Improving access to financial services:

• Mobile payment system
• Micro-insurance system
• Micro-lending platform

Provision of agricultural information:

• Mobile information platform
• Farmer helpline

Improving data visibility for supply chain efficiency:

• Smart logistics
• Traceability and tracking system
• Mobile management of supplier networks
• Mobile management of distribution networks

Enhancing access to markets:

• Agricultural trading platform
• Agricultural tendering platform
• Agricultural bartering platform

via @IAALD

Those are 12 agricultural opportunities in utilizing mobile technology as highlighted by a recent report by Vodafone. The rewards? A potential $138 billion addition to developing world farmers’ incomes by 2020.

My particular interest is in the mobile information platform as well as the microfinance portion of the report: micro-insurance, micro-lending, and mobile banking systems. Along with those systems a tremendous need will arise for financial literacy and technology training. It is a great opportunity for educators and technologists across the world.

I have three questions:

• Will technology incubators (hint: @iHub) around the world heed the call to produce these technologies?
• What role will educators play in the need for financial literacy training outside of formal schooling?
• Given that women do the majority of the farming around the world, what effects will this technology have on their abilities to become more economically independent?

“The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has agreed to launch the country’s first scientific journal, which they expect to attain international standards and become a reference point within central Africa.” via @SciDevNet

I am a strong advocate for investment in research and development in developing countries. Professional journals are a part of that ecosystem of brilliant thinking and discussion. At least they should be. Africa needs this badly if it is going to be a hub and incubator of scientific knowledge, particularly with its vast resources of indigenous knowledge.

No word yet on how open/closed this journal will be, however. My hopes are that it is open access all the way. Time will tell.

That day is finally here.

What I find exciting about this is that a concentrated effort is being made by the World Bank, UNOSAT, RCMRD, Satellite Sentinel Project, among others, to improve online interactive maps of South Sudan.

Being a mapping aficionado myself, it will be interesting to watch the progress that the East African mapping community makes and the implications to the development and aid community as South Sudan works to become a functioning state.

Starting Dec. 30, the Satellite Sentinel Project — a joint experiment by the U.N.’s Operational Satellite Applications Programme, Harvard University, the Enough Project and Clooney’s posse of Hollywood funders — will hire private satellites to monitor troop movements starting with the oil-rich region of Abyei. The images will be analyzed and made public at www.satsentinel.org (which goes live on Dec. 29) within 24 hours of an event to remind the leaders of northern and southern Sudan that they are being watched. “We are the antigenocide paparazzi,” Clooney tells TIME. “We want them to enjoy the level of celebrity attention that I usually get. If you know your actions are going to be covered, you tend to behave much differently than when you operate in a vacuum.”

That’s Mark Benjamin, writing for TIME.com about a joint experiment by the U.N.’s Operational Satellite Applications Programme, Harvard University, the Enough Project, Google, and a host of other heavy-hitting supporters.

Visit the Satellite Sentinel website here.

The importance of increasing academic research in Africa really cannot be overestimated. Research is crucial not only for the advancement of knowledge on the continent itself, but also for Africa’s economic and academic participation on a global level. But what do you do when access to a world of resources is rapidly growing, yet adoption by academics and students pale in comparison?

Well, according to a study (linked below) published recently by the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), one reason for low adoption is due to academic institutions not communicating that these resources are actually available to their students and teachers. Yet, there’s more to the story. Many academic institutions don’t even offer adequate access to these resources, in the form of a computer lab with Internet access. And those institutions that do offer these facilities aren’t a cure-all solution within themselves, as teachers and students face many obstacles of their own such as a general lack of time and money to make use of these resources.

But the general message I took home from the report is that more emphasis needs to be placed on the value of building and promoting libraries for the purpose of research. Not only that, academic institutions have to promote these resources by making them more accessible to their teachers and students. This means giving them the time and money required to improve access.

The most difficult issue I found yet to be addressed, however, is likely the view that libraries serve no purpose in furthering knowledge in African academic institutions. Of course, this view isn’t across the board in all universities and colleges. But it is an academic Goliath that needs confrontation with more public discourse. Hopefully I can shed more light on this in future posts.

Download the full “Growing knowledge: access to research in east and southern African universities” report here. [PDF]

The iHub might be new to Nairobi, but these types of collaborative working spaces have recently been popping up in several other places on multiple continents, albeit of different uses and purposes. This is really great news for technological innovation in low- and middle-income countries on all fronts. Yet, one question that kept coming back to me every time I read about these hubs of innovation is how they were being used and what the profile was of the ordinary user. In other words, who are they catering to? Some of the curiosities I’d like to explore are:

• What background does the average user have at the iHub and other spaces? More technical? More business/entrepreneurial? Less nonprofit oriented?
• How can collab spaces like the iHub seek to leverage the demands of the local society given the complexity of needs?
• Importantly, what role does education play in these collab spaces in business training, technical training, seminars, etc?
• What is the average education level of users at collab spaces and what importance does education play? Bonus question: Considering that not all users of collab spaces are entrepreneurial-minded (or are they?), how does that change the value and place of education?
• Are any users of these collab spaces focusing on tech solutions to the problems plaguing the education sector?
• Does nonprofit tech take a backseat to for-profit tech projects that might directly benefit the local communities?

Obviously, what I’m asking is a complex question in itself. But I guess what I’m driving at is, are there needs not being met at these collab spaces and, if so, what are they and how can these spaces be leveraged to meet those needs? Given a huge draw of budding technologists to for-profit initiatives, how is technology that benefits the local communities encouraged in these spaces?

My main concern that I’ve seen over the past year or two is how the number of users being drawn to these collab spaces are more entrepreneurial minded. How many of those users are working on tough society-related problems that can be solved with technology, given the easy lure of the tech dream of success?

My questions are most certainly not criticism of these collab spaces, as I find them highly beneficial to the communities they serve simply by the collaborative and innovative nature they promote. But I’m curious as to how many of them are working on problems in their communities that can be solved with technology.

Any thoughts?

“For a long time, even when I was going to school, we were taught that the structure of the human brain was basically fixed by the time we got to our early 20s. But it’s become clear in the last few decades that in fact, even the adult human brain is quite malleable. And our neural circuitry is kind of always in the process of adapting to circumstances and to environment and to the tools we use, particularly those for finding information and making sense of information.”–Nicholas Carr

The future is coming at a faster pace than we can imagine. Ten years ago we thought technology was advancing fast. Now, technology is moving faster than we thought it ever would. And it shows no signs of slowing down. I chalk it up to the singularity. What is the singularity? Think of the singularity as compounding interest, except that in addition to the principal balance always increasing, so is the interest rate! And the further you go along the path into the future, the faster both are increasing. Eventually, you get to a point where the speed of both are increasing so fast you can no longer predict where they will be and the lines begin to blur. You’ve reached the singularity. Ray Kurzweil, the brilliant man behind the singularity theory, predicts we will reach this “zenith” around 2020. Machines will become as smart as humans and progress will be moving so fast we will not be able to keep up with it. Believe in the coming singularity or not, technology isn’t waiting for anyone.

Back to being a Web professional…

The days are gone where a person could survive as a generalist. Now, one has to be a specialist at whatever one does, and choose it wisely to avoid too much duplication with other professionals. And don’t get too comfortable in your specialty. Before you know it, everyone will be doing what you are doing and you will, once again, be forced to evolve into another specialty or sub-specialty of where you once started.

Think of a profession or specialty that has to do with the Web and I will show you a dead-end road to obsolescence. A one-way ticket to irrelevance. No longer can you survive doing the same thing you always did. The world of Web professionals is now diluted. The barriers to entry into most Web professions have been lowered to the point where it is harder and harder to compete and make a living.

I’m not complaining. After all, this is why I chose this profession. If you want excitement and aren’t afraid to work hard, being a web professional might be for you. Afraid of continual learning and 10-hour workdays and being a Web professional might not be your cup of tea.

The amazing thing about being a Web professional is that if you work for someone else, chances are you are either being held back technologically or dragging them screaming and kicking into the future. Consider yourself fortunate if you are freely able to pursue the advancements in your Web profession with support. This is what leads many web professionals into performing freelance work, myself included.

That leads me to where I am today. Now that I am beginning my graduate studies in August focusing on technology and international education, I am thinking more and more about how they will fit in with my web profession and the whole thought about technological progress. It is a hard pill to swallow, especially when your biggest fear is irrelevance in today’s world.

Where this will lead me, who knows. But one thing is for sure, I’m not going to stop learning and moving forward. I’m welcoming the future with open arms, even if I am kicking and screaming.

To close this post, allow me to repeat one of my favorite sayings that is printed on a bookmark always sitting on my desk near my monitor,

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle… when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

BTW, if you need any web work done, email me!