Inaugural TEDxYouthInspire will bring together those with “A Good Head & A Good Heart”
On Saturday, April 10, 2010, from 8:00AM – 6PM GMT, the inaugural TEDxYouthInspire conference will be held at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT in Accra, Ghana. The free one-day event, a first for young African visionaries ages 14-25, will welcome a host of youth speakers, a Ghanaian dance ensemble and an Academy Award-nominated short film. Organized along the theme “A Good Head & A Good Heart”, taken from Nelson Mandela’s 1995 autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, TEDxYouthInspire will exhibit how radical thought and integrity of spirit combine to create unlimited possibilities for a brighter future. “The outpouring of support for TEDxYouthInspire exemplifies the need for more events like this for young people,” says Raquel Wilson, event curator, “As our speaker line-up suggests, youth everywhere are ready to solidify their contributions towards making the world a better place.” TEDxYouthInspire welcomes the following speakers to give the talks of their lives:
Iyinoluwa E. Aboyeji, 18, a Nigerian teenager with a passion for philosophy, global politics and economics, is President of the Board for University of Waterloo publication Imprint. Using his weekly column “E is for Error” to discuss development and post secondary education, he aspires to be a tenured professor by age 25.
The Asanti Dance Theatre is a dynamic ensemble that combines traditional, contemporary and freestyle dancing along with drumming. Founded in 2003, the group raises awareness of prominent issues facing West Africa and is dedicated to developing and preserving the cultural heritage of Ghana.
Yawa Hansen-Quao, 26, is a women’s empowerment activist and firmly advocates that “one cannot love an Africa one does not know.” Believing that women must play a central role in spurring economic and social advancement in Africa, Yawa supports travel as a tool to “transform people without permission”.
Mac-Jordan Holdbrookes-Degadjor, 25, a social media activist, is passionate about Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), youth empowerment and ending poverty through education. With three blogs to his credit, he often writes about global events, social entrepreneurship, traveling and how it feels to be a geek in Ghana.
Shirley Osei-Mensah, 18, is an Internet entrepreneur and student at Keystone National High School. Unable to attend a regular classroom, she takes all coursework online and uses her web exposure to inspire others, provide tips about entrepreneurship and advise on earning an income online.
Esi Yankah, 25, is founder and president of The Africa Mentor Network and creative director for Yankah and Associates. Cautious to always live a life that is cheerful and purposeful, she does not believe that entrepreneurs are an extraordinary breed of people; rather, as she explains, “We just back our faith with action.”
Ghana Google Country Manager Estelle Akofio-Sowah will host TEDxYouthInspire.
TEDxYouthInspire is sold out, however, a live web steam of the event will be available online at LiveStream. Individual and corporate sponsorship packages are still available. Additional information about TEDxYouthInspire can be found by visiting www.tedxyouthinspire.org. Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tedxyouthinspir or Facebook at www.facebook.com/tedxyouthinspire.
We are proud to announce that our flickr group Images FOR Africa reached 10.000 pieces some days ago. From the Images FOR Africa description:
We want to collect ‘Images of Africa’ that are ‘free to use’ according to a Creative Commons License: Social documentary, structures, public transport, village life, poverty, nature, wildlife … everything!
There is no special purpose other than spreading/providing Africa related, CC licensed photos in media:
so they can be used free of charge by e.g.:
- Africa related NGOs/NPOS to do proper media-work,
- local business initiatives for their web presence,
- upcoming journalists,
- …
We took this round lot of 10.000 and created a flickr gallery where we curate the best picks from the group. Based on this beautiful sample we are looking forward to print some shots and try to organize an exhibition.
Click on the image to get to the gallery:
Just a short remark on the group: A lot of people add their images ‘blind’ and don’t license the images as “creative commons” before they post to the group. We assume that these flickr users at least read the group rules but don’t know about creative commons and want to support the cause anyway.
If you want to use the picture for some purpose, just write the user who shot it. Describe what you will use it for and reference to the group rules. If the user is not ok with it, we will have to remove the picture from our group pool. Just send a message to our flickr account in that case.
16 years ago, an Internet Community from Ghana connected West Africa to the Internet and transferred this knowledge to other countries in Africa. Sadly, this community has been ignored over the years and no wonder Ghana has lost its presence on the global internet space with an internet penetration rate lower than the average on the African continent.
Group picture of participants at the First AfNOG EO localization workshop held at the University of Cape Coast
The President of Internet Society, Ghana Chapter (ISOCgh) Mr. Daniel Obuobi in a welcome address recounted how Internet Technology workshop had started in 1993 and since then to 2000 eight countries have held such workshops. The localizing of such workshops became more important so as to reduce the cost of travels and increase participation as well as build capacity on the continent. The results, was the birth of African Network Operators Group (AfNOG) with Internet Society (ISOC) facilitating and providing support. In this same regard, the ISOCgh accepted the challenge of localizing AfNOG EO track (Unix System Administration) home. This got strong approval from ISOC and the University of Cape Coast opted to facilitate the process by hosting the first ever AfNOG EO localization workshop/conference.
To feather extend the localization drive the Ghana Network Operators Group (ghNOG) was born on the 31st day of July, 2009 at the University of Cape Coast for which I am more than excited to be part of. The ghNOG is a “forum for the exchange of technical information to ensure stability of the Internet Services in Ghana” with the aim of creating a community for sharing experiences and technical challenges on setting up, building and running IP networks in Ghana.
The event begun on 27th July with participants from government, education, industry and Non-governmental organization been taken through Unix System Administration using the Free BSD (ghNOG-1). Topics covered included; Unix concepts, FreeBSD installation, DNS concepts, configurations and delegations, Apache and Virtual Hosts, Email systems using exim, System Log Management and Backups. The climax of the event was the outdooring ceremony of the new baby ghNOG. The President of ISOCgh hoped to see a vibrant ghNOG working closely with ISOC Ghana to organize technical workshops, conferences and annual meeting at various venues across the country to build capacity.
Mr. Michuki Mwangi, Senior Education Manger, ISOC in a short message was excited to be part because one Ghana was close to his heart and also he attended an AfNOG training that was organized in Ghana in 2001 which marked the start of this career and has made him who he is today. As he puts it “to give back to the community that help changed me”. Mr. Michuki was an instructor at the workshop. Sharing with the audience a story on Skunkworks in his home country Kenya. Skunkworks is mailing list of young and upcoming engineers who with little or no resources are helping solve problems, making great innovation and helping local authorities to know where to go for help. “Its not perfect but has filled a void” Michuki said. He recommended that, Ghana develop these communities along a common line that bring the youth, young engineers together to harness their talent since it was difficult to get find such talents in our part of the world in a group.
AfNOG Convener and board member of ICANN, Prof. Nii Quaynor in his message applauded the development of internet operators groups which in May 2000 gave birth to AfNOG in Cape Town South Africa. At the 10th anniversary of AfNOG in Cairo, Egypt in May 2009, the role of NOG’s became even more apparent and important and as he noted “the growth of the internet network simply demanded more technical capacity of operators who had to coordinate and communicate better”.
The Internet Technical Community through ghNOG will deliver;
ghNIC domain name registry,
ghCERT,
GARNet,
IXPs/Roots,
W3C office,
AfrNIC training office and more… he added.
The two key success factors Prof. Quaynor noted were; extent of engagement of the community and policy environments. One interesting question he asked was the “e-Readiness of our Judiciary to handle IT related cases at IT speeds” an experience his own company Network Computer Systems (NCS) had suffered from.
“the Internet Technical Community is our only weapon to prevent the digital divide”
Concluding his speech, he wished ghNOG and its trainers and trainees to be missionaries/ revolutionaries who will champion internet development and selflessly serve their communities. “Ghana deserves an Internet renaissance” he added.
ghNOG!!!! Success………!!!!!
In the keynote address by the Hon. Deputy Minister of Communication Hon. Gideon Quarcoo, commended ISOCgh for its work in bringing to the forefront the importance of the Internet as an indispensable tool that we can use to accelerate the socio-economic development of the country and creating a forum for the exchange of technical information, sharing of experience and capacity-building for the industry given the constraints. The Minister called on all the internet fraternity to join hands with Government in addressing the security threats confronting the development of the Internet in general. He noted that in the area of legislation, the Ghana’s Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772) which among others, will help develop a safe, secure and effective environment for the conduct of electronic transactions.
He charged the ghNOG to complement Government’s efforts and provide practical and meaningful measure that can help control the menace of security. The Ministry of Communication has developed a comprehensive e-security policy that has identified eleven priority areas to secure the country’s systems, infrastructure and information he added. A copy of which he is presenting to ghNOG for study and guidance in its operations. He also mentioned an e-Security Policy document which was part of the Ministry’s arrangement for the establishment of a national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). He again noted that the Ministry was enjoying goodwill from Industry and this will enable it establish a governing Board for the Internet Registry and facilitate multi-stakeholder participation in the management of Ghana’s domain name space.
“Government is also working to reduce the cost of bandwidth to promote the growth of the industry” he added.
He stated “Let us collectively strive first and foremost, to protect the internet and build confidence in its usage. There is so much expectation out there, and we dare not fail in our endeavour”
The Ghana Network Operators Group (ghNOG) was then formally declared duly launched by the Hon. Deputy Ministry. And promised the Ministry’s and Governments support and cooperation to the community at all times.
The board for ghNOG was inaugurate and were made of 6 members with Mr. Ernest Brown as interim Convener.
I already started a couple of blog posts, but real time publishing will not work, so the posts will have a delay of about 2-4 days … for real time coverage catch me on twitter.com/martinkonzett
“Mobile phones are creating networks of solidarity” - Richard Dowden
I didn’t know Richard Dowden, until I by chance spotted a short review advertising his book “Africa - Altered States, Ordinary Miracles” while riding the train from Luxembourg to Switzerland. As I have a post-paid contract with probably the worst combination of cell phone and network provider in Europe (iPhone and Orange), roaming was again not working, so I just took a hand written note. Back home I
just hit the “1 Klick Bestellung” - Button (which is actually patented by amazon) and I got this huge hardcover just one day before I departed.
Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, turned out to be a triple senior journalist with 30+ years hands on experience being in Africa or investigating about Africa related issues. While browsing the table of contents just before I left, I was amazed to see that the very last of the eighteen chapters was named “Phones, Asians and the professionals - The new Africa“. How lucky am I? What could be better for a technician like me, than digging into to opinions of a non-technician about phones while I am actually in Africa!
So here I am, taking my second leg from Doha to Dar Es Salaam in a stuffed Airbus, hardly managing my MacBook, Dowdens hardcover and a cup of tea, trying to write this blog post while a two year old fellow is screaming like hell right into my neck.
Dowden intros the topic with a brief history about economics and the end of colonialism and also financial and investment strategies of the Western world tied to that, quoting some friends and then building up short stories about what he is thinking is primary driving Africa in these days: “Mobile phones, China and the emergence of a new African middle class“. Reading this book is more than fun, it’s a joyride where emotions come over when thinking into all these excellent described moments, whenever the content is positive and beautiful, or scary and dark. I was thinking of Afrigadget when he says that Africans are using non-African stuff their own way, mashing stuff up or if they
don’t like it, just leave it unused in a corner until it is rotten. I mostly agree when he is clearly pointing out the unbeatable entrepreneurial energy that African people have.
The actual story about phones takes place within very few pages. Explaining the situation with landlines the last 3 decades before mobiles were introduced and that nobody expected back then that
African citizens are able to pay or even want to phone. My statement on the first issue would be, that economic theory clearly says that everybody is able to pay, you just can not estimate how much someone is dedicating within his probably tiny budget. So I agree that, when it is even only a very small amount of money compared to what a citizen of the Western world spends, the multiplication by the population of a whole continent makes is worth thinking about it. The second issue is also clearly and explained very well, he very briefly brings up well known clichés like the fisherman calling the harbor for prices and nomads sitting beside the cows with a mobile. That people just love to communicate and being human means being social. By simply not mentioning things like Twitter, FrontlineSMS or Ushahidi (which all are great tools and have great impact in media and raising
awareness is good, but have very little impact compared to basic functions), he just brings the focus to the basement of the concept of mobile. We also have this in our movie Hello Africa where we feature a fisherman who gives us a plethora of examples of how he is using his mobile and then running out of examples, to tell us at the end that he is using his mobile “for the very reason itself”. (And no, he is not calling the harbor or sending SMS to the market to get price information).
Dowden mentions the political impact within the normal politics and also the opportunity for the rebel leader in the north to call the president in the south and bargain peace, while the bill is payed by the e.g. the CIA …
Dowden is even asking the question, if maybe the Rwandan genocide would have not happened if mobile telephony had been introduced widely at this point in time. This sentence instantly made my eyes close and when I was back ten minutes later I had a strong feeling of confidence that we are heading for the right goals with what we are doing - ICT4D or whatever it is called.
The Chinese part of the chapter is worth another blog post, so stay tuned.
Today I took off to another adventure to East Africa and I am really glad about that. It was quite a stress to jump out of day to day business in Austria, but actually I am not out at all, since I have perfect internet connection here at Doha International Airport in Qatar and I am addicted and feel guilty when I am not connect to my Java team. But everything is fine so far. I have to kill 10 hours before I can board the aircraft to Dar es Salaam and I took the solution not taking a hotel room for USD 100,- plus the taxi ride there USD 30.- and a visa for another USD 30.- … instead I just stay inside the airport and jumped into the ‘Oryx Lounge’ which is USD 40.- for 6 hours and a really cozy place. It is kind of a all inclusive concept, where basic food (sandwiches, hot soup, Arabic sweets, nuts etc) and drinks (soft drinks, fruit juices, tea, coffee = filter coffee; for real coffee just jump outside) are just to take away as self service. They even give you a cold can of Heineken if you ask for it. Free WIFI is all over and you just spend the time in soft armchairs and wait and sleep and wait while your hand luggage is locked up in a safe. The smokers room is also very nice designed. Also a shower is available.
Qatar Airways turned out to be a very reliable carrier so far, but the pre-check in procedure was kind weird. About 3 days before I got an auto generated e-mail saying that i have to check in online within 36 hours before 3 hours of departure in Vienna. In the same e-mail they kind of said that this online check in has to be finished within 36 hours before departure. So i just tried to do this online and the application spit out errors. Web applications do this some times, so I just called the local Qatar Airways office and the guy there told me that I should forget everything from the e-mail and just show up at the airport !3! hours before departure. I managed to do this online check in stuff AND made sure I was there 3 hours before, normally used to be there 30min before when moving around inside EU! The folks at the counter then told me there that both, the e-mail and the guy on the phone are wrong, and that I just should stick to the “normal” rules of intercontinental flights. Great food, pleasant service staff, but the Boeing was a bit old-fashioned in terms of in-flight entertainment.
So at this point I want to continue what our fellow ground worker Erik Hersman started in one of his recent blog posts: Aggregating Travel Tips for Africa . I will try to make up 2 right now, not necessarly new ones, but giving 2 cents from my experience. Over the next three weeks I will hopefully come up with more tips, then I will add them to this post as comments. So if your are interested, just subscribe to our comments RSS feed.
So here you are:
# Don’t stress yourself when you get an auto-generated e-mail from the airline company! … Which tells you to do some weird stuff on their web page, unless it is clearly stated in your booking confirmation. Just follow “the rule”, that when you go for a flight from Europe to Africa: showing up with check in luggage 1.5 hours before take off is OK. I can confirm this with Emirates, Qatar airways, swiss, SAA, KLM … Since I am delivering 4 linux notebooks to the Zanzibits students, I had to check in a bag. Everything I need fits in a blue 30 liter Mammut backpack (the only one I have, I use it for ice climbing also) which goes as hand luggage.
# Wear socks! So you are heading for Africa and you think about footwear? The only thing I wear on my feet are trekking sandals. They provide fresh air to for your toes, dry fast when you have have to walk tru a stream our you are on the beach and are really solid with a good sole (I stick to Teva, since the Israel army model terribly failed). But to come to the point: Wearing socks within such sandals would be a really style-no-go, at least in European capitals; I don’t like them at all. But take a pair of socks in your hand luggage, cause when you fall asleep during the flight, you will wake up angry when they turn on the air condition. So just put up the socks before you go for a nap. (@Jason … waiting for your comment on that one :-))
So as mentioned before, the next tips will show up in the comments section, so STAY TUNED …
The International Journal of ICT Research and Development in Africa (IJICTRDA) is a new journal on research, advanced analytical methods and techniques, leading e-innovations, and development policies in information and communication technology adoption and diffusion in Africa and around the globe.
Topics that will be covered in the journal include ICT applications in agriculture and rural development, agribusiness supply chain management, coordination and integration, food security, poverty alleviation, food and agricultural marketing linkages, and rural financial service delivery.
The Editor-in-Chief currently invites authors to consider submitting articles to be featured in the inaugural issue of the journal. Articles may report on empirical research investigations, theoretical frameworks, case studies and major trends in ICT applications in food and agriculture, and rural development.
Being member of the Editorial Advisory Board of IJICTRDA, I’m especially looking forward to seeing submissions on case studies with an emphasis on interaction design and the design process in general. We will also cover published articles on this weblog, once the first journal is out.
Just a short update from London - today we flew here to attend Africa Gathering tomorrow.
Today we already went for dinner with Africa Gathering organizer Ed Scotcher, Erik Hersman, David McQueen and several other interesting people, it was a really great evening and food at Ethiopian restaurant Lalibela was superb.
I’m really looking forward to meet the people at the event tomorrow - around 200 according to the organizers. Martin will also have a speech and present the new trailer of Hello Africa. It can be viewed on Youtube (Hello Africa Trailer II) and according to editor Anders Bolin it looks best in HQ mode.
We like to praise the availability of mobile technologies in African countries and to talk about the opportunities that emerged from the introduction of mobile phones. However, it is important to acknowledge that where there is much light, the shadow is deep. When we were in Africa last year to work on the UZI Africa project, we already encountered stories, where the mobile phone was responsible for family conflicts. For example somebody told us how a guy thought that his wife was cheating on him, because she was regularly calling a phone number he didn’t know.
Crystal Watley who lives in Kenya and works for Voices of Africa recently wrote about the negative consequences for family and social relationships at the MobileActive discussion group:
Cell phones make it easier to cheat on your spouse.
Cell phones GIVE away the secrets of the spouses that were already cheating thus causing household tension and domestic violence.
African men tend to be very jealous and often use mobile phones as a way to control their women monitoring every message and call.
Violence and jealousy is also caused between those who own phones and those who do not. Or between those with different model phones. Theft is rampant.
Surely this cannot be generalized, but it is important to keep the possibility of negative side effects in mind when designing technologies for the African market. Maybe technology can even be turned into a tool that helps to avoid and eventually eliminate such conflicts?
While still reflecting on AfrikaCamp Vienna and the interesting talks and experiences we had there, we stumbled upon the next promising event which perfectly fits to our approach of ICT4D.
A day for thinkers, supporters, sponsors, doers, geeks, dreamers - and everybody else to come and share, promote, highlight, progress and evolve issues related to ICT, social networking and technology in Africa.
Business driven Philantropy - Business development platform
Big problem: poverty - can it be eliminated?
Businesses have to help
philantropy is not the same as charity
Solution:
social entrepreneurship
philantro-capitalism - business driven philosophy
microfinancing - really works
Example: Maya One
network of partners
spending 3% of profit to an NGO
school projects for child laborers
reward: partners help each other
cyclic
I have to admit that I didn’t really get the concept of this business driven philantropy - how is it different than just donating a certain percentage of the profit for a good cause just for marketing reasons? Maybe somebody can comment on that?
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On Saturday, April 10, 2010, from 8:00AM – 6PM GMT, the inaugural TEDxYouthInspire conference will be held at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT in Accra, Ghana. The free one-day event, a first for young African visionaries ages 14-25, will welcome a host of youth speakers, a Ghanaian dance ensemble and an Academy Award-nominated short film. Organized along the theme “A Good Head & A Good Heart”, taken from Nelson Mandela’s 1995 autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, TEDxYouthInspire will exhibit how radical thought and integrity of spirit combine to create unlimited possibilities for a brighter future. “The outpouring of support for TEDxYouthInspire exemplifies the need for more events like this for young people,” says Raquel Wilson, event curator, “As our speaker line-up suggests, youth everywhere are ready to solidify their contributions towards making the world a better place.” TEDxYouthInspire welcomes the following speakers to give the talks of their lives:
