south africa – Page 5

Tag: south africa (page 5 of 6)

African Meetups, Barcamps and Conferences

Things are definitely heating up in the African tech sphere according to my calendar of African tech events (Events RSS feed) for the remainder of the year. From Madagascar to Mauritius there are unconferences, conferences and adhoc meetups happening at a rate I haven’t seen before. The African tech scene is definitely getting bigger and noisier.

In the next two weeks we have 8 events covering 6 countries:

Barcamp Madagascar
** Skunkworks@Innovation – Nairobi, Kenya
Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation – Nigeria
* Barcamp Africa – Googleplex, USA
** Barcamp Johannesburg – South Africa
** MobileActive ’08 – Johannesburg, South Africa
Capacity – Capetown, South Africa
Facebook Developers Garage – Kampala, Uganda

** I’ll be attending these
* I will stream in live to Barcamp Africa with the South Africans, but it’s also open in Kenya and Ghana.

On top of these scheduled conferences and unconferences, there are many meetups happening all over the place – from the monthly 27Dinner in cities around South Africa to the bi-monthly Skunkworks meetings in Kenya.

Africa’s a happening place – just watch!

[As always, if you know of an upcoming African tech event, let me know and I’ll add it to the calendar]

South Africa – FOSS4G

September 29, 2008 / HASH / Comments Off

South Africa – Human Choice and Computers (HCC8)

September 25, 2008 / HASH / Comments Off

Zoopy: From Strength to Strength

September 16, 2008 / HASH / 1 Comment

If you follow a lot of web startups, you see that many have a hard time reaching critical mass. Even more have a hard time staying in business, so “time alive” becomes an important measuring stick. Zoopy, a web video hosting site, has gone from strength-to-strength ever since they first launched in two years ago. They have done this by working very hard, and by focusing on their niche: South Africa.

Zoopy Upgrades

A recent investment partnership by Vodacom put them in a position to announce some major new upgrades this week.

Local South Africa hosting – This allows for much faster speeds, particularly important when dealing with video and images.
Doubled file sizes – Users can now upload 200Mb files, as opposed to the old 100Mb limit.
A new video player – A spiffed up and much more usable video player.

The Importance of Being Local

I’m particularly impressed with the move to local servers for their content. Besides local goodwill issues, South Africans are very patriotic and like to see stuff succeed in-country. International hosting is cheaper, but the user experience is eroded due to lag. However, as Jason mentions in a comment,

“The biggest question here for us was: how could we afford NOT to move in this direction for the South African online community at Zoopy? Our users deserve more, and weâ€™re happy to deliver.”

Right now, Jason Elk and some of the Zoopy team are in New York at the Web 2.0 Expo, measuring their product against the competition, and learning from their peers.

I’m a big fan of Zoopy, enough so that we’ve moved to Zoopy as AfriGadget’s video hosting site as of this Summer. Congrats guys, and keep up the great work!

The DIY Wireless Mesh Guide for Africa

July 31, 2008 / HASH / 9 Comments

Spurred on by a question from a reader about successful implementation of wireless mesh networks in Africa, I started to do a little digging. The appeal of wireless meshes is especially high in very remote and unconnected areas of Africa, primarily because it allows simple (though limited) connectivity where it wasn’t available before.

A good example of a deployment in Africa, and the reasons behind it, is Wireless Africa’s Mpumulanga deployment in South Africa. Here they answer, “what problem is being addressed?“:

“The main thrust is to connect the clinic to its community hospice and thus allow them to extend their computer facilities to the hospice (practise management software and statistics gathering). This is most easily achieved through a wireless network and more specifically a mesh because of the terrain.

A mesh network requires a number of nodes in areas not owned by the clinic but that are part of the commuity: schools and farmers. The main thrust of the research question is to implement the network in such a way that the firstly the clinic and secondly the community have taken ownership of the network. That they have created systems that ensure that the infrastructure is maintained and expanded by the users of the network.”

A DIY Wireless Mesh Guide (3.2Mb PDF) based on Freifunk was put out by Wireless Africa late last year.

Looking for More Success Stories

I’m still looking for cases of successful wireless mesh networks in Africa. If you have heard of one, please comment below, or use the contact form.

I realize that there have been some larger, industrial strength, deployments by the likes of KDN in Kenya with their Butterfly Network (though I haven’t heard to many stories of people actually getting online with it). But what I’m more interested in right now is examples of use in the more rural areas of Africa.

More Resources:

Wireless Lab Website
Open Mesh – open source mesh
Meraki Mesh – business solution
Mesh Dynamics
Wire.Less.DK
Older, but good, conversation on O’Reilly Net
MIT’s Roofnet

Kenya 31, South Africa 12 (Safari Sevens)

June 22, 2008 / HASH / 3 Comments

What a great “day off”! The Tusker Safari Sevens was such a fun way to spend a Sunday. Taking sports photographs is one of my favorite things, and rugby is the best sport to do it in – so much action. I ended up wandering around like a press photographer, even climbing up the tower to get some unique views.

It’s the “Tusker” Safari Sevens, but I guess they don’t sponsor it well enough to also sponsor the team – they are sponsored by Virgin. In fact, I hear that it might not be called the Tusker Safari Sevens that much longer – too bad. I like that name, Kenyan beer and an internationally recognized Kenyan tournament, it’ll be sad to see it go.

This year brought in the world champion 7’s team from Fiji, as well as the French team. The emerging ‘Boks (South Africa’s team) were there as well, and they’ve won the last 3 years. Kenya ended up having to beat Fiji (which rumor says, each player would get 50,000/= shillings if they did).

Kenya won narrow, and hard fought, games against Fiji and Zimbabwe to get to the final. Meanwhile, the Emerging Boks smeared their competition on their way to meet Kenya. Honestly, I thought Kenya would have a hard time in this game. Instead, they blew the doors off with 2 quick tries, and never looked back as they won 31-12.

Of course, the crowd was rowdy as ever, singing familiar Kenyan rugby chants and getting drunker by the hour. Prime Minister Raila Odinga showed up mid-afternoon, to much fan fair and noise – a politically savvy move. All in all, it was a fabulously good time that I hope to see again next year.

(Note: I took over 1000 pictures, a couple dozen can be found here)

I’ve finally been able to upload some video, you can find more on my YouTube channel. Here is a shot of the last try by Kenya vs South Africa:

Apparently, Ugandan’s Like to Drink

June 14, 2008 / HASH / 5 Comments

Nigeria places a distant second, while 2 more Central/East African countries are heavily in their drink too (Rwanda and Burundi). Can’t say I know why there’s such an abundance of pombe in that region…

That’s from a neat data visualization tool called Many Eyes. Again showing the importance of data visualization for understanding large amounts of data easily.

I read, or heard, someone say that data visualizations are there, “to help the ignorant understand complex issues”. That’s about as accurate as it gets. Not ignorant in a bad way, but not everyone can be a statistician, a specific field specialist, or have the time to crunch numbers.

A bonus visualization showing mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people throughout sub-Saharan Africa:

(hat tip Ethan)

Upcoming Technology Events Throughout Africa

June 13, 2008 / HASH / 14 Comments

I’m starting to compile a list of interesting technology events happening around the continent. If this ends up being useful, I’ll create a page to keep it updated. Let me know if you like it, or if there is someone already keeping a calender of sorts.

African Technology Events 2008

Upcoming events to watch (chronological):

West & Central Africom – “The premier meeting place for communications decision-makers to discuss the key issues facing the market.”
Dates: June 18-19, 2008
Location: Abuja Int’l Conference Center in Abuja, Nigeria

Barcamp Nairobi ’08 – A local “unconference” for Kenyan techies, web designers and bloggers. (disclosure: I’m part of this)
Dates: June 21, 2008
Location: Jacaranda Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya

APPFRICA – a new technology conference and thinktank.
Dates: July 31, 2008
Location: Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda

WordCamp SA – For all bloggers in and around South Africa.
Dates: August 23, 2008
Location: TBD, in Cape Town, South Africa

Barcamp Kampala – Another unconference pops up for Uganda – looking forward to hearing about this one.
Dates: August 29, 2008
Location: TBD, Kampala, Uganda

MobileActive ’08 – A conference on mobile technology for social impact.
Dates: October 13-15, 2008
Location: TBD in Johannesburg, South Africa

[If you have a good tech conference coming up, let me know.]

iPhone Conquest Turns to Africa

June 10, 2008 / HASH / 12 Comments

Above is the map of the, “iPhone conquest of the world” shown at Apple’s WWDC keynote today. 15 African nations are getting in on the game now that is is 3G and more affordable. Honestly, I wonder how many of the local networks can handle the data load, but that’s another conversation. Orange will be the carrier for Africa (as well as the Middle East and Europe).

The iPhone will be released in many countries on July 11th. However, the full index of countries, including all of the African nations (save South Africa), won’t see the iPhone until later in the year.

iPhones in Africa - Country List

The 15 countries are:

Botswana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, South Africa.

The iPhone in Africa. Really?
Many people will say that the iPhone will never be of any consequence in Africa. Possibly true. Outside of Egypt and South Africa, the number of people who can afford post-paid data plans are fairly limited. The second problem is the data networks themselves, many of them aren’t ready for the stress that iPhone users will apply (as AT&T wasn’t in the US).

I reserve judgment. Blackberry’s, N95s and other smart phones can be made to work in Africa quite well. However, I don’t think what we’re seeing is “just another smart phone”. It’s a new operating system that changes the paradigm of the mobile phone/web. (I think Android is similar in many ways too – just more open).

What will happen is those who can afford the iPhone and the requisite post-paid plan will rush out and buy it. The data networks will become stronger to support it, and local developers will start building for apps (not to mention the secondary and tertiary applications and APIs that are needed).

Years from now, when the idea of the mobile web isn’t so flashy and unknown in Africa, we’ll look back and say our thanks to the iPhone as one of the catalysts that pushed development forward.

Gruber gets it right:

“The physical phone is not the story. A year from now, the iPhone 3G will be replaced by another new model. The platform is the story. Platforms have staying power, and, once entrenched, are very hard to displace.”

[image courtesy of Engadget, and full notes from keynote. Full video on Apple.com]

Quick Hits: Ushahidi and African Mobile Posts

May 28, 2008 / HASH / 3 Comments

We’re at the NetSquared conference (day 2) still, where we’ll learn the verdict of the voters on whether or not we win. So, cross your fingers! Here’s an interview done of me (short). I actually was laughing at myself since it looks like I’m talking into a fish-eye lense.

Short interview at NetSquared of me. I’ll add the one of David when it is posted.(video)

Ushahidi covered on the TED Blog

The Ushahidi team at N2Y3
(image by Manny Hernandez founder of Tudiabetes
and Estudiabetes, two communities for people
touched by diabetes. On the right is Vam Makam, our new friend and local expert from Adobe.)

After the NetSquared event last night, David and I took off for the WordPress party where we met up with Matt Mullenweg, creator of WordPress.

Mobile Phone Posts
One of my favorite bloggers has written a piece on South African mobile banking options.

A write up by Katrin of Mobile Active on the “Say no to Xenophobia” campaign being run by Cell-Life in South Africa. I hope their campaign starts coordinating with the United for Africa campaign soon, it only makes sense.

Jan Chipchase on, “Understanding Non-Literacy as a Barrier to Mobile Phone Communication“, part of a larger publication.

WhiteAfrican

Where Africa and Technology Collide!

Tag: south africa (page 5 of 6)

South Africa – FOSS4G

South Africa – Human Choice and Computers (HCC8)