“This Week in Appfrica” is a weekly digest highlighting articles and stories from the previous week.
Appfrica Archives | Contact | Twitter | Weekly Digest | Subscribe via E-mail
Editorials
Dreaming of an Internet Co-Op
One of the things that baffles me about the Ugandan ITC space is the lack of collaboration among the people and businesses here. In an area where internet costs are high, IT resources are low and educated workers are sparse, there’s not a whole lot of communication between the various groups. Even among NGOs and foreign groups, everyone operates in their own little worlds, hoping no one tries to push them off the island like it’s “Survivor”.
Data Visualization and Mind-Mapping
Arnold Abira recently sent me a visual flow chart of how he discovered Appfrica through a call I put out on Mashada for Swahili translators. As you can see from the chart, he documents his thinking as hyperlinks across many of my projects, which ultimately resulted in him trying to get in touch…
Citizen Propaganda and Failures of the Blogosphere
Ethan Zuckerman recently wrote about the most recent Russia/Georgia conflicts and the failure of the Georgian blogger community to tell unbiased stories about what was occurring.
Restating the Case Against Aid
In “Is Developmental Aid Stifling Africa’s Growth?” I presented Andrew Mwenda’s argument that the key to Africa’s future growth will be free trade and responsible governance, not developmental aid. It seems that this meme is getting more popular by the day.
News
Google Invests in O3b Networks
Google announced it’s backing of O3b Networks, an initiative to bring 3 billion people in emerging markets online in the next two years.
Afrigator Acquired
The African social media aggregator Afrigator has announced they’ve been acquired by MIH Print Africa.
Kenyan Government Offers Millions in Grants for Local Content
ICT spending is increasing in East Africa and it shows no signs of slowing down…
Wananchi Group Thinks Big, Plans Bigger
Wananchi, a Kenyan telecom group, made an announcement this week that they have immediate plans to extend their services beyond internet services to include television and telephony. “All in the same cost-effective package and coming from one provider,” according to CEO Euan Fannell.
Ushahidi Relaunches Website, Secures New Funding
Ory Okolloh made an announcement this morning that Ushahidi has relaunched it’s website and has laid out a bold vision for future growth and integration of existing technologies.
Congolese Take on The U.S. Elections
Jennifer Brea of Global Voices posted an interesting article today taking a look at what the Congolese blogoshpere has to say about the upcoming United States elections…
From the Archives
CARE’s Social Network: A Missed Opportunity
The problem with non-profits getting into the social networking space is that they tend to think of it as an extension of their existing campaigns instead of truly trying to innovate and offer something new to the world. In my opinion, if you aren’t going to do it well, then partner with someone who will. I’m talking about Care.org who recently launched http://we.care.org, a ’social network’ (and I use the term loosely) aimed at encouraging communication around various development projects. The biggest disappointment here is that CARE is a huge multi-national, billion dollar organization with enough money, resources and people at their disposal to make a web presence that truly matters. Instead, what they’ve done is created a place for CARE donors to come talk about CARE matters and…well who cares?
Links to Appfrica
White African’s Interview with Appfrica Founder Jon Gosier
Erik Hersman kindly took out the time to expose his readers to Appfrica.
ReadWriteWeb Sponsors Defragcon
With any luck I’ll be on panel at Defrag Con in Denver, Colorado discussing the African tech scene and my other project Questionbox.
About the author: Jonathan Gosier is a software developer, writer and social entrepreneur. He currently lives in Kampala, Uganda where he incubates and invests in East African entrepreneurs as the CEO of Appfrica Labs. He's also a TED Fellow.
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This Week in Appfrica [Sept 7 - 13, 2008]
“This Week in Appfrica” is a weekly digest highlighting articles and stories from the previous week.
Appfrica Archives | Contact | Twitter | Weekly Digest | Subscribe via E-mail
Editorials
Dreaming of an Internet Co-Op
One of the things that baffles me about the Ugandan ITC space is the lack of collaboration among the people and businesses here. In an area where internet costs are high, IT resources are low and educated workers are sparse, there’s not a whole lot of communication between the various groups. Even among NGOs and foreign groups, everyone operates in their own little worlds, hoping no one tries to push them off the island like it’s “Survivor”.
Data Visualization and Mind-Mapping
Arnold Abira recently sent me a visual flow chart of how he discovered Appfrica through a call I put out on Mashada for Swahili translators. As you can see from the chart, he documents his thinking as hyperlinks across many of my projects, which ultimately resulted in him trying to get in touch…
Citizen Propaganda and Failures of the Blogosphere
Ethan Zuckerman recently wrote about the most recent Russia/Georgia conflicts and the failure of the Georgian blogger community to tell unbiased stories about what was occurring.
Restating the Case Against Aid
In “Is Developmental Aid Stifling Africa’s Growth?” I presented Andrew Mwenda’s argument that the key to Africa’s future growth will be free trade and responsible governance, not developmental aid. It seems that this meme is getting more popular by the day.
News
Google Invests in O3b Networks
Google announced it’s backing of O3b Networks, an initiative to bring 3 billion people in emerging markets online in the next two years.
Afrigator Acquired
The African social media aggregator Afrigator has announced they’ve been acquired by MIH Print Africa.
Kenyan Government Offers Millions in Grants for Local Content
ICT spending is increasing in East Africa and it shows no signs of slowing down…
Wananchi Group Thinks Big, Plans Bigger
Wananchi, a Kenyan telecom group, made an announcement this week that they have immediate plans to extend their services beyond internet services to include television and telephony. “All in the same cost-effective package and coming from one provider,” according to CEO Euan Fannell.
Ushahidi Relaunches Website, Secures New Funding
Ory Okolloh made an announcement this morning that Ushahidi has relaunched it’s website and has laid out a bold vision for future growth and integration of existing technologies.
Congolese Take on The U.S. Elections
Jennifer Brea of Global Voices posted an interesting article today taking a look at what the Congolese blogoshpere has to say about the upcoming United States elections…
From the Archives
CARE’s Social Network: A Missed Opportunity
The problem with non-profits getting into the social networking space is that they tend to think of it as an extension of their existing campaigns instead of truly trying to innovate and offer something new to the world. In my opinion, if you aren’t going to do it well, then partner with someone who will. I’m talking about Care.org who recently launched http://we.care.org, a ’social network’ (and I use the term loosely) aimed at encouraging communication around various development projects. The biggest disappointment here is that CARE is a huge multi-national, billion dollar organization with enough money, resources and people at their disposal to make a web presence that truly matters. Instead, what they’ve done is created a place for CARE donors to come talk about CARE matters and…well who cares?
Links to Appfrica
White African’s Interview with Appfrica Founder Jon Gosier
Erik Hersman kindly took out the time to expose his readers to Appfrica.
ReadWriteWeb Sponsors Defragcon
With any luck I’ll be on panel at Defrag Con in Denver, Colorado discussing the African tech scene and my other project Questionbox.