices often needs cloud processing, which can be both bandwidth-heavy and expensive.
Data privacy and cybersecurity present another hurdle. The more connected we become, the more vulnerable we are to breaches. In regions where cybersecurity literacy is low, and regulations are still catching up, the mass collection of personal and environmental data could open the door to misuse. For example, health data collected via wearable devices needs to be stored and managed with strict consent and security protocols. Unfortunately, most African countries are still in the early stages of building robust data governance frameworks.
Cost is yet another limiting factor. Even though the price of IoT components is dropping globally, the total cost of setting up, maintaining, and integrating these systems remains high for many startups and local governments. Unlike in Silicon Valley, where venture capital is abundant, African innovators must often do more with less—making scalable IoT adoption more difficult without support from international partners or impact investors.
Furthermore, skills and talent gaps hinder progress. Building and maintaining IoT systems requires expertise in hardware engineering, embedded programming, cloud computing, and data analytics. In Ghana, while more youth are being trained in software development, hardware remains a neglected area. Initiatives like Veebeckz’s upcoming IoT & Hardware Bootcamp aim to address this gap by introducing students to the physical side of tech—circuit boards, sensors, and low-power networks.
Despite these challenges, the direction is clear. Africa doesn’t just need more connectivity—it needs meaningful, context-aware, and locally owned connected systems. The future of IoT on the continent must focus on relevance over flash, resilience over perfection, and collaboration over competition. Governments, private sector players, universities, and communities must co-design systems that work for our people, our environment, and our pace of growth.
IoT won’t solve all of Africa’s problems. But it offers a fresh set of eyes—and ears, and sensors—to help us understand and solve them faster, smarter, and more sustainably. In Ghana and across the continent, the Internet of Things might just be the thing that finally connects innovation to impact in ways we’ve never seen before.
“From cocoa farms to city streets, IoT is quietly connecting Africa—one smart sensor at a time.”