quite a lot has happened - Africa Gathering helped a lot
New partners: Bloomsbury Colleges, London International Development Center (LIDC), African partners - very important as reality check, Novoda - commercial partner, Vetaid - NGO in the field providing a different viewpoint, Google.org, SACIDS, Vodafone
Research funding, government funding (JISC)
Project overview
livestock development - NGOs replacing government services for livestock - rise of community animal helath workers, but they are isolated
mobile possibilities, e.g. an Android platform we are working on now
pilot study in Zanzibar
Undergraduate research team
RVC team of currently 9 students
project on East Coast Fever
Use of phones
collecting data with Google Open Data Kit - collecting many paramaters
recording locations
communication
updating team blog
Advantages of phones
quick upload
XML formatted
paperless
keep in contact
input from world experts
also several technical constraints
Pros vs. Cons
great advantages
but phones are not affordable - financial support?
What do the local vets want?
educational tool & learning resource
record production data
management tool
ruggedness
Mobile opportunities
usage is widespread in Africa already
affordable handsets and tariffs
sample projects: Google.org & Uganda health care
Perspectives on Learning - Where next?
Challenge - how to use mobile phones to support learning?
Can learning be a more engaging process than traditionally?
How to design learning experiences around the mobile device
Why is this important?
user generated content is more accepted - “caring and sharing”
students sharing content
emphasis on mobile learning + Web 2.0
What about an African context?
a lot of things emerging - mobile phone coverage, data collection tools, sms sending tools
mobile is the dominant technology for learning
next project: use mobile devices to produce content locally
Q & A:
If you help animals you help people too - do people understand that message?
There’s an international movement now to see the whole ecosystem - animal and human health - as one
Who are the kind of people you would like to get in touch with here?
People get involved in different ways, just get in touch with us and we’ll find out
.
Mira Slavova - MMD4D - Mobile Market Applications in Africa
Interested in markets
What would a visitor from Mars see in social structures on earth?
In the west - interconnected communities and companies
In Africa, a lot of enclosed societies, not interconnected
More and more penetration in Africa due to the business models
Former child soldier in Sudan - “forced to be a war child”
Puts his fight into the music
It’s hard telling the story but somebody has to do it - for the people who have no voice
The different ethnies and religions are no problem, the oild and the fertile land is a problem - everybody wants it
NGOs right now are only buying time, the aid has to change to fix Sudan again
empower the young people
more education
Telling his story - how he was cast away from home, recruited, trained for being a child soldier in a refugee camp, and the long and painful journey of his escape
Right now - trying to raise money for a school in his village to give the young people a chance
Notes from the Africa Gathering London - “sharing ideas about positive change” - an event about business, IT, social causes and Africa.
.
Ed Scotcher - Introduction
Africa Gathering is already in place almost a year and has grown into this event - giving space for people to present their projects which might not be that big, but still innovative and important
The money which is made is going to a prize for a project which is presented
Mariéme Jamme
We are the leading platform in London today to share ideas about Africa and innovation
Africa is a great continent, a lot of things happen there, we are here to find out how to improve our continent
Africa Gathering London is over - and it was a really great event. We (Karola, Martin & me) were only there from Friday to Sunday, but heard many interesting talks, had great discussions and met amazing people.
Thanks to Ed Scotcher for organizing the whole thing and all the participants for making this event an unforgettable experince. It’s really inspiring what projects there are out there - I hope my notes gave a small impression of them.
Next Africa Gathering will take place in Brussels in September - and I’m sure we will attend it again, with new projects, more members and the same enthusiasm.
Notes from the talks of Africa Gathering taking place in London, England on 25 April.
.
Panel Discussion
Juliana Rotich, A J Munn, Erik Hersman, Matthew Ncube
Erik Hersman - White African, Afrigadget, Ushahidi; USA, Sudan, Kenya
Alisdair Munn - tcg The Communication Group, trying to enhance understandning social media tools; Zimbabwe, UK
Juliana Rotich - Ushahidi, Global Voices Online; USA, Kenya
Matthew Ncube - Twitter, Mathematics; Zimbabwe, UK (thanks Jürgen)
Out of the technologies we’re seen today? Are there barriers to achieve these projects we’re seen?
Erik: There’s probably a lot more going on as we see. One of the problems - a lot of these projects have been running from outside, it would be great to have more projects run by Africans.
Alisdair: The gap between we want to do, the costs is big - Africa knows best what’s good for Africa. We should have the understanding that they are able to do what they want on their own. There needs to be more participation.
Matthew: Information is not really shared. It is difficult to find out about innovative ideas in many parts of Africa. But there some big and strong ideas we are yet to find out about. It’s not the dark continent, there’s a lot of things going on we don’t know about.
Juliana: Somebody’s probably asking - why is it called Africa Gathering, why is it happening in the UK? If you want to see what African ideas look like - go to a BarCamp on the continent, there are many taking place.
Q: What technologies do yo ufind most useful to stay connected with Africa?
Alisdair: Skype, email, mobile phones, but the way I connect is different. Mobile phone has huge power.
Erik: 75% of developers of own open source main tool are Africans. Main tool to stay connected: Skype channel. Also blogs themselves. Power of blogs is immense, mobile phones of course as well.
Q: Can Africa’s economy growth of the next 5 years base on technology?
Matthew: Education is vital. A lot of young Africans have to be connected to the rest of the world, curricula all over the world have to influence education in Africa as well. Sometimes textbooks are outdated as information is changing so fast - education in Africa has to take that in consideration.
Alisdair: Technology has a role to play, use is relevant. But it has to be lead through people-centered research. Scaling things up makes them often los relevance. A lot has to be done to understand the differnet cultures & areas.
Erik: There’s many technologies for different people, a lot of tools, not the one big technology. In Africa there’s a lot of inefficiencies.
Q: What are the examples that resonate with you the most when taking mobile technology in account? What’s the next big thing?
Matthew: I think we’re quite fortunate to live in a cabled world in the UK. That technology doesn’t exist in many parts of Africa. Next big step will come in the form of WiMax. Reaching a wider audience at faster speed.
Alisdair: In Africa there’s a lot of wasted intelligence. One interesting idea: geographically relevant search, comission based microconversation platforms, there’s a lot of ways social media can be relevant.
Erik: The ability to make payments has large potentials.
Q: How far are we from direct money transfer - e.g. sending airtime internationally? How long will that last?
Q: An observation - make ICT women friendly, don’t exclude them by making ICT too masculine. Women have a great deal of inluence, especially in rural areas.
Q: We’re prototyping in Sudan with a cross border mobile based cash solution.
Q: WiMax will be very interesting also for mobile payment.
Q: Appropedia - Wiki for collaborative hardware devices.
Q: Comment - hear a lot about importance of good governance, a lot of it is about empowering poeple. Next big thing - using technology into the hands of more and more people so they have a voice.
Erik: That was what Ushahidi was built for. I think there will be more of that stuff happen.
Alisdair: Things are changing - technology enables people to be less reliant on countries - they will become more accountable.
Q: There was a mobile conference just last week, lots of interesting discussions.
Q: We have to get African artists to take part in development as well.
Juliana: list of Africa-related conferences on Whiteafrican
Ed: Is Ushahidid purely open source & free? What’s your business model?
Erik: Ushahidi will continue to be open source for all the time. Team gets money by customizing the project for companies.
Ed: What is your dream system concerning m-payment?
Juliana: An open API is vital - extending the functionality. Africa Liberation Card - coming out of Ghana.
Notes from the talks of Africa Gathering taking place in London, England on 25 April.
.
Nick Short - University of London Veterinary College How mobile technology is being used to improve veterinary services in East Africa
Healthy animals for healthy people & vice versa
Founded VetAid 70 humanitarian health works
people got mobile phones in the past 20 years
What can be done?
Using GPS enabled Androis phones
feedback location based data (disease, mortailty, vaccination, climate, status)
relevance to wider community
Communication
Push out updates into the community
Location based relevance - adapt to languages
Context sensitive
Podcasts and Videocasts - possible to hear and see what’s happening
New web 2.0 communities
Appropriate technologies & solutions for all
Q & A:
Online collaborative community - does the use of mobiles mean you don’t have to wait for landlines?
Mobile phone is only 160 characters,
Interacting with students on the ground - in what extent did you use also with the local knowledge?
It’s hard to tap the knowledge and make it available - but we try to, we learn as much from them as they from us.
.
Niall Winters & Kevin Walker - London Knowledge Lab Village e-Science for Life: Participatory Design of ICT for Rural Agricultural Villages in Kenya
Knowledge Lab: partners with University of Nairobi & several English
Aim: Enable rural communities in sub-sharan Africa to use andvanced digital technology to improve agricultural practices and literacy levels
Research in Kenya - initial findings
many people used computers
few have heard of email
very few knew English
farmers need information
farmers and schools like to take photos to publicise their successes & problems
Solution
mobile resource kit for farmers & schools
provision of training using the devices
making results public
Next solution
Wireless sensor network to monitor humidity, …
Findings so far
ownership issues
traditional expectations / non-traditional approach
sustainability - business model required
flexibility / adaptivity
Background - research methodology:
HCI
western assumption
not appropriate for LDCs
Social studies of science
Why did the aforementioned project work?
Value to the community
Ownership and access by community
Potential for adaption
provide a role for the community in use and maintenance -> sustainability
no unnecessary complications
Q & A:
It’s hard to do perticipatory on the ground for people who don’t speak the langauge - we got somebody who went don there for us - “participatory design from a distance”
Which devices are there out in the field?
- Macbook, existing devices, open source software
.
Alex Petroff - Working Villages International Building Pease in Eastern Congo - A Village of Hope
Often small change in Congo get overwhelmed because even if it’s a really good idea, the other problems are way too big
New approaches necessary who do not repeat the errors of the past
Focusing on widespread small-scale ownership
Adam Smith: small farmers made Britain wealthy
Congo: affected by “Africa’s First World War”
Started a project in a very poor region after the war - no technology at all available
Improved in agriculture, diversity of vegetables
Growing techniques are new
Upscaling was possible - 20 villages, 100 farmers with all different types of crops
“Grow everything you need” - the community has more commodities, no trade with foreign markets - back to autarcy
Now: Ox-program because fuel is too expensive - tractors have generally been a failure in Africa
biogas digester -> power supply
three new exiting technologes:
firewood - bad for environment; solar ovens haven’t worked -> earth ovens powered by solar power (Scheffler oven)
solar powered heating
kerosin lamps - bad for environment -> LED light bulbs
Right now - payroll of all the people working there is coming from local revenues, not anymore from the US
Q & A:
What did you do to motivate to do that?
Had the same question in the beginning? Bottom-up is not always working - you must have leadership & a plan. E.g. Bolivia: they get the money from the government, but they don’t have a vision what do with it. Furthermore there’s a necessity of startup capital.
Scale & land ownership - who owns the land the project is taking place?
In the beginning it was a company town model. Over time the farmers get land & a house free of charge. the project takes place on small farms - and the land is owned by the community, they can’t sell it, they can just give it back to the community.
.
Simon Berry - ColaLife.org An amazing story that shows how the convening power of the internet can turn the head of a global brand… and get them to act.
Video: You can buy coke everywhere - but 1 in 5 children dies from dehydration & diarrhea before the age of 5 - so we want to use Cola’s distribution network to get these children access to medication
Everywhere you are - you will be eventually asked if you want a Coca Cola
In the same area 25% children die before turning 5 years of very basic diseases
Idea: Let’s deliver oral rehydration sources (ORS) via Coke crates and also spread the information about these devices
Launched different campaigns on different platforms to gather people for that cause
Facebook groups
started to grow
within three days unknown people started to join
IPM blog - users can suggest items to go on the program on Saturday on BBC
Getting back to Facebook and making people call Coca Cola
Met with head of Corporate Social Responsibility of Coca Cola
2 results: they were going to do some purely economic research
how about a progress report on the blog?
Creating three blog posts
Results:
FlickR groups was created
Blog was created - platform for discussion, fertile place
Impressive social media response
Application to Goole 10 to the 100
Video was created by community in 4 days
Anyone with an idea can do it
Trip to Tanzania with Cola people to review the situation
own prototype for medicine box “aidpod”
starting discussions with distributors about the prototype
good response
In the mean time a lot of support by traditional organizations & the community is still growing
Just last Tuesday: Coca Cola said YES to trial of the prototype, at least they are planning for that
to be continued …
colalife.org/vote
Join the Facebook group!
Q & A:
Exisitning channels should be used for distribution - isn’t Coca Cola getting a lot of publicity too? What for do they need Coca Cola anyway?
Facts are: 20 years ago you could get Coca Cola anywhere - in the mean time we have failed to address the issue of child mortality. Frankly I don’t mind if Coce sells more, if the issue of child mortality is resolved.
Notes from the talks of Africa Gathering taking place in London, England on 25 April.
.
Ken Banks - Kiwanja.net / FrontlineSMS \o/ Mobiles in Africa - How technoloy is driving social and economic change Mobile technology empowering grassroots NGOs - FrontlineSMS and field-based case studies
25 years in IT, projects in 8 different African countries
Pattern emerging: Mobile adoptionby users & NGOs is driven by formal & informal conomic activity
shops & people just putting up businesses
exciting activities
people selling airtime, fixing phones, charging phones
impact of mobile phones is as revolutionary as roads, railways…
the majority of reports fail to specifiy which applications are used or how other NGOs can start running similar projects
FrontlineSMS
easy solution for NGOs to use mobiles, not necessary to have internet
it provides a communication platform, not a tool for something particular
it empowers innovators and organizers to do what they desire to
basically just allows you to send and receive messages
examples: Nigerian election monitors, security alerts to fieldworkers in Afghanistan, spreading news in Iraq, rural healthcare network in Malawi, …
Online comunity for FrontlineSMS is about 470 people now - talking to each other, giving adivce
Why it works
Local ownership
Local Awareness
Free & works on available hardware
Replicably & scalable
No need for internet
Easy to ues
Responds to their needs
Logo - \o/ - signifies empowerment
Lowering the bar
creating versions which work from USB
Mobile applications
MMS version
Tag line - how can we help the disadvantaged
Q & A:
Technology - is it quite basic? Just sending messages between phones? How to get the numbers? Free SMS?
I don’t deal with that - the users do, they work out how to deal with it best
How can you monitor that? How does this SMS response work?
software is keyword-driven - can be posted to a website, sent be email, automatic response, call some totally different tool
What do you think about scaling? Is it possible?
It’s a big issue - how to scale stuff? Scaling can work horizontally - not one central big implementation but many small ones
.
Nigel Waller - Movirtu.com How we’re creating access to basic phone services for more than a billion people earning less than two dollars a day
Connect the Unconnected
Working in telecommunication for 20 years - with the mobile operators (Zain, Vadacom, Safaricom, …)
Current mission: connecting the unconnected
What does Movirtu do
Research & dissemination of information how people use phones at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP)
Innovative infrastructure for mobile operators
consumer services
Who are the unconnected? People below $2 income a day
3.5 bn people not connected
without phone
but still using phone services
spend 5-20% income on mobile services
Barriers to entry
handset prices
airtime prices
sim card costs for operators
Ways to get to a phone - shared phones
public phones, person to person sharing
nearly as many shared phone users as regular users
The problem
Identities - shared phone users don’t have an “identity”, they’re hard to get hold of
creating an identity for these people
e.g. email exists behind the hardware - mobile numbers depend on the hardware
why not take the phone number away? - put the phone number back in the network & use phone as network clients
you can do everything as if had a phone - but you don’t need to buy one
buy airtime for your account - get a free number, access your account with any phone
Applications:
community phone - people using their own number
brand: sending free phone numbers to people
…
Q & A:
We can’t do projects without the operator; to get this working is quite complicated
There is a system around called Pigeon - SW based solution which does basically something similar. Why is it necessary to get so deep into the protocols?
It’s necessary to be able to make outbound calls as well; we’re faking a whole SIM-card, because of all the security our there it has to be quite complex
.
Sian Townsend - Google Conducting mobile user experience research in sub-Saharan Africa
At ICTD in Quatar: a lot of questions what is Google doing there - so this information should be shared in this presentations
Displaying asked questions by people via sms about diseases, agriculture, …
What is User Experienced Research?
deals with all aspects of user interaction
user experience, feasibility engineering, product management
what do people actually need?
about the whole experience of a user - how it looks, how it makes you feel, make it easy to use
2 tyes of research: tactical (optimising) and strategic (innovative)
Tactical: trying to find out what people exactly do when using a devices, where they get confused, …
Strategic: do people have unmet needs, understanding existing patterns, …
What is Google doing in Africa?
Offices in Kenya, Egypt, Unganda, Senegal
Launching search in African languages - 38 African languges
Google SMS in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria - keyword based
Google Maps in several countries - user generated content
Research awards for students, literacy project, gadget competition
Google.org: social stuff Google does with 1% of the profit
A rising tide lifts all boats - any success is good - snowball effect
Mobile is the technology to work with currently - but ecosystem is complex (operators, …)
What new products to build? How do you know you want something if you don’t know it?
Field studies - using FrontlineSMS
collecting data, mapping them - user journeys
what happens when you first give people the opportunity to use a technology?
creating a lot of pilotes - many iterations
google-africa.blogspot.com
groups.google.com/group/google-africa-community
Q & A:
The sms-questions/answers were translated to English
What about the 100 best ideas?
Delayed, coming back to that
Why do people trust the answers of Google?
The operators brand helps the applications behind that (trust in the operator)
How are maps verified?
The satellite images can be used to trace the streets
Notes from the talks of Africa Gathering taking place in London, England on 25 April.
.
David Hollow - ICT4D Collective / RHUL The $100 laptop in Ethiopia - A case study
ICT for Education:
How to assess impact? How can ICTs make an impact in such extreme poverty?
Why impact assessment?
How do we know if our interventions have any benefit?
Variety of approaches
Operate in partnerships with people there
Engaging in ICT 4 Education projects, but then stepping back and evaluating what was happening
XO laptop in Ethiopia
What’s the educational challenges? Far not all children go to school, lack of textbooks & learning materials
5000 XO laptops in use
Impact of the textbook reader on the XO laptop - monitoring and evaluation
Lessons learned:
content: educational content would be useful
teacher training: students are more advanced then the teachers - more training necessary
integration: laptop is not integrated in courses
frustrations: it’s not used for studying - a tyo rather than a tool; teachers have problems too, they don’t know how to use the laptops
what to do?
text book reader: options to provide a bridge, pupils can use them & teachers see the benefits
technical challenges: mesh network & translating all the documents from textbooks to virtual
teacher training (pedagogical & technical)
plan for integration
more communication to parents & community
adjusting focus on secondary students
government shifted their approach from authoritatian to a more collaborative one
wider application
partnership requires transparency, expectations, communication
there are unanticipated outcomes
reflection on own projects
bring in self reflection
do we asses the impact of what we’re doing?
are beneficiaries engaged in decision making processes?
what methods are used?
are we conscious of power & aspiration in our projects?
do we see ICT as our tool and development our objective?
Q&A:
difference between children and teachers?
children were more willing to learn
what did children actually learn?
main thing: how to take photographs, how to play tunes
development of Akili? in Etheopia?
was developed in Switzerland
was there anybody responsible for translating the textbooks?
large team of people
why secondary education rather than teachers?
because of the volume of students - the sums involved
trying to connect to academics - you chose to work for a top-down orgaization, what could we have done better to make you work with a bottom up organization?
there are many projects I wanted like to work with, rationale was to engage with a large scale project to better assess impact
.
Nkeiru Joe - International Law department, Virije University Brussel
Staying connected to Africa: an ecosystem approach as a response to the “solutions temptation”
Law, Africa & development - international law can achieve linkage
There are myriad problems when looking at international law
Solutions temptations - always going for the simplest solutions
Connecting everybody to technology - is it really great?
Submarine cabels provide Africa with big amounts of information - the issues connecting the cabels (connecting Africa with other areas) cannot be addressed within the continent alone
Has to be addressed by international law - there need to be standards in place
Who is liable for damage of the cables? Who protects the cables? A system in international law has to be put in place
UN-convention is in place - there has to be influence influence to hold the parties accountable
Norms and law can create the framework to include everyone in ICT4D
Why solutions need law?
There need to be capable agencies in place
Solutions can only come from within - local people have to be incorporated
International law = “watchful parents”
without addressing issues structurally = digging deep, sustainable solutions can’t be found
Q & A:
are landlocked states also addressed by the law of sea?
yes, they are
landlocked - geographically disadvanteged states - is there any pressure on coast states to share infrastructure with these states?
yes, e.g. Zimbabwe can lay a cable to the sea through any country as long as they are not causing any damage
RSS feed
Nick Short & Andrew Hagner & Niall Winters - Royal Veterinary College
What do the local vets want?
Mira Slavova - MMD4D - Mobile Market Applications in Africa
.
Panel Discussion
Erik: There’s many technologies for different people, a lot of tools, not the one big technology. In Africa there’s a lot of inefficiencies.
Q: Comment - hear a lot about importance of good governance, a lot of it is about empowering poeple. Next big thing - using technology into the hands of more and more people so they have a voice.
Notes from the talks of 
Solution
Now: Ox-program because fuel is too expensive - tractors have generally been a failure in Africa
FrontlineSMS
