This November, motivated young Kenyans will create the first public digital map of Kibera, widely known as Africa’s largest slum. Map Kibera is a collaborative project lead by Mikel Maron of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and supported by JumpStart International. Partners include
Jubal Harpster of WhereCampAfrica, the Social Development Network (Sodnet), Pamoja Trust, Hands on Kenya, Carolina for Kibera and others.

Kibera remains a blank spot on the Kenyan map, though it holds as many as one million inhabitants according to UN-HABITAT. Its limited health and water resources, traffic patterns, and housing layouts remain largely invisible to the outside world and to residents themselves. Though many organizations have collected data on Kibera, the information is not yet shared as a resource for all to use. Map Kibera will fill in this gap by producing free, open-source digital map data using the techniques of OpenStreetMap, a user-edited map of the world. The resulting information will be freely available to residents, NGOs, private companies, and others interested in working with and for Kibera.

Twelve young residents of Kibera will first be trained on current mapping techniques during a two-day workshop. Individuals from the growing Nairobi technology scene will help train and network with the larger community. The group will then map all of Kibera over a two-week period in mid-November and share the results through OpenStreetMap, joining a growing global community of tech-savvy grassroots mapmakers. “The project will provide open-source data that will help illustrate the living conditions in Kibera. Without basic knowledge of the geography of Kibera it is impossible to have an informed discussion on how to improve the lives of residents of Kibera,” said Mikel Maron.

Following the completion of the map, raw data will be made available at no charge to upload into
collaborative mapping platforms. A workshop with local interested civic organizations will introduce them to the final map, and spark follow-up initiatives. The new group of mappers will share the information with their own communities by distributing paper maps, and will be able to keep information current as conditions change in Kibera.

For more information, please visit www.mapkibera.org.

OpenStreetMap, is a web project to create a free and open map of the entire world, built entirely by volunteer map-makers.

The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, applies the principles and techniques of OpenStreetMap towards humanitarian response and economic development.

JumpStart International, promotes sustainable economic development and self-sufficiency through active projects that focus on building livelihoods and rebuilding communities to overcome effects of conflict, disaster, and systemic poverty.

Leila C. of Samasource at Facebook Developers Garage in Kampala, Uganda

This morning I had an opportunity to be featured on The Hugh Macken Live radio show. Actually should I say, Leila Charayath Janar—who I interviewed last year at the Facebook Developer’s Garage in Uganda, was the featured guest. Myself, along with one Maria Umar from Pakistan were there for support.

I have to say that Samasource has given me the opportunity to feed my two loves: economic development in Africa and my work as a creative professional. Yes, they may sound completely unrelated fields but that’s the beauty of Samasource. If you have the passion to do something socially responsible, they’ll find a way to accommodate your field of work. From transcription, to business processing, to computer application development, Samasource has the ability to cater to your needs while actively creating employment opportunities in emerging markets.

Samasource enables marginalized people, from refugees in Kenya to women in rural Pakistan, to receive life-changing work opportunities via the Internet. The core of this concept is microwork – little bits of labor that can be performed anytime and anywhere that add up to a real livelihood for our partners. In parallel, we enable socially responsible companies, small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs in the US to contribute to economic development by buying services from our workforce at fair prices.

As a designer and web developer, it’s fulfilling to have the ability to tap into great developers and put really marginalized individuals to work in Africa, thereby merging my two passions. My work at TMS Ruge Media and Project Diaspora couldn’t be more diametrically opposed, but in a way, they are a means to each others end. Project Diaspora was started on the premise that it’s time Africa’s development emerge at hands of the great work it’s Diaspora is engaging in. In a way, I am fulfilling that mission as a member of that Diaspora.

It’s a far better feeling to me, putting Africa to work than donating money to a hunger cause or joining yet another awareness campaign. To me, this is Africa working, this is Brand Africa rising in the digital age and on par with it’s Western counterparts. I look at the quality of the work under development and I am taken aback a little.  What’s also amazing is that the finished product is indistinguishable from the quality of my American-based programmer, (@DVaint), and he is really, really good. In fact, he was my only coder for over nine years! It’s not because I doubted that his replacement could be found in Africa, but the complete satisfaction with the results as well.

It’s led me to think, imagine if we could multiply that experience across multiple coding teams in Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, even Eritria; all working on game-changing projects and pioneering innovations far greater than Status.ug, MXit or Ushahidi! What happens when all of that collective intelligence and talent starts contributing it’s resources to the global economic landscape? The next 25 years are going to be interesting in the digital landscape over Africa. Already, we are seeing hubs of excellence rising from whence there was nothing to speak of; the rubble of Kenya’s oft-talked about post-election violence, gave rise to Ushahidi; Johannesburg and Cape Town are already well-reknown as hubs for excellent software companies; even Uganda’s recent riots in the capital shed light on Kampala’s underground digirati who used digital tools to provide eye-witness accounts of the violence in the absence of mainstream media. Increasingly, it seems that innovation in Africa is borne out of necessity to respond to injustice. Given the rise of a digital working class, how long before innovation in Africa is driven by the hunger to excel?

So if you are a development-minded or a member of the African Diaspora and would like to give work as your mission to do good or put Africa’s idle talent, please contact Leila at Samasource. If you don’t have a project that Samasource can assist you in staffing, you can also donate to help them continue their work putting emerging markets to work.

I’ll be revealing the two projects under production at Samasource next month. So check back on a full-post on both projects next month.

Dr. Adebayo Discusses the partnership between Kennesaw State University and 2nd Kenyan Diaspora International Conference & Investment Forum

Akanmu G. Adebayo, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Institute for Global Initiatives
Kennesaw State University
Interviewed by Benin Brown

Benin: Can you tell us a little bit about the background of the KSU Institute for Global Initiatives?

Adebayo: The Institue for Global Initiatives was established to be Kennesaw State University‘s office to coordinate all of the university’s global learning initiatives. The institute was established in 2003 by merging a number of autonomous global learning units. So it was created with the idea of creating an international programs one stop shop for faculty and students where they can go for any international program related issues. So the Institute for Global Initiatives is the coordinator of both grants and programs that promote international learning amongst students and faculty alike.

Additionally, it has become the place where several regional centers are all housed. Those regional centers help KSU coordinate degree programs/to bring services to university that help to promote univesity’s involvement in those regions of the world. i.e. the center for African & African Diaspora Studies where we coordinate programs for Africa and the African Diaspora.

Also, we have the Center for Hispanic Studies where we coordinate programs about Hispanics in the US and also about Spain and Latin America. And last year we added the Confucious Institute, which is fully funded by Chinese Government, as place where Chinese culture and language will be learned by members of the KSU community. In nutshell the institute helps KSU and surrounding commuyntity become more aware of whats happening around the world.

Benin: Very true, Atlanta has been the international city of the South. One of the interesting things about Kennesaw State University is that although it is situated in Kennesaw, Ga; which is a suburb of Metro Atlanta it is not in actually located within the city limits of Atlanta. So my question is how was KSU able to do what it did, in terms of becoming an international city, outside of inner city limits of Atlanta?

Adebayo: You hit the nail on the head about location. In Business School we hear the adage that talks about location being a key element in marketing. Such is the case with KSU. The location is good because Kennesaw is a suburb of Atlanta, but also because it is within a short distance to the interstate, so you can get there very easily. And we have also heard from some of our students who are from the greater Atlanta metropolitan area that they like the campus because they consider it to be more convenient and safe than the Atlanta city limits. So what this means is that some of our students are provincial in their thinking and this gives us the opportunity to make an impact by bringing the world to Kennesaw.

In addition to location Kennesaw has foresight of a strong administration. They have taken internationalization as a top priority for the university. This is part of the reason that we have over 1500 international students from 140 countries and are able to send over 500 students per year abroad. In these harsh economic times, this is quite significant.

Benin: Why do you think that the first Kenya Diaspora Investment Forum was so successful?

Adebayo: In the 1990′s Kenya was the top country for sending intl students to KSU. And this is one of the reasons that the first conference was so successful-KSU’s large Kenyan student community. Interestingly, at that time, we were not doing any recruiting in Kenya. But I think that what happened is that the first group of Kenyan students to arrive were treated so well that those students told their brothers, sisters, and other members of their families-who upon hearing became students at KSU also. And these initial students increased our interest in KE.

Another reason is that each year at KSU we choose one country to highlight through lectures, cultural shows, classes, and etc. We had selected the 2006-2007 school year to be the Year of Kenya. The entire year we continued to feature activities about Kenya and soon enough the entire community became accustomed to the fact that every Thurs there was something special going on that focused on Kenya.

Additionally, the level of participation from the Kenya community all over the US was tremendous. And the Atlanta Kenyan Professionals Association (AKPA) worked with us to help plan the conference. Likewise, the majority of the attendees attended because they had been invited by friends or family.

Benin: So how do you explain affinity on the part of Kenyans for KSU ?

Adebayo: Well in the academic world we know that you get international students through many ways-recruitment, public awareness, and etc. But nothing is as assured as having students from the country that you want to recruit. That person becomes your biggest exposure to that particular market that they represent. Word of mouth even from just one student is very powerful. And we treat our students very well. Even as far back in the 90′s we’d already established an international center and today we now have an office of international student retention. So KSU does not leave anything to chance. We were very intent on creating programs to take care of students welfare. KSU is one of few Atlanta univeristys that makes health care insurance available and mandatory for its intl students. The Institute Global Initiatives continues to promote the academic welfar of its students.

Benin: What can you say about this years focus on ICT?

Adebayo: Well this year with the 2nd Diaspora conference on Kenya, we chose to focus on building the knowledge community. And this is because we’d like to have some impact on the way in which policies are determind in Kenya. Having a positive impact on the processes of economic development in Kenya is something that is important to us.

The focus on ICT is very timely. Kenya is just completing its fiber optic program, which will allow millions in KE affordable access to the internet. Kenya’s strategy is to be Africa’s main ICT center outside of South Africa.

What it also means is that we are able to dicuss these things and propose ideas about what needs to be done from a policy standpoint; we are able to propose ideas in a way that means we arent just talking about general business in Kenya. But we also view this as an awareness opportunity to expose American business people to Kenya as well. And what we are saying is that as a result of new technological developments there are new business opportunities that represent amazing potential for business people and investors.

You see…I often hear many of my counterparts in America referencing the potential for call center operators in Kenya, but the opportunity is so much larger than call centers. In fact, one could say that centers are just the tip of the iceberg. One of the areas that we see really huge potential in KE is in software development and distribution. You see, Kenya can derive revenue from sources outside of tourism. And again, with the economic climate that we are facing right now it is very important that this happens.

Benin: What do you think is the impact of Kenya’s Diaspora population on business in Kenya?

Adebayo: The Diaspora population increases the awareness of Kenya abroad. And with President Obama’s roots in Kenya, he has also done a lot to increase global awareness of Kenya. I think that the Diaspora community also provides Kenya with a unique opportunity to look beyond tourism. Because although tourism is great and there is nothing wrong with it, it does allow many opportunities to corrupt the local environment through pollution. Finally, the diaspora community also contributes to Kenya’s economic development as a source of funding.

Benin: I see and how does the partnership between KSU and The Kenya Diaspora Forum work?

KSU donates the entire venue to the forum which includes world class rooms, facilities, conference equipment and a safe environment. The Computer Science department takes the lead in helping with the presentation & etc. Likewise, KSU benefits because it allows the school to increase its awareness in Kenya to potential students

Benin: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Adebayo: We are looking forward to the conference and are very excited about the investment opportunities that will be discussed there, as well as the busines people that will be able to take part in this event. We are also excited because we have the chance to meet Kenyans who are planning to go back to Kenya for retirement because we know that we might be able to make an impact on what businesses they might be able to pursue once back in Kenya.

For more information on the upcoming conference, readers are encouraged to visit the official site-kenyaopen4business.com.

Not too long ago we covered the fact that the first ever WherecampAfrica was being held in Nairobi. Well, I neglected to follow up and there are some cool things that have come out of that event.

Firstly…. WHERECAMP KAMPALA!!!

WhereCamp Africa: Kampala is tentatively planned for Friday October 30th at the same venue as the Africa GIS 2009 conference. (I had to look it up, GIS= Geographic Information System) The event will occur on the final day of the conference and should allow plenty of opportunity for traditional GIS folks to interact with local developers.

A little about the GIS Conference:

AFRICAGIS is the premier conference and exhibition focusing on geo-information technologies and applications in Africa. The principal objective of AFRICAGIS is to provide a platform for geo-information professionals from Africa to learn about geo-information technology and its applications. It provides a forum for geo-information professionals to meet, interact, and be updated on new developments, products and emerging trends and issues.

There is more information coming, so stay tuned and well let you know about all the WhereCamp developments.

And if that is not enough mapping fun for you…. also in the works:
WhereCampAfrica Bamako!
In the planning stages for April 2010 during the 2nd annual African Geospatial week. During which the annual CGIAR-CSI (The Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research- Consortium for Spatial Information) meeting will take place. Keep your eyes peeled!

Along with all the camps the team at WhereCampAfrica in conjunction with Open Street Map and Development Seed is also planning a potential Open Source Mapping Project in East Africa: AfricaGIS Participatory Mapping Project.

From their Prospectus

The opportunity is immediately available to leapfrog the African mapping community into the latest accessible practices of the GeoWeb, utilizing open data, open standards and open source software for application and systems development.
This project aims to catalyze a dormant but otherwise very motivated African geo community through local, community based, but scalable participatory mapping

With four ambitious phases, this project works hard to get the participatory part right:
We have already told you about phase 1:
WhereKampala – An informal un-conference focused on mapping and spatial technology where participants set the agenda.

The rest of the phases include:
Map Kibera – Mapping the Kibera slum area of Nairobi to raise awareness, catalyze a community and test open data licensing with major vendors and initiatives

Mapping Parties – Expand on mapping Kibera and hold mapping parties in and around East African capitols including Nairobi, Kampala, Lilongwe and Kigali.

Open Source Geo Workshop - Train in the use of Open Source Geo technologies, including PostGIS, GeoServer, GeoWebCache, GeoNetwork and Open Layers immediately before or After the AfricaGIS conference.

This all volunteer project is looking for funding to get off the ground… so contact them if you are interested in giving this important project a helping-hand.

Find Jubal Harpster:
via e-mail: jharpster@wherecampafrica.org
Jubal on Twitter

WherecampAfrica on Twitter

For those of you looking for more information on the first WhereCamp:
One of the main objectives of the original camp was to showcase the opportunities that rapidly changing Information and communication technologies offer. The hope was to really leverage the media to raise awareness especially in the area of agricultural production and productivity. Media represented at the event included BBC, IPS, UN IRIN, Nation TV and Newspaper as well as the Africa Science News Service. The complete list of media outlets that covered the event is impressive. WhereCampAfrica Coverage Report_June2009

Ken Banks, the one-man team behind kiwanja.net, is a powerhouse. His output of interviews, blog posts, Twitter updates and other social media tricks speaks to his determination to contribute to the emerging realm of information and communication technology for development or ICT4D.

Inspired by over a decade of work in Africa, Banks launched kiwanja.net in 2003. The website is a space where “technology meets anthropology, conservation and development.” Attentive to the need for easy communication between NGOs and their rural partners, the website also serves as a launching point for Banks’ creations.

In 2005, Banks rolled out of the organization’s first big coup, an open source software called Frontline SMS. Five weeks, a summer in Finland, and a crash course in programming produced a mobile phone tool now widely acclaimed by both IT experts and grassroots users.

Let’s talk about inspiration. What pushed you to launch Kiwanja.net and Frontline SMS?

kiwanja.net started in late 2003. The first contract I had happened to be dealing with mobiles. It became very clear to me that the knowledge and information I was building up with this charity was clearly of wider value. There were lots of organizations who were also thinking about mobile technology and thinking about how they might apply it. They were also struggling.

Through kiwanja.net, I decided to really focus on trying to help organizations understand what mobile technology can do for them … Frontline SMS came out of a need for there to be a solution to get on the [ICT] ladder, the first rung in many cases. It’s all very well to read about mobile phones [and their use in development] in the popular press, but the first thing NGOs ask is, ‘What can we do?’ ‘What can we use to do that?’ In 2005, when I wrote Frontline SMS, there didn’t seem to be any tools that were specifically written to work in the kinds of environments that these NGOs found themselves in.

So, when they were asking the question, ‘What can we use to start delivering mobile services?,’ the answer was, well, unless you have the internet and a bunch of money and a certain degree of technical skills, there isn’t actually very much. That seemed crazy. So, Frontline SMS was developed out of that need. I felt that there was a big gap in the market, so to speak, of mainly grassroots non-profits with little money, no internet and very, very, very low technical skills to actually start to deliver SMS services.

What does “Kiwanja” mean? How does it represent your vision?

In 2003, when I started it off, there was a lot of “tech365″ style names. It was all very high tech. And for me, it wasn’t really about the technology. It never really was about the technology. It’s about how people interact with technology. It’s about building things that work for people. And technology is the thing you consider right at the end when you are looking to trying to solve a problem. So, I wanted a name which didn’t convey anything technology-based, didn’t sound like technology was the main thrust. Kiwanja can mean a lot of different things in [Kiswahili], but I think “a place to meet” is my favorite one.

Can you explain the basic function of Frontline SMS?

You basically turn a laptop or desktop computer with a mobile phone into a two-way group messaging hub. So, you download the software onto the computer, you plug in a phone, you enter the cell numbers of your farmers, health care workers, and then you can send messages to those people and they can respond. Basically, you coordinate two-way messaging through a lap top. There is no need for the internet since it runs off the mobile phone network.

How is Frontline SMS being used?

I think the most surprising thing for me was that within a week of launching the software in the fall of 2005, the activist community jumped straight onto it. The first user was in Zimbabwe. Within a week, they had started using it to send and receive messages to and from rural communities that were being badly treated by Mugabe and his regime. Since then, it has become a lot more solid in other areas. It has been used in a lot of election monitoring projects … We [also] have a lot of activity in health [and] agriculture.

[Frontline SMS] is moving into other areas which I did not actually anticipate. But, I think the beauty of the software is that it does not try to solve any specific problem in any specific place. I really wanted to avoid doing that – although the idea came from a specific place and a specific problem – I didn’t build in anything that would restrict it in any way.

Does empowerment play a key role in Frontline SMS?

The logo of Frontline SMS is those arms stretched up in the air. So, we have decided that empowerment is a key message. I think that [empowerment] is a word that is overused a lot in this space, there’s a lot of different ways of defining empowerment. I think for me the purest form is that you [give people the tools] that they need to do their job better and then you let them decide whether or not they want [it]. Then you provide the tool and you don’t try to be controlling in any way. You say, ‘Hey, if you want to use it, the software is free, we’ll support you for free, we’ll connect you with other users, we’ll do all we can. But, at the end of the day, it’s your project and you do it your way.’ And if it works, please tell us.

How is the growing buzz around social media and ICT influencing your work?

… I still think there is a general misunderstanding or lack of knowledge over how empowering technology can be. When I speak at conferences about what Frontline SMS is doing, and mobiles are doing in general, people generally say “Wow!”. Even operators and technical people working in the industry. So, I think the fact that [now] there’s a lot of focus now on Twitter’s use in Iran and social media and Ushahidi, a lot of people are really [getting] quite onto this. I think what I do tends to fit quite neatly into that bucket … When Frontline SMS first started in 2005, there wasn’t anything else like it, and no one was really building tools like that in developing countries for users. Now there’s a lot more activitiy, I guess it gives it a home. When you speak to people, they can see it in the wider picture of ICT4D.

I think some of the challenges are that you get to the point where there are too many tools and people are reinventing wheels too often and people aren’t really building things that people can use, [instead] they are building ‘sexy’ stuff. I think donors are always looking to fund the next big thing, but quite often the next big thing isn’t going to be of use to a rural farmer in Uganda because it will be using a technology that isn’t available to them. So, I think we have a slight tension now in ICT4D. It’s become a very serious discipline, people are trying to build smart sexy things that actually don’t work in the environments they think they should work in.

What can you say about the rise of ICT innovators in developing countries?

… We’re finding an increasing number of programmers emerging in developing countries who are finally getting access to the world through the Internet and are being taught relevant skills at university. This has come at the exact same time as the open source [movement]. It’s perfect timing. You can imagine ten years ago if African developers had all of this [training] and yet couldn’t get their hands on any open source code to do any of the work. Finally, we have people in the country where [ICT] tools are useful and who have the ability and skills to take these projects and adapt them. Ushahidi coming out of the election crisis is a fabulous example of Kenyans reacting to a particular problem.

Part of the challenge now, once these services are developed, is how they are rolled out and marketed. There’s a guy in Kenya who built a car tracking system by SMS, he wrote it all himself, but he couldn’t get any funding to develop it as a product. So, innovating is one thing. If you’re then stuck with nothing to do with that product, that’s another problem that hasn’t quite been solved yet.

Where are you planning on taking Kiwanja.net?

I think for me it’s about continually pushing the boundaries, continually trying to lower the barrier as much as possible so that grassroots NGOs can use my technology. So how low can we go? Frontline SMS is a great example of lowering it to a point where NGOs can do things. But, if you think about what it requires, a PC, that’s a barrier. So, can we build a version that runs off a USB stick? You could go to an internet café and plug it in and do a bunch of messaging and leave. We are currently working on that at the moment and it could be very exciting.

Also, hopefully within the next three months, we’re going to launch a picture messaging version, Frontline Multimedia Messaging Service or MMS. That will allow NGOs working in areas where there is actually web access through the cell network to transmit audio, video, pictures and sound to and from handsets and to and from the internet. That’s potentially quite interesting: farmers could take a picture of a pest on their crop and send it to an agricultural expert to get advice or a health care worker could take a picture of something on a patient and get advice on what to do. Once again, let’s see how far we can lower the barrier of entry to that.

I am also thinking about how we can allow NGOs to get cheaper messaging using internet related services. So, I’m looking to build a sort of SMS gateway on the internet which non-profits can gather around and get cheap messaging through. We can build a database of users, leverage all the value of all messages being sent and get the best price. People, right now, are buying a hundred messages here and ten there and twenty there and they’re paying the highest rate. So, if all those people are buying a million a week, let’s buy a million a week together and all get the cheapest price.

Ken’s work – and the work of the many other tech developers out there in this field – is incredibly inspiring. If you happen to be one of them, please give us a shout – we’d love to hear more. If the above was a bunch of garble to you (or interesting!), check out kiwanja.net and keep track of Ken’s blog.

The 2nd Kenya Diaspora International Conference and Investment Forum

So pleased to discover this event.
The 2nd Kenya Diaspora International Conference and Investment Forum

Big thanks to Mariam Ali Mucheru who not only participated in our survey but also took the time to drop us a line and let us know about this event.

The purpose of this Conference is to provide a forum for multiple stakeholders to engage the Kenya Diaspora and potential foreign investors on effective initiatives to build productive partnerships in support of Kenya and her development agenda.

Scheduled to occur Thursday, Aug 20, 2009 – Saturday, Aug 22, 2009
at Kennesaw State University just outside of Atlanta Georgia, its theme is “Building a Knowledge-Based Economy in Kenya: The Role of the Kenyan Diaspora” . They are still accepting proposals for the event until June 15th on the following themes:

ICT Mini-Conference Themes
1. Outlook of the ICT sector in Kenya: A Highlight of the Policy framework, infrastructure and Market Potential.

2. Broadband Access For All: Reaching the Masses with ICT – Strategies and Tactics.

3. Business Process Outsourcing: Kenya the destination for Business Process Outsourcing.

4. Geographic Advantages: Kenya As The Launching Pad For A Revolution In Ict In East And Central Africa

5. E-governance solutions: Improving transparency and Public Sector service delivery through technology.

6. Training and education for the ICT industry in Kenya: Meeting the human capital needs for a knowledge-based Economy.

7. Harnessing innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship: Opportunities for youth

8. Mobile Telephone in Kenya: A Case study for innovation & transformation

9. Application of ICT in health care delivery system: development of e-health solutions in Kenya

10 Protecting ICT Production: status of Intellectual Property Rights in Kenya

Investment Forum Themes
1. Investment and Business Climate in Kenya: Supporting Innovation and Entrepreneurial Culture

2. Mobilizing Capital for an Emerging Economy: Alternatives to Donor Funding- The Role of the Diaspora and Capital Markets

3. Banking and Financial Services Sector in Kenya: Establishing a Center of Excellence

4. Investing in Infrastructure and Real Estate Development in Kenya; harnessing the resources from the Diaspora

5. Meeting Energy Demand for a Growing Economy: Opportunities for Investment

6. Investing in Tourism and Hospitality Industry in Kenya: Opportunities and Challenges

7. Public-Private Partnership (PPP): Engaging the Diaspora

Conference organizers include:
Kennesaw State University, Institute for Global Initiatives
Association of Kenyan Professionals in Atlanta (AKPA)
Ministry of Information and Communication, Republic of Kenya
Kenya Development Network Consortium (KDNC) (actual site being revamped at the moment)
East Africa-American Business Council (EAABC)

#Afridev panelist at South by Southwest: (L to R) David Kobia - Ushahidi & Mashada; Rose Shuman - Question Box; Erik Hersman - Afrigadget; Jon Gosier - AppAfrica Labs

This past weekend, I had the honor of being invited to be on a panel discussion at South by Southwest (SXSW), “Appfrica: How Web Applications are Helping Emerging Markets Grow” The panel was moderated by one of my favorite techies who’s single-handedly birthing Uganda’s “tech sphere,” John Jon Gosier. Jon is the founder of AppAfrica Labs, an incubator based in Kampala, Uganda. Joining me on the panel were David Kobier and Erik Hersman from Ushahidi and Rose Shuman, founder of Question Box. You can watch the video (bad audio feed) or read a recap of the discussion by ALEX DE CARVALHO or Jon Gossier.

While the topic of discussion centered mainly around the road blocks inherit in writing apps for developing regions like Africa, the underlying hurdle to the growth (and commercial viability of products in this space) is connectivity. Wether you are an African or a Westerner developing applications and technologies with global ambition, connectivity is going to affect how you build and roll out your product. This is not to say that all of Africa should be looked at as holistically unconnected. Certainly, there are markets in Africa where connectivity is vastly better;  South Africa and the Mediterranean North African countries, for example. The opposite holds of areas that have abysmal broadband infrastructure, like the DRC, Southern Sudan, etc.

But this patchwork service availability is a “now” problem, let’s look at Africa 24 months from now. Of the 5 serious broadband initiatives slated for completion in the next 5 2 years, SEACOM is in the process of landing this in Kenya and will be operational by this summer. The rest, including Google’s O3b Networks, go live within the next 18 months. In order to develop and succeed in Africa’s emerging “tech scape,” you have to have the ability to look around the corner and quickly predict what the environment will look like. Actually, that’s not even true, you have to have the vision to paint a picture of what you want it to look like! Look at the current conditions, spotty as they are, as gaping holes in market opportunities. Think outside the box. You have to think mobile, and mobile web. Africa isn’t a laptop destination, it’s a mobile-based application destination. What market solutions will you have ready to hit critical mass once this major stumbling block to market access is alleviated? You have to be able to finish the African Proverb, “When the cable arrives…”

SEEING THE BIG PICTURE AROUND THE CORNER

An article arrived in my inbox this morning that commented on Google’s acquisition of a startup video conferencing company. On the surface, Google acquiring another company is nothing earth-shattering. If fact, I am rather disappointed when a month goes by without Google swallowing investing in yet another upstart. But the landscape changes completely when you look around the corner and see what’s coming. Google is a major investor in O3B Networks (O3b), the nemesis to the uncoordinated consortium of highspeed undersea cable initiatives. Instead of laying fibre, O3b is betting on a constellation of 16-Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites to the tune of $650 million. LEO Satellite access would be more beneficial for landlocked countries because [satellites] would provide landlocked countries direct access to broadband backhaul without having to traverse and negotiate rights of access to undersea cables with coastal nations. This also relieves land-locked nations from costly and wrangle-some partnerships like EASSy—instead, allowing them the ability to independently deploy high-speed networks countrywide and worldwide.

Lets look closer.

Google pretty much offers a host of very good services for free: mail, calendaring, photo-management, video, etc. What is/was lacking from it’s vast portfolio of products, was realtime collaboration tools. Enter Marratech, a video conferencing and collaboration company, that Google just snapped up. Marry that acquisition and a successful launch of O3b, and you’ve got yourself uninhibited, real-time, global collaboration that includes developing markets. (Pssst! Tech-savvy, entrepreneurial Diasporans! This is where the light goes off in your head, I am just saying). All of a sudden, the playing field is leveled. Access is ubiquitous. African software engineers think globally, not regionally. The sky, as they say, is the limit.

All this, of course, is assuming that O3b can negotiate country-level spectrum rights. Steve Song, a Shuttleworth Foundation fellow in South Africa and general telecommunications enthusiast had this to say about the many challenges facing O3b’s impending launch via email last fall:

If O3b works out, it will be very good news for Africa. However, I see a few challenges in the way:

1) regulatory challenges. 03b will have to negotiate a spectrum license for every country they land in. Regulatory frameworks in
Africa are evolving but there is still a lot of undue influence by incumbent telcos who may or may not be interested in seeing o3b
succeed.

2) LEO satellites. Previous attempts to establish connectivity via a web of LEO satellite have both failed. Iridium and Teledesic sucked up a ton of money and both failed. Launching a satellite involved a certain amount of risk. Just look at the last Intelsat launch attempt. O3b multiplies that risk by 16. Also, these are non-geostationary orbit satellites which mean that a) they don’t stay
up as long as other satellites and b) they need to manage constant hand-off of bandwidth connections as the satellite pass over.

3) Greg Wyler. Founder of Terracom, then Rwantel. Stories differ about what happened there but I tend to take the side of the
Rwandans…. in the words of Minister Albert Butare…. “Promises were made…”

True on all three counts, but I am putting my money on Google. No, I am putting my money on all the broadband initiatives headed to Africa’s digital shores to succeed. If it’s true that competition is good for the consumer, then the existence of these ventures is a good sign. O3b Networks builds out it’s satellite network, and EASSy, NEPAD, et al lay down down some mean fibre. All of a sudden the cost of Africa merging onto the information super highway drops through the Serengeti floor.

THE TAKE AWAY

A digital highway is being built not to Africa, but out of Africa. From business processes outsourcing to next-generation technology and incubation hubs, Africa is ripe for technology investments. It’s still early enough in the game to engage Africa. In fact, the time is right to ask @afridev where the market opportunities are. The time is right to look around the corner and see the big picture. “Africa is rising.”

UPDATE (March 21, 07:51)
Made spelling correction and added additional links for reference.

Under the heading Information is power. I am excited to see the focus of this new event is mapping technologies and how it can be leveraged for the good of the continent. Ushahidi has shown the power of crisis mapping so I am excited to see what develops from this first of its kind event in Africa!

WhereCamp is the free unconference for geogeographers, mobile location experts and social cartographers and all kinds of folks interested in place. We run shortly after the annual CGIAR-CSI meeting and bring together software developers, artists, geographers and academics for a one day extended discussion.

Topics might include:
Mobile location
Remote Sensing
Geoinformatics
Mapping and Agriculture
Food Security and Location
Community Mapping
Local Search
social cartography
Crisis Mapping
Iphones Androids and the way the web is falling into mobile
Expect to participate in conversations on the nature of place as described in pixels, with rays, on paper, and by social practice!

I was lucky enough to catch organizer Jubal Harpster and find out more about the world of mapping in general and this camp specifically.

Wherecamp Africa: Interview with Jubal Harpster from Tracy Pell on Vimeo.

Check out these other great mapping projects that Jubal shared with me.
Africa Soils
Harvest Choice
Crop and economic modelling for the whole contintent

And look for a new Water project (Agriculture Water Management) in a few weeks. I promise to post an update as soon as that is live.

WhereCamp Africa
Saturday April 4th
John Vercoe Conference Room, at the ILRI Headquarters in Nairobi.

Sponsored by:
CH2M Hills, AG Commons, CGIAR-CSI, Harvest Choice, ILRI, ict-km, and Ushahidi

The first time I saw Juliana Rotich was at OR Tambo International Airport, in Johannesburg, South Africa this past October. We had (apparently) gotten off of the same inbound KLM flight from Amsterdam. I noticed her at the bureaux de change—minutes after we’d picked up our respective checked bags from the slow-as-molasses-luggage carousel—getting pointers from the exchange agent on how to negotiate with the local taxi drivers en route to her hotel. I craned my neck slightly and tried to listen in from the back of the line, so I wouldn’t be “that guy”-you know, the hundredth guy asking the same question, as if I expected the words “tour guide” to be written on the exchange agent’s forehead.

I didn’t think much of the encounter until a few days later when I walked into her and David Sasaki‘s session on mobiles in citizen media at MobileActive08. It was here that I learned about the birth of Ushahidi and Juliana’s role in launching the oft-applauded online crisis mapping application during Kenya’s tumultuous post-election violence in early 2008. We later waxed poetic on all things techy, African development,  and music while club-hopping in Jo’burg’s Melville enclave of restaurants and bars.

Two weeks after MobileActive08, I flew out to Chicago for an extended one-on-one with the multi-faceted Juliana. It quickly became clear that our paths were destined to cross, as we shared a mutual geekery for all things tech. We also shared an interesting factoid relating to our primary education. You see, Juliana and I attended primary school a stone’s throw away from each other in the highlands of Chavakali, in the Western Province of Kenya. I day-schooled at Chavakali Primary while she was boarding nearby at Mukumu Girls. We retraced her path from Chavakali to Kansas City, to windy Chicago.

Juliana also has a love for the latest in smart mobility, and is a connected media enthusiast. But wait, there’s more. Juliana makes her mark on the world as an environmental editor, and staunch supporter of green technology at Global Voices. If she isn’t glued to her Blackberry, she is complaining about and/or complimenting some new feature or application on her iPhone, or drooling over the latest addition to the N-series of phones from Nokia. I had to confiscate her Blackberry in a Johannesburg night club in order to get her to relax and enjoy Jo’burg’s emerging and surprisingly good House music scene. Needless to say, she’s very much open as to which tools she uses to accomplish her many tasks, as long as the story is told accurately.

Ushahidi launched out of a need for accurate, “verifiable” information during Kenya’s regrettable post-election crisis, and the tool of choice was the mobile phone. The project was a successful hybrid partnership between Kenya’s Diaspora community and Kenya’s blogosphere.

“It was sort of manual and intensive at the beginning,” she said, and emphasized the team effort it took to bring the Ushahidi platform to life, “but it was very much a collaborative, collaborative, collaborative, project.”

Ushahidi’s success indeed has been due to it’s collaborative team of heavy hitters. It’s a veritable mash-up soup of Africa’s finest bloggers, technocrats, and social watchdogs – African blogoshpere stars like Erik Hersman at White African, David Kobia of Mashada fame and the one and only, highly-decorated Kenyan Pundit, Ory Okolloh to name a few. Consider that these are outstanding members of Kenya’s Diaspora and reaspora communities. 

Jiliana added, “we came together. Ory, Daudi, and I were in Kenya at various times [during the crisis]. In the early days it was the three of us who were in Kenya…the programming and the setup was done by the guys overseas. What we did was enter content, and blogged on our own blogs and told other people about the [Ushahidi] platform.” The election violence put Kenya’s future in a very precarious position. ”If you would have asked me earlier this year if we would survive, I would have said no. But, now, it’s a maybe,” Juliana added.

The result is a poster-child for what successful participatory citizen media initiatives should look like, Diaspora-led or not. With over 132 contributors to the platform at the height of the crisis, the immediate adaption of the mobile reporting tool catapulted it to a platform. 

Ushahidi has since open-sourced the platform’s code and localized the reporting tool to recent conflict zones in Africa including South Africa’s xenophobic flare and most recently, to cover DRC’s rebel insurgency.

A little bit of Hollywood is coming to the suburbs of Nairobi. Animated:Kenya will be held December 6th at Sarit Center, Westlands. Their mission?

To break the myths about Kenyan Animation.

It is time to break the myth, that highend animation is a foreign art skill

It is time to break the myth that all highend animation seen in Kenya is done “down south”

It is time to break the myth that you need big expensive fancy computer to do worldclass animation

It is time to break the myth that animation is “not a valuable skill set” and is for “kids”

If the one video I could find from their panel of speakers (Jim Chuchu) is any indication, attendees can look forward to a fun day full of smart people who have alot of great information to share.

This free one-day seminar promises inspiration, networking and a full panel of speakers including:
kwame nyong’o
celestine wamiru
gado & james kanja
daniel muli
majiqmud & gado
mike onyango
jim chuchu
wesley kirinya
alfred muchilwa

During the Emerging Technology panel moderated by Guy Kawasaki I was impressed by KickStart. Their comments and insights were grounded and informed. They are looking at all the angles, at all the information out there, they have clearly seen the good and the bad and are working to take the good and leave the bad. One of the things that has always bothered me about technology aimed at helping the bottom of the pyramid is that they lack basic infrastructure, and because of this lack often either don’t have the resources to access the technology that is being touted as their latest salvation or they don’t understand how it helps them with their basic fundamental needs. What good is a laptop when you don’t have access to the internet? More fundamentally, what good is a laptop when you don’t have food, or water? If it were me that laptop would equal $$$. Not only do solutions aimed at helping need to address the actual needs to the recipient, the recipient of these well intentioned helping hands needs to understand what the technology is for and want to solve that problem too… and if the solution solves a problem they want to solve too… suddenly you have something that is successful. There is no real need to give a handout to a hardworking person. Affordable solutions to real problems are needed though. Kickstart is actually doing that.

On their website they list their five step process to solving poverty:

I wish them tremendous success with their project. The tools they create can truly provide the African farmer with a bit of technology that will help them feed their families and increase their income. Let’s hope that they can successfully launch them and succeed in getting local populations to adopt these tools.

Ok Blogren, no excuses, Kelele is announced and getting sponsors already. Mark the date, save your pennies and make your plans today!

Not sure what Kelele is?

Kelele is an annual African bloggers’ conference held in a different African city each year and run by an organising committee in that city. Kelele will be held for the first time in August 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya.

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 marginalised 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!

So far the Berkman Institute, Afrigator and Zoopy are lined up as sponsors.
Got all the news on the Kelele Blog or follow them on twitter.

EASSy upgrades it

THIS JUST IN:
Steve Song at Many Possibilities just chirped to let me know that Alcatel-Lucent, the company contracted to build out EASSy’s 10,000Km undersea cable, announced yesterday that it’s going to deliver 1.4 terabytes of capacity for EASSy, which is due to dock on East and Southern African shores in the 2010 timeframe. What’s interesting though, is that Steve has updated the TEAMS projected bandwidth increase to 1.2 terabytes. With these two increases, East Africa’s fibre backhaul capacity will top out just north of 6 terabytes by the end of 2010, which is torrential given today’s meager satellite trickle. Add in O3b Network’s proposed offerings and you’ve got some serious LAN-gaming geekery in East Africa’s future, or least the ability to have a connection able to handle a live uplink. 

What does this mean for the African Diaspora you ask? For starters, it means cheaper international commications. Instead of the Diaspora making the calls, there will be many more phone calls coming out of Africa. Plus, given what I’ve seen emerging from MobileActive08 this past week, Africa is going to need a lot more bandwidth to handle all of these new mobile apps being developed for African NGOs and telco customers. Cheaper backhaul also means, cheaper, faster access to information in educational institutions,. Don’t forget about the ability to roll out tech-heavy call centers, and telemedicine initiatives sitting on Africa’s horizon. Let’s hope everything goes as planned and Africa finally hops aboard the high speed information super highway.

A WHOLE LOT OF FIBRE
In Part One of this series, I posited that the fight for broadband dominance in East and Southern Africa was only between O3b Networks’ proposed launch of 16 LEOS and the long-running and oft maligned EASSy fibre optic project. Essentially, it is still a fight between two opposing methods of delivering the broadband backhaul to East Africa. The only thing that has changed is that EASSy has been relegated to “also-ran” status by breakaway factions within it’s own organization—breakaway factions that are fast-moving, nimble and a lot more ambitious than EASSy ever set out to be.

In part two, I’ll take a deeper look at new entrants in the race to dock high capacity undersea fibre optic lines on the East and South African coastlines. But first, I’d like to thank everyone who sent in their great comments in part one that lent insight into the flurry of activity in the fibre optic space.

Let me start acknowledging that yes, there are other fibre optic initiatives targeted at Sub-Saharan Africa’s shores, including Neotel’s SAT3/SAFE-backboned initiative, NEPAD’s re-formed WACS, and the recently announced MaIN onE-all which dock or are soon to dock on the West and South-West African shores. I’ll mainly concentrate on initiatives critical to East Africa’s ability to join the information super highway, which up to now has zero access to the international undersea cable network.

If you’ve been keeping pace in the Afri-tech space lately, you have probably heard about two of the biggest projects battling for the Broadband Title by being the first to bring ubiquitous broadband access to all of Africa: the EASTERN AFRICA SUBMARINE CABLE SYSTEM (EASSy?) project and the Google-backed O3b Networks satellite project. If you haven’t, well, sit back, open up your brain, let me lay down the skinny for you. I’ll give you the play by play, complete with my layman’s sideline commentary on what this fight means for you my fellow African Diaspora and those back “home”.

Now don’t be fooled into thinking that this is going to be a fair fight by Western standards—with rules of engagement, sportsman-like conduct and the perfunctory nod of gentleman’s honor, blah blah blah. Oh no, this fight, my fellow techies, is going to be dirty, profit-centered (no matter their respective corporate mantras), knock-down, drag out, slap your mama and yo’ granny, kick’em while they are down kind of back alley scuffle. There will be clear losers and winners, and most disturbingly, there will be collateral damage. First, I think I should introduce you to the contenders.

THE CONTENDERS
In the red corner, let me introduce you to EASSy. The East African Submarine Cable System was established November 2002. It was born as a “Business Manifesto” from a November 2002 East African Business Summit, that there should a submarine cable on the East African coast, to complete the international undersea fibre loop that connects the rest of the world. It’s a partnership of East Africa’s “who’s who” in ICT and Telecommunications players including Telkom Kenya, Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited, Uganda Telecom Limited, MTN Uganda, and Zanzibar Telecommunications Limited – ZANTEL, to name a few. More here. The completed cable is to provide cheaper backhaul high speed bandwidth to the 21-member countries‘ telecommunication’s infrastructure via a newly constructed fibre-optic network of cables. Alcatel Lucent was awarded the contract to build out EASSy.

In the blue corner is the svelt, well-connected O3b Networks–O3b standing for “other 3 billion” individuals world-wide not connected by broadband. It’s a partnership backed by Google, HSBC Holdings PLC, Allen & Company, and Liberty Global. O3b’s strategy is to launch a series (17) of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites that will provide “3G/WiMAX Wireless Backhaul and IP Trunkin”—which in plainspeak means they make it cheaper for phone and internet companies to roll out high speed mobile internet and broadband to customers via satellite. Here’s something interesting, O3b Networks is helmed by none other than Greg Wyler. More on him later. Thales Alenia Space‘s satellite building expertise helped the design and launch responsibilities for O3b’s network.  

Living in the Diaspora and want to own a some land or a home back home? Anyone who has tried or even though about trying knows that there are not just stumbling blocks in your way… but big freakin boulders.

Check out these two posts and comment threads from Bankelle to see what other Diasporans are talking about when it comes to homeownership, mortgages and banking.

Here and here.

I called one of my friends who lives in Boston a few days ago. He had just traveled to Kenya just in time for the chaos caused by recent presidential election fiasco.

As he spoke I could hear clucking chickens and the sound of children playing in the background. I had expected him to have been holed up in the village the entire time as I prodded him for news about the election. In a display of resiliency or denial, he had been traveling to and from Nairobi to shop and visit friends but did make phone calls ahead of time to find if there was trouble ahead. Life seemed to be getting back to normal depending on where one lived in Kenya.

Kibaki’s Government rightly gets a mountain’s share of the blame for triggering the crisis by botching the electoral process. Kibaki, a Kikuyu as happens with African politics, gets most of his support from Kikuyus in Central Kenya. The Opposition led by Raila Odinga on the other hand has condemned police brutality and violence, but really not according to the government not done enough to condemn the ethnic cleansing of Kikuyus in ODM (Orange Democratic Movement) strongholds. There are two separate struggles going on right now, a class war in the cities and ethnic cleansing of “outsiders” in the opposition controlled provinces.

The images from CNN, BBC and the mainstream news channels show violence in the cities mostly contained in the slum areas. People with little to lose have a lot more to gain looting and might not care much for the destruction of other peoples property. Those with a vested interest in the security and prosperity of the nation prefer to take the peaceful route. As for the violence in Rift Valley and other Opposition dominated provinces, Prof. Kang’ara’s interview in Seattle Times describes the seeds of the conflict:

Q: What is causing the conflict between tribes?

Kang’ara: Kenya was colonized by the British from 1899-1963. The British first settlements were in the Rift Valley and central Kenya, inhabited primarily by the Kikuyu. Because the British took Kikuyu land, the Kikuyu had to be moved from their homeland to other parts of Kenya. They were dispersed throughout the country.

The British system relied heavily on Kikuyu to supply labor to white communities because Kikuyus were agricultural communities. Kikuyu labor was the bloodline for the British colonial empire.

The struggle for independence was led by Kikuyu, including the Mau Mau movement. That meant the transfer of power from British mainly to Kikuyu elite. The question of Kikuyu dominance was always at the forefront of the independence negotiations. In 1963, the Kikuyu, the Luo and the Kalenjins agreed to have a unitary government as a way to keep the country together, minimize the prominence of ethnicity and build a national identity.

But the distribution of resources, especially land, occurred along very ethnic lines. Kikuyus were the agricultural community and they had been dispersed away from central Kenya. When the whites left, the Kikuyus were the first to acquire land they vacated. Kikuyus had easy access to credit which allowed them to start businesses and become more economically dominant and have access to education more than other tribes. With economic power, they began to control politics.

The ethnic cleansing is likely to be more damaging to Kenya’s democracy and capitalistic ideals. Commerce and entrepreneurship cannot prosper when the right to buy and own property in any part of the country is no longer guaranteed. As such, there are few Kikuyus willing to criticize Kibaki as he now presents the best option for their protection. It’s clear however no side is willing to give in for now. How can you have a democracy which is tied to ethnicity and not ideology? As the Africans say, “when two elephants fight, it’s the grass which suffers”. Regardless of who ends up in power, more economic opportunities and security for Kenyans is needed to prevent this tragedy from happening in the future.