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.

Please feel free to connect with me:
Twitter || LinkedIn || Facebook || Email || Amazing Taste Website

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

8-year Goldman Sachs veteran, Dambisa Moyo is currently hitting the US media circuit to promote her hotly-debated new book, “Dead Aid.” I am waiting to delve into this book as soon as it arrives to see what all all the frothing is all about. The reviews have ranged from downright surgical deconstructions of the facts presented in the book, outright dismissal of anyone attempting to dismantle the aid framework, to embracing the opinions of a brave AFRICAN voice finally standing up and saying enough is enough with the force-feeding.

There’s not much I can say about the facts in the book, since I haven’t gotten my hands on the book (look for a perspective review in the near-term once I finish the book). A check around the development blogosphere, financial news networks, and Twitter would lead me to believe that she’s hit a major artery in this aid versus trade debate.

Until I can work my way through the book, and post my thoughts, here are some more interviews of Dambisa defending and promoting her book:

Fox Business News on YoutubeDambisa Moyo & Alison Evans interviewed on BBC’s Hardtalk

Inside Look – The Anti-Bono – Bloomberg (Can someone school the host how to pronounce her name please? Geez!)

Dambisa Moyo, Author Of Dead Aid on Sky News

Riz Khan – The fate of the world’s poorest – March 2 – Part 1

#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.

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.

One of the biggest hurdles to development in Sub-Saharan Africa is lack of access to banking. We have lamented the degree to which this gaping hole stymies the Diaspora and their efforts to send money back home, and commented on the reality that banks want a piece of this money. Which in many respects gives Diasporans a certain amount of leverage that the average African worker just does not have. Wizzit seems to get it. There is a way to serve the needs of the poor, have a socially responsible business model and still make money. Wow, what a clever bunch of folks. Actually doing business and banking the old-fashioned way!

So here is the deal. Traditional banks have tremendous overhead. These days a bank means, a branch office, corporate offices, bank tellers, computers, and all the rest. All of which costs money; money banks get not by earning interest on their deposit investments, but off the fees they charge their customers. So many fees in fact, that for most unbanked people it makes no sense. If up to 25% of your deposit will get eaten up in fees, why not take your chances and just deal in cash? It is a gamble, sure, but why not take the gamble? A sure 25% loss versus the risk of your hard earned cash getting stolen out from under your mattress? I might take that bet myself if I were in their position. Banks are require all sorts of things like minimum opening deposits, minimum balances, they are flat out inconvenient and expensive. On top of this it is incredibly difficult to get an account, period. As an example Post Bank of Uganda has the following list of requirements to open a transaction account:

UGH! Anyone who has opened a bank account in the US finds this list a bit difficult to swallow. For a loan sure, some proof of ability to pay and general responsibility is expected. However, to open an account for deposits and withdrawals, this laundry list of requirements is almost laughable. Essentially all I need to open an account here in Texas is a photo ID and some money to put in the account. I give them some personal information sure, but unless I want credit, all they care about is the cash.

Ok let’s review.

Wizzit a relatively new player on the banking scene in South Africa (founded in November 2004 as a division of South African Bank of Athens) set out to change all that. Their target is South Africa’s 16 million unbanked. So Wizzitt does not have bank branches, they have a dedicated mobile sales force known as WizzKids. If you call Wizzit and tell them your Mum wants to open an account, a WizzKid heads out to her and gets it set up. There are no fees for having the account, there are no minimum balances. They set up tents in farming communities and open accounts with the local farm worker, the average time to open and account? 20 seconds. Not too shabby. In addition to the WizzKids sales force they have also partnered with Dunnes stores. Wizzit and Dunnes target the same customers. 99% Dunnes customers are unbanked, so now you can open a Wizzit account at your local Dunnes store. So With a Wizzit account, you primarily do transactions with your phone via sms; you get a Maestro branded debit card which can be used in businesses that accept debit cards. Want to withdraw money? Use and ATM or get cash back at a local debit card accepting buisness. Convenient, cheap and easy. What could be better!?

There are a few wrinkles. CNN reported that there have been complaints about the amount of time it takes for checks to clear, and if you are relying on cell phones you have to deal with the instability of the phone network. No phone service? No banking services… not so good.

From the Nextbilion.net

WIZZIT is a cellphone-based banking facility whose target market is the estimated 16 million unbanked or underbanked South Africans – about 60 percent of the country’s population. Unlike its competitors (FNB and MTN), WIZZIT does not require users to have a bank account and is compatible with early generation cell phones popular in low-income communities. The facility even works with customers who use pay-as-you-go cellphones – another distinction. In addition to being able to conduct cellphone-to-cellphone transactions, WIZZIT account holders are issued Maestro debit cards that can be used at any ATM or retailer. WIZZIT charges per-transaction fees that range from 99c (USD 0.15) to R4.99 (USD 0.78) and does not charge a monthly fee nor require a minimum balance. There are no transaction limitations – the service is purely pay-as-you-go. WIZZIT employs over 800 “Wizz Kids” – typically unemployed university graduates from low-income communities – to promote the product and help unbanked customers open accounts.

All in all a great model, that offers real banking solutions to South Africans. There is alot of lip service to mobile banking through out sub-saharan Africa. Nice to see a business model that is offering a great product, employing people and making a profit!

The World Bank on Wizzit

Coverage on CNN focus on Africa
Coverage on Business Q&A
Coverage on SABC 2

MobileActive08 pulled off the impossible by convincing over 350 mobile technology enthusiasts, funders, and developers to descend of Wanderers Club in Johannesburg, South Africa for a three-day feast on all thing mobile and development.

MobileActive08 kicked off with an informal get-together at the swanky and tech-friendly (free, usable, honest-to-goodness wifi!) Wish Bar in Melville. It was a crowded affair, which made it the perfect occasion for practicing your elevator pitch between hand shakes, h’ordorves, feeding the mobile connectivity monster and swigs of gin and tonic (or whatever your poison, eh, social grease of choice happened to be). I was hours removed from a brain-baking BarCamp Jozi just a few miles away, so I was glad for the informal setting where I got to practice my elevator pitch as to why Project Diaspora was crashing a mobile technology confab. With about 70 people, the get-together also provided an opportunity for attendees to get a headstart on the biz-card trading game. More on this later.

The opening session the next day was choke-full of activity. Yours truly gave lessons in vuvuzela-blowing madness to my other continental representatives. The running joke of the convention was the unanswered question as to why I—representing Africa—got the “black” vuvuzela. After a few rounds of ideation musical chairs—where we all got to switch seating assignments and share, discuss, and sketch out various points of view on the future of mobiles in development—the sessions started in earnest.

Here’s an aggregated list of some of the presentations shared on Slideshare.

Extended aggregation of conference coverage by other media and attendees can also be found on the MobileActive08 blog maintained by Katrin Verclas, co-founder of the Mobile Active.

I dropped in on the Rapid Application Development (RAD) engine demo, Global Voices’ session on mobiles in citizen media, and a session on the evolution of the mobile web to name a few. Paul Cook provided some excellent notes from the Mobile Banking and Mobile Commerce while White African sat in on the launch of Open Mobile Consortium (a very big deal in this young marketplace).

There was a Project Diaspora-specific open-session that I held on day three. There will be more on this once I get a chance to upload the audio and do a write up.

DINNER UNDER THE AFRICAN MOON

One of the great none-tech highlights of the evening was dinner at Moyo. David Sasaki, White African, Juliana Rotich, myself and others made use of the free drinks and bountiful buffet. We also traded some pretty bad jokes about generational gaps and depends courtesy of David. I guess that’s part of the fun of free booze.

WE CAN GO FURTHER

While the three-day fest was full of activity, I think it lacked in a few areas. And I only say this with full knowledge that this is a young conference with room to grow. I think it was a great place for people to meet and share ideas about the future of mobiles in development.

When I looked around, though, there were very few mobiles in actual, real-world use, (myself included, although I did check my email on my iPhone only for one of the days). The student journalists from Rhodes Universtity probably made the best use of their mobiles. It was seemingly the only tech they had on them, a Nokia (N85s?), pencils and notepads. The conference could have used more of this mobile-only action, instead attendees were hunched over their laptops in every plenary session, presentations and demo. From a Western point of view, I can understand this. But the conference should have pushed attendees to experience what’s it’s like to have a mobile as the only technology you own, as is the case for most developing nations, who are targets of the very same technology and applications at this confab. I am assuming handing out official confab-issued mobiles as the only tech required for the conference would have been a design knightmare. 

Stating the obvious - mobile video recording in action at mobileactive08

Here’s another point. This was a mobile-tech conference. Can somebody explain to me why I have over 200 hundred business cards and handed out equally as many? If we’re going to be pro-active about mobiles in development. It can’t be too much of a stretch to go a step further and be environmentally conscious and instruct attendees to sling their vCards over bluetooth or other appropriate mobile file transfer protocol. To be fair, MobileActive08 does have database of all the attendees on it’s confab website here.

All in all it was great start, congrats to the Katrin and team for pulling off an excellent confabb and I am certain all the attendees plus more will sign up early for the next year’s conference rumored to be in Thailand or Jordan. If my vote counts, I wouldn’t mind “one night” or three in Bangkok.

Even lunch during BarCamp Jozi was informal

BarCamp Jozi wrapped up last weekend. I finally got myself some free time and decent wifi, even though I am nestled in the basement of a Mugg & Bean Cafe in Johannesburg’s Rosebank district. Which means I’ve been able to upload some images from the unconference. In the spirit of BarCamp, feel free to grab some images if you were there or if you are simply interested. The gallery is unlocked, so it should be fairly easy to download the images you need. The images will upload in batches, so the complete gallery won’t be finished until this weekend, so keep checking back.

BARCAMP JOZI IN THE NEWS

A good portion of the attendees were live-blogging the event. Unfortunately, my coverage was limited as I was probably the non-techie in the room, . Most of the presentations were quite interesting to listen to, and held promise for the future burgeoning tech sector in Africa. More interesting though, was the Q&A sessions after the presentations. There robust and engaging, often leading and presenting tangentially problematic situations for the presenter. The only problem was that I had a really hard time trying to understand the subject matter, engage, and blog at the same time. So, instead I am just going to point you in the direction of good coverage from some of the event attendees:

White African:

Flicker Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/2932280809/

Blog posts: http://whiteafrican.com/2008/10/12/bush-videostreaming-at-barcamp-jozi/

Ismail Dhorat

Twitter Stream: http://twitter.com/ismaild or search for #barcampjozi at Twitter.

Paul Cook

Probably the best comprehensive coverage of the  BarCamp Jozi is on Paul’s blog, Langabi.name.

"Live-streamed" panel discussion

The first day of BarCamp Jozi was supposed to culminate with a live link up with BarCamp Africa. The simple exercise of attempting to find adequate bandwidth for even a one way stream highlighted the anemic availability of adequate bandwidth here in Africa. The strange thing is that BarCamp Nairobi, Ghana, and Lagos managed to get live streams up. At the very least I had hoped to find decent connectivity here in Johannesburg considering all the activity surrounding undersea cables due to dock on South Africa’s shores in the next two years. As of last night, I now fully understand the NEED for South Africa to seriously upgrade it’s pipes. It also underlines one of my many arguments, that broadband access here on the African continent is not a byproduct of development, but a result of a pandemic lack of foresight by telecom monopolies and government. I say this only because if one were just to look at South Africa from a tourist’s point of view, this country’s development is on par with any developed nations around the world – good roads, rule of law, adequate security, etc. But dig a little deeper into the communications infrastructure, or better yet, try to find a decent wifi hot spot and you get the idea. If South Africa is this thirsty for broadband, think of how bad it is for the rest of the continent.

There’s adequate-ish bandwidth between 512Kb and 3MB here in Jozi for normal internet activities like emailing, chatting, and light web surfing. The latter of which you pay through the nose for. Bandwidth-heavy web applications like streaming, however, tend to be an exercise in patience when one is used to a behemoth 10MB down/3MB up connection like I have in Texas.

Setting up the "studio"

trouble-shooting the connection

JB to the rescue

Alright we are plugged in here all nerdy-style at BarCamp Jozi. I count 23 individuals with a smattering of laptops, video projection equipment, bean bags and enough genius-level brain power to light a couple cities.

11:30 am

The presentations so far have ranged from quantum computing to a debate why there are over 90 url shortening services on the web. Snurl was highlighted, but I gotta tell you, some of this discussion makes me feel like I skipped way to many classes in high school.

11:45 am

White African, aka Erik Hersman just walked through the door. I ran into him and Mike Stopforth last night at Capello’s in Sandton mall. We had a pretty good debate on African development.

12:30

There’s just been a raucous discussion as to the irony of BarCamp Africa being hosted in California. Someone suggested we re-name this unconference as BarCamp California. Natch.

Erik Hersman at BarCamp Jozi

Right before lunch, Erik Hersman is giving a speech on developing African apps for the West instead building apps that the average African can use. The majority of developers here develop for themselves but that is a very small addressable market. In order to develop usable grassroots applications, developers need to think outside their comfort zone. Basically, if you are going to develop apps for the typical Africans, then you must step into their environment to understand what it’s like to live without electricity and a basic cell phone. For a typical developer, that’s building apps in reverse. You have to understand what it is the local market here needs and what the most basic technology path available to build that app. You can’t build the apps because you think they are cool and expect immediate uptake. Build from the grassroots and make it easy from a deployment stand point.

Some success examples of this strategy include Africa’s banner projects; Kenya’s Ushahidi and South Africa’s Mxit among others.

Mike also has touched on the fact African developers need to build ahead of the curve. Anticipate what the locals need and use the competitive advantage of living here to get a head start on international competition. If international competition enters the space, then they take the profits out of Africa.

Lunch

Danie (middle), White African, and Rabble (far right)

After lunch, more discussion about web application development environments. I am still amazed at the number of intellectual people assembled here. Evan Henshaw-Path, aka Rabble, a long-time Yahoo developer and the brains behind Protest.net stopped in after a long flight from Paraguay for a quick chat on his latest projects. More from him MobileActive08 next week.

MobileActiv08: 13-15 October 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa

Good news, PD is jetting off into the sunset in effort to cover the latest, biggest, baddest confabs about and/or in Africa. Yours truly just landed in Johannesburg, just in time to catch Barcamp Johanessburg this weekend, starting tomorrow. I’ll cover as much as I can from the two-day unconference before skipping across town to join David Sasaki and some of the biggest players in the African mobile technology space. Just a few of the players listed so far include:

Anna Kydd from Project Zumbido:

We ran a pilot project last year called Project Zumbido that looked to improve the quality of life of those living with HIV/AIDS.  The project created support networks for those living with HIV/AIDS  by mobile phone in rural and urban areas of the state of Jalisco,Mexico using a technology that enabled a simultaneous communication. We were selected as one of the finalists this year for  the Stockholm Challenge Awards.

Victorino Nhabangue and Henk Boshoof from Mozambique Health Information Network (MHIN):

The project uses the local GSM network combined with AAP (African Access Point), Server and PDAs that health workers at remote health facilities use not only to collect and transmit health data info but also, they use it to send and receive e-mails, receive broadcasted health content information such as Malaria treatment manuals and others.

Glen Thompson from World Wide Fund for Nature:

One project we have been working on is with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF South Africa) to develop a mobile campaign that creates consumer awareness about energy use and climate change. By using the MyCO2Print WAP enabled carbon footprint calculator, mobile phone users are able to measure their household carbon emissions. WWF is launching this mobile campaign, on the Wednesday of the conference, as part of its “BE THE HERO” consumer activism campaign (www.wwf.org.za/hero).

That’s just a few from a long list of amazing organizations doing phenomenal things in the mobile application space in Africa. With so much activity in the mobile applications space, I am getting a feeling that by the time all the various undersea broadband cable ventures and O3b Networks projects come to fruition, Africa will be a hotbet of serious mobile activity. Watch this space.

As an aside, i just got a note that White African is having a get together tonight, not too far from here, I think I’ll go check it out. He’s also attending Barcamp Jozi and is presenting at MobileActive08. I’ll attempt to live blog tomorrow when BarCamp Jozi kicks off. There’s a possibility of a live link-up with the BarCamp Africa in Mountainview, California. Wicked.

Speaking of which, Tracy1314 is heading off into the Western Sunset to cover BarcampAfrica in Mountainview, CA, home of Google. Yes, we know. A Barcamp. About Africa. In Silicon Valley. What do you want, it’s Google!

It should come as no surprise that Silicon Valley’s finest are listed as registered attendees, and it looks to be a pretty big deal, so look for coverage of that event starting October 11th.

UPDATE:

Saul notes in the comments that this BarCamp Africa is sponsored by Google, not held by Google. Our apologies for the mistake. Thanks Saul.

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.

MobileActiv08: 13-15 October 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa

Violence against women is an international issue. Women all over the world are victims of violence at the hands of family, boyfriends, lovers, husbands and strangers. This is not a developing world issue. It is international. Each situation is different but at the same time scarily similar. So, how can technology really change the face of violence against women?

I think that projects like Ushahidi show that technology can in fact help make a difference. When the will of the people for change and for the good, is combined with strong effective tools, success follows

Mobile Active 08 will provide a venue for The Gender Based Violence Prevention Network and the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) together with BulkSMS to “show and tell” about their awareness campaigns.

If you are attending Mobile Active 08 stop in and find out more!

Texting for Social Action
Monday, October 13, 2008
2:00 PM – 3:15 PM

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.  

MobileActiv08: 13-15 October 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa

This from the MobileActive08 website:

The three-day event convenes key stakeholders that will explore mobile technology in support of social action. At MobileActive08 you will explore how mobile phones are used to advance civil society work, assess the current state of knowledge in the use and effectiveness of mobile technology to advance social action, and investigate trends, needs and investment opportunities.

As far as the lineup is concerned, I noticed that there’s this guy called Bill Gates, apparently he’s taking a few days off from filming commercials with Jerry Seinfeld to present a yet to be described session No word yet on if it’s the real Bill Gates.

So if you are attending the aforementioned Tech4Africa, get two conferences for the price of one flight by heading on over to their website and registering.

Oh, I almost forgot. There’s also this guy named David Sasaki, of Global Voices fame. Apparently he’s great in the Citizen Media category (hint, hint). Don’t forget to sign up for his session, “Mobiles in Citizen Media: Compiling Apps and Best Practices.”

It’s a little known secret around here at PD that I am a tech nerd, or should I appropriately say that I love following all things tech. I especially love following any manner of tech centered around Africa’s emerging techno-space.

We’ll be tracking and promoting Tech4Africa as we get more information. If there are any Diasporans out there in the tech space, make those flight reservations lickity split and then pop on over to their Facebook? page and let them know you are coming.

It also looks like there is room to add a few more speakers for those in the know and would like to contribute/promote your Afri-centric tech project. There’s a spate of heavy hitters on tap to speak at the event. I personally would love to catch Mike Stopforth of Afrigator fame, Emeka Okafor of ‘TED Global 2007, Africa: The Next Chapter’ and Timbuktu Chronicles fame, and Silicon Valley’s “Valley Girl” Sarah Lacy. There is a full-course meal of brilliant speakers on tap of course.