Appfrica | Ideas, Development, Data and Design

Featured Story

The Open Source Embargo

Or “Separate but Equal hits the Open Source Community”. I wrote a blog post a while back about location based profiling on the web. Many websites … Read More

Spotlight

Best of Appfrica 2009

The close of the year is often a time for reflection, for individuals and companies alike. For Appfrica it’s no exception as we profile the … Read More

TEDx Week

This week we’ll be distributing all the talks recorded last week at TEDxKampala. What was TEDxKampala? On November 23rd, 2009, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor … Read More

Infostate of Africa

People often only see Africa from one perspective, here’s another. The above infographic details some of the happenings over the past few years in regards … Read More

Coded in Country | Stoking Local Innovation

Can institutions [be they international organizations, companies, universities, foundations or governments] enable innovation in local technology industries? We explored this question on a rainy … Read More

About the Appfrica Labs Fellows Program

January 31, 2010 |

Email This Post |

Print This Post

The Appfrica Labs office has an open door policy, encouraging people of all cultures, creeds and nationalities to work with us. It’s often the case that people who come to Kampala just need some space with an internet connection and a few friendly faces to help them get their work done. Over the past year, we’ve hosted a number of people who’ve fit into this category, but a few individuals have taken it upon themselves to really get involved and actually work with us.

The Apple Tablet’s Role in Emerging Markets

January 28, 2010 |

Email This Post |

Print This Post

At a little more than double the price of the One Laptop Per Child’s XO-1 and equal in price to nearly every decent netbook on the market, the Apple Tablet has been announced and it’s entry level price is only $499. It’s certainly cheaper than most full fledged laptops making it a not-so-luxury choice for Mac fans across Africa.

Unicorns Happen: Apple Tablet, Zune Phone

January 27, 2010 |

Email This Post |

Print This Post

The internet has a complex. Sometimes we want things to exist so bad that we, the public, simply hang on to any shred of potential evidence that points to their existence. The tech community calls these beasts ‘unicorns‘, items that would be magnificent if they did exist but theres simply not enough proof. Case in point, for the last FOUR years I’ve been reading rumors about an Apple Tablet. Enough time for a high school senior to, read the rumor, go to college, graduate, get a job at Apple, find out it doesn’t exist only to find himself working on the development team that makes it a reality.

The Open Source Embargo

January 26, 2010 |

Email This Post |

Print This Post

Or “Separate but Equal hits the Open Source Community”.

I wrote a blog post a while back about location based profiling on the web. Many websites do it, particularly television and movie sites and financially sensitive websites. The reasoning I can often gather from looking at the terms of service and other language is that these sites are simply trying to ‘protect’ their users who happen to usually be primarily North American or European. They can’t rely on foreign authorities to police the hackers, phishers, and scammers coming from those countries, and since it’s not cost effective to do anything else, they blindly classify anyone who happens to born in the wrong place as not being able to use the their services AT ALL.

Microformats for Macroevents

January 20, 2010 |

Email This Post |

Print This Post

microformats

Around two years ago I had the pleasure of meeting some of Silicon Valley’s brightest developers for a conversation on microformat open standards. Among this group was Tantek Çelik, a member of microformats.org and one of the early contributors to the open standard for hcards and vcards. At the time, I was interested in micro-formats as part of the next evolution of web applications, it was only recently that I began to see the need for micro-formats that could be applied to more urgent real-world scenarios. While developing Haiti Tracker at Ushahidi, I discovered two new sets of open micro-format standards aimed at augmenting the flow of emergency information in ways that can save lives.