language

My parents were linguists, they worked to create a written language for the Toposa of southeastern Sudan. From a young age the importance of language was impressed upon me, but it was academic… How many other 8 year olds do you know that are aware that there are 134 distinct Sudanese languages of which 8 are extinct?

Academic understanding of language barriers becomes real-life frustration for me as I try and cover the web and mobile space in Africa. For instance, I’d love to know more about, and do a write-up on the following:

• Ivoire Blog – The new blogging platform for Cote D’Ivoire
• Akopo – A social media and blogging platform for Cameroonians
• Mboasu – A new West African mobile remittance product

However, it’s hard for me to track, contact and write about services like these that are popping up in Francophone or Arabic-speaking Africa, simply because I lack the language skills.

Sometimes I come across what looks to be an interesting blog – usually due to visuals since I can’t read it. I then filter that blog through a tool like Google’s Translation service and get back a nicely garbled bunching of English words that I then work towards deciphering into usable chunks.

(did you know that approximately 50% of the African continent speaks French?)

PALDO – An African Language Initiative
These types of thoughts were running through my head, when I got an email about an upcoming meeting (April 2, 2008) and initiative called The Pan-African Living Dictionary Online (PALDO). They are attempting to create an interlinked multilingual dictionary for African languages. It is being built upon the foundation of the well-known Kamusi Project, which developed a useful online Swahili/English dictionary.

PALDO is particularly hoping for participation from programmers, linguists, database experts, lexicographers and past users with experience in other online dictionaries.

It’s encouraging to see that this is in partnership with Kasahorow, who is working to solve the problem of localized computer input methods for languages. Basically, create a keyboard that works for multiple language clusters.

A couple years ago I wrote a post about technology versus tribal languages in Africa. It’s a HUGE hurdle to overcome when creating web and mobile platforms that you would like to take to the whole African market. It’s why so many companies do great stuff in their local market, maybe even their region, but fail getting pan-African adoption.

It’s unclear how PALDO will solve some of these issues. However, I’m always interested in seeing how aggregation and visualization of data can be used to create better products, or bring insight into areas where things are so confused.

One thing is for sure though, PALDO won’t solve my personal communications issues – what I need to do is go learn French and re-learn Arabic.

[NOTE: This is different than the original time we asked for your help. We found out that was only to give us stars, but that vote doesn't count towards the real ballot. Please go vote again!]

Ushahidi is an African initiated project used in Kenya to map reported incidents of violence during the post-election crisis. Our goal is to increase the scope and capabilities of Ushahidi so that it can be used by others around the globe who find themselves in the similar crisis situations. We need your vote in the NetSquared mashup challenge for a chance at winning some money to use in further development.

How to vote:
1. Create an account (or Login if you already have an account) at NetSquared.org
2. Vote for Ushahidi by clicking here, then click the red “Vote for My Mashup” button.
3. Vote for at least 4 other projects. Here are four that I recommend, but you can choose whichever you like. Just make sure you choose a total of 5 minimum.

• Assetmap.org/Uganda
• Rosetta Project – Minority Languages in Google Earth
• Agri Mashup: Data Utilization in Inclusive and Sustainable Agriculture at the Base of the Pyramid
• CorpWatch – Government Data on Corporations

4. Click “View/Cast Ballot”, or click here: http://www.netsquared.org/projects/vote/ballot. Be sure Ushahidi is listed as one of your chosen projects.
5. Click “Cast Ballot” on your screen. That’s it!

Thanks, and we’ll keep you updated on the outcome!

I’m currently at DEMO ‘08 in Palm Springs, California. Mike Stopforth and Juliana Rotich are here too as part of a panel that will be speaking on Africa and what’s important to know about it as an emerging market. That happens tomorrow, so today I get to just sit back and watch some of the new products being introduced.

Here are a couple that I find interesting so far:

Skyfire
Both a well done demonstration, and a really impressive looking product. Skyfire allows you to see the full PC web on your mobile phone. It handles all types of complicated things, ranging from ajax to Flash to DHTML. They showed us live head-to-head results versus the top phones and other mobile web browsers including the iPhone and Opera Mini. Honestly, the had me when they pulled up a complicated site like ESPN.com so quickly on it. It’s launching in public beta today, so give it a try.

SpeakLike
This is a real-time automated translation service. It allows you to chat with people and translates back and forth in real-time. This is a very intriguing product, you type text in your language, and others see it in theirs. I don’t know about you, but I can think of a number of ways that this could be highly useful in Africa. I’m going to talk to them at their booth to find out a little more about available languages, and the ability for users to adjust the settings to take into account local language differences.

Kids and Education
Leapfrog just announced a new product called “Tag”. It’s a small pen-like device that reads their specialized books and has allows children to interact with books in ways that I’ve never seen before.

Education.com launched a new “school finder” feature that looks good too. They’re starting to call themselves the “WebMD of education”. They seem to have the right type of content and connections, so I can see how that could be true.

Favorite moment so far: demonstrator for Taktumi curses as his presentation doesn’t work…

Other bloggers and resources at DEMO ‘08
Marshall Kirkpatrick of RWW
Frank Gruber of Somewhat Frank
Shel Israel of Global Neighborhoods

DEMO 2008 Toolkit by RWW
Live video from DEMO 2008
Twitter updates (seem broken at the moment) but most people are sending comments to @Demo08

Chris Abani, Nigerian writer and poet, gives one of the most moving talks that happened at TED Global. He discusses the differences between African narrative and news on Africa – an important distinction.

A couple good quotes:

If you want to know about Africa, read our literature. And not just Things Fall Apart, because that would be like saying I’ve read, Gone With the Wind, and so I know everything about America.

Language complicates things.

(more about Chris Abani at TED)

One of the reasons that so many people re-attend TED conferences is because the talks are so incredibly powerful. Here is George Ayittey, speaking with all the fire, passion and visually creative language that inspired so many of us:

I know not everyone agrees with my sentiments about George Ayittey’s explanation describing the differences between the “cheetah” and “hippo” generations in Africa. However, the discussion on this has just begun. TED has just released the new TED Talks videos that were shot at TEDGlobal in Arusha in June.

Look for more TED Talks coming out this week. Let’s hear what everyone else has to say after seeing and hearing these talks for the first time!

[Extra: Catch another interview of George Ayittey on PBS by Bill Moyer]

Ken Banks is the 6th in the African Digerati series of interviews. Ken has become a recognized leader in the mobile space in Africa, primarily through his open source text messaging hub called FrontlineSMS. He speaks regularly around the world on the use of mobile technologies to meet the demands of the real world in places like Africa.

Blog and/or website:
You can find more information on Ken Banks at www.kiwanja.net. Including information on his projects, his mobile database, pictures and blog. It’s one of the best resources for information on mobile technology for Africa on the web.

What do you do?
I use a mix of 22 years in IT, 14 years working on and off in various parts of Africa, and a degree in Social Anthropology with Development Studies to help local, national and international non-profit organisations make better use of information and communications technology – particularly mobile – in their work. I’m usually based out of the UK (where I have a small flat in a lovely Cambridgeshire village), but am currently a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University on the Reuters Digital Vision Program. To pay the bills I do a mixture of paid consultancy and pro-bono work for a range of NGOs, working mostly at grassroots level, a place where I strongly believe the greatest change will come

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This is the year or the rebirth of news coverage in Africa. It’s driven partly by the growth in non-traditional news stories brought about by blogs, but it is also a part of the greater change on the internet that is taking place. More people are getting involved – and the people are in control.

We’re seeing the beginnings of a new wave of websites and a new way of reading news. Here is a basic rundown of the current new offerings that cover news on a pan-African level:

African Path
Joshua Wanyama started African Path at the beginning of the year. He acts as an editor, bringing in stories from the AP and Reuters, filtering them for the most interesting news in Africa. More importantly, African Path has a stable of 38 bloggers who weigh in on issues that are interesting to people in the diaspora and within Africa.

AfricanLoft
AfricanLoft launched in May, just last month. Imnakoya, a well known African blogger living in the US, has put together a website that aggregates African news, African blogs and creates a sense of community. There are areas to upload images and video, as well as a stable 20 bloggers (which I’m sure will grow soon), that also write about Africa-focused issues.

Afrigator
Afrigator, also launched this year, is a blog aggregator for Africa. The Afrigator team informs me that they are tracking close to 800 blogs from 32 countries. Though the number of bloggers, and those who read African blogs, is still small Afrigator represents the beginnings of a new trend. Where African Path and AfricanLoft pay homage to their blogging roots, Afrigator IS the voice of the African blogosphere.

AllAfrica
I can’t leave AllAfrica out of this mix. They have been part of this transformation, and on the forefront of news coverage in Africa for a long time, specifically they aggregate the newspapers from all over the continent. That’s no small task! They have the best connections in this space, I hope that they continue to innovate so that they remain relevant.

Muti
The last piece of the puzzle is a community-based approach to African news. Muti allows anyone who finds an interesting tid-bit of news on Africa to provide a link to it in one centralized place. It’s a filter for “interesting” for both bloggers and news readers alike.

In Summary
I’m excited about the way technologists are stepping up to solve the information gap in Africa. I’m even more interested in seeing how these different entities will evolve through this year. Knowing most of them personally, and knowing the amount of hard work and time they spend on their websites, I’m convinced that continued growth is in order.

[Update: if you feel that I missed a particular site, especially if it's not in English, please let me know. I am burdened with a language barrier called French, so many times those great Francophone websites are missed by me.]

Fahamu and Tactical Tech have joined forces to put on a Mobile Advocacy Workshop in Nairobi. I had the chance to attend the afternoon sessions today, and will be taking part in the Mobile Toolkit Workgroup tomorrow.

The first 3 days were taken up with examples and stories of how mobile technology is being used as an effective tool within NGO’s that have a focus on human rights and social advocacy. A typical question at these sessions would be, ” What do you need to make your work with mobiles more effective?”

A few of the answers:

• Access to service reports (SMS)
• User-friendly software
• Tables with the list of providers that are able to send messages to other providers
• Alternative power (solar power, charging and energy saving techniques)
• A glossary of the technical jargon
• Text-to-voice techniques
• Mobile-to-blog techniques

Tomorrow, just the tech guys will remain and we will discuss what tools and information will be included in the “Mobile Toolkit” so that future programs will have a starting point to reference for their projects. The first three days of hearing what is being done, and what is needed, is critical if a toolkit is to be developed that is both useful and informative. A typical question here would be, “What is the toolkit going to look like?”

A few of the answers:

• It should have a web presence
• It should be a package with a clear guide on how to use it and a navigation system with links to other users
• It should include CDs
• A book (multi language)
• It should be downloadable

While here I’ve had a chance to meet two blog/email acquaintances too, Sokari Ekine of Black Looks and Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net. They’re both experts in their fields, and it’s been great getting to know them on a face-to-face level. Sokari works at Fahamu and has been a social activist for quite some time. She has a particular focus on women’s rights, as can be seen on her blog. Ken Banks is a technologist who developed Frontline SMS, the system used to monitor the Nigerian elections amongst others.

Last week’s interview with the creators of the newest African blog aggregators, “An African Aggregator Roundtable Discussion“, has created quite a discussion on the idea of pan-Africanism online. The comment area has been very active with some pertinent questions being asked and a thought line that should be continued. I wanted to highlight that conversation and invite more people to it.

Is it possible for a website (or web application/platform) become relevant to Africans throughout Africa?

This thought is further stratified when questions of language and intent are brought into the equation, but in short, I think the answer is, “yes”. However, a site can not be relevant Africa-wide if the creator does not realize that everyone is “African” and yet no one is “African”.

One commenter, Concerned African, writes:

Are these aggregators putting politics (pan africanism) before user experience (which would perhaps favour one language one country/region) and it seems as if these aggregators are trying to “catch all” users within Africa because there is not sufficient internet users on the continent. Is this the case?

Specifically in the West, we like to lump everyone together in this large continent as “African”. However, people around Africa see themselves as from a specific country. Just as someone from India doesn’t want to be labeled an “Asian”, so too do Africans want to be recognized and part of a specific country’s community.

So, a platform that serves everyone around Africa is possible, however it needs to have intentional country-specific focus. This could mean that language and local “ownership” are necessary.

Is language too big of a barrier to overcome?
One of the primary thoughts, best articulated by Nino, revolved around the complications that language presents. This resonated particularly loudly with me, since one of his comments linked to 5 other African community websites, of which I had only known 2 of. The fact is, if it’s not English, I only hear about it through someone else emailing or commenting about it – that’s a problem.

Others countries are french-speaking or arabic-speaking, and the fact that the langage isn’t english is a huge barrier. There a many moroccan initiatives, or ivorian, or senegalese, or cameroonian ones and it will be less present in anglophon (or south african) aggregator. You know, only Nigeria and Ghana are anglophon outside southern and eastern africa. all others are quite french-speaking.

Final Thoughts
These are some really interesting thoughts and even more interesting commentary. In the end, we’ll be able to see it proved out through the creators of the websites, web communities and platforms.

Last week I had a chance to sit down and have a conference call (Skype chat) with the technology brains behind the latest buzz in the African blogosphere: The Aggregators.

Justin Hartman (Afrigator), Vincent Maher (Amatomu), Neville Newey (Muti) and Matthew Buckland (Amatomu) got together for a half hour to discuss their creations. Having that much brain power pointed in my direction left me feeling vaguely uncomfortable, but they were all nice enough chaps and didn’t make me feel like a complete tech-peasant, for which I thank them.

Bullet-point takeaways:

• Neville points out that Muti is actually not an aggregator (I apologize)
• Amatomu is positioning itself for the greater non-blogging readership, not just the bloggers
• Afrigator has a plan to grow through a mobile phone strategy
• Justin coins the term “Afrosphere” to describe the African blogosphere
• There is a need to be wary of South African domination of platforms
• Amatomu plans to grow outside of South Africa regionally
• Everyone aggrees that broadband connectivity is hugely important for future growth

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Ethan Zuckerman is the 5th in the African Digerati series of interviews. Honestly, I’m amazed with what Ethan has done with technology and what he continues to do – so much of which directly benefits Africans. His line-up of web projects is simply amazing. What isn’t mentioned here is that he founded Geekcorps, a non-profit technology volunteer corps, that creates real tangible technology change on the African continent. He’s also on my “required reading” list of African bloggers.

Blog and/or website:
Theere’s a few of them. My personal blog is “My Heart’s in Accra”. I’m deeply involved with BlogAfrica and Global Voices, and I’m the chairman of the non-profit that runs Worldchanging.com.

What do you do:
Heh. I take great pride in the fact that I’ve never had a job… which is to say, I try to work on projects that are so much fun to work on that they don’t feel like work. These days, I work on a wide range of projects that focus on technology in developing nations, and my compensation is sometimes monetary, sometimes less tangible. Over a dozen years ago, I would have told you I was a “software architect” – I helped build Tripod.com, one of the first webhosting sites. Nowadays, my job title at Global Voices is “co-founder and big geek”, and my responsibilities include management, fundraising and oversight of our technical architecture.

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A film by Ruud Elmendorp is being featured on Rocketboom. For those who don’t know him, Ruud is a videographer and journalist that works out of Kenya. Below is the video file that has his coverage in it.

Ruud titles this piece, “Big Brother in Kenya”.

So, I wanted to test out AdBrite’s new video player, and this is it. Below is a video on XHTML and why it’s important in web application development. I’m lucky enough to work with TV’s Tom Selleck, so I find this video extremely funny. Chances are, if you’re in the web design world, you’ll find it fascinating, off-color, and funny as well.

Taken from the “Growing and Learning” series, host Dr. Simon Woodstock Giles, and guest, guide viewers on the importance of standards compliance and web accessibility for the modern user.

I decided to give PollDaddy a spin today. It’s a free web-based tool that allows you to build a poll and gives you the code to place it on your website. This article is a test of that service and a review of the tool as I go through it.

Since I’m doing some stuff around the mobile phone industry, I wanted to ask everyone about how they use their phones. Vote below on what you use your phone for:

I’ve got to say that I’m really impressed with PollDaddy. It’s simple to set up a free account and equally simple to set up your polls. The part of the page that you build the answers in is very customizable and intuitive. All you do is double click on any line to start editing it (see image below).

At this point you have the chance to use a custom look for your poll. I had not set this up in advance, so instead I picked one of the pre-made PollDaddy skins. You then copy and paste the code that they generate into your blog. Very simple.

Zefrank runs a daily video blog where he covers interesting news tidbits and shares his thoughts on a wide range of subjects. He’s crazy, off-color and very entertaining. In this episode Zefrank talks about branding.

(If your ears are offended by colorful language, don’t bother with this link.)

Bonus: Here’s Zefrank speaking at TED.