White African

  • “Made in Africa” my talk from Pop!Tech

    Posted: October 29, 2008, 3:01 pm by HASH

    Here is my 5-minute talk that I did at Pop!Tech this Saturday. It touches on Ushahidi, AfriGadget and why I’m optimistic about Africa.



    The best part for me is that in a recording I can make sure I don’t forget any lines and I can add more images into the slideshow. I know I had to cut out a section of the talk in the live event as I was running out of time. Either way, I hope you enjoy it, as it’s a mixture of my history that explains a little of my present occupation.

  • Ushahidi “Eldoret” (v0.1) is Released!

    Posted: October 28, 2008, 9:32 pm by HASH

    I’m very excited to take a moment to give a big thanks to some very special people who have taken a lot of their time to make Ushahidi’s first release of the new engine come together. Each release is named after an African city or town which has seen a large crisis or disaster overtake it. The “Eldoret” release is in recognition of the problems that were centered around that town in Kenya earlier this year.

    A special round of thanks goes out to the following people for going the extra mile and getting this done:

    It’s really looking good too, in no small thanks to Caleb and Jared. Check out the demo for yourself. More on it at the Ushahidi blog.

    Bugs

    Of course, there are bugs that need to be found and squashed. Many bugs, legions of them I’m sure, as this is just the alpha. Send all of your errors, bugs and failures to bugs.ushahidi.com - Thanks!

    v0.2

    The partying isn’t even done, but it’s time to finalize features and start building in the new ones. Check out the task list at http://wiki.ushahididev.com/doku.php?id=october_tasklist_2 if you want to get started.

  • FrontlineSMS, Clay Shirky and Project Masiluleke

    Posted: October 25, 2008, 2:09 am by HASH

    Ken Banks, who I’ve become even better friends with since we roomed together for the PopTech Fellows program, spoke today about FrontlineSMS. With his British accent, talk of Daleks from Dr. Who, and witty comments he won over the room.

    Two of my favorite speakers were in the first session of the day, Clay Shirky (Here Comes Everybody) and Chris Anderson (The Long Tail). Just read their books, it’s probably the best advice I can give you.

    Project Masiluleke

    From the PopTech Blog:

    “In Zulu, the word masiluleke means “lend a helping hand” and “give wise counsel” - a concept at the heart of a new project announced this morning at Pop!Tech. Project Masiluleke, which spun out of a talk by HIV campaigner Zinny Thabethe at Pop!Tech 2006, is attempting to wrestle back some initiative in the HIV-Aids crisis in Africa.”

    When the team who worked on this went through the numbers, the impact and the process created to attack the issue of HIV in South Africa, it was incredibly emotional. Robert Fabricant of Frog Design worked on this, and I’ve learned first-hand how this man can laser in on strategic design challenges - and they did the same for this project.

    Really, this was an all-star team, Gustav Praekelt - one of the most knowledgeable mobile phone specialists in Africa - is helping to run the program. It’s done using the 120 character free space in “Please Call Me” SMS system that’s used in South Africa. They tack on messages to get people to come to get HIV treatment in private, so that they don’t have to worry about what stigma attached to that treatment.

  • Highlights from my Morning at PopTech 2008

    Posted: October 23, 2008, 12:00 am by HASH

    If the rest of PopTech is anything like the morning of the first day, then I’m not sure my head can handle it. You can follow along live at Poptech.org/live, and track images on Flickr at PopTech08. Finally, follow the PopTech blog, as they liveblog the whole event. Here are my highlights and images from this event so far.

    Before I get started on today though, I need to give a quick shout out to Gever Tulley, who helped re-awaken my love of tinkering and creating with my hands. I spent yesterday afternoon bending wire, strapping down chopsticks and creating power with rubber bands. My masterpiece was a catapult-driven car. Best of all, Gever runs the Tinkering School, and he’s a big AfriGadget fan.

    Saul Griffith started us off with some amazing visuals supporting his studies into energy use by himself over one year. You can join in at his crowdsourcing project of personal energy use at a site called Wattzon. It’s really quite interesting to see the breakdown of energy use by those of us who travel a lot.

    Malcolm Gladwell spoke about capital usage by societies - I’ve read both Blink and The Tipping Point, so am also going to buy his new book Outliers when it comes out. Frankly, he’s an amazing speaker and it was just enjoyable listening to him talk. Funnily enough, I got to chat with his mother during the break, which was unexpected.

    David Harrison is on a mission to save disappearing languages from all over the globe. He’s a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore University, and expressed well the need to save languages as we lose so much human knowledge that cannot simply be translated into a “global language”. Harrison has developed the idea of “language hotspots” - examining where the highest diversity of languages are, where the danger is most and where knowledge that is not widely known exists.

    I actually didn’t know anything about Imogen Heap before I heard her here at PopTech. It was an absolutely fascinating moment for me, as she used technology to start echoing her voice and did a full song with only her voice weaving in and out in a symphony that can only be heard, not explained. Amazing. You can also follow her on Twitter @imogenheap.

    It was wonderful to finally meet Rob Katz, who started NextBillion.net - the website that tracks and keeps discussions alive around products and services targeted at the “bottom billion” people in the world. We have big plans of having a good long talk over the next couple days, more after that.

    Lastly, a new friend of mine that is also a part of this year’s PopTech 2008 Fellows class, is Eric Dawson. One of the more grounded individuals that I’ve ever met, he exudes peace. This is good, as he runs an organization called Peace Games, focused on ending youth violence. His short talk was well done, asking us to not feed the evil, but the good in ourselves.

    Best of all, the bags handed out by PopTech are by Timbuk2, and are excellent bags. However, anyone who wants to can donate their bag to Eric’s Peace Games organization for one of the 40,000 youth taking part in their program.

  • There’s a Problem with Seed Capital in Africa

    Posted: October 20, 2008, 6:16 pm by HASH
    .flickr-photo { border: solid 0px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

    John Balen of Canaan Partners, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.

    Wherever I go in Africa, one of the consistent comments that I hear from young entrepreneurs in the technology space is that there is no way to get started. There is little seed capital and very few angel investors to be found. That’s a problem - and it’s true in East Africa as well as South Africa.

    In a conversation with John Balen, General Manager of Canaan Partners - a top tier Bay Area venture capital firm, over breakfast this morning at PopTech Fellows we discussed a few of these challenges. Canaan has operations and offices in India, Israel and the US, which means that they have some experience working in areas with non-traditional VC ecosystems.

    Problem: The Investment Community

    It turns out that one of the main problems in places like Africa, which is somewhat similar to places in India, is that the investors have to be educated first. Seed capital and early venture funding is a high risk proposition. There are few investors who care about technology, and those that do are interested in the later stages of investing.

    A common problem in Africa is finding young entrepreneurs with a good idea, generally technical in nature, and they need about $5000-$10,000 to handle operations and build out of their technology in the first 6 months to a year. If they can find a local funder, that person generally wants an inordinate amount of equity in the operation - anywhere from 40-80%.

    Some serious education in the investor circles in Africa needs to take place.

    Lastly, there should be some recognition that a lot of the young entrepreneurs need some help. Beyond the funding, just giving some help in learning how to set up and grow a real business is hugely important. Introducing potential partners, helping broker deals and giving advice on how to hire employees are ways that investors grow into being a true partner - and African entrepreneurs badly need this too.

    Ideas

    I’m interested in seeing some Y-Combinator style venture funding companies AND communities developing around different regions in Africa. Groups that only fund the very early stages of development ($5000 - $15000) for very short periods of time (3-6 months).

    I know there are some individuals doing just that, but let’s talk about communities around this space. What I think would be interesting would be to see these individuals band together and create real communities that connect with and plug in to the community in much closer ways. Become part of the local technology ecosystem and really learn how to find promising individuals and foster them to greatness - and make a lot of money along the way.

    As John Balen said, “It’s hard for large VC funds to invest in small enterprises.” This is especially true in Africa, so why not figure out a way to foster earlier stage investments as a community of smaller investors?

  • A Crash Course in Branding from Cheryl Heller

    Posted: October 19, 2008, 7:38 pm by HASH

    Cheryl Heller, from Heller Communication Design, is spending the morning with us at the Pop!Tech Fellows program. We’re getting a crash course in branding and, “creating a brand promise”. Branding is more than a pretty logo or a nice website, it’s everything that you say, do or are perceived as. It’s what makes up the organization and it’s what people understand of you.

    I try to pay attention to the Ushahidi brand, but I got a rude awakening as Cheryl asked us to each stand up and give an elevator pitch on our organization. Embarrassingly, I had to stand up and stutter through some half-baked pitch on Ushahidi. Needless to say, I’m already working hard at getting this whole brand a lot tighter - all the more important as we have a growing community that needs to easily speak about the brand as well.

    Brand Promise

    It’s what you promise to deliver. It’s not your mission, vision and values. It is the commitment that the business makes to each of the people who interact with it. It works two-ways - they first capture what is unique and valuable about an organization, and then inform the actions necessary to make it true. An Example:

    “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.”
    - Ritz-Carleton Hotels

    Ushahidi’s Elevator Pitch and Brand Promise

    I was paired with Heather Fleming, of Catapult Design, to help each other figure out our brand promise. Cheryl came by to help us boil down some of these thoughts and channel them towards what it should really be.

    When I boiled down the Ushahidi elevator pitch (and I’m still working on it), I came up with this:

    In a crisis or disaster, ordinary people have deeper insight into what’s going on around them than either the government or the news media. When you gather that information in aggregate, you start to see the bigger picture much more clearly.

    Ushahidi is a platform that allows you to crowdsource crisis information by SMS, email and the web. We believe that gathering that information is key to saving lives and speeding recovery during an emergency.

    It’s free and open source software, which means that anyone, anywhere in the world can use this platform.

    After much iteration, and something I’m still working on, is the following for Ushahidi’s brand promise:

    “We open a window to the world. Making the invisible visible by providing simple tools, used by ordinary people in extraordinary times so that others can act on it.”

    Takeaways

    An invaluable exercise is to really learn to listen to others talk about your organization and brand. Hearing Heather and Cheryl talk about what their perceptions of Ushahidi is was more valuable that me endlessly talking about what I think it is.

    What is Ushahidi to you? How do you see it, and what’s the promise that you hear/see in us?

  • WhiteAfrican and Kiwanja at PopTech 2008

    Posted: October 18, 2008, 11:06 pm by HASH
    .flickr-photo { border: solid 0px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

    WhiteAfrican and Kiwanja at PopTech 2008, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.

    Having a tourist picture moment with Ken Banks of Kiwanja in Camden, Maine right before the Pop!Tech conference begins next week. We’re both Pop!Tech Fellows this year, which is turning out to be way more fun than we ever imagined.

    (Note Ken Banks goofing off as usual…)

    This reflection is in the door to the Camden Opera House, where the event will take place next week.

    Here I am hanging out with Andrew Zolli, the curator of Pop!Tech, at the Zoot coffee shop. We spent way to much time talking camera lenses and then running around the area taking pictures. Fun times!

  • 7 Rules Explain Innovation in Africa

    Posted: October 18, 2008, 6:03 am by HASH

    Ethan Zuckerman has produced yet another amazing thought piece. This time, he’s talking about innovation in Africa and how that is brought about by resource constraints. Go read the whole post here. In the meantime, here are his 7 rules explaining how developing world innovation proceeds:

    1. Innovation (often) comes from constraint (If you’ve got very few resources, you’re forced to be very creative in using and reusing them.)
    2. Don’t fight culture (If people cook by stirring their stews, they’re not going to use a solar oven, no matter what you do to market it. Make them a better stove instead.)
    3. Embrace market mechanisms (Giving stuff away rarely works as well as selling it.)
    4. Innovate on existing platforms (We’ve got bicycles and mobile phones in Africa, plus lots of metal to weld. Innovate using that stuff, rather than bringing in completely new tech.)
    5. Problems are not always obvious from afar (You really have to live for a while in a society where no one has currency larger than a $1 bill to understand the importance of money via mobile phones.)
    6. What you have matters more than what you lack (If you’ve got a bicycle, consider what you can build based on that, rather than worrying about not having a car, a truck, a metal shop.)
    7. Infrastructure can beget infrastructure (By building mobile phone infrastructure, we may be building power infrastructure for Africa.)

    Brilliant.

  • Open Mobile Consortium Launches at MobileActive ‘08

    Posted: October 15, 2008, 3:06 pm by HASH


    (Image by Tino Kreutzer)

    One of the big initiatives that was just formed/announced at MobileActive ‘08 was what we’re calling the “Open Mobile Consortium” (working name). This is a body much like the W3C, focused on bringing together groups working on initiatives in this space, formulating best practices and standards and generally working to bring this fragmented industry a little closer together.

    We’ll see where this goes, but there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm and willingness to make something happen. On top of that, the organizations taking part carry a lot of weight. There were representatives from UNICEF, Shuttleworth Foundation, Tactical Tech, InSTEDD, Cell-Life, Ushahidi, UN Foundation, Open Rosa, Columbia University, and many more that I can’t remember.

    This is an open group, and there’s room for input from the private, academic and the non-profit sectors. Look for a website shortly, until then know that our benevolent leader, Robert Kirkpatrick of InSTEDD, or Peter Benjamin (secretariat) of Cell-Life.org will be handling the process going forward.

    [Needless to say Ushahidi is a proud founding member of this group.]

  • Mobile Phones in Crisis & Disaster Situations

    Posted: October 14, 2008, 5:34 pm by HASH

    This morning I had the honor of putting on a workshop at MobileActive ‘08 with Robert Kirkpatrick, of InSTEDD, and Christopher Fabian, of UNICEF. Both of them are doing some amazing work in the field of disaster and crisis response, using all different types of technology, but specifically what people carry in their pockets all over the world: the mobile phone.

    InSTEDD has a number of ongoing projects, generally thinking about ways to use technology to help organizations collaborate better in some of the harshest disaster environments in the world. You’ll find their tech guys everywhere, from Cambodia to hurricane Ike. Their Mesh4x and SMS GeoChat technology is incredibly important, and I foresee it being used in many applications in the future.

    UNICEF has two interesting skunkworks-like projects (among many more) that they talked about today. The Bee, which allows communication, connectivity and data access in field conditions where such technologies are often difficult or impossible to use (video of the old version of the Bee). Christopher also talked about RapidSMS, an SMS and voice data gathering tool that is currently being used in Northern Uganda.

    Takeaways: Free, Open Source, Customizable

    It was interesting to hear each of us talk about our projects and how we each have an immense amount of respect for what each of the other groups is doing. Ushahidi’s focus is on gathering distributed data from civilians for visualization, InSTEDD is focused on collaboration, and UNICEF is trying to figure out how that works within groups and communities.

    One consistent message is this: every crisis situation differs, so we need to build tools that are open and free for anyone to access. It’s a little like all of us creating different Lego pieces that go into the Lego box for everyone else to use.

    Ushahidi needs to figure out how to incorporate both RapidSMS and SMS GeoChat. UNICEF’s Bee needs to get Mesh4x embedded in their device - which has both open source hardware and software. There are other tools, like Sahana, that we need to learn how to incorporate into our systems as well - or at the least make possible to interface between when people need that specific mix of tools in their particular situation.

    Lastly, but probably most importantly, we all see that developing within the context of the areas of the world where these disaster or crisis situations are happening is vital. UNICEF has developers in a couple different African countries. InSTEDD’s devs are training local devs in all of the countries that they go to. Ushahidi has 85% of our dev team in Africa. It’s a trend, and a good one - making sure that the people build the tools using the devices and limitations in which they will be used.

    Look for big things stemming from this meet up soon.

  • Debates on the Mobile Web at MobileActive ‘08

    Posted: October 13, 2008, 8:36 pm by HASH

    We just finished a really good conversation on the the future of the mobile web at MobileActive ‘08. Toni Eliasz of Ungana Afrika moderated a discussion where one side of the room was charged with arguing against the mobile web, and the other half for the mobile web. I sat on the “for” side of the room.

    My Position

    The web is made up of data, and we generally think of it as what we access via the PC. However, that same data can be accessed and added to through mobile phones as well. Whether its basic SMS, Java apps or direct web browsing. Data is data - how you access is what matters.

    Some of the issues holding back penetration of the mobile web:

    • Accessibility - though this gets better every year
    • Cost - The reason why you can’t directly compare interaction or development of apps and services that use the mobile phone to the PC is because of the cost associated with data and SMS costs on mobile right now.
    • Interface - usability can be a major problem on Java apps, and 160 characters is very limiting.

    But the basic truth remains. If you can access and contribute to the global databases of content, then you are in fact on the mobile web.

    The mobile web is already here. It’s happening now.

    Mobile Web Questions


    The questions we debated.

    Rabble’s and Blaine’s Positions

    Rabble, creator of Yahoo’s Fire Eagle, and Blaine, the original architect of Twitter, continued the discussion with me afterward. The claim here is that the only truly mobile web device is the iPhone, all else is negligible - maybe not in theory, but in action.

    Rabble tells me that it’s much like saying that if you could get the web through this blurry glass, even if it’s feasible, it’s not useful or likely. He’s got a good point…

    [final note: I was preoccupied while trying to post this with Rabble and Blaines' conversation...]

  • Kelele - the African Bloggers Conference

    Posted: October 12, 2008, 2:20 pm by HASH

    Kelele, the African Bloggers Conference, was announced today at Barcamp Africa. That event has an incredible amount of energy and enthusiasm behind it, and it makes the perfect segue to the next big African community event: Kelele! This event was born out of connections made at TED Global in Tanzania last year, when 25+ bloggers from around Africa were brought face-to-face for the first time.

    The specific theme of Kelele ‘09 Nairobi is “Beat Your Drum” – which connects the traditional African method of getting your message across vast distances – the talking drums – to the 21st century and the tools we use today, blogs and the Internet. We anticipate that this conference will continue to be called Kelele wherever it is held.

    Daudi Were is producing the event, along with an organizing committee of bloggers from all over Africa. This includes Ndesanjo Macha, Dave Duarte, Nii Simmonds, Mshairi, Sami Ben Gharbia, and myself.

    Why Kelele?

    From Daudi:

    “Kelele is the Kiswahili word for noise. We are organising a gathering of African bloggers in the tradition of historical African societies where everyone has a voice. With too many voices marginalized, or simply ignored in Africa society today for a variety of reasons, we believe that the internet in general and grassroots media tools such as blogs in particular represent the most powerful way in which to give Africans back their voice. We are gathering to make a powerful, positive, inspirational noise that will be heard across the continent and beyond. KELELE!”

    I think we’re at a place saying, if Africans want to do something, then do it. So, let’s do it! Let’s celebrate the cultures we have in Africa and let the conference be a reflection of that. Let’s make it truly African, where the people involved are coming from all 52 countries on the continent and the diaspora. Let’s seed the next generation of bloggers and advocates of open dialogue in Africa - which is why one day will be focused on having the top 100 bloggers around Africa training new bloggers in whichever host country it’s in.

    This is a pivotal kind of event that I think will grow each year. The goals are big - REALLY big - and I think we’ll reach them.

    Sponsorships and a big Thanks!

    Sponsors - We have only begun canvassing for sponsors for Kelele this week. Already, the Berkman Institute at Harvard is on board. If you’d like to join us and be a part of making some real noise in Africa, please get in touch with Daudi, or at main@kelele.org.

    A very special thanks goes out to Foxinni and David Kobia for the logo and WordPress design work.

    As my friend and fellow organizer, Ndesanjo, puts it: Peace and kelele!

    [follow along on Twitter @kelele]

  • Bush-videostreaming at Barcamp Jozi

    Posted: October 12, 2008, 1:52 pm by HASH
    .flickr-photo { border: solid 0px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

    Bush-videostreaming at Barcamp Jozi, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.

    We had a great day 1 at Barcamp Jozi yesterday, and then a mad evening rushing around Johannesburg trying to find a good enough uplink connection to run the live streaming panel back to Barcamp Africa. We didn’t exactly succeed in live streaming, but the video will be uploaded shortly.

    More importantly, we had an incredibly good time having the adventure, spending the evening having a conversation about mobile phones, the web and technology in Africa - all under the open skies of South Africa.

    Panelists:

    I can’t actually view the video, but if I could it would be at this link: Barcamp Jozi panel

  • Barcamp Africa

    Posted: October 12, 2008, 4:00 am by HASH

  • Ushahidi Updates from Nairobi

    Posted: October 7, 2008, 10:02 am by HASH

    I’ve had a rather active 5 days in Nairobi. Eventful enough to give an update on what’s going on with the Ushahidi developers, the pilot projects and some mobile phone fun. I head out tomorrow for Johannesburg for the MobileActive conference, and will also be attending the Friday night meetup and Barcamp Jozi on Saturday.

    Ushahidi Smartphone Developments

    (more on the Ushahidi blog)

    Steve Mutinda put together a working Ushahidi Java application - and surprised me with it, this Saturday. It works well, and he and Wilfred Mworia are hard at work on the Ushahidi API to ensure that this app and the Ushahidi iPhone app both can sync with the database easily.

    Speaking of iPhone apps, Chris Blow and Joe Jones have finished making changes from the feedback received on the first mockups. Wilfred Mworia starts this week on his new iPhone to get this working. We’re thinking it will take about 3 weeks.


    (We’re still looking for feedback on the iPhone screens)

    Ushahidi Devs Meetup

    Just last night we had a great Ushahidi dev meetup in Nairobi. The combination of brains and energy in the room was just incredible. We ate good food, got up to speed on the latest Ushahidi news, and had a geeky good time.

    One of our advisory board members was there as well, Patrick Meier, from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He fit right in, as he also grew up in Kenya and went to secondary school in Nairobi.

    Jason Mule and Wilfred Mworia are going to start running monthly Ushahidi dev sessions, so get with them if you want to jump in.

    Pilot Project Meetings

    The last, but probably one of the more important things that I’ve been doing while in town, is the meetings I’ve been having with the different organizations that have agreed to test out the alpha release of Ushahidi. This is extremely important for us, as it gives us a chance at some feedback and direct hands-on experience with launching Ushahidi instances in the wild.

    More updates on this as we get through them, but in short, everyone is very excited about being a part of the pilot and the potential for Ushahidi to change the way the gather and visualize information from the field.

  • Re-framing Brand Africa (Tech)

    Posted: October 6, 2008, 10:05 am by HASH

    I’ve had some recurring thoughts over the last couple weeks, mostly pertaining to how technologists in Africa present ourselves, and how those outside Africa see us. How does “Brand Africa” - from the technology angle - play out, and why? What is unique that we offer to the world, and why should African technology matter in the global context?

    It’s about “Brand Africa”

    We need to re-frame the way we think about technology in Africa before we can expect others outside of Africa to do the same. Our challenge is to get people to realize that there is a real competitive advantage to developing and testing software in Africa. After all, if it works in Africa, it will work anywhere.

    The development conditions are unreliable and the environment is harsh. It isn’t fun to work off slow internet connections or deal with expensive and poor mobile phone networks. All of these things, and more, make just the technological side of developing in Africa a challenge, which is why it’s also a particularly good place to try new things.

    If we embrace those handicaps, we might find that there’s a silver-lining inside.

    African technology exported to the world

    Fring and Ubuntu are two popular products coming out of South Africa that have gone global. There are more though. When Ken Banks built FrontlineSMS, he first tested and developed it within the African context. Ushahidi is being developed in Africa because these are the conditions that will make it work anywhere in the world.

    In the enterprise solutions space there are a couple companies that do some good work. Two examples of this are Herman Chinery-Hesse’s Softtribe in Ghana, and Microhouse in Kenya. Some of their solutions are for the local markets, and some are used in bidding on international projects.

    Africa as a testing grounds for new applications

    There’s a really neat application called Qik, which allows you to stream video live from your phone to a website. It has amazing potential for live video reporting, especially in a war zone. So, that’s just what David Axe did - and it failed miserably. Why? Because Qik designed their application not thinking of the unreliable and poor data connections found in much of the developing world.

    David gives a couple suggestions:

    First, there should be a “store” function, whereby you can shoot a video in some austere location, save it to your phone’s memory, then stream it later once you’ve got a solid network.

    Second, Qik needs some way to buffer videos so that, if the software briefly loses its wireless network connection, it doesn’t also lose the whole video.

    Granted, Qik is probably not aiming at a global market, just the US and Europe. However, it’s a good example of how creating or testing software to work in harsh settings can make your product more robust and help you think of simple solutions (like David’s) that can make your product better for everyone.

    Final Thoughts

    Most people outside of Africa don’t align any type of technological edge to what we do here on the continent. In fact, most are surprised when a developer from Africa pops up on the international stage at all. Though there are fewer software developers in Africa per capita relative to their Western counterparts, what most don’t realize is that those few are really quite talented.

    This means the South Africans as well as their counter parts in Ghana, Uganda and Senegal. We’re all in this together, whether we like it or not. Remember, to outsiders we’re one homogeneous landmass. What we each do reflects on everyone, whether we’re creating for local or global markets.

    Finally, let’s first realize that the challenges we face also provide excellent opportunities and a competitive advantage. Then, let’s start creating world-class software here, and start exporting it to the world.

    (Brand Africa image via Brand Africa Project)

  • Local Software for Local Needs

    Posted: October 4, 2008, 5:45 pm by HASH

    I happened to be in Nairobi for the first Skunkworks organized conference on local-grown mobile, web and desktop software - setup by Alex Gakuru. It’s a mixture of demos, with a scattering of talks by high-level sponsors and the Permanent Secretary of Information Dr. Ndemo.

    Tulipe - An African Payment System

    Kenneth Mwangi just gave a presentation on his new web and mobile payment application called Tulipe, which means “let’s pay” in Swahili. It’s most similar to PayPal in how it is setup, where you signup to use it on the web, and then can start using mobile phones for payment after the account is set up.

    Kenneth is in is final year at Strathmore University, well known for their tech programs, and this is his final project. The prototype is still being built, but it has a lot of potential. This is one of those ideas that a savvy business investor should jump on.

    TimeTabler - School Scheduling Application

    Bonn Ndegwa is part of a company called Unwired Technologies, based out of Western Kenya, that works on what we call “tropically tolerant software”. In other words, they create desktop applications that work in rural, unconnected Africa on old computers. It’s a perfect example of Africans developing software for their own needs, instead of just importing solutions created for a different world.

    TimeTabler has a specific niche, they focus on serving the needs of schools putting together their schedules for both classes and teachers. It doesn’t sound that exciting, but it is if you’re a headmaster that used to spend a week trying to do what now takes only an hour with TimeTabler. It’s simple, working off of an Access database, but it works - and that’s all that matters.

    Reasonably priced, they have 3 pricing levels, with a one-time cost of:

    • Primary schools - 9,000 ($125)
    • Secondary schools - 19,000/= ($250)
    • Universities - 90,000/= ($1250)
    Kikwe - Send Airtime Across Africa

    Sam Kitanye and Victor Murage are talking about the Kikwe application that allows you to send airtime anywhere in the world (not just Africa). They use electronic inventory, so they bypass the need of keeping physical voucher inventory, which is very useful when you think about times when the shops run out.

    Scalable to any network, because you’re sending a pin number - if you tried to do this by keeping an account, SIM card or modem, that wouldn’t work. The airtime is sent instantly.

    Fraud is always a problem with these kinds of international transactions - especially when you’re dealing with airtime in Africa as it has become its own pseudo-currency. Victor talks about the ways they are tracking fraudulent activity, but past experience in this space reminds me of how difficult it is, made even harder as their product is instant.

    This is a good business idea for making money from the diaspora, assuming you can manage the fraud. However, the achilles heel for use within Africa is (again) the lack of local payment systems to actually create the transaction. Hopefully they’ll get together with Kenneth of Tulipe (above) and figure something out.

    Jahazi - Local Kenyan Internet Content

    Mugambi is giving a review of the newer version of Jahazi (which I reviewed in it’s earlier stages). One place where you can get all your local information for Kenya. Mixing things, including email, news reader, SMS and local internet content.

    It’s another good example of home-grown software made for local markets, challenges and content.

  • African Meetups, Barcamps and Conferences

    Posted: October 3, 2008, 6:56 am by HASH

    Things are definitely heating up in the African tech sphere according to my calendar of African tech events (Events RSS feed) for the remainder of the year. From Madagascar to Mauritius there are unconferences, conferences and adhoc meetups happening at a rate I haven’t seen before. The African tech scene is definitely getting bigger and noisier.

    In the next two weeks we have 8 events covering 6 countries:

    ** I’ll be attending these
    * I will stream in live to Barcamp Africa with the South Africans, but it’s also open in Kenya and Ghana.

    On top of these scheduled conferences and unconferences, there are many meetups happening all over the place - from the monthly 27Dinner in cities around South Africa to the bi-monthly Skunkworks meetings in Kenya.

    Africa’s a happening place - just watch!

    [As always, if you know of an upcoming African tech event, let me know and I'll add it to the calendar]

← September 2008 (12 items) November 2008 (9 items) →

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes

Kenyan Blogs