Africa’s Gift to Silicon Valley: How to Track a Crisis

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/weekinreview/14giridharadas.html?sudsredirect=true

Ushahidi also represents a new frontier of innovation. Silicon Valley has been the reigning paradigm of innovation, with its universities, financiers, mentors, immigrants and robust patents. Ushahidi comes from another world, in which entrepreneurship is born of hardship and innovators focus on doing more with less, rather than on selling you new and improved stuff.

Global Library Services Network

https://glsn.com/

an Application Infrastructure Provider (AIP) supporting remote communities with access to digital libraries for offline use.

Google Maps launches in Kenya

As of today, detailed maps of many Kenyan towns including Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and Nakuru are accessible through any web browser through http://maps.google.co.ke/ or through Google Maps for mobile on data enabled handsets. more

Mobiles give Africa's farmers the chance to set out their stall

The latest technology is enabling villagers to bypass middlemen and find out the prices their crops will command. more

IoE links

Institute of Education connections.

Article in IoE Life magazine about International Development unit, Summer 2008.

e-Agriculture

An example of Indian Agricultural Extension videos being shared through you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4F4A07BBA95EAA98

http://www.e-agriculture.org is a "global initiative to enhance sustainable agricultural development and food security by improving the use of information, communication, and associated technologies in the sector."

Botanic Gardens Conservation International

BGCI was founded in 1987 to link botanic gardens as a co-operating global network for effective plant conservation. It now links over 2500 institutions in over 120 countries, all working together to preserve and promote plant diversity for people and the planet.

It includes several gardens in Africa including Kenya, and links to the African Botanic Gardens Network

Julia Willison is head of education.

http://plantscafe.net/ is a related project and includes many educational resources.

Emerging journalism

Journalism training is booming in the developing world. David Okwemba of Kenya's The Nation newspaper also helps train journalists. For community-generated podcasts (esp. in Kambu for the radio station) we have envisioned community members conducting interviews and making stories.

Economist story here.

Flood, famine and mobile phones

Technology is altering humanitarian work and now 'the first people on the ground are often computer geeks'. Donors can track shipments, workers on the ground can coordinate with each other, messages can be more easily sent to communities.

This has implications for non-emergency aid. 'The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation draws vast detailed maps showing who is vulnerable to food shortages (“poverty mapping”).' Computers can keep public health records and identify early-warning signs.

Mukuru lets people in the developed world send cash and fuel to developing countries (soon to include Kenya).

Complete story here.

Making Kenya the ICT Hub of Africa

"Digital Village Enterprises

Digital Villages are ICT facilities established to take ICT to the rural areas for economic and social development. They will provide a suite of e-services to the public via computers connected to the internet, digital cameras, printers fax machines and other communication infrastructure. There will be three types of Digital Village facilities:

Digital Schools – educational ICT facility with minimum of 5 to 10 PCs established and managed by primary and secondary schools with support from KTCIP, constituency development funds (CDF), and other public and private sector organizations. Minimum – one in each location.


Digital Kiosks – commercial ICT facility with minimum 1 to 5 PCs established and managed by entrepreneurs either individually or groups with support from KTCIP, youth and women development funds, microfinance institutions, and other investors. Minimum – one in each constituency.


Digital Centres – development ICT facility with minimum 10 to 20 PCs established and managed by community based organizations (CBOs), faith based organizations (FBOs), co-operatives, public and private sector organizations with support from KTCIP and development partners. Minimum – one in each district."

For more...

Gamos

"Gamos is a small but influential company working with the social factors surrounding development interventions, organisational development, technology use and transfer."

See reports on:
- mobile phone use
- water
- energy
- ICT use
- agriculture

AfriGadget - Inspirational!

A blog reporting great stuff happening in Africa - "Gadgets for Africa: Solving everyday problems with African ingenuity" - AfriGadget

Precision Agriculture

NASA initiative extols the benefits of remote sensing, mapping, satellite imagery for improving crop yields, reducing fertilizer use, keeping records, increasing profits, reducing pollution.

Data to audio

Given the prominence of radio, and literacy levels, in the communities we're working with, this article may be of interest. Listen to your crops grow?

Mobiles and market prices

For many years, anecdotes have abounded about the ways in which mobile phones promote more efficient markets and encourage economic activity. One particularly popular tale is that of the fisherman who is able to call several nearby markets from his boat to establish where his catch will fetch the highest price.

A new paper, described here, fills in the details of this story.

Radio scripts

Developing Countries Farm Radio Network includes scripts and other resources for rural radio. We have proposed having students/communities create these, and podcast them or broadcast using a low-power FM transmitter.

GIS mapping of Kenya schools

The project involves recording the names of the schools, their locations (latitudes and longitudes), and their primary physical features. This information will be integrated with attribute data including school enrollment, number of teachers, and the school's educational resources, which will be collected in the field. When the location data is merged with attribute data and other demographic information, it will assist policy makers in obtaining answers to questions such as, Where are new schools needed now and in the future? Where are educational facilities limited or duplicated? Where are new teachers needed? Where is in-service training needed? Where is the nearest location where students can obtain elementary or secondary education? Where is significant population growth or decline expected?

more

Technology 4 Social Change

A few links that may be worth following:

NetSquared - "Remixing the web for social change - Our mission is to spur responsible adoption of social web tools by social benefit organizations. There's a whole new generation of online tools available – tools that make it easier than ever before to collaborate, share information and mobilize support." NetSquared are brining together funders, thinkers, tech experts and social change projects at their 2007 conference.

Fahamu - "Networks for social justice - Fahamu has a vision of the world where people organise to emancipate themselves from all forms of oppression, recognise their social responsibilities, respect each other’s differences, and realise their full potential." Publishers of Pambazuka - weekly forum for social justice in Africa.

Mobiles4Good - who we mentioned before. n independent Kenyan company called Mobile for Good Kenya. - "A project designed to use mobile phone technology to help alleviate poverty and improve the lives of people in the developing world. It delivers vital health, employment and community content via SMS on mobile phones in order to inform and empower disadvantaged individuals."

Biofuel - Jatropha - Kambu?

Given local interest in Jatropha for biomass in Kambu the European Biofuel Summit might be of interest (Madrid, 17th & 18th April).

Partners at this conference include:
- The Jatropha Website which has numerous resources on how to grow, process, market Jatropha oil etc... It also links to conferences for experts and others, e.g. Expert Seminar on Jatropha curcas, agronomy and genetics 26-28 March, National Jatropha Conference, Arusha, Tanzania 3/4 april 2006 .
- ASK - Access to Sustainable Knowledge which provides access to 'knowledge' and 'experts' in a variety of areas including water. This is part of Sustainable Alternatives Network which 'offers easy access to experts, case studies, planning tools, and finance sources all around the world' and connects 'you to free information and expertise, and helps you profit from earth-friendly solutions that are right for your industry'.

Environmental XML

described here, "enabling people to tag and share remote realtime environmental data." I have met Usman Haque who developed this, and he is located in London, in case we would like to contact him.