A couple weeks ago Ellen Petry Leanse and Kaushal Jhalla announced that they wanted to put on a Barcamp Africa for afrophiles living in the San Francisco area. They’re both good friends of Ushahidi and we liked the idea, so David and I jumped in where we could (David created the logo). Ellen is also happens to be very well connected in the Bay area, she used to work as an Apple evangelist back in the day alongside Guy Kawasaki, and was directly involved in the success Ribbit has seen lately.
Due to that connection with Guy Kawasaki, the next thing I knew I was being asked for a list of potential blogs and news services to be a part of a new Africa category on Alltop.com – Guy Kawasaki’s news aggregation site. Being a technology blogger first, most of my contributions were in that field. Many of them taken directly from my RSS feed reader, as there hasn’t been a blogroll here in years (due to a glitch in my sidebar that I never fixed…).
Few other people I know had access to, or cared enough, about Africa to get Guy to create the new Africa.Alltop.com. However, Ellen has a strong desire to see increased innovation and change happen, and she is particularly well connected and knowledgeable in technology. Her connection to Africa was solidified as she and her son were caught in Western Kenya during the post-election violence in Kenya earlier this year (an amazing story that I hope everyone gets to read sometime). She comes directly out of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point“, I’m just not sure which category she fits in yet.
I’ll be interested in seeing how the list on Alltop grows and morphs over time. For the time being I’ll use it as a supplement for my daily Africa news. I’m just happy that African news and bloggers are gaining additional attention outside of the traditional African blog echo chamber.
If you think there is a good pan-African blog that was missed, or just a really good African blog with a wide readership, make sure you suggest it.
Sidenote
As is increasingly true, the best place to follow each of these individuals/events is on Twitter at:
Twitter.com/chep2m – Ellen
Twitter.com/ksjhalla – Kaushal
Twitter.com/guykawasaki – Guy
Twitter.com/barcampafrica – Barcamp Africa
August 10, 2008 at 10:22 am
What an outstanding resource; I’ll be pointing my readers there for sure!
August 10, 2008 at 10:25 am
Hi Erik
Thanks for including Muti in the list. 🙂
It looks to me like they are using the ‘new’ feed instead of the ‘hot’ feed. Is there any way I can check that and/or get it changed?
August 10, 2008 at 12:02 pm
@Neville – You might try contacting them directly with the right feed. I might have submitted the “new” feed by mistake… Sorry.
August 10, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I am so stoked to see Guy is added this. I am really excited about the Barcamp Africa in SF and am hoping to find an opportunity to meet up with Ellen and Kaushal soon. It always makes me feel good to see Africa gaining traction in a space – the blogosphere and social media in general – in ways that it has not been able to do in regular print media. Thanks Hash for all your work and Ellen and Kaushal!!
August 11, 2008 at 4:07 am
W000t! Thank you for including Afrigator! Much appreciated.
August 12, 2008 at 12:58 am
Hash,
This is good work! keep it up.
Please send me a copy of the mobile factbook, apparently they wont send to a gmail address.
thanks in advance,
Becks
August 12, 2008 at 9:19 pm
@Neville Have suggestions and recommendations for Africa.Alltop.com?? – email neenz@alltop.com
August 26, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Thank you for including Afrigator
December 16, 2009 at 11:22 am
Thanks for including Muti in the list.
April 15, 2010 at 4:56 pm
I am really excited about the Barcamp Africa in SF and am hoping to find an opportunity to meet up with Ellen and Kaushal soon.