React for Good: Creating Inclusive, Secure, and Scalable Applications in Emerging Markets

Inosency Andembera is a co-founder and chief of operations for Cheapin Limited, a board member for Google Women Techmakers South Africa, the founder of Women in Tech Malawi, and the leader of the Code Africa Lidongo chapter. She is also a React developer.

Inosency Andembera discussed using React to build scalable, secure, and inclusive applications for emerging markets, focusing on Internet connectivity challenges, security concerns, and user inclusivity.

React can help by supporting code splitting, lazy loading, image compression, offline-first designs, secure authentication, input validation, internationalization, and semantic HTML to address connectivity, security, and inclusivity issues in emerging markets.

Emerging markets face challenges such as limited Internet connectivity, low-end devices, lack of trust in digital platforms, complex user interfaces, and language barriers.

Inosency Andembera helped build Zunga, a financial platform using React, to provide reliable and secure financial services in Malawi, addressing issues of accessibility, security, and cost associated with traditional banks.

When building applications for emerging markets, it is important to consider accessibility and inclusivity, a security-first approach, and performance optimization.

React enhances application security by supporting secure authentication using libraries like Firebase Boss and allowing easy implementation of input validation.

React can improve application inclusivity by using internationalization libraries to support multiple languages and building simple, step-by-step user interfaces with reusable components.

Performance optimization is important because many users in emerging markets have limited Internet connectivity and low-end devices, so optimized applications ensure better loading times and usability.

Inosency Andembera emphasizes using React not just for trendy applications, but to develop scalable, secure, and inclusive applications that address the needs of emerging markets.