Items by HASH

White African

  • Broadband in Africa Report

    Posted: November 14, 2008, 2:39 am by HASH

    Russell Southwood’s Balancing-Act newsletter is one of the best sources for internet and mobile statistics and reports in Africa. If you don’t read it, you should. If you run any type of mobile, web, or ISP-type company in Africa and you can afford it, then you should be buying the reports. Here are some excerpts from the recent one on Broadband Markets in Africa with some opinions thrown in by me.

    Every country needs a price wiki

    “Confusing range of pricing structures: Different pricing structures are applied to different delivery technologies (DSL, CDMA, WiMax, GPRS, EDGE, 3G, etc) and this makes “like-for-like” comparisons across all African countries an almost impossible task.”

    No matter where you go in Africa there is no easy way to find out what types of broadband connections are available. There would be nothing more useful than a wiki-like tool that people could add to and compare against. A place where people who use these tools can put up their experiences and let others know about the “true” bandwidth provided by companies. This is especially true for residential customers.

    Geographic broadband penetration

    In the world’s most developed OECD countries, 61% of subscribers got their broadband through DSL services by 2007, 29% through Cable TV (CATV), and 8% through Fibre LAN connections. Just 2% of subscribers – some 3.455 million – subscribed to broadband through ‘other’ fixed wireless broadband services. In Africa, some 59% of broadband subscribers use DSL, just 1% use CATV, and the remaining 40% use wireless broadband.

    Broadband to OECD countries in Africa by type

    By December 2007 terrestrial broadband networks were now available in every capital city in Africa, some 50% of main cities, 10% of secondary cities and 2% of towns.

    Traditional media is still king

    Users in the more developed broadband markets make the Internet a modest supplement to a diet composed mainly of radio and television. As South African media owner Prakash Desai, CEO, Johnnic has pointed out in October 2007:”99.9% of revenues are offline. The Internet doesn’t feature.”

    As elsewhere, the Internet in Africa has a symbiotic relationship with other media, particularly television. After a controversial scene in the second series of Big Brother, there were five million downloads of that scene. Ninety per cent of those downloads came from within Africa and of those 33% were from South Africa and 37% from Nigeria and Uganda. Similar response rates on SMS voting and competitions shows that this will be fertile ground for broadband content development as the subscriber numbers increases.

    Mobile providers hold the high ground

    On a continent that has a wide variation in the amount of internet access available when moving from urban to rural settings, the hand tips to those that have lower costs in rolling out infrastructure. Land lines, cable and fibre all cost a great deal to deploy. Mobile phone carriers have the ability to do so at a lower cost through towers. It’s a node vs line problem.

    The key battle ground in the next five years will be between 3G services (or higher) offered by GSM and CDMA operators and fixed wireless broadband services. The outcome of this battle will shape the broadband experience in Africa, whether customers use mobiles as Internet access devices. …Mobile operators launching 3G networks are offering access speeds which compete with the broadband wireless services.

    When that access is just as fast as land lines, then there’s no reason at all to stick with an internet solution that forces you to stay in one place.

  • Adgator: An African Blogger’s Ad Network

    Posted: November 11, 2008, 10:22 pm by HASH

    Justin Hartman and the guys at Afrigator are at it again. I’ve wondered for a very long time why no one had created an ad network for African bloggers, thinking that there surely must be someone out there who wanted to advertise on some African blogs.

    Adgator is here to ask that same question, and prove it out. Make sure you read Justin’s post on the new platform.

    Afrigator recently had a sizeable stake acquired by MIH Print Africa, a division of Naspers Limited. This gives them more money to work with, and more credibility. This also means that they have a sizable sales team at their disposal, which is one of the biggest issues when doing an ad network.

    Before you run off to Adgator and sign up, here are a couple things you should know:

    • It’s a 50% revenue split with Adgator.
    • You get paid on a CPM basis, so you had better have a good deal of traffic to make money.
    Questions

    I had a couple questions for Justin regarding Adgator, and he was kind enough to reply with some answers. Here is our dialogue:

    How do bloggers outside of South Africa get paid?

    At this stage we’re only piloting the program in South Africa. We need to test the viability of the program in the country where Afrigator’s largest base lies and if we can make it work here then we’ll take what we’ve learned into other African countries. When we do, we’ll most likely setup our own bank accounts in those countries so that we can facilitate the payment process from within those regions. One of the core issues we’ve always struggled with in the Adgator idea is the payment one and we realise that paying people from SA simply won’t work.

    Are you mainly focused on South Africa right now?

    Yes - we’re only SA for now. I’m hoping to roll this out to Kenya and Nigeria by March 2009.

    I know you have a sales team, how much of those sales are done outside of South Africa?

    None at this stage and herein lies the problem. Because we have little resources in other African countries it makes Adgator even more difficult to implement outside of SA. However, through our efforts with Afrigator we are working on overcoming this issue and establishing ourselves in our larger African countries.

    How many advertiser are already lined up?

    This is without doubt the most difficult aspect of the job as advertisers need to be educated in this process. That said it looks like we’ve got between two and four advertisers depending on how the final negotiations go.

  • Maneno: A Blogging Platform Made for Africa

    Posted: November 9, 2008, 3:56 am by HASH

    Maneno means “words” in Swahili. An apt name for a new blogging platform being created right now by Miquel Hudin Balsa. It’s all new. There is nothing in there that’s part of some pre-packaged system.

    Do we need another blogging platform?

    When I first heard about Maneno, the first question that came to my mind was… “what about WordPress.com and Blogger.com?” Don’t those serve the same purpose? Realizing that my knowledge in this might be lacking, I contacted Miquel to answer a few answers. Here is his response:

    “We travel quite a bit and I found that anything hosted in the US gets slower and slower the further you get from the US, so I worked to create a CMS/blog platform that was very stripped down, yet fully functional. Don’t get me wrong, Wordpress is a beautiful, fantastic system that I admire and also use, but when you’re on a satellite connection in Bukavu or very slow DSL in Sarajevo, it’s mighty slow to use, which is the same problem with GMail and other web based applications that were developed in North America and Europe. So, I realized that what I was doing for our personal blogs would translate very well in to a system that would meet a great many of the needs for a new blogging system for Sub-Saharan Africa.”

    That makes sense. Any hosted web platform based in the US and Europe is going to have lag issues Africa. Every byte counts, so a system that has been custom built to work in this scenario can be useful.

    Primary African Languages

    Currently, the Maneno website interface is available in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Kiswahili. Most of the translation work is being built on feedback from translators who work on multi-lingual sites and have problems with the interface - as most are built for just writing and not for translating.

    “For the time being, since we are still in Beta, we want to incorporate about 3-4 more non-colonial languages in the next 2-3 months, perhaps Akan, Hausa, Lingala, or Zulu. For now, we’re trying to include languages that have a large amount of speakers. The system is quite open for translations, and we’re in fact looking for new volunteer translators.”

    For translating individual articles, it’s a instantaneous system where if someone is reading an article, they just click on the dropdown next to it and go to a translation page that allows them to work on their version side by side with the old one.

    Final thoughts

    The site absolutely flies. It’s a lot faster than most other blogging platforms. I’m interested in hearing from others around the African continent on how fast the site loads for them.

    Besides the standard text and images, Maneno allows you to add up to 10Mb audio files as a post. This is a great idea, and shows just how much they’re thinking about things differently, as many normal users of blogging platforms can’t figure out how to host podcasts or audio files to get them out in the public.

    What Maneno is trying to build could be a really effective hosted blogging tool for Africa. Besides language and page-load speed, on their blog they state that they’re also thinking about using mobile phones as a way to blog.

    The software is in it’s Beta stage, which means it’s time to try it out and see how well it actually works in the field. If you’d like to help in local dialect translations, make sure you visit the Maneno Languages page.

  • Ushahidi in the Congo (DRC)

    Posted: November 7, 2008, 7:00 pm by HASH

    When we pushed the first version of Ushahidi live in Kenya, I was trying to juggle that as I spoke at a conference in New York. Today, we’re deploying the new Ushahidi Engine (v0.1) into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and I’m in Rhode Island speaking at another conference. I’m starting to see a pattern emerge…

    Reporting Incidents from the Congo

    The DRC deployment can be found at [drc.ushahidi.com], and the mobile number to send SMS reports to is +243992592111.

    Note: This is the alpha software for Ushahidi. If you find any problems, please submit them to bugs.ushahidi.com.

    How you can help

    Get the word out. Let people know the mobile number (+243992592111) and website (drc.ushahidi.com). Help get word to the Congolese on the ground in the DRC of this tool, that’s who needs to know about it.

    Things are serious in the Congo… They are bad, very bad. As Sean Jacobs states:

    “Since August this year at least 250,000 people have been left homeless in Eastern Congo in the latest outbreak of a civil war described here as between government troups and a rebel group claiming to protect ethnic Tutsis. At least 2 million people are refugees from that war which dates back to 1996.”

    It’s a difficult situation, with a swirling mixture of militia and armed forces, compounded by particularly brutal and confusing activities. External military forces, years of displacement and a misinformation mar the landscape.

    A new Ushahidi, a new test

    To be quite honest, we’re a little nervous, just as we were the first time. The new engine still has a few bugs, and there are some process flow issues that we’re still trying to get figured out. This time we’re backed up by a group of competent developers who are working to get things straightened out. Want to help us make it better? It’s an open community, and we’re looking for your input.

    We are VERY interested in hearing from you on how we can make the system better. If you have ideas, thoughts, comments - tell us. Leave them in the comments here, on the Ushahidi blog, or on the Ushahidi contact form.

    This is a test of the system, albeit a very difficult one, but it will affect the way the software is changed, modified and upgraded in the next version. What we get right here, we can make work for you in your area when you need it.

    How SMS messages route through Ushahidi

    This simplified graphic was created to show how SMS messaging moves through the Ushahidi system - it’s a 2-way communication cycle.



    SMS Reporting Through Ushahidi, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.
    1. An SMS gets sent to a local number
    2. It passes through FrontlineSMS
    3. This syncs with Ushahidi
    4. The message shows up on Ushahidi
    5. Admins can decide to send a message back to the original sender

    We use FrontlineSMS so that we can provide local numbers in areas where the larger SMS gateways don’t operate. For instance, if you were to try to run this in Zambia, you’d probably get a UK phone number if you went through Clickatell. However, we do use Clickatell for the messages that we route back to the original sender due to cost savings. They also have a very nice, easy to use API.

  • No Connectivity, No Phone, No Electricty, No Problem

    Posted: November 7, 2008, 6:55 am by HASH

    Next time I’m in Orlando, I’m going to see Scott Johnson. He lives about an hour away in Daytona Beach and has developed a solar-powered Internet “hub” system (running Ubuntu GNU/Linux) that he builds to order. In the video below, he talks about the what, why and how of his system. Incredible work, and well worth watching.



    GNUveau Networks builds solar-powered computer networks for remote villages from roblimo on Vimeo.


    His objective is to bring computers and the Internet to places that have no connectivity, no phone service, and no electricity.

    On the wiki, I was able to see that there is a SolarNetOne installation running in Katsina State University, Nigeria right now, providing wireless connectivity and “Internet Cafe” access to hundreds of people. Scott also tells me that they’re in Tunisia and Benin as well, with more requests coming all the time.

    Find out more on his website at GNUveau Networks.

    (h/t Christian Ledermann)
    (thanks to Roblimo for getting me better embed code for the video)

  • Web and Mobile Tech Used in Election Monitoring

    Posted: November 3, 2008, 10:55 pm by HASH

    With the big US election cycle culminating in tomorrow’s election day there has been a lot of talk about monitoring of elections. Usually I see this type of debate taking place in other parts of the world - like Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria. However, this time it’s at home, and while all the focus of the world is here, it makes an interesting time and case-study for the use of technology in monitoring of everything from election fraud, to fairness and accessibility.

    This new generation of read/write technology using the web and mobile phones creates a situation where ordinary citizen have both awareness and opportunity to take part in an way that wasn’t possible in such great numbers only a few decades ago.

    There are really two components; gathering information and then distributing that information in a way that is useful for two types of users. First, the general public. Second, the officials and/or media who can cause something to happen when a bad situation arises.

    A list of web and mobile tools to monitor the US elections:
    • MyFairElection - Report your polling station’s
      condition on Election Day. (in partnership with ABC News)
    • TwitterVoteReport - Use twitter, SMS, audio call or an iPhone and Android applications to send in reports on Election Day. (in partnership with NPR)
    • Video Your Vote - Encourages people to video themselves voting and to upload those to YouTube. (in partnership with PBS)
    • VoterSuppression.net - A wiki where users can learn about and enter in reports of voter suppression.
    • Our Vote Live - A site documenting the voter assistance work of the Election Protection Coalition that uses a phone call-in system (866-OUR-VOTE).

    (if you have more that I haven’t heard of, add the link to the comments below)

    Cultural shifts and technology norms aren’t global

    Ethan Zuckerman is wondering whether Twitter, or even mobile phones and the web, are the right tools for monitoring an election. He brings up the fact that using old-school technology like radio and TV can be even more useful in places like Ghana, and how that differs with the experience in the USA.

    I think there are two things going on here.

    First, the cultural use of technology is changing. We’re in that strange twilight zone between mediums where the population is split between overlapping islands of web usage, mobile phones, radio, TV and print.

    Second, this cultural usage shift is compounded by having a two-tiered pattern of usage in different parts of the world. Ethan is absolutely right that one of the best tools in Africa is still the radio. However, that doesn’t translate to the US, where the country is too large for any one radio station to really hold sway. Many in the US tune into “national” radio personalities and shows, who have no “local” footprint. Calling in with your voting precinct’s flaws from Kooskia, Idaho wouldn’t make sense.

    Thus the use of the internet, and mobile phone. We’re at a point where we’re trying to raise awareness, interactivity and reach. What happens when we get mass public awareness of a tool, married with an efficient and useful way to get aggregate data in local communities?

    Final Thoughts

    One item that isn’t up for debate is this. At this time you need to marry up the coverage and awareness power of traditional media (radio, TV and print) with the simple tools and platforms that use the web and mobile phones correctly to gather and disseminate information. What I find most encouraging is that most of the initiatives listed above are using the new tools and they are partnered with major media organizations that can muscle this out to a national audience.

    (Side note: We were asked by a number of people if Ushahidi could be used for this. In short, yes - but the new alpha release of the software wasn’t ready until last week. Too late to play with here.)

    Also read the PBS Mediashift article covering these services in greater depth.

  • “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
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    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
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    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]

  • Afridex: an Index of African Tech Startups

    Posted: September 30, 2008, 4:36 am by HASH

    Jon Gosier and Paul Engulu of Appfrica has just launched Afridex, an index of African tech startups. Anyone can submit their website or mobile application and be added to the index. What an excellent idea, and really well executed as well!

    It’s still brand new, but I think it has a lot of potential - we should see a lot of mobile and web companies adding themselves to the index pretty quickly. As it grows, it becomes more valuable as a resource, thus feeding itself ad infinitum.

    Why is it useful?

    • Persistent Search queries a search engine in combination with select keywords to track mentions of your company around the web as they occur. When any new information about a group appears online it appears here.
    • Blogstream syndicates the ten most recent posts from a company blog. People can also use to follow company blogs by subscribing to the RSS feed.
    • Comments allows consumer feedback and comments about a group or organization. Get instant feedback from your customers, crowd source a product review, or offer public customer service.
    • Brand Watch is a feature that allows users to monitor mentions of a company across various social networks, blogs and websites. Like persistent search, Brand Watch scans all the popular web portals in africa and abroad for mentions of a company name.
    • Embed allows users to export standards compliant code that will allow them to embed information related to a company in their profile. This allows data from the Afridex to be portable. This information can be used as a quick citation tool for blogs, news articles, email and reports.

    If you click on any company’s name, you will be taken to the detail page on them. On that page you will find a bunch of publicly available information, including everything from contact information to blog and Twitter posts. It’s really quite impressive.

    In the lower-right corner you’ll notice the “embed” code that will allow you to add a widget to the sidebar of any website with basic information about that company. The one for Node Six looks like this:

    #afridex { font-family:helvetica; font-size:1em; border:1px solid #ccc; padding:5px 5px 5px 5px; margin:5px 5px 5px 5px: color:#333; line-height:1.1em; display:block; width:350px; } #afridex img { border:3px solid #333; } #afridex h1 { font-size:1.35em; font-weight:strong; } #afridex a { color:#71000; } #afridex a:active { color:#71000; text-decoration:underline; } #afridex p { text-align:justify; font-size:75%; }

    NodeSix

    [Map]
    URL - [www.nodesix.com]
    Email - sales@nodesix.com

    Node Six began life as a division of Elemental Edge, a leading multi-media and visual communications solutions provider in Kampala, Uganda.

    Information Provided by the Afridex

    Summary

    The only problem that I’ve found so far is that I can’t find a way to either “get listed” (it’s currently a dead link), or create a login so that I can submit a couple companies. I’m sure this is because it’s so brand new, and I’m sure Jon or Paul will leave a note here when that works.

    I’m not surprised that this excellent idea came from Jon Gossier, I’m starting to expect this type of top-class work from him. I’m sure we’re going to see even more of this in the future. Brilliant.

    Want to help out with this cool project? Get involved on the Afridex wiki

  • If it Works in Africa, It Will Work Anywhere

    Posted: September 26, 2008, 1:54 pm by HASH

    (This is from my talk on mobile phones in Africa, at the Picnic conference in Amsterdam this morning.)

    Africa is brimming with innovative people, projects and organizations. The fact that I’m standing here today proves this out - you see, I’ve been writing about those stories for the past 3 years.

    Some of you are already familiar with Africa’s mobile stats, but not everyone is. Let’s run through some numbers, and take a minute to really appreciate the staggering growth of just one industry on our continent.

    Mobile Phones in Africa - PICNIC 08 View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: mobile phone) Statistics
    • At the end of 2007 there were over 280 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa, representing a penetration rate of 30.4%
    • Africa has become the fastest growing mobile market in the world with mobile penetration in the region ranging from 30% to 100%
    • Look at the diversity in penetration rates among countries, just in Africa. It’s good to remember that when we speak about “mobile phones in Africa” that not all are created equal.
    • Fastest growing markets are in Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt
    • Increased competition as more operators come online in each country (11 in Nigeria, 4 in Kenya and SA, 3 in Egypt and Morocco)
    • Pre-paid subscriptions account for nearly 95 percent of total mobile subscriptions in the region

    How fast has it grown?

    • The Democratic Republic of Congo, population 60 million, has 10,000 fixed telephones but more than a million mobile phone subscribers.
    • In Chad, the fifth-least developed country, mobile phone usage jumped from 10,000 to 200,000 in three years.

    What sectors does this touch? All, of course, but mobile’s have proven especially effective in:Transport, Micro-commerce, Finance, Healthcare, Governance, Education, Infotainment

    Examples of innovative services

    Mobile payments and mobile banking

    • MPESA - This is what happens when the rest of the world ignores your need for a payment system. One of the golden children of Africa’s mobile revolution, when anyone brings up a successful mobile service in Africa. It works, and we’re all extremely happy to have the idea of mobile micro payments piloted and tested by Safaricom, but it also promotes a carrier monopoly in an industry AND continent that is crying for a real payment solution.
    • Wizzit - Mobile banking in South Africa
    • Celpay - Zambia - An innovative payment solution that allows consumers and businesses to complete cash transactions from their mobile phones. CelPay eliminates the problems that accompany dealing in cash visits to the bank, waiting in lines, counting and recounting money, fear of theft, and forgone interest payments. Instead, consumers with CelPay can use their mobile phone to do anything they would with cash, thanks to a payment system that works like a bank account.

    Africa News Mobile Reporters
    The Dutch group behind Africanews.com has put together a fleet of reporters around Africa using high end mobile phones, equipped with video and camera, to report short interviews and events from the field. Nokia/Reuter’s mobile newskit - Nokia N71

    Ushahidi - Citizen reporting during a crisis (now an open source project).

    mPedigree
    Ashifi Gogo created a way to use SMS to authenticate drugs in Ghana, a system that simplifies and decreases the cost of doing this and that can be replicated anywhere in the world.

    Winafrique’s Wind-powered cellular towers
    Hybrid wind and diesel turbine systems for powering cell phone base stations.

    Agricultural markets
    Tradenet
    A free service for farmers in West Africa to see local agricultural market prices around their region. It enables farmers and traders in agricultural commodities in Africa to conduct business through the use of SMS.

    Manobi
    Senegalese company Manobi, which operates online systems for businesses in the developing world, first launched the trading platform for farmers and fishermen in the west African nation, and says it has signed up 40,000 customers there. Farmers can access the information on a web-based trading platform via Internet-enabled phones, or can request prices and make trades via SMS, or text message.

    How is it being used?

    Projects, products and services created as secondary services by individuals and organizations all over the continent.

    Restricted mobility
    A cell phone operator in a remote African village where competition is tough, offers his customers some privacy, by allowing them to try out a cell phone, tethered to a long wire.

    Steve Mutinda’s 3 java applications
    Shows an individual using his free time, and trying to create applications that are value added and will make him money. He epitomizes the smart, young entrepreneurs of the continent.

    Morris Mbetsa - “Block & Track” auto anti-theft system

    Feedelix, dealing with government censorship (Ethiopia)
    The Ethiopian government instituted SMS filtering services, which caused some enterprising Ethiopians to launch Feedelix, which is an SMS-like client that supports Amharic characters. The Java application then uses the ability of many phones to transmit data via GPRS through internet protocols to mimic SMS.

    Ethioblog - Literacy and/or linguistic challenges
    There are challenges to in Africa too, where there are higher rates of non-literacy, or where they don’t speak the language available on their handset. Last year in Ethiopia, some guys got together and developed 200 Amharic language characters that they used to develop a phone book, message and phone settings in Amharic.

    Mobile phone equipped bicycles - Bodaphone (Kiwanja), Wheelchair bikes equipped (Ruud Elmendorp)

    Phone charging stations/businesses
    Most of the time this takes the simple form of a car battery, but you’ll also find enterprising people using other methods (legal and illegal) to run business that only do this.

    In Summary

    The truth is that there are some very interesting, and surprising, developments coming out of Africa. Every culture modifies use or the device itself to meet local needs - this is no different in Africa, and we’re seeing that evolution happen right before our eyes.

    The default device in Africa is the mobile phone.

    Here’s one more compelling thought. The challenges brought about by bad governance, poverty, low bandwidth (all the negative things you associate with Africa) also provide an incredible opportunity. The developers who are coming up with solutions in the continent, the ones who are writing software or hacking hardware, are creating for some of the harshest environments and use-cases in the world. If it works in Africa, it will work anywhere.

    (Africa News has the video up already - video’d through their mobile phone of course. )

  • “If Africa is Surprising…

    Posted: September 25, 2008, 8:00 pm by HASH

    …Then you’re not paying enough attention.” - Ethan Zuckerman at Picnic ‘08

    Ethan has just finished giving an excellent 20 minute talk on why people need to start paying attention to Africa. Not for Africa’s good alone, but for their own good as well.

    One of the comments made was that the African reaspora will be the ones who rebuild Africa. Those are the Africans who have left and are now coming back with money, purpose and drive to see change happen. Binyavanga Wainaina and Helen Omwando represent that group, and are up on stage having a conversation with Ethan, discussing what is really going on.

    “The default form of organization in Africa is a tribe.”
    - Binyavanga Wainaina

    “When you force people to use Western Union, you’re basically saying, ‘go rob this guy’.”
    - Ethan explaining how having such a high profile, undistributed means of transferring money sets up the receiver of the funds as a target.

    More tomorrow at the day-long event on Africa - I go on stage at 10:30 and will be talking about how mobiles are being used in Africa.

  • In Amsterdam for the Picnic Festival

    Posted: September 23, 2008, 12:07 am by HASH

    I’m really excited to be almost on the airplane today as I’m heading to Picnic to take part in the festival. I’ll be speaking on Friday, the day focused on “Surprising Africa” (as in, you’d be surprised at what type of innovation is coming out of Africa).

    If you take a look a the lineup of speakers it’s rather impressive. In fact, it’s a little depressing realizing that I have to go on stage right after the incomparable Binyavanga Wainaina. I had the pleasure of seeing him talk at TED Global last year in Tanzania, and he was even better there than in his normal writing. Besides Binyavanga, I’m also looking forward to hearing Ethan, Gisel Hiscock from Google, and Younghee Jung of Nokia.

    Afrophile Meetup

    Tomorrow evening (Wed, 24th at 6pm) a couple of us involved with tech in Africa are getting together for an Ethiopian dinner at the Abyssinia restaurant. If you’re free and want to come hang out for a couple hours, we’d love to have you.

  • 5 Examples of Student Ingenuity in Kenya

    Posted: September 22, 2008, 7:52 pm by HASH

    My good friend Josiah Mugambi in Nairobi was at the Kenya chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) exhibition in Nairobi last weekend. This is where students showcase their innovation in engineering, ICT, mobile application and renewable energy. He did me a great favor by sharing some pictures and research that he did on some of the really interesting students he came across.

    1. MPESA Online Shopping

    By Denis Ndwiga Nyaga

    Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph was especially interested in this one for obvious reasons. Denis called it ‘nakupesi‘, Naku for Nakumatt (the local mega-store). nakupesi is an online shopping mall, with payment based on MPESA. One would need to be registered on MPESA to be able to pay for items online via MPESA. One thing that is possibly lacking is delivery to one’s residence or office after purchase. This shouldn’t be too hard to incorporate though.

    2. Green Tree Markets - a Business Intelligence tool for farmers

    By Andrew Owuor

    This looked quite interesting - A business intelligence tool that allows a farmer to choose where to sell his produce based on price, and location. Some of the obstacles that the developer Andrew Owuor mentioned include the need for real time market data from markets round the country, for the system to be of use. This isn’t a completely new idea, but it’ll be interesting to see what local twists are created for East Africa.

    3 more…

    3. Automatic headlight dimming for two approaching vehicles - By Jemimah Wachenje
    Jemimah has developed a system that automatically dips two vehicles head lights when approaching each other at night. Josiah has ranted about headlights before, and I agree, it would be very useful and potential could reduce some accidents on those dark lightless roads around Kenya.

    4. Energy harvesting using piezos to charge mobile phones - by Richard Assanga Otolo and Gilbert Barasa
    Very interesting, yet practical.

    5. Synchronous Solar Heliostat - by Samuel Njoroge
    Sammy Njoroge’s demostration of a synchronous solar heliostat used to track the sun, and orient a solar panel accordingly thus improving the efficiency of solar panels. Automatic tracking of the sun to increase the efficiency of solar panels, Makes economic sense. Innovation runs in the family it seems.

  • African Tech Events - Calendar

    Posted: September 19, 2008, 8:31 am by HASH

    I’ve finally gotten around to adding a simple calendar of African technology events that are upcoming focused around the continent and abroad. The astute amongst you would notice it in the navigation above. It is meant to be a resource for others to find (and tell others of) conferences that they are interested in.



    If you have an upcoming tech event, contact me and let me know the following information:

    • Name
    • Dates
    • Venue
    • City, Country
    • Website
    • Short summary of event

    I know there are some Barcamps and local tech events upcoming around East and West Africa. Get them to me to add to the calendar. It seems like it’s all South Africa at the moment.

    [sidebar: yes, I know it's not pretty yet, I'll get to that as I can... I'm using Dan's Gigs Calendar WP plugin for this.]

  • Zoopy: From Strength to Strength

    Posted: September 16, 2008, 10:17 pm by HASH

    If you follow a lot of web startups, you see that many have a hard time reaching critical mass. Even more have a hard time staying in business, so “time alive” becomes an important measuring stick. Zoopy, a web video hosting site, has gone from strength-to-strength ever since they first launched in two years ago. They have done this by working very hard, and by focusing on their niche: South Africa.

    Zoopy Upgrades

    A recent investment partnership by Vodacom put them in a position to announce some major new upgrades this week.

    • Local South Africa hosting - This allows for much faster speeds, particularly important when dealing with video and images.
    • Doubled file sizes - Users can now upload 200Mb files, as opposed to the old 100Mb limit.
    • A new video player - A spiffed up and much more usable video player.
    The Importance of Being Local

    I’m particularly impressed with the move to local servers for their content. Besides local goodwill issues, South Africans are very patriotic and like to see stuff succeed in-country. International hosting is cheaper, but the user experience is eroded due to lag. However, as Jason mentions in a comment,

    “The biggest question here for us was: how could we afford NOT to move in this direction for the South African online community at Zoopy? Our users deserve more, and we’re happy to deliver.”

    Right now, Jason Elk and some of the Zoopy team are in New York at the Web 2.0 Expo, measuring their product against the competition, and learning from their peers.

    I’m a big fan of Zoopy, enough so that we’ve moved to Zoopy as AfriGadget’s video hosting site as of this Summer. Congrats guys, and keep up the great work!

  • Feedback Request - Ushahidi iPhone Application

    Posted: September 16, 2008, 4:09 pm by HASH

    Please jump on over to the Ushahidi blog for some background history, to study the mockups, and let us know what we can do better, or what should change.

    The dev team on this is really looking forward to getting some constructive criticism. Thanks!

  • Blogging Tools: IZEAfest talk

    Posted: September 13, 2008, 10:04 pm by HASH

    I spent this Saturday morning listening to some pretty smart bloggers at IZEAfest in Orlando (Merlin Mann, Loren Feldman, etc.). This afternoon I’m on a panel talking about blogging tools. Below are my notes and slides for that short talk.

    Blogging Tools View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: blogging api) Simplify & Streamline It

    If you’re like me, you don’t blog for a living, but you’re trying to blog while you’re living. I need tools and features that simplify my life and make it easy for me to be more effective as I’m doing the day-to-day things that actually run my life. That means I mainly want tools to work in the background, or I want a system coordinated in such a way as to make the work I have to do a lot easier and streamlined. So, it’s a little bit about making things easier and being productive while going about it.

    All Things in Moderation

    My next consideration is how cluttered additional items make the site look. Your mileage may vary - and it will depending upon your readership, but I like to keep my sidebar clean. Not empty, but with items that are relevant. So, I’m extremely careful about adding a new sidebar item. For me, this rule also applies to the posts themselves, so I’m careful not to add too much before or after the main text as well.

    • The cluttered look itself
    • Slow page load
    • Ads - Takes away from things that are making you money
    • Most readers don’t care! (about your Technorati or Alexa rank, about the local weather in your area, etc…)
    The Tools

    Okay, so let’s dig into a few of the tools that I use, and I’ll explain why I use them and why you might want to use them to. I’ve broken these down into a couple categories: 3rd party tools and plugins.

    First off, I want to run down the “must haves”, then I’ll give you a list of items that are also worth looking into.

    Email signup (Feedburner or Zookoda) (3rd party)
    Most people don’t know what RSS is, make it easy on them and allow them to get a simple email whenever you post something new. By the way, I’ve seen this happen on to many blogs to think it an accident - most blogger’s feeds double when they install this. Oh, and talk about a secondary way for ads to be delivered too…

    Subscribe to comments (WordPress plugin)
    Want people coming back for more? For many readers, this is the best way to stay involved in a conversation that was started on your blog post. They don’t need to keep checking to see if anyone responded to their comment, they can just get it in their email box.

    Contact Form or Page (cforms) (WordPress plugin)
    Please, please, put a simple contact form on your blog. There’s no excuse for not providing a way for readers, old friends and potential advertisers from getting in touch with you this way. This has the additional impact of not putting your email address (however mangled) onto the website. Simple and it can be done really easily with plugins.

    Integrating 3rd party tools

    One of the easiest ways to be a little more productive is to integrate blogging with other third party tools and websites that you use. For instance, I like to take pictures, so I make sure that I can easily blog straight from Flickr as needed. The same rule applies to YouTube, or any of the other video or image hosting sites like Picasa.

    Plugins

    I’m a big WordPress fan, though I have used Blogger before, so I apologize in advance to any Typepad users when I start talking plugins - I just don’t know much outside of the WP plugin world. I don’t use a ton of plugins myself, usually between 5-7 of them is all that I really need, here are my favorites:

    • Akismet
    • Contact form (cforms)
    • Subscribe to comments
    • Feedburner feed replacement
    • Role manager (more than one author)
    • WP database backup
    • WP Super Cache
    • Recent Posts
    • Related Posts
    Tools for Tracking and/or Better Content

    All of the previously mentioned tools are good and useful, but beyond the tools directly used in your blog you should also think about some of these others that will help you manage your content and track what readers really like.

    • Twitter - using either Monitter or Twitter Search
    • Your RSS reader - being informed is a very important part of the blogging process, plus it really helps with blogger’s block
    • Moleskine notebook - For all those ideas that you get in the strangest of places
    • Google Alerts - track yourself, your blog, or important words
    • Technorati - see who’s linking to you

  • Linking the “Other 3 Billion” to the Web

    Posted: September 10, 2008, 1:43 am by HASH

    I admit, I’m a little confused.

    Yesterday Google, HSBC bank and Liberty Global cable company launched O3b Networks (which stands for “other 3 billion”), a satellite service to bring high-speed low-cost internet connections to the world’s poorest people starting in 2010 - many of them in Africa.

    On the Google Africa blog, they state:

    O3b plans to deliver fiber-like Internet backhaul service using a constellation of medium-orbit satellites. This means data can be quickly transmitted to and from even the most remote locations such as inland Africa or small Pacific islands. The O3b satellite constellation will provide high-speed, low-latency backhaul services at speeds reaching into the gigabits per second.

    The Good

    This is the type of technology chess move that makes me sit back and truly laugh out loud. It bypasses inefficient, greedy or corrupt government bureaucracies and gives power to the local people. I’m absolutely thrilled with it and wish them the best of luck - hoping that they can execute on the deployment.

    The Confusion…

    The founder of O3b is a certain Greg Wyler. You know, the guy behind the big “wiring of Rwanda” initiative with his company Terracom. Well, his record hasn’t been stellar, and so I wonder why he is leading this whole initiative?

    It might very well be that they’ve learned their lessons from Rwanda. I’d rather have a guy who has tried and failed and LEARNED from it, than some wide-eyed idealist. Let’s hope that’s the case here.

  • Thoughts on Barcamp Africa

    Posted: September 8, 2008, 5:39 pm by HASH

    There has been a lot of talk in the Kenyan tech backchannels over the upcoming Barcamp Africa. Kahenya has a posted the email thread from the Skunkworks email list into his blog for further reading - it’s worth reading for context alone.

    The two biggest points of contention seem to be over the name “Barcamp Africa”, with the conference being held in the US, and the fact that Google has agreed to sponsor the facility for it to take place in.

    On the Name

    The first thing I’d say is, don’t get caught up in the nomenclature on this one. Barcamp Africa happening in Silicon Valley is being put on by a couple people who are from Africa, or have a vested interest in what happens here.

    From what I understand, it’s really only about drawing attention to African projects and initiatives in the world’s largest tech mecca: Silicon Valley. Could one/should one be held in Africa? Of course, but at a local, level like we already see in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, etc. I’d also be interested in seeing one at a continental level, but so far haven’t seen anyone step up to take charge on that idea.

    I know for a fact that Kaushal and Ellen specifically didn’t want to be the “owners” of Barcamp Africa as a name. From my conversations, they are hoping that other Barcamp Africa’s happen around the world (inside and outside of Africa). In fact, they wouldn’t even spend the $10 on registering the domain name, so I did that in their stead to make sure that no squatter would jump on it (it’s available to anyone who wants to use it).

    On Google Sponsorship

    As anyone who has put on a Barcamp knows, it does take having a couple sponsors to put on a free conference. They’ve been talking to almost every tech company in the Silicon Valley trying to get them to sponsor the event - by either providing facilities or money for food, etc. After a lot of work, Google finally came on board to sponsor the facility (and they’ve got one of the best facilities around), so it’s a big win.

    Speaking of Google sponsorship of free tech events outside of the US, it should be noted that they happily sponsored our own Barcamp Nairobi in June, and showed up to participate in Barcamp Kampala in August. If anything, it should be the African tech companies who should be ashamed for not sponsoring their own local talent at these events.

    On Africans in Africa Taking Part

    I’ve added my two cents in with the Barcamp Africa team of creating some way for people from around the African continent to take part. One of those ideas would be to set up a live stream of what they’re doing, but that’s not truly interactive. What would be even better is for them to setup one of the rooms where people from Kenya (or elsewhere) could signup for a 20-30 minute spot to address everyone in the US. Then, when your slot came up you could give a Barcamp talk just like everyone else. It would require a certain amount of bandwidth of course, but might be just the type of thing to get everyone involved.

  • Ushahidi Funding and a New Website!

    Posted: September 4, 2008, 3:33 pm by HASH

    Most of June I spent in Kenya, much of that time talking to developers and getting ready for the next big Ushahidi push. During that time there was a new article about Ushahidi being one of the “Ten Startups to Watch” in the Technology Review, which was exciting for us to say the least!

    July and August have been spent working hard on getting the application rebuilt, the site redesigned and creating partnerships with other organizations. September is about launching the NEW Ushahidi.

    A New Website

    Now we’re off and running with a new website design, live today, that shows how our goals and focus have changed since things blew up in Kenya. (get a new Ushahidi button for your site.)

    Funding

    I’m very happy to announce that we’ve secured more than the $25,000 prize money from NetSquared (which has allowed us to do so much already). We have also just secured a grant of $200,000 from Humanity United!

    Humanity United is an independent grantmaking organization committed to building a world where modern-day slavery and mass atrocities are no longer possible. They support efforts that empower affected communities and address the root causes of conflict and modern-day slavery to build lasting peace.

    There is an obvious fit between Humanity United and Ushahidi, after all, we were founded on the same beliefs back in January in Kenya. Though we’re creating the Ushahidi engine as an open source project, our goal remains to see it used to better understand, give warning of, and recover from mass atroc