Over the span of two months, I blogged nearly every day what I was experiencing as I traveled from Ethiopia to Uganda to Kenya and up to Sudan. The trip was life-changing to say the least. My eyes were opened wider than I thought was possible to the world around me. Images I will surely never forget.

I kept all of my writings in a notebook and haven’t read them since I returned because the range of emotion I experienced was so dramatic, especially upon returning to the States. That notebook has been gathering dust for 5 years. I am considering reposting those writings here on my blog in a special section, perhaps with some notes on what I think looking back. Is that something you would be interested in reading?

A good example of an ombudsman to the international aid business would likely be someone like William Easterly, a New York Times writer who blogs over at Aid Watch. Many people love him and many hate him, but one thing is for sure, he says what needs to be said as though he were a modern-day prophet. He blogs passionately and calls out large entities on what they might be doing wrong in order that they might change their habits and become more effective and responsible to the people. I have great respect for the man. Sometimes he is wrong and more often he is right, but he is willing to admit to any mistakes he might have made in his statements as long as there is fact to prove it. In my opinion, he is a great ombudsman who is badly needed in the constantly-troubled and corrupt international aid business.

Now that we have an idea of what an ombudsman does, why does African tech need an ombudsman?
For those who don’t follow the African tech scene, much of this might be news to you. Much of it is likely to stir up some strong feelings from those working in African tech, but it needs to be said. Stay with me…

The African tech scene is very young and taking shape. With this comes many mistakes, lessons learned, and hardships that nobody wants to experience, but are necessary to the journey of progress. Because tech is still so young to Africa, it is common to see many people looking for a leader or someone to follow. This has always been a sore spot for me because good, worthy leaders are hard to find, but those willing to claim tech priesthood in African tech are a dime a dozen.

Because there are so many “thought leaders” coming out of the woodwork, there is a high need for criticism to be openly accepted among African tech. Without this criticism, we have a few leaders and tons of followers. We have lots of new ventures but no real lessons learned. With healthy criticism and investigation, we have more leaders being raised up and fewer people feeling like they are being neglected and ignored. We also have more positive cases of progress and fewer wasted resources and duplicity among efforts.

I was once asked by an African to participate in his venture whereby I would handle web design and consultation while working closely with an African designer on the company branding. I received several drafts of the logo design from the African designer and felt strongly that they weren’t up to the standard I wanted to portray for the company. I sent my thoughts to both the owner and the designer, giving a detailed and technical analysis as to why the branding wasn’t where we wanted to be and what could be done to improve the design. I was immediately blasted by the African owner for this analysis claiming it would hurt the designers’ feelings. I was shocked since my intention was to see the designer build upon his skill set and improve his abilities. Call it a cultural misunderstanding, but I wasn’t tearing him down, only trying to build him up. It took quite a few emails to clear things up and in the end the designer told me his feelings were never hurt in the beginning after all and that he welcomed open criticism. High standards were important to me but it was clear that it wasn’t the priority for the businessman.

The reason I bring this up is because we need to be open about African tech and the people involved. We need to ask questions and voice our opinions. We need to speak up regardless of who’s feelings might be hurt. After all, don’t we all want to see progress being made in African tech? How is progress going to be made if there is no willingness to have open and critical discussions about what is being done? We need to stop tip-toeing around and communicate openly with how we are really feeling.

Having said that, what issues need to be openly criticized?
I have listed a few of my complaints below, although there are many more.

• Elitism–It is fairly easy to narrow down Africa’s tech leaders to a handful of people, once you have been in the scene for a few months. I could go on and on about the elitism in African tech. Willing participants or not, these leaders are seen by many as elitist jet-setters who travel the globe from conference to conference hobnobbing with other so-called “thought leaders” discussing ways they are going to ‘save’ Africa with their ideas. God only knows how much money is spent on their global travel, yet how little real and measurable progress is made from such events. A friend once told me that an idea is worthless unless it is executed. Only then can you tell if it is holds any value. It’s true, ideas are easy to come by and everyone has tons of them. Go to a tech conference and you will be surrounded by tech buzzwords and ‘brilliant’ ideas spouted by caffeinated techies carrying expensive Macbooks. The same is true for inspiration. What good is it if there isn’t a measurable result or outcome? I can be inspired by many things, but unless I turn that inspiration into something proactive, it fails to have any impact. Now that I’ve said it, I’ll be the first to admit that some things do come out of conferencing and face-to-face meetups. But I’ve been to an equal amount of events that have benefited me versus one’s that have been a complete waste of my time with lots of fancy words thrown around by so-called thought leaders. What I am saying is that few people have stood up to measure the results, if there are any to be measured, or for these elitist individuals to be accountable to ordinary Africans for themselves and what they spend their time on. With leadership comes great responsibility, but to hear a leader in African tech claim they were wrong about something is like finding a needle in a haystack. This builds a strong sense of elitism among African tech that is clearly evident once you measure how many of these leaders are actual Africans. What we are witnessing now in African tech is a modern form of colonialism where few Africans are seen as leaders and the leaders in the public eye are all Americans. Unless I’m missing it, there is very little evidence of African leadership rising from the tech circles. The goal should be to build up African leaders who can contribute to the tech industry with real progress. If you claim to be an African tech incubator, where is the measurable impact? How many startups have you fueled? This brings me to my second point, self-interest.
• Self-interest–On the surface, many ventures and individuals elicit a sense of charity, community, and openness. Buzzwords are intermingled with fancy logos and graphics. But behind the scenes there is self-interest and elitism built into these ventures. Too many of these individuals are more interested in building up a name for themselves. I once went to a meetup with a handful of some of the more well-known people in the African mobile tech industry and I was amazed at how many nonprofits there were that were just businesses in disguise seeking to make a dollar off of Africa. But the minute you mentioned business, the room would get quiet. Now, I’m not in any way against doing business in Africa. What I am against is dishonesty and lack of transparency. Call a spade a spade. If you’re in Africa for the business, come out and say it. Africa desperately needs business in a global context, but what Africa needs more is for Africans to be trained up in the ways of doing business. Instead of so many trying to find ways of profiting off of Africa, why are there so few concerned with Africa’s long-term ability to become self-sustainable? After all, this is true empowerment. If we are really interested in empowerment, where are the results in African tech? How many of them are empowering others instead of empowering themselves?
• No passion–At that same meeting mentioned above, not only was it only about the business side of things and the “opportunities” to be had, there was no passion in the participants. None. I couldn’t find one reason they were doing what they do other than it was an opportunity. I started my interest in Africa before I was 16 years old because of the human rights issues evident in South Sudan. I became passionate about the African people and I quickly understood how many needs there were throughout this diverse continent and the complexity of those needs. I visited 4 African countries in 2005 and saw incredible diversity between each of them. I saw tremendous beauty in the people I met and I fell in love with Africa. I wasn’t an idealist but a realist who saw the human factor in what I was striving for. This is too often absent from African tech circles. We need to bring a healthy dose of passion back to African tech and make personal connections to why we do what we do. If we are not reaching out to African individuals, we are not doing Africa any good for the long-term. We need to trace our passion back to individuals.
• Lack of communication–There is a serious problem with communication among African tech. I can’t count how many unanswered emails I have from people you likely read about every day. Whether they lack the time or interest to respond, the fact stands that they are not willing to communicate to people who truly need their advice. While it takes less than 5 minutes to respond to an email, even to say you aren’t interested or have the time, to not respond sends an entirely wrong signal. It echoes the elitism that exists among African tech circles. I’m important, you’re not. The sad part about this lack of communication is that it only hurts collaborative efforts and morale among those of us striving to make some sort of difference.

There are many more issues that could be added to the list, but these are a few that I have dealt with personally. I have witnessed all of these firsthand with African Tech Network. I am sure that I am not the first, nor will be the last to deal with them. My point for writing this is to say, we need more honest communicators in African tech who are willing to say what needs to be said. African tech needs an ombudsman who’s reputation isn’t on the line who is willing to call out people on their lack of transparency and unwillingness to accept open criticism. African tech leaders need to understand their responsibility to African techies. When someone calls for help, help them.

Following that trend, feel free to voice your concern, anger, disagreement, approval in the comments section below. I’m more than willing to hear you out.

My intention was never to gain a following, but simply to allow for an outlet when the moment struck me. So here’s that moment.

Today I was inspired by a post called “300 Words” on Hugh MacLeod’s blog that was basically a call on writers to produce at least 300 words of writing every day. While I might not be able to produce 300 words every day, I’ll try to produce something of interest.

For those not in the ‘know’, nearly all of my time has been swallowed up in African Tech Network. The growth of ATN has been tremendous to say the least. We currently have users from 12 African countries who work in the arena of technology. I am squeezing every hour of my time to improving the site and make it more useful as a resource for technologists. All in all I am happy with the progress.

If you are interested in what I am working on/talking about, follow me on Twitter. Hardly a day goes by I am not conversing on Twitter. And, I promise, most of what I say is not pointless psychobabble but meaningful quips about exciting things.

Well, considering that these are the first multi-party elections to happen in Sudan in nearly 24 years, I’m more surprised by how many people are complaining than how the process is going with its delays and many, many problems. I mean, sure, I would be angered if I were a citizen trying to vote and found the voting station closed or disorganized. But really, what should we expect given the circumstances in Sudan? If you’ve ever been to Sudan, you would understand why I say this.

Now whether or not I expect to be pleased with the outcome, that’s a whole other story. My hopes are not high given that Khartoum will continue to have its death-grip on that country, trying to stifle any progress or sort of human rights, and that so many major political parties have withdrawn from the elections.

ACMFI is currently holding a logo contest sponsored by Redcloud Money and the prize is $2,000 USD. You could design the official logo for ACMFI! If interested, email Emmanuel Okoegwale your interest.

Also, we highly encourage you to join us on LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as subscribe to our email list to stay up-to-date with our organization. (Our Facebook group is coming soon.)

Keep in mind that this list is what works for me. These are tips and life-lessons that I’ve found valuable in my quest to make a difference in Africa. You might only adopt certain items from this list, but the point is to offer it up to others in the hope that they might find something of use in my list. Your comments are welcome and highly encouraged. Please feel free to use the comments to point out any tips you have to add to the list so I can keep this updated. If I get enough interest, who knows, maybe I’ll turn this list into a website and start a directory of online resources? I think it would have tremendous value and would have helped me many years ago when I got started.

1. Know your goals–The #1 question you need to ask yourself: What do you want to accomplish in Africa? Want to drill a water well for a local community? Want to meet the water needs for an entire country? Know what you want to do, or at least have a good idea, before you dive in. Why do I say this? Because your goals will define the best course of action for pursuing your passion. If you have high and lofty goals of changing the continent, I’m going to be the last person to tell you it can’t be done. However, I’ll be the first person to tell you to be realistic about your approach. Start small and build up from there. Starting big will leave you discouraged and eventually burned out. You don’t want this and Africa doesn’t need another foreign burnout with a bunch of ideas. One thing that helps is to localize your cause to one person. Start by helping one person in need and build out to a community. Keep building out accordingly. If you can, find a nonprofit or civil society organization (CSO) that needs help and volunteer. Remember, not all people desire to revolutionize the continent of Africa. There’s nothing wrong with change on a small scale. After all, this is where the real change happens. Not with governments, but with the people. Whether you are doing something small or something huge, you should always be able to connect your passion to one person. If you lived your life and only changed one person’s life, would it be worth it? It should be if you value the effect you have.
2. Networking. Networking. Networking.–Everything that I have accomplished for Africa can likely be attributed to two things: networking and perseverance (see below). You are starting out and don’t know who to talk to. You need networking. Nobody started out by knowing everyone they needed to know and nobody can act alone as an island. We need each other to make a difference in this world. Without knowing the right people I would not be where I am today. I have many people to thank. Whether for inspiration or for connections, people will be an asset to you. For every contact you make, make it a point to talk to them on a regular basis. Form relationships and invest time into them. Your relationships will be the single most important thing for you. Use the tools & ideas below to begin networking:
   • LinkedIn–While LinkedIn is not widely adopted in Africa, it is widely used in the U.S. and Europe. And nope, LinkedIn is not just for people searching for a job. It’s a valuable social network that is growing by leaps and bounds and is great for networking. Sign up for LinkedIn and start by making connections with the people you know well. Once you’ve done that, start searching for groups with topics that interest you. There is a plethora of LinkedIn groups that focus on Africa, whether venture capital or East African business. If a group with your interests doesn’t exist, start one. Chances are there’s someone else out there with your same interests. Then start introducing yourself to people and learn how to talk about what you want to accomplish.
   • Facebook–Practically everyone is getting a Facebook account these days, from parents to kids to grandparents. Open a Facebook account and start friending people you know and searching for groups involving Africa. I belong to about 54 groups at last count, and nearly all of them have something to do with Africa. Some of them are regularly active and some are not. Join groups and start looking for ways to get value out of them and the relationships you will make. What you take away from Facebook will vary from what others have taken.
   • Events–If you live near a metropolitan area like myself, you will likely not have any trouble finding Africa-related events. My networking opportunities skyrocketed when I moved to the Washington D.C. area (for obvious reasons). If you don’t live near a metropolitan area, you might have to either start an event of your own or travel to get to events. You never know who might be interested if you publicize your idea to start a meeting. Also, don’t forget conferences and academic events at your local college or university. There are tons of Africa-related conferences across the United States and often they will be held in conjunction with a local academic institution. The hard part often is finding the events. Get friendly with Google. I mean real friendly. Search until you find something of value you want to attend. @mjamme has more excellent tips on her blog.
3. Communication–While everyone has their preferred method of communication, mine is Skype. I love Skype. It allows me to make phone calls internationally for cheap with friends and partners in Africa. I can chat, trade files easily, hold video calls, and even get a phone number that is local to somewhere in Africa. There are many tools that can do what Skype does, but this has worked for me pretty well over the years. Whenever you make contacts, ask them if they’re on Skype. If so, ask if they’ll add you as a contact. If not Skype, consider other alternatives. There are plenty out there.
4. Criticism–I once introduced an idea of mine to a person I met and I was confronted with the highest display of criticism and seemingly arrogant attitude I’ve ever experienced in my life. I was expecting some sort of encouragement or direction on my idea, but what I got instead was criticism. Yeah, it hurt as if someone had stomped all over my dreams. But guess what? I pouted a little, went home, and improved upon my idea and started to refine it. The person I shared my idea with wasn’t necessarily “out to get me” but was asking legitimate questions, albeit in a very forward manner that I wasn’t used to. I didn’t agree with nearly everything that person said, even to this day. But what I did find out that moment was that you can learn from every single experience you have. The choice is yours how you will respond. Don’t get defensive, instead, choose to learn from the experience and roll with the punches. Keep moving forward. (Be sure to see the point below about perseverance & failure.)
5. Perseverance & failure–Guess what? You’re going to get frustrated along the way. If you’ve ever experienced frustration at home, just wait until you get started in the developing world. You will learn patience quickly. Now that’s not a knock on Africa, things are just done differently there. But coming from a society you’re used to dealing with, you will come across different customs and ways of life that are completely foreign to you. Get used to it and learn how to accept it for what it is. Learn how to love the people for who they are. Whenever you see other successful people with ideas, remember that there are many others who have gone before them and failed for lack of perseverance. If you stick it out and keep at it, you just might have a breakthrough that will help many people (if that’s your goal). Stick with your original goal and never give up. Don’t be afraid of failure. There is immense value in failure. Yup, that’s right. Failure is a way of discovering something you might be doing is the wrong approach. Think about all of these scientific and technological breakthroughs we have today. Every one of them is likely a result of someone’s failure. Be scientific about failure and try something else. Keep trying until something works. If you can do this without giving up, you’re learning perseverance. Perseverance will make you stronger and wiser over time.
6. Information–Having access to the right information is crucial to getting involved in Africa. There is tons of false information out there concerning Africa and the last thing you want to do is build a foundation on false assumptions. Practically every time I hear about Africa on the TV or read about it in the newspaper I cringe. Always bad news. Always. Even after years of studying Africa and reading books, I had a rude awakening when I visited Africa. Africa cannot be confined or defined in a book or article. Africa is an amazing place full of mystery, diversity, and history. East Africa is much different from West Africa and South Africa is much different from North Africa. You will not go to two places in Africa that are the same. And no, Africa is not a country. It is a continent made up of dozens of countries, each of them different and tremendously beautiful. There are country clubs in Africa and there is poverty in Africa and everything in-between. You will see lots of economic diversity. Be prepared to throw out everything you thought you knew about Africa. Get to know Africa in a variety of ways. Don’t limit yourself to one way of experiencing Africa. Some ways of gathering information are below:
   • Blogs & RSS–Blogs are invaluable to learning about Africa. You can find blogs from Africans, expats, business owners, international development professionals, college professors, economists, and beyond. Whatever you have in mind, there is likely a blog about it. But before you start to bookmark your blogs the old-fashioned way and have a list of hundreds of blogs, learn to use an RSS reader similar to Google Reader. Google Reader has revolutionized the way I devour content. I currently subscribe to somewhere in the range of 300 RSS feeds and I read them every day. Using an RSS reader allows me to quickly scan through titles and blog posts while picking out which one’s might be of value to me. No need to visit 100 different websites. Instead, their content comes to you through the RSS reader and you are able to take in much more information and find what pertains to you much quicker. There are both web-based and desktop-based RSS readers out there. Find one that works for you. An RSS reader will make you more efficient and you will probably end up happier at the end of the day. My morning coffee is had with Google Reader and I never have to visit a single website unless I want to. I also probably cover 100 times more content every day than the average person and it makes me much more informed. Here is a great video guide to RSS in case you need to learn more
   • Magazines–Nope, print isn’t dead. There are many good magazines out there that cover Africa in valuable ways and I still subscribe to many of them. Head to your local book store and look for titles that pertain to your interests. I currently read a variety of magazines every month from Make to Wired to The Economist to African Business. Each has its own value to me.
   • Social Media–Think Twitter is a silly fad without any value? Think again. I can’t count how much informational value I’ve gotten out of Twitter alone out of all the social media available. I’ve made connections, found useful tips & articles, and have had insightful conversations with people just like me with a deep interest in Africa. Even better, there are many Africans using Twitter and they are a must to follow if you decide to start using Twitter. But the point I want to make is that Twitter is more than just networking and pointless minute-by-minute updates. It is information constantly flowing. I often look at Twitter as scanning newspaper headlines or hearing tidbits of conversation from a variety of people all over the world. A good place to start is by looking at some Twitter directories to help find the right people to follow. Other forms of social media can be great sources of information. They are what you make of them.
   • Events–See above. But on top of that, go to events that teach you about Africa. Event are not just about networking, but about learning information about Africa.
   • Videos–Watch a documentary or two. There are tons of documentaries out there on Africa. If you live in a more rural area, consider subscribing to Netflix to have them delivered to your home. Other great alternatives are videos on YouTube and TED. If anything, dedicate yourself to finding some good TED videos on Africa. I have been inspired immensely by TED. Just one note, be careful about Hollywood movies. Regardless of the intent to highlight a hot-topic issue ore re-tell history, as most Hollywood videos try to do, Africa is not and has never been rightfully represented by Hollywood. Also, for those of you who want some entertainment from the booming Nigerian scene, try watching some Nollywood movies for a change.
7. Respect–This goes right along with perseverance and failure above. Learning perseverance goes hand-in-hand with learning respect. Know your place within Africa and understand that you are not Africa’s savior nor are you superior to Africa. Don’t romanticize your quest to help Africa, as so many have done and continue to perpetuate. Not only do I feel a desire to help other people, I enjoy what I do immensely and it provides me happiness beyond material things in my life. My best advice is to look at Africa the way you would look at anyone else in the world: we are all global citizens. The work I do for Africa I would do for any other continent or country if I felt so compelled. We are neighbors in a global sense. Respect the customs and ways of life in Africa, no matter how different they are from your own beliefs or customs. Never forget that you are a guest. Make it a point and goal to pass on your knowledge to the people you are serving in whatever you do. In my mind, it is never cliche to say you are empowering people. Knowledge is power. Pass it on and you will earn the respect of Africans. Approach everything you do with humility and willingness to learn from others. Also, part of respect is knowing history. Don’t just waltz into Africa without knowing the history. Pick up a few books on the history of the African continent and the region or country you are interested in. I recommend a combination of all three geographic areas. Africans will have more respect for you if you invest yourself into their home by studying the history. I can’t stress history enough.
8. Get organized–Go buy yourself two things right now: a calendar and a pack of moleskins. Carry both with you everywhere you go. The calendar will become useful when you start having to plan things out in advance. Have a family event? Add it to the calendar. Have a phone call coming up? Add it to the calendar. My calendar is not only to alert me of future events, but reminds me of past events for reference. Know what you will be doing exactly one month from today. Buy a calendar that fits your style. My calendar is monthly. Yours might be weekly or daily. Moleskins can be bought just about anywhere that sells office supplies and they are easily affordable. Buy a pack of them and start writing everything down in them. And I mean everything. When you meet people, write down their name, contact info, etc, so that you can return to that moleskin and recall how you know them. Don’t rely 100% on email for keeping information. You will likely meet lots and lots of people. Learn to keep their information organized and it will have huge payoffs in the end. I did this during my first trip to Africa and I still use it today. Whether or not you rely on technology is up to you. Personally, I’m old school. I like knowing that my information is on paper in addition to being digital. That choice is yours, just don’t blame me if you lose it because of a hard drive crash or deleted email.
9. Business cards–Some people think that business cards are going out of style. But I’m going to advocate to continue using them. Do you have personal business cards? If not, get some. They can be bought very cheaply online or your local stationary store. Give them to people you meet and get a business card organizer similar to the one I have.
10. Foreign language–Learning a foreign language that is commonly used in Africa can be a great long-term asset to you. It also shows your dedication and desire to learn more about Africa’s culture. Language is a crucial part of Africa’s culture. Several years ago I decided to pick one of the harder languages to learn, Arabic, and have been hooked on it every since. Now I’m considering learning Swahili. If you are seeking to do any work regarding West Africa, French is invaluable. Do your research and find out what languages are being spoken where you are interested in and consider taking classes at your local college, picking up Rosetta Stone, or doing what I did and find a personal tutor.

Also affiliated with the World Language Documentation Centre, the Kamusi Project needs help from technical individuals. They are in need of programmers to help them update the legacy code used in their website framework into something that allows them to grow. If you know Drupal, Perl, PHP, & MySQL, this is the project for you to volunteer time towards.

As described on their Call for Volunteer Coders:

We need your help to hack kamusiproject.org!

The Kamusi Project, the web’s leading Swahili language resource, needs coding help in a hurry. We have a lot of old code that works pretty well for what we’ve been doing (running a collaborative online Swahili dictionary), but we need to modify and modernize our back end in order to get where we’re going: a free and open source interlinked dictionary and learning center for dozens of African languages.

Our code has been patched together over the years, adding bits and pieces to meet specific needs of the moment. Now we have a tangle of Perl and PHP overlaying a MySQL database, shoehorned into a Drupal platform and installed hastily on a new server. Can you help us get our current functionality working smoothly as a coherent PHP/ Drupal/ MySQL system, so we can then be in a position to expand our model to multiple languages of Africa?

If you can volunteer, please contact CodeAfrica {at} kamusiproject {dot} org

Specifically, our task list includes:

• Converting all our Perl code into PHP. The Perl code is old school, poorly commented, and doesn’t play well with Drupal. This includes four major features: (1) the Edit Engine, through which participants contribute to the dictionary and submissions get processed for the MySQL database; (2) the Grouping Tool, through which users can sort dictionary entries; (3) the Photo Uploader, through which users submit images to illustrate dictionary entries, and (4) the Bantu languages Verb Parser, which makes it possible to look up ridiculously complicated conjugated verbs such as “nitakapomsomesha”.
• Perfecting and enhancing our new Drupalized search engine. We’ve already designed a new PHP dictionary search engine to replace the fossilized Perl system you can see in action now, but we have some distance before the new version is ready to go live. The main challenges are: (1) reflecting live database updates from the Edit Engine; (2) presenting results to match the current format; and (3) building in some kick-ass advanced search features. We expect to go from 1 million searches per month today to tens of millions when we go multilingual, so we need a really robust search engine.
• Making Google behave. The search engines were eating us alive on our old server, crawling nonstop with repeated wildcard searches and any term any user with Google Toolbar had ever typed into our search box. We want the search engines to index the site, but we need to figure out how to prevent them from taking over.
• Organizing our log files. We want to sort our search logs so that we can rank our most popular searches in descending order, with the goal being a tool that can feed the 10,000 most searched for terms (from 45,000,000 searches) to the editors for the languages we’ll be adding. The challenge here is to deal efficiently with the sheer bulk of the dataset.
• Improving the Learning Center code. We have a nice skeleton for a multimedia Swahili learning center, but our funding situation never allowed us to finish developing the online exercises and lesson templates, completing features for interaction between students and instructors, and integrating the exercises with the dictionary and media uploader. Now we have been asked by a university in South Africa if they can use our learning tools for some of the 11 official languages of that country, and we would like to say yes. These tools are already within PHP/ Drupal.
• Widgets. We would like to display a variety of information as a toggled sidebar widget, similar to the “Most Recent Searches” infobox now installed (which needs to be made scrollable, since it changes too quickly). Widgets will include recently updated entries, recent photo submissions, most popular searches of the day, etc. We would particularly like a widget that displays results from a log file query for the most popular searches that are not actually in the database, then lets a user “check out” a missing entry in conjunction with an Edit Entry submission. We would also like a slide show for the homepage that displays images from the Photo Uploader in the context of the associated dictionary entry. The widgets are low urgency, but an easy and fun way to help out.

Once we accomplish these Code Africa tasks, we will be in a position to put the project on steroids, going from two languages to two dozen in a couple of years. Future work will involve re-engineering the database to accommodate multiple languages spoken by over half a billion people, modifying the Edit Engine for each new language, and building a linking tool to join the languages together. In order to accomplish these multilingual goals, though, we really need to get our current code in order.

If you can help, please contact CodeAfrica {at} kamusiproject {dot} org – we look forward to working with you!

“Availability of affordable bandwidth, growing synergies between IT industry and academia, government policy reforms and emerging opportunities in the IT sector have led to growth of incubation labs outside the orbit of the corporate giants in Africa.

Big companies like Nokia and Google have done extensive work with developers in the region but the growth of smaller labs financed by smaller companies and individuals in Cameroon, Senegal, Kenya, Ivory Coast and Uganda have underlined the opportunities presented by availability of bandwidth.”

More can be found at the original article. Hat-tip goes to Timbuktu Chronicles for the find.

Why the interest in such an idea? It’s completely applicable to many scenarios on the continent of Africa. While “going green” is a hot buzzword here in the States, it’s serious business in Africa. Energy conservation is not only a way to look cool and lend a hand to the environment, it’s often a necessity in Africa’s oftentimes unreliable infrastructure.

While I know that there are many individuals, nonprofits, and for-profits innovating on this level, and have been for many years, I would venture to say that this will become a trending topic over the coming years in Africa and around the world to a point where its progress is obvious everywhere we look.

Good stuff indeed.

For more info on ecological innovation, be sure to check out the Open Source Ecology blog.

“This looks like a great project. There is a container at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London waiting to be filled with academic books for Juba University. Get down there if you have any and you are based in London; the deadline is the end of March.”

There you have it. If you live in London, please head on down there and donate a few books. It’s going towards a great cause and there is not a single reason why we can not meet that need.