AfricaKnows is a new project by TED Fellows Josh Wanyama and Sheila Ochugboju. Their job: to tell a different story of Africa, through big pictures that let you see directly into the heart of African cities.

“Africa Knows is about the challenges, triumphs, dreams and nightmares of being an African in a 21st century city that is straddling several revolutions at the same time; the technological revolution, the agricultural revolution, a democratic resurgence and a post-colonial identity crisis complicated by old ethnic tensions.”

If you like an image that you see, you can buy a print or a card of it.

Sourcing

I talked with Josh and Sheila about the site this last week. Right now they get the majority of images by taking them themselves and from other African photographer friends who have good shots of their locale. One of my first suggestions to them was that it would be wonderful if there was a submission page for others to add images in easily. The curating of what shows up on the site would need to be maintained.

There are two reasons why AfricaKnows is a good site:

Quality
So far, the images on the site are pretty good. They’re not all “professional” quality images, but they’re much better than average. A purely open site where anyone could dump images (a la Flickr) wouldn’t work as the noise would quickly outdo the signal, so quality is important.

reality
The reality of the images is the second big reason, it’s why I care to visit and get the feed. If I want to see what the world thinks of Africa I’ll go to a newspaper. If I want to see how Africans view Africa, I’ll go to AfricaKnows.

Suggestions

As mentioned earlier, there are others who have good quality shots that would be worth the team looking at. A simple submission form that allowed for me to send in images whenever I took one would be useful – for both me and the editing team.

There’s a real possibility of taking this platform further, making it into a place that is focused on African images and highlights African photographers across the continent. I’d be interested in seeing some images from Teddy Ruge (Uganda) and Nana Kofi Acquah (Ghana) on the site, among others. This could be done by first just allowing them to showcase some of their best images, linking to them and putting contact information on the site (giving them a page).

If others are sending in pictures, then there needs to be a clearly outlined understanding of image rights and ownership.

Lastly, we live in a social web with social lives. There should be the ability to embed the image on another site. Images for this post I had to download (bypassing the javascript security features), and upload into it, which is way to much work for most people. Sharing matters, as it’s how people get found in our digital age. You have to learn to let go – of at least the lower res images. Plus, removing that security will allow more Google image search juice to send more traffic.

I’m also doing some work on the “FLAP Bag Project“, testing out modular, solar and light-equipped bags in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda with Timbuk2, Portable Light and Pop!Tech.

We’ve got a big release of Ushahidi coming up this week too, so keep an eye on the Ushahidi blog where I have another write-up coming.

I’m a big fan of infographics, visualization tools that help us understand something faster than reading a long-winded explanation or a spreadsheet of data. It’s disappointed to see how Africa is usually missing from the global ones – especially in relation to technology.

I call this “Africa blindness”.

Luke Wertz linked one to me earlier today from the New Scientist on Twitter saying, “Notice anything missing from this image? Oh yea, the ENTIRE continent of Africa.”:

It’s a good graphic, really well designed and it does gets a point across. However, it’s missing two continents: Africa and Australia. Thank goodness, we’re not just dealing with Africa-blindness, but Oz-blindess too.

Here’s another great technology infographic, this time by XKCD where he’s showing the IPv4 space (that’s how you get an IP address). Note the glaringly obvious fact that the entire continent of Africa has the same-sized IP allocation as the likes of Apple and half as much as Japan.

Is there a case for Africa Blindness in tech?

A part of me can understand how a graphic designer sitting in the US or Europe, tasked with creating a graphic, would bypass Africa. After all, if you’re not from the continent, you surely don’t think of it as having much relevance in the high-tech world. On top of that, it’s not always easy to find web and mobile data in Africa as it is in the rest of the world. The first is an issue of education and media focus. The second is far more serious of a problem.

You’d think that finding aggregate information on tech in Africa would be fairly easy to find. It’s not, at least not for free like it is for much of the rest of the world. If anyone should know this, it’s me. After all, this is what I spend a great deal of time tracking…

WhiteAfrican and Kiwanja at PopTech 2008, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.

Having a tourist picture moment with Ken Banks of Kiwanja in Camden, Maine right before the Pop!Tech conference begins next week. We’re both Pop!Tech Fellows this year, which is turning out to be way more fun than we ever imagined.

(Note Ken Banks goofing off as usual…)

This reflection is in the door to the Camden Opera House, where the event will take place next week.

Here I am hanging out with Andrew Zolli, the curator of Pop!Tech, at the Zoot coffee shop. We spent way to much time talking camera lenses and then running around the area taking pictures. Fun times!

Instead, here’s a picture of me spending time with old friends and enjoying the analog life.

Thank God for lifelong friends.

Oh, and no thanks to Saints for the Prescott news…

Barcamp Nairobi ‘08 pictures can be found on Flickr using the search tag, “barcampnairobi“.

My images are going up on this set.

Below, NY Times journalist G. Pascal Zachary, showed up and we had a great chat on the local tech makeup, opportunities and economy. Steve Mutinda tells his story of making mobile phone applications.

Meg Whitman, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.

Meg Whitman spoke at the eBay Live keynote last night. As always, I worked my way up to the front row so I could get some decent pictures. This one in particular really stuck out to me.

Meg has been at the helm of eBay for so long now that she is a cultural icon – not just at eBay, but on the web as a whole. She has steered the largest eCommerce site in the world from one success to another for 9 years now.

Many of the African bloggers here had lunch together, and that was enjoyable, just to see so many faces that I had only known virtually, sitting down all in one place together.

The “Tales of Invention” session, which I did my talk in, was really outstanding. The speakers were engaging and really reminded everyone of the great opportunities and innovation seen around Africa. Bola Olabisi, started off with a stirring talk of her work showcasing women inventors in Africa and around the world.

I was fortunate to be sitting next to the final speaker of the innovation session, Dr. Seyi Oyesola. Talk about a dynamic and talented individual! His talk about reaching back into Nigeria to do open heart surgery in abysmal conditions moved everyone. He then finished, showcasing CompactOR – which, by it’s name, you can tell is a very compact and complete operating room in a small trolley.

Though tales of invention was my favorite due to its focus on technology, the last session of the day was much more moving. “The Campfire” showcased story tellers. Franco Saachi gave a great overview of “Nollywood”, Nigeria’s movie empire, the third largest in the world with over 2000 films released each year. Look for the documentary soon.

Writers Chris Abani and Binyavanga Wainaina were the final speaker. Wow! These guys are storytellers for good reason. Chris Abani gave a soul stirring talk about

William Kamkwamba was 14 when he found a tattered old book that taught how to build a windmill. This was a big deal, seeing as his small village in Malawi had no electricity. The generator, made from old bicycle parts and PVC piping powers his families lights and radios. (original coverage on AfriGadget with images)

Moussa Keita is staying at my hotel, so I’ve had the pleasure of spending a good deal of time with him. Moussa worked with Geekcorps on a project building a CanTV in Mali. (see original coverage on Geekcorps, and watch the video)

(more images of TEDGlobal on Flickr)

Among those present were bloggers Steve Mugiri from the Ntwiga blog, Juliana from Afromusing, Daudi Were from Mental Acrobatics. Riyaz Bachani, who organizes Skunkworks and the last BarCamp Kenya with Josiah Mugambi also came.

We had a great time over drinks and some Nyama Choma (beef and goat). A couple of us are off to a nearby orphanage today, then off to TED tomorrow.

Here’s a few pictures: