Wow, It’s hard to believe that 2008 is coming to a close. What a year can change!? Obama won the U.S. Presidency; Zimbabwe, Somalia and Congo tragically spiraled deeper into lawlessness and a number of companies began to pay attention to Africa again. Not for it’s troubles, but for it’s market potential. Here’s a look back at some of the events that defined this year in African tech.
1. Ushahidi
Definitely the story of the year in African tech, IMHO.
This small company grew from a mash-up using Google Maps to one of the fastest growing web startups in East Africa! After winning the 2007 Net Squared Challenge in January, Erik Hershman, Ory Okolloh and David Kobia have really grown Ushahidi into something magnificent and influential. The company that “Crowd-Sources Crisis Information” has been featured everywhere from Forbes magazine to MIT ’s Technology Review! Any they’ve certainly had their work cut out for them. Ushahidi’s technology has been on the scene in Congo, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, helping to map violence and improve reporting. Ushahidi got it’s first test outside of the continent as well when terrorists struck in Mumbai, India only a few weeks ago.
The company is really beginning to scale up using the $25,000 they won in Net2 and the $200,000 grant from Humanity United as capital.
My buddy Ken Banks wrote about Ushahidi a few months ago:
One of the most widely talked-about platforms today also emerged from the ashes of another significant event, this time the troubles following Kenya’s disputed elections in late 2007. With everyday Kenyans deprived of a voice at the height of the troubles, a team of African developers created a site which allowed citizens to report acts of violence via the web and SMS, incidents which were then aggregated with other reports and displayed on a map. Ushahidi – which means “witness” in Kiswahili – provided an avenue for everyday people to get their news out, and news of its launch was widely hailed in the mainstream press. Putting Ushahidi together is a textbook study in rapid prototyping and collaboration. In the past few months the project has also gone from strength to strength, has been implemented in South Africa to monitor acts of anti-emigrant violence, won the NetSquared Mashup Challenge and was runner-up in the recent Knight-Batten Awards.
When you look at it all summed up like this, it’s easy to see why my nickname for Ushahidis group of world-changing individuals is the Superfriends. 
2. Google’s Push into the Continent
New Jobs, Acquisitions, Community Engagement, new Offices; this wasn’t limited to Google’s modus operandi in the U.S. and Europe this year, it was also part of their ramped up strategy to penetrate the African continent. For the most part they’re doing everything the right way, hiring local, partnering with local groups, and creating growth opportunities. Both Google.com and Google.org have been very active in the region. They’ve been hiring for the whole year and now have a ground presence in Egypt, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. Unfortunately, then the world got hit with the biggest financial crisis of a generation and Google’s stock has dropped something like 60% from it’s all time high. It remains to be seen whether or not Google’s interaction in the region will be profitable enough to warrant such a sustained effort.
3. Afrigator + Adgator
Afrigator is something like the Technorati of Africa. It aggregates the blogs and social media of the continent and helps track growth, trends and demographics. Without them this annual African Blogosphere report wouldn’t be possible. More recently, Afrigator expanded towards monetizing all that content by creating it’s own ad network. Primarily serving South Africa, Adgator lets bloggers maximize their income by soliciting offers to advertise from only local buyers. The company was also acquired by MIH which should help them grow significantly in 2009.
4. Le Barcamps Afrique
This was the year of Barcamps across the continent! There was Barcamp Ghana, Barcamp Nairobi 2, Barcamp Kampala, MiniBarcamp Kampala, Barcamp Uganda, Barcamp Jozi, Barcamp Mauritius…it was out of control! And if that isn’t enough for you, Google actually jumped on the bandwagon and held Barcamp Africa at it’s MountainView Campus in Silicon Valley! What’s good about this, is people are actually congregating and taking action to discuss technology and innovation which will hopefully result in an explosion of development!
5. The Race to Give Africa Bandwidth
O3B wants to launch satellites that would be used to bring “the other three billion” people who currently don’t have access to the internet, online. But, they aren’t alone. In fact there are four or five other massive projects attempting to get Africa online from EASSy to Seacom. Will any of them actually come to pass? I’m not sure but everyone, including myself and the NewYorkTimes, are waiting to see.
6. The African Blogosphere Grew Exponentially
Justin Hartman and the wonderful people at Afrigator have done a great job of tracking the African blogosphere, but there’d be nothing to track if it weren’t for the hundreds of thousands of bloggers creating content. Appfrica released two who’s who of influential people blogging about African tech. The first can be found here and the second can be found here. These were just my lists. I also recommended that you follow these people on Twitter, as does Alanna at BloodAndMilk and Nate at Change.org.
7. Social Entrepreneurs Get Investor Recognition
“How do You Stop an Exploding Man?” Answer: You help his get start-up get funded! (Yes, that was a Heroes reference on a blog about African technology. This year “Social Capital” and “Social Ventures” have been incredibly popular an not just with social entrepreneurs. Investors and VCs are starteing to take the field very seriously as many of the worlds resources begin to dwindle. Clean-tech is stealing the focus from web technologies and measuring Social-Impact is becoming more important than measuring ad reach. I got the chance to see this firsthand when I attended SoCap08: Social Capital Markets in October. It’s already quite clear that Philanthro-capitalism will be big in 2009.
8. The Asian Invasion
Whether you consider their efforts as colonialist or capitalist, there’s no mistaking the impact Asia is having on Africa, especially China. Way back I wrote about some of the things China was doing on the continent and more recently I explored their Social Web. As long as African leaders keep selling out the futures of their people, Asia’s influence will remain more of a threat than a promise. However, I ultimately think the business cross-continental trade brings is be a good thing. It’s up to Africa, not Asia to make sure of this. Last week I spent some time using China’s Social Web, looking for ways to engage people and business there. I’ll do an in-depth follow-up early next year.
9. Obama’s Usage of Tech
It goes without saying that Obama’s influence in Africa is huge. However his impact on tech can bee seen through his advocacy for Net Neutrality and his campaign’s use of the Web, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Social Media to win the U.S. election. If you listen closely to African forums and newgroups, you can really get a feel for how much people are thinking about ways to use tech constructively. Hopefully, the example Obama sets as a known techie and the new President of the United States will be a good one for both Africa’s people and it’s leaders.
10. Kelele
In order for Africa to truly impact the world’s tech industries, it has to first embrace and support it’s own. That’s why a localized conference arranged for Africans by Africans is such a good thing. It helps nurture the culture of peer leaders and do-ers that will drive everything forward. Kelele was announced at Barcamp Africa and I’m really looking forward to watching how it manifests over the coming months.
I don’t like to include Appfrica on these lists, but I will take the time to say that this has been one of the best years of my life. Less than six months ago I launched Appfrica, mainly to learn more about African technology in preparation for moving here. All the things that I began to discover inspired me to take action in the form of this blog and things like the Facebook Garage, Campala2008 and TEDC. Overtime, though, Appfrica morphed into an incubator and facilitator for African start-ups with Appfrica Labs. So far we’ve successfully launched a number of web properties like FricaFact and Afridex which have both seen incredible amounts of support. And although it’s been tough financially, I’ve learned a lot and grown a lot. It’s been incredibly fulfilling and I’m really looking forward to 2009!
African Tech 2008: Year in Review
Wow, It’s hard to believe that 2008 is coming to a close. What a year can change!? Obama won the U.S. Presidency; Zimbabwe, Somalia and Congo tragically spiraled deeper into lawlessness and a number of companies began to pay attention to Africa again. Not for it’s troubles, but for it’s market potential. Here’s a look back at some of the events that defined this year in African tech.
1. Ushahidi
Definitely the story of the year in African tech, IMHO.
This small company grew from a mash-up using Google Maps to one of the fastest growing web startups in East Africa! After winning the 2007 Net Squared Challenge in January, Erik Hershman, Ory Okolloh and David Kobia have really grown Ushahidi into something magnificent and influential. The company that “Crowd-Sources Crisis Information” has been featured everywhere from Forbes magazine to MIT ’s Technology Review! Any they’ve certainly had their work cut out for them. Ushahidi’s technology has been on the scene in Congo, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, helping to map violence and improve reporting. Ushahidi got it’s first test outside of the continent as well when terrorists struck in Mumbai, India only a few weeks ago.
The company is really beginning to scale up using the $25,000 they won in Net2 and the $200,000 grant from Humanity United as capital.
My buddy Ken Banks wrote about Ushahidi a few months ago:
When you look at it all summed up like this, it’s easy to see why my nickname for Ushahidis group of world-changing individuals is the Superfriends.
2. Google’s Push into the Continent
New Jobs, Acquisitions, Community Engagement, new Offices; this wasn’t limited to Google’s modus operandi in the U.S. and Europe this year, it was also part of their ramped up strategy to penetrate the African continent. For the most part they’re doing everything the right way, hiring local, partnering with local groups, and creating growth opportunities. Both Google.com and Google.org have been very active in the region. They’ve been hiring for the whole year and now have a ground presence in Egypt, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. Unfortunately, then the world got hit with the biggest financial crisis of a generation and Google’s stock has dropped something like 60% from it’s all time high. It remains to be seen whether or not Google’s interaction in the region will be profitable enough to warrant such a sustained effort.
3. Afrigator + Adgator
Afrigator is something like the Technorati of Africa. It aggregates the blogs and social media of the continent and helps track growth, trends and demographics. Without them this annual African Blogosphere report wouldn’t be possible. More recently, Afrigator expanded towards monetizing all that content by creating it’s own ad network. Primarily serving South Africa, Adgator lets bloggers maximize their income by soliciting offers to advertise from only local buyers. The company was also acquired by MIH which should help them grow significantly in 2009.
4. Le Barcamps Afrique
This was the year of Barcamps across the continent! There was Barcamp Ghana, Barcamp Nairobi 2, Barcamp Kampala, MiniBarcamp Kampala, Barcamp Uganda, Barcamp Jozi, Barcamp Mauritius…it was out of control! And if that isn’t enough for you, Google actually jumped on the bandwagon and held Barcamp Africa at it’s MountainView Campus in Silicon Valley! What’s good about this, is people are actually congregating and taking action to discuss technology and innovation which will hopefully result in an explosion of development!
5. The Race to Give Africa Bandwidth
O3B wants to launch satellites that would be used to bring “the other three billion” people who currently don’t have access to the internet, online. But, they aren’t alone. In fact there are four or five other massive projects attempting to get Africa online from EASSy to Seacom. Will any of them actually come to pass? I’m not sure but everyone, including myself and the NewYorkTimes, are waiting to see.
6. The African Blogosphere Grew Exponentially
Justin Hartman and the wonderful people at Afrigator have done a great job of tracking the African blogosphere, but there’d be nothing to track if it weren’t for the hundreds of thousands of bloggers creating content. Appfrica released two who’s who of influential people blogging about African tech. The first can be found here and the second can be found here. These were just my lists. I also recommended that you follow these people on Twitter, as does Alanna at BloodAndMilk and Nate at Change.org.
7. Social Entrepreneurs Get Investor Recognition
“How do You Stop an Exploding Man?” Answer: You help his get start-up get funded! (Yes, that was a Heroes reference on a blog about African technology.
This year “Social Capital” and “Social Ventures” have been incredibly popular an not just with social entrepreneurs. Investors and VCs are starteing to take the field very seriously as many of the worlds resources begin to dwindle. Clean-tech is stealing the focus from web technologies and measuring Social-Impact is becoming more important than measuring ad reach. I got the chance to see this firsthand when I attended SoCap08: Social Capital Markets in October. It’s already quite clear that Philanthro-capitalism will be big in 2009.
8. The Asian Invasion
Whether you consider their efforts as colonialist or capitalist, there’s no mistaking the impact Asia is having on Africa, especially China. Way back I wrote about some of the things China was doing on the continent and more recently I explored their Social Web. As long as African leaders keep selling out the futures of their people, Asia’s influence will remain more of a threat than a promise. However, I ultimately think the business cross-continental trade brings is be a good thing. It’s up to Africa, not Asia to make sure of this. Last week I spent some time using China’s Social Web, looking for ways to engage people and business there. I’ll do an in-depth follow-up early next year.
9. Obama’s Usage of Tech
It goes without saying that Obama’s influence in Africa is huge. However his impact on tech can bee seen through his advocacy for Net Neutrality and his campaign’s use of the Web, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Social Media to win the U.S. election. If you listen closely to African forums and newgroups, you can really get a feel for how much people are thinking about ways to use tech constructively. Hopefully, the example Obama sets as a known techie and the new President of the United States will be a good one for both Africa’s people and it’s leaders.
10. Kelele
In order for Africa to truly impact the world’s tech industries, it has to first embrace and support it’s own. That’s why a localized conference arranged for Africans by Africans is such a good thing. It helps nurture the culture of peer leaders and do-ers that will drive everything forward. Kelele was announced at Barcamp Africa and I’m really looking forward to watching how it manifests over the coming months.
I don’t like to include Appfrica on these lists, but I will take the time to say that this has been one of the best years of my life. Less than six months ago I launched Appfrica, mainly to learn more about African technology in preparation for moving here. All the things that I began to discover inspired me to take action in the form of this blog and things like the Facebook Garage, Campala2008 and TEDC. Overtime, though, Appfrica morphed into an incubator and facilitator for African start-ups with Appfrica Labs. So far we’ve successfully launched a number of web properties like FricaFact and Afridex which have both seen incredible amounts of support. And although it’s been tough financially, I’ve learned a lot and grown a lot. It’s been incredibly fulfilling and I’m really looking forward to 2009!