Towards a mobile eprocurement system for small scale retailers in rural South Africa

The quest for the enforcement and the promotion of value co-creation amongst businesses from the 1^st and 2^nd economies through ICT is becoming increasingly demanding from a technology perspective, yet of absolute importance for socio-economic development and co-operation. We introduce in this paper a project referred to as RUSTICA (that builds on, from a previous project referred to as C@R) of which the main objective is to facilitate the deployment of ICT in Rural areas exemplified in this context with an eProcurement system for small scale retailers in the Sekhukhune area of South Africa. Current results emanated from various ongoing pilots in the area reveal that there is room for the replication of the model in other areas for the contribution to socio-economic development through ICT.