africa

"If you want to become extremely wealthy over the next five years, and you have a rudimentary grasp of technology, here's a no-brainer: move to Africa. Seriously."

This is how David Rowan, editor in chief of Wired UK, started one of his last columns. The Economist also recently featured an article about « Africa rising » and how it could become the next Asia in terms of market growth. Both articles offer a welcomed change from the usual discourse on Africa. Speaking in the Lift12 "Development, redevelopment" session, David Rowan will show us that innovation can be a driver of good for some of the world's largest markets, and that Africa has potential - lots of it.

What we are really looking forward to is, in a couple of years, getting emails from a couple of Lift attendees who will say "I moved to Africa and started a business following David's talk, we just hired our 100th employee".

Read David's article "Want to become an internet billionaire? Move to Africa".

What happens when barriers to use of technology are lowered? What can we learn from the Ushahidi open source community and the technology landscape in Africa about the opportunity and the limits of open innovation? In her speech, Juliana Rotich answers these questions, based on her experience as director of a African non-profit tech company which specializes in developing free and open source software for information collection, interactive mapping and data curation.

For sure it is hard to miss the growing relationship between China and Africa. Be it for natural resources (oil, copper or agricultural land) and infrastructure (construction of highways or railways), Chinese firms are now a common sight across the continent - part of the success of these partnerships is attributed to the fact that, unlike aid from the West, no particular conditionalities are attached to the deals.
According to Nature, China is now adding scientific collaboration to its vibrant trade relationship with Africa. An ambitious scheme launched in 2009 set the ground for scientific exchange, including funding for scientific projects (e.g., solar lighting in Tunisia, biogas in Ethiopia or hydropower in the Central African Republic) and scholarships for African students.
So far not all the objectives have been met but that shouldn’t be a real problem given China’s track record to plan and deliver. Like with any technology transfer (soft or hard) the real success will lie with the beneficiary’s capacity to appropriate the knowledge and make it work in a domestic context over the long run.

Lift France 10 will reconduct this year the partnership with Organisation de la Francophonie (OIF) to welcome 30 international correspondents and bloggers.
The invitees will join us at Lift France from southern and eastern countries such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Senegal, Brazil, and Poland.

This partnership is co-organized with “Correspondants.org”, an initiative by the Fing, which objective is to promote rapid prototyping and individualized production in southern countries. During Lift France they will conduct a Fab Lab workshop with the invited correspondents and, in the Lift Experience space. They will also present an innovation: the white interactive wall panel, a “low cost” tool for education, allowing to write digitally on a panel.

Learn more about the invited correspondents, below some blog links

• Laurent Jerinte
• Yam Pukri
• Nouvelles tecnologies Burkina Faso.
• Afrique Espace Net

or join the Fing Group Faite le vous-même (Do it yourself)

Yaoundé-based sociologist Baba Wamé gives a stunning overview of how the Web has been appropriated by cameroonian women. More specifically, he shows how email and IM have been turned into on-line dating tools. He then raise raise awareness on the dangers of such practices for the women of his country.

Juliana Rotich, an author, blogger and digital activist with Global Voices Online in Kenya, talks about citizen journalism in African countries. Starting from web examples, she then describes the value of mobile applications in this domain. Her presentation gives a broad overview of the issues at stake in mobile activism/journalism.

Juliana Rotich, an author, blogger and digital activist with Global Voices Online in Kenya, talks about citizen journalism in African countries. Starting from web examples, she then describes the value of mobile applications in this domain. Her presentation gives a broad overview of the issues at stake in mobile activism/journalism.

Juliana Rotich is a blogger (Afromusing, Afrigadget), digital activist, citizen journalist and environment editor of Global Voices Online. With Global Voices, she helps to aggregate, curate and amplify online conversations, with particular focus on technology, the environment, renewable energy, and digital expression in Africa and the developing world.

Juliana is also the Program Director of Ushahidi.com, an innovative non-profit web startup that is creating a tool for mapping crises by gathering reports via mobile, e-mail and web. She is focused on using new media tools to create a network of environmental bloggers from around the world, elevating and encouraging more conversations and engagement on environmental matters.

Holding a BSc Degree in IT from the University of Missouri Kansas City she also has several years of experience in database administration, application development and project management. We are very much looking forward to hearing her speak on the solidarity theme on February 26th which she will bring alive together with Ramesh Srinivasan. Learn more about Juliana on her LIFT page.

For years, in the "North-West" (that is industrialized countries - usually understood as North vs. South and West vs. East), we've been babbling about the "digital gap" that is supposedly the new line of division, usually understood as running along that of economical and political development. We often have quite a simplistic idea of the situation, imagining countries that are like technological deserts, on top of being devoid of everything essentials for a normal life (that is one car per family, two TV-sets per household, all with at least 40 channels, and 4-weeks vacations in the Bahamas or in the Swiss Alps per years). We tend to forget the forest of satellite dishes that are ornementing most cities and even village buildings in what we used (politcally) incorrectly call "third world" countries. And a recent article from the Mail & Guardian, translated in French in the Courrier International, just reminds us how wrong we often are about the appropriation of "our" modern technologies by people in these countries.

Nathan Eagle is Research Scientist at MIT. He presents about "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control" at the LIFT07 conference on Thursday, February 8, 2007.