Why You Should Vote for Africa, Tech & Women SXSW Panel

I decided to write this blog post as a way to help prospective voters and supporters to understand the thinking and passion behind our Africa, Tech & Women: The New Faces of Development SXSW panel submission.  We believe this panel will help to change the conversation on Africa, about whom most people have a limited negative perception; its women, who are often depicted as helpless, uneducated and unproductive; and dispel the myth that there isn’t much technological development taking place in Africa.

When TMS Ruge and I embarked upon this SXSW journey together, we decided we would create a panel building upon his successful SXSW 2009 presentation, Africa 3.0.  We knew that with the 2012 panel, we wanted to add a new dimension and feature multiple voices.  After a lot of research and brainstorming, we discovered that the African Union declared 2010-2020: The African Woman Decade and decided it would be a source of inspiration for us.  Additionally, we’re both very passionate about gender rights issues, publicizing the greatness of Africa and its Diaspora and are tech enthusiasts — and as such, we decided on the title: Africa, Tech & Women.

The subtitle: The New Faces of Development came about after lots of trial and error.  We finally agreed to it, given that it encompasses the areas we want to cover and from a new perspective: (1) Economic, (2) Technological, (3) Philanthropic, and (4) Community.

We then decided we should showcase the different ways in which a cross-section of African women based in the Diaspora and on the continent are impacting Africa’s development through technology.  We were able to identify three incredible African women who leverage use technology in very significant ways to affect change on the continent and beyond.  They also helped us to flesh out the panel topics, so that the description you read below is representative of what we all want to share, in the limited time available on a panel.  Additionally,

Africa, Tech & Women SXSW Panelists

1. Isis Nyong’o – InMobi (Kenya)

Isis joined InMobi in February 2011 to lead business expansion in Africa. With over nine years of business development, marketing and sales experience, Isis is responsible for the overall growth on the continent.  Isis joins InMobi from Google where she led the company’s business development efforts in Africa. She specialized in mobile partnerships and developed Google’s content strategy to bring more African content online. She brings extensive media and tech experience to InMobi and drove the launch of MTV Networks in Africa where she was responsible for commercial relationships including distribution and sales. She developed the marketing strategy for Kenya’s first online recruitment service, MyJobsEye and holds degrees from Stanford University and Harvard Business School where she was president of the Africa Business Club. Isis has been named by Forbes as one of The 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa, is one of the ‘Top 40 Women under 40″ in Kenya, and is frequently featured by the Africa media including, Al Jazeera, BBC, Nation Newspaper, NTV, Standard Newspaper and UP Magazine, among others.

2. Ebele Okobi-Harris – Yahoo! (USA)

Ebele Okobi-Harris is Director of Yahoo!’s Business and Human Rights Program, leading Yahoo!’s efforts to promote privacy and free expression on the Internet. Before joining Yahoo!, Ebele was a corporate securities and mergers & acquisitions attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, Paris and London, an attorney fellow at Consumers Union (a consumer rights advocacy non-profit) in San Francisco, a director of Advisory Services at Catalyst (a non-profit with the mission of advancing women in business) in San Jose and Amsterdam and at Nike’s EMEA headquarters as an MDP focused on marketing and business development in Africa.

Ms. Okobi-Harris earned a BA in Psychology from the University of Southern California, a JD from Columbia Law School and an MBA Certificat des Études from Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris.

3. Milly Businge – Kikuube Village Council (Uganda)

Milly Businge is a respected village elder and mother of eight children in the small village of Kikuube. She serves as the Local Chairperson (LC1) of her village, representing a population of nearly 1000 residents. She has been unanimously re-elected to this position by the residents of Kikuube because her work representing them at the government level. She has often wanted to retire and refused to stand for the position during elections, but the villagers always rally and vote for her anyway. That’s the mark of a great leader.  Mrs. Businge was also recently officially ordained as a minister and serves as the pastor of the small but growing community church.

In November 2010, Mrs. Businge delivered the keynote speech during the “Villages in Action” conference that was hosted in Kikuube.  The conference was broadcast live over the internet and proved to be a very successful initiative — giving the poor an opportunity to be heard in the global conversation about the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

When she is not managing domestic disputes, land wrangles, and community health awareness campaigns in her community, she spends her time reading. She is also an enthusiastic user of mobile technologies as they help her connect with her constituency and connect globally to her son (TMS Ruge) in America.

4. Liz Ngonzi – New York University Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising (USA)

Born in Uganda and “raised” at the United Nations, Liz Ngonzi is an international educator, speaker and consultant, who has since 2009, been on Adjunct Faculty at New York University’s Heyman Center for Philanthropy & Fundraising – for which she has developed and taught courses on online and mobile fundraising, and where she is one of four noted social media experts.

Liz is a recognized authority on ICT for development, the African Diaspora market, hospitality / service management, women in business, and social entrepreneurship.  She’s a frequent conference speaker, including as a panelist during the Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebration, in the spring of 2007; as a featured international speaker at the May 2011 Southern Africa Institute of Fundraising’s 10th Biennial Convention in South Africa; and as a panelist for New York University’s Philanthropy 3.0 Speaker Series: Mobile in Advocacy The Next Frontier.  In September, she will speak in the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 41^st Annual Legislative Conference and will chair the 2^nd Annual ICT Women Empowerment Africa Summit in South Africa.

A committed volunteer, Liz has held several board positions, including currently serving as a member of the President’s Council of Cornell Women (for which she is a Vice Chair of its Communications Committee); the Advisory Board to the Cornell University Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship; and the United Nations International School’s Council for Alumni Affairs.

Media outlets in which Liz has been featured, include: CBS’ The Early Show, Crain’s New York Business, New Jersey Jewish News, Successful Meetings Magazine, The New York Times, The Nonprofit Times and ZambiaBlogTalkRadio.

Liz founded and runs Amazing Taste, LLC., a values-led boutique consulting firm that connects NGOs with philanthropists and corporations, to achieve strategic objectives through fundraising events, marketing campaigns, along with educational activities.   Amazing Taste has worked with or advised domestic and international educational institutions, gender rights organizations, healthcare foundations, political campaigns, and youth development organizations.

Liz spent her 10-year corporate career in marketing, sales and business consulting at Digital Equipment Corporation, MICROS Systems, Inc. and Arthur Andersen, respectively.  She obtained her Master of Management in Hospitality degree from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems degree (with a concentration in Telecommunications Systems) from Syracuse University.  Additionally, she graduated from the United Nations International School.

5. TMS Ruge (moderator and “token male”) – Project Diaspora (USA)

TMS Ruge was born in Masindi, Uganda and grew up in Uganda, Kenya and the United States. Capitalizing on his understanding of different cultures and markets, Ruge has become a successful global social entrepreneur.

In 2007 he co-founded Project Diaspora — to motivate, engage and mobilize the African Diaspora to take an active role in Africa’s development. Following his passion to engage the continent, he has invested his time and money in a number of development initiatives including Uganda Medicinal Plants Grower’s ltd. – an indigenous farmers’ business specializing in the export of value-added medicinal plants, and Women of Kireka – a women’s jewelry making cooperative.

A technology enthusiast, Ruge writes and speaks extensively on Africa’s current renaissance driven by technology, youth and the Diaspora. He is a frequent contributor to several online publications including CNN, PopTech, The Globe and Mail, and The Guardian, and the Project Diaspora blog. He is also the host of The Digital Continent Podcast, a weekly technology podcast for people who believe that Africa is full of innovation and opportunity. Ruge is also a founding board member of Hive Colab – an open, collaborative, community-owned, work environment for young Ugandan tech entrepreneurs to focus on projects..

Ruge also serves as an advisor for ?OpenAction.org – an online platform that allows development organizations to richly engage their online audience.

He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Design from the University of North Texas.

Description of the Proposed SXSW Africa, Tech Women: The New Faces of Development Panel:

This panel provides a rare glimpse into the multitude of ways African women are applying technology to advance Africa’s development. The panel aims to dispel the myths about African women as breeders and victims — incapable of participating in their own continent’s development, by: (1) showcasing contributions they are making in the technology field – through entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and community leadership; and (2) providing insights into how they are using technology to raise awareness about, mobilize campaigns against and address human rights violations.

The panel will specifically explore how African women are using technology to make an impact through: – Digital advocacy to protect people’s rights – Social media to help grassroots organizations engage new supporters worldwide – Mobile advertising to enable small businesses to access new markets – Internet connectivity to integrate the often unheard community voices into the global conversation on development

Throughout the discussion, panelists will provide anecdotes on how the resulting increased access to information, is altering the role of women in African society.

Questions our panel aims to answer are:

1. What is the role of women in Africa’s fast emerging digital landscape and what types of contributions are they making?
2. How is technology improving the everyday lives of women on the continent?
3. What is the negative impact of increased access to information, on the role of the African woman in her society?
4. What are the opportunities and connections technology is facilitating between women in the Diaspora and on the continent?
5. Given the increased adoption of mobile phones in Africa and the rise of its middle class, what opportunities exist for marketers interested in targeting African women?

Please help us to amplify the voices of African women in the global discussion on development.

Vote for Africa, Tech & Women: The New Faces of Development and tell your friends to do the same.

Thank you

Follow us on Twitter: Liz Ngonzi @LizNgonzi | Isis  Nyongy’o @Inyongyo | TMS Ruge @TMSruge

Britain’s Brainiest Family is Black and Has 9-Year-Old High School-Bound Twins — what a catchy title for a compelling story about the British-based offspring of Nigerian immigrants — Chris and Ann Imafidon — blessed with what is seen as extraordinary brains.  I discovered this and another related compelling article, during my routine search for blog post content and was quite inspired, given that the last time I had conducted such a search, I had come across many dis-empowering images of Africa and its people, sparking my piece entitled: Rebranding Africa: Let’s Simply Start by Connecting the Dots for a Kid in Podunk! The basic premise of that piece was that Africans and those in the diaspora need to work towards helping shape a full picture of who we are — beyond images of “primitive” and helpless people — through the sharing of the plethora of existing success stories of those in the diaspora who are making their marks on their respective spheres and who consequently serve as ambassadors for a more inclusive dialogue about the African continent.

Paula & Peter Imafidon (Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2553538/Twins-youngest-to-sit-A-level-maths.html)

One of the compelling articles I cite above, penned by Jack Malvern in The UK Times on March 1, 2010, characterizes the Imafidon children as prodigies, including the main subjects of the piece, Paula and Peter, who at the time of its printing, the author noted as nine-year-old “Wonder Twins” bound for high school.  This family included the oldest sibling, Anne-Marie — at the time 20 — and who at the time held “the world record for being  the youngest girl to pass A-level computing, at 13,” while at the same age, she won a British government scholarship to pursue undergraduate studies at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in the United States; the next sibling, Christiana (who at the time of the article was 17), at the age of 11, became the youngest student to pursue an undergraduate education in any British University; and Samantha (at the time 12), who at the age of six, passed two rigorous high school–level mathematics and statistics exams, and whose feat was further emulated by her “Wonder Twin” siblings, Paula and Peter.

While I sincerely applaud Mr. Malvern and other journalists who  took it upon themselves to spotlight the Imafidon children, the undertones I read are that the family members are a collective anomaly – a notion which their father dispelled in an interview with Black Voices’ blogger, Ruth Manuel-Logan, in which he attributed their success not to any innate super powers, but simply to an Excellence in Education program for disadvantaged inner-city youth, in which they had all participated and as I inferred – active parenting and great genes.  He  stated further that “Every child is a genius…Once you identify the talent of a child and put them in the environment that will nurture that talent, then the sky is the limit,”  citing examples such as Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters, whose talents he believes were also nurtured.

Given the aforementioned and many other examples I have personally witnessed of highly intelligent and accomplished Africans, achieving great success in all spheres around the world (some of whom I included in my earlier cited piece) — I wonder why Africans still accept to be depicted as” (1) people who are seemingly too inept to effectively participate in their own development, (2) have low levels of education attainment, (3) need to be constantly saved by others, and (3) presumably have contributed nothing to this world, beyond breeding too many children who drain the globe’s resources.  The overwhelming majority of images I see in the media about the continent, are those of Africa’s natural resources that are fodder for the picking and its animals and landscape that are the source of enjoyment for tourists.

I was further compelled to write this piece, based on a heart wrenching Twitter message I received in response to my earlier cited piece on the need to re-brand Africa from the nonprofit group Youth Advocacy Network (YAN), which teaches kids in Buea, Cameroon, about video production, social media and computer literacy, as a means to share their stories with the world.   The message was: “Our students researched Africa & the flood of neg stats/media was hard to take in. Esp 4 kids using the web for the 1st time…” – which I interpreted as: their children were negatively affected by the negative images they found in the search results for Africa, most likely because the images failed to reflect the reality they see on a daily basis and the aspirations they each have.  It is for them, and other future leaders of the African continent and other parts of the world, that I plead that we seriously consider changing the image of Africa.  I fear that if we fail to provide an inclusive depiction of Africa, we fail those current and future generations that could potentially benefit fully from all that Africa has to offer.

For a more balanced picture, I refer to my own personal experiences.  In the early 1990’s, I was fortunate to meet a young Cameroonian, Dr. Acha Leke (a native francophone), while he was an undergraduate electrical engineering student at Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States — from which he eventually graduated at the age of 21 as its first black valedictorian — enrolled in a five-year program from which other would have graduated at the age of 23.  He eventually went on to obtain his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University; became a partner at the prestigious management consulting firm, McKinsey and Company; was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum; and in his very valuable spare time, co-founded the inpiring African Leadership Academy – an institution aimed at developing the next generation of ethical and well-trained African leaders.

African Leadership Academy Crest

Dr. Leke is but one of many highly intelligent and committed Africans I have been privileged to meet along my journey.  Other examples include the visionary students with whom I had an opportunity to work during the early 1990’s, as a volunteer publicist for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-based, African Technology Forum (ATF) — a journal chronicling scientific and technological advances within and without Africa — furthering the continent’s development.  Most of these students had at the time, moved from Africa to attain degrees from top universities in the United States, including:

1. Karanja Gakio, ATF co-founder who went on to co-found Africa Online with fellow Kenyan and MIT classmate Ayisi Makatiani (named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum) – the continent’s first Internet Service Provider– which was eventually sold to Prodigy Services Corporation.
2. Mawuli Tse, a Ghanaian national, who at the time was an MIT student and ATF co-founder, who has since become the Director of International Sales for iBasis, a global leader in international voice, mobile data and prepaid services that turns the challenges of international telecommunications into new opportunities.
3. Dr. John Ofori-Tenkorang (born to forward-thinking illiterate Ghanaian parents), who conducted his MIT doctoral research on a hybrid engine for a leading American automobile manufacturer.
4. Nigerian-born, Dayo Ogunyemi, at the time an undergraduate MIT student (and fellow UNIS alumnus), who subsequently went on to attain his JD/MBA degrees from Columbia University, and following two decades as an entrepreneur, financier, strategy consultant and attorney is now the CEO of 234 Media — a firm that makes principal investments in the media, entertainment and technology sectors in Africa.
5. Fellow Ugandan, Dr. Khaitsa Wasiyo, who at the time was an undergraduate student at Tufts University — eventually going on to complete her Ed.D at Columbia University’s famed Teachers College, and subsequently founded Elgon Project Management – “a turnkey, one-stop solution for building open source interactive websites for learning, collaboration, and performance.”

So given all of the aforementioned, what’s my point?  The “Wonder Twins” and their siblings are not an anomaly — they are but examples (as stated by their own father) of what dedicated parenting, focus, and enrichment programs aimed at developing youth…can accomplish.

The examples of some of the very intelligent and accomplished Africans I have been blessed to meet along my journey should help to solidify the notion that Africa has highly intelligent people who have made and continue to make contributions worthy of note, on the continent and beyond.  They also are also helping to move the continent toward Africa3.0.

Note: I also recently learned about 15-year-old American teenager, Saheela Ibraheem — born to Nigerian immigrants — admitted into 13 prestigious American universities, from which she has just accepted an offer from Harvard University to pursue studies in neuroscience and neurobiology.

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I dedicate this blog posting to all the victims and survivors of natural and man-made disasters.

Yesterday morning I woke up to the horrifying news about the earthquake in Japan, which as if that wasn’t enough, was followed by a tsunami, possible radiation exposure and forecasts of another, and most likely, more devastating earthquake.  As I write this piece, I send prayers for those affected by the devastation and hope that the situation does not escalate beyond the unimaginable damage and destruction that has already occurred.

Houses swept by a tsunami smoulder near Sendai Airport in Japan. (Reuters)

At times like these, we question the value of life which can be interrupted or even destroyed without a moment’s notice — robbing us of precious opportunities to communicate for the last time with loved ones.  Case in point is the well-publicized natural devastations our planet has suffered in less than ten years, including: Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2006 tsunami in Asia, and last year’s earthquake in Haiti.  Please note that I highlight the aforementioned, recognizing that there are numerous other natural devastations, and countless man-made conflicts that have and continue to devastate our precious Earth.  Many have and will continue to say that these natural and man-made disasters are signs of disapproval from God, Mother Nature and/or our planet — about the way we increasingly mistreat one another and abuse our planet.  Whatever your belief, my opinion is that we had better put our differences aside and start learning lessons from what is happening globally, to find a safer way forward.

Personally, as I kept reading about the escalating situation in Japan and environs throughout yesterday, I was inspired to think about how those of us outside of the immediate devastation could use it to prepare to do some good for others.  From what I understand, many places in Japan have been leveled to the point where the country is effectively at par with if not below those so-called third-world countries has been disrupted if not completely destroyed, which seriously impedes search and rescue efforts.

While researching topics for an emergency and disaster preparedness forum I organized in 2005, I learned that in short- and long-term crisis situations, communication is one of the most important tools for people.   Through communication, affected people are able to determine the severity of their immediate condition, gather and share information that can help them and outside help to improve their situation and mitigate further threats.  Specifically, a woman survivor of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, needs information that will (a) enable her to understand if she was in the epicenter of the earthquake (b) if there are any aftershocks predicted (c) if there is criminal activity around her, against which she needs to safeguard her family (d) what she needs to do to signal for assistance (e) if rescue and relief are on the way.  Similarly, an African woman survivor of civil unrest living in a village that is off the communication grid, needs to communicate in the same manner as her Japanese counterpart described above.

The challenge is how will the women in the aforementioned scenarios obtain and share vital information when the communication tools that those of us in unaffected areas take for granted are not available to either one of them?

Mobile communication via SMS messaging is one viable answer.  Earlier this week, I fortuitously served on a panel organized by a colleague Marcia Stepanek, at New York University’s Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising, entitled: Philanthropy 3.0 Speaker Series: Mobile in Advocacy The Next Frontier.  During the panel, I shared with and learned from my fellow panelists, insights about how mobile communication has and continues to be used to further causes.  We learned about the great work that FrontlineSMS is doing to increase vital information flow in various African countries, through the use instantaneous SMS two-way communication.  We also learned about the impact Ushahidi’s free and open-source, crisis mapping software has made on disaster situations, during conflicts and the tracking of political activity.  We also learned about the importance of the Twitter and Google’s Speak-2-Tweet service to information exchange –despite the Internet blackout– during the Egyptian revolution.  While all of these are incredibly enabling technologies, it is not possible to use them in situations where the vital communication grid necessary to transmit voices or even data, has been destroyed or never existed.

What would work in my view, is the use of satellite, for emergency disaster situations any where in the world and for off-the-grid areas in developing countries.  I know that satellite communication is successfully used by military personnel in conflict situations requiring off-the-grid communications and believe, we need to learn from them.  Specifically, what I propose is that governments identify vetted people in various locations including the remotest areas in their respective countries, known as connectors or influencers, to be the safe guarders of satellite phones, which in most situations should work.  Such people (with backup people for redundancy), keeping the video phones on them at all times, implanted with satellite transmitters, and trained to effectively serve as contact points responsible for communicating within and without their respective communities (aided by a support network), any vital information that would help ultimately save lives.  Should the safe guarders die, they and/or their phones could be tracked via satellite and the video switched on remotely, to record surrounding activity.  The same information would be quite useful for off the grid communities — enabling the tracking of threats, facilitating rescue missions and monitoring activity.

I welcome any ideas, suggestions and  innovations that would benefit the two fictitious women I mentioned above.  So while we are unable to change what has happened, I believe we are able to take action today, to make a better future.  I really do hope that we come together as a human race to effectively address our common problems.

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My last couple of blog posts on Project Diaspora have focused on best practices to improve service delivery on the continent and mobile solutions to potentially improve visitors’ experiences when they travel to Africa.

San Bushman man from Botswana. Photo Credit: Ian Beatty from Amherst, MA, USA

As I contemplated this current blog post, I looked through my notes to find an inspiring idea. I wasn’t inspired by any of them. So I revisited a Wikipedia search for Africa, which I recently conducted.  What I found was seemingly pretty basic: history, geography, politics, etc.  What struck me, however, was that the overall entries about contemporary Africa were quite negative in general, supported by images of a San bushman from Botswana, Beja Bedouins from Northeast Africa, a rural woman from Benin and a street musician from South Africa.

Beja Bedouins from Northeast Africa. Photo Credit: I, Jpereira

While none of these photos are particularly derogatory, they fail to accurately reflect what the continent has to offer, in terms of its educated urban population and its market potential.

As a diasporan born in Uganda and raised in New York, this all stirred up negative emotions within.  I grew up in New York during a time when it wasn’t cool to be African and I struggled with my identity, despite having gone to the United Nations International School – a very inclusive and empowering academic institution — and living in a community of mostly multicultural families.  At the time, it was much easier for me to assimilate as an African American (a group with which I still very heavily identify having grown up in the US) trying to bury my “Africanness”.  It’s only when I got to Syracuse University as an undergrad and took a few Africana studies courses that I began to develop pride for my heritage and to seek out additional sources to reinforce that feeling. So while the title of this post is about the kid in Podunk, I believe that what I’m proposing below is important also for the African kid (a) living in the diaspora, (b) who is fortunate enough to access the internet in Africa and even (c) whose friend and can teach him/her about who he/she can become as a result of hearing about his/her fortunate friend’s discovery online.

I must stress that my issue in post isn’t actually with Wikipedia — “a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge.” The question then is “who should bear the responsibility for the inaccurate portrayal of Africa?”  Is it an individual, an organization or African governments?  Who stands to benefits most from a more inclusive and therefore positive branding of Africa?  You may in turn ask “why this is important?”  Well here are my two cents:

Children, the future leaders of the world, are generally quite impressionable.  So what they’re taught as children influences the decisions they make as adults.  Exposure to correct information about Africa would therefore lead them to recognize Africa and Africans are valuable partners in the global economy rather than the current perception of Africa and its people as a lost cause.

Liya Kebede, Ethiopian model, maternal health advocate, clothing designer and actress who has appeared three times on the cover of US Vogue. Photo Credit: Ed Kavishe, Fashion Wire Press

It’s imperative therefore that Africa and Africans amend the Wikipedia pages on Africa and the African Diaspora, to reflect more inclusive images of Africa and the African Diaspora, given the intrinsic value of the latter both to the continent and the countries where they reside.

Below is a very SMALL sample of diasporans of note who could potentially be spotlighted.  I used the following methodology to find them:

1. I searched Wikipedia for diasporans with whom I am familiar and then used links from their profiles to identify others. I was mindful about the need to reflect talent from the whole continent.
2. I excluded people on the continent making their mark, purely as a means to remain focused on Project Diaspora’s mission: to promote African diaspora engagement in sustainable economic activities within Africa.
3. For simplicity sake, I narrowly defined Diasporans as those who currently reside outside of Africa and who were born in or have parents from Africa.
4. I linked to the Diasporans’ existing Wikipedia pages and grouped each sample according to primary industry.
5. Finally, I used photos from diasporans whose Wikipedia pages had rights-free photographs.

African Diasporans of Note

Arts / Entertainment	Akon || Johannes Anyuru || Michael Blackson || Chiwetel Ejiofor || Idris Elba || Safi Faye || Edi Gathegi || Haile Gerima || Namugenyi Kiwanuka || Boris Kodjoe || Sal Masekela || Peter Mensah || Tom Morello || Ntare Mwine || Thandi Newton       Photo: Thandi Newton, English actress born to Zimbabwean mother and British father. Photo Credit: gdcgraphics”
Education	Ilesanmi Adesida || Kwame Anthony Appiah || Patricia McFadden
Fashion	Amsale Aberra || Ozwald Boateng || Iman || Kiara Kabukuru || Liya Kebede
Financial Services	Mo Ibrahim || Dambisa Moyo || Adebayo Ogunlesi
Journalism	Sade Baderinwa || Ron Mwangaguhunga || Hoda Kotb || Dinaw Mengestu || Adaora Udoji
Politics	Peter Bossman || David Soares
Hospitality Management/Travel	Dorinda Hafner || Marcus Samuelsson         Photo: Marcus Samuelsson, Ethiopian-born Swedish chef and co-owner of Aquavit and Red Rooster restaurants in New York City and C-House Restaurant, located in the Affinia Hotel in Chicago. Photo Credit: Tduk Alex Lozupone”
Religion	Rev. Peter Gomes* || Archbishop John Sentamu
Science & Technology	Kwatsi Alubaruho || Cheick Modibo Diarra || Chinedu Echeruo || Gebisa Ejeta || Ave Kludze || Noah Samara || Window Snyder
Sports	John Amaechi || Kelenna Azubuike || Yinka Dare || Obinna Ekezie || James Ihedigbo || Ruth Kasirye || Mathias Kiwanuka || Dikembe Mutombo || Emeka Okafor || Hakeem Olajuwon || Betty Okino       Photo: Dikembe Mutombo, retired Congolese American professional basketball player, who last played for the Houston Rockets of the NBA. Photo Credit: Keith Allison”

In conclusion, while Wikipedia is a great tool for cataloguing a part of Africa’s reality through its Africa and African Diaspora pages, they need to project the other side of the story.  The basis for this is currently available as individual dots on the Wikipedia site.  What’s needed is for these dots to be connected and given a little bit of context to make it easy for a kid anywhere in the world to access a more inclusive picture about Africa.  I am pleased to note that individual Africans including: Mo Ibrahim, G. Kofi Annan, Sophie Bekele, Ida Horner, Mariéme Jamme, Sheila Ochugboju, Emeka Okafor, Alex Okosi and Joshua Wanyama , are some of the many already working towards the rebranding of the continent.

My hope is that this post will inspire others to join this vital effort.  I welcome any feedback or suggestions for other Diasporans or Diaspora-related items to feature.

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*Rev. Peter Gomes passed away on February 28, 2011

This week I had the opportunity to have a chat with Dr. Richard Wamai for the latest installment in our Diaspora at Work (DAW) series. Dr. Wamai is a Kenyan Diaspora working in global health policy and health systems with a specific focus on HIV/AIDS and the poverty dimension. After getting his Ph.D. in Finland, Dr. Wamai did a post-doc at Harvard School of Public Health.

In my continuing conversations with members of the Diaspora, I am beginning to be astounded by the human and intellectual capacity the continent has access to within the Diaspora. I am constantly filled with a sense of pride by our contributions to business, academia and development sectors, to name a few. Our stories may not always make the evening news or even make a blip in the international wires, but behind the scenes we are doing great things. In order for us to make bigger strides in strengthening our bond with the continent, we must begin with these conversations. There’s so much to tell, so many stories, so many brilliant minds working inside and outside the continent.

Dr. Wamai, to me, is one such luminary that I’d like to highlight in this new episode of Diaspora at Work (DAW). Thoughts on the reaspora, global health, remittances, MDGs, Kenya’s Diaspora, the state of education in Kenya are among some of the topics we covered in this short episode. I’ll tell you though, it is quite intimidating talking to a highly qualified PhD., but Dr. Wamai weathered my curiosities very well with his cunning insight and vision.

One of the more interesting nuggets in our conversation dealt with Diaspora remittances. Dr. Wamai’s idea for greater Diaspora participation in Africa’s development was to incentivize remittances by providing tax write-offs. I think there’s a wider conversation that should be had on this topic. What would happen, for example, if the United States decided to cut bilateral funding to African states receiving more than $1 billion a year in remittances? Instead, provide tax deductions to members of the Diaspora to increase their participation in the development of their own country. Obviously there are consequences to such a drastic move, but coupled with other shifts in policy, this strategy could work (most importantly: the political will to do so). Are we ready for this level of self-reliance? What impact does this have to our development, governance, and sustainability?

What do you guys think? I am looking forward to your thoughts. Of course, comments on his other thoughts (which are also filled with nuggets of brilliance) are also welcome. Kenya should be proud of this son. Here’s to hoping his continued contributions in the global health arena, in particular HIV/AIDS will lead to major break-throughs.

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.