The last couple days has seen the launch of 3 new websites from established African bloggers and developers. Impressive work to say the least!
A website dedicated to positive discourse on the Kenyan conflict. From the mind of David Kobia, part of Ushahidi and behind the now-closed Mashada forums. David showed it to me on launch as a prototype late last week, it’s amazing to see that it already has poems, thoughts and prayers from Kenyans all over the world.
Don’t tell him, but I think he’s just having fun with his newfound love of map mashups… 🙂
Nudjit
A high-tech gadget blog from some well-established South African bloggers (Justin Hartman, Gregor Rohrig, and Nic Haralambous). I’m a gadget guy, so I’ve already added it to the reader and to AfriGadget’s blogroll.
“The site aims to inform, entertain, and alert South Africans about the gadgets that are available to us. Our gadget reviews don’t just highlight the technical aspects but will also judge how well they work, where one can get them, and if our local technology infrastructure can actually support these electronic toys.”
Kabissa
Kabissa.org has launched their brand spanking new website. Kabissa is a social tool for African civil society organizations. What does that mean? Well, it’s a social networking tool for African organizations focused on social change in Africa.
This is another site created by individuals who are well-respected within the African digital scene, Tobias Eigen and Sokari Ekine.
February 6, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Thanks for helping spread the word about the new Kabissa website! I also saw the nudjit and iHaveNoTribe.com sites come online this week. I was deeply moved when I heard about the iHaveNoTribe.com site on National Public Radio of all places. I lived in Kenya for two very formative years of my life and am deeply depressed by the daily reports of violence there. So hearing about this new site and the spirit of unity behind it is very heartwarming and encouraging. I promptly went online and spent some quality time reading the comments, poetry and prayers – well worth the read. Then I blogged about it! 🙂
There were alot of people involved in developing the Kabissa online community site over the last few years, including our friends at Open Labs and CiviCRM.
The site is far from ready for prime time, though certain aspects – like the new blog at http://www.kabissa.org/blog – seem to be working very well already and already are being picked up by other bloggers.
It will be very interesting to see what happens as people working for Kabissa member organizations start logging in and realize that they can blog there about issues dear to them. Our goal is to encourage horizontal linkages between organizations. Hopefully the blog will encourage conversations to start.
Beyond the blog, we are still finding many bugs in all areas, and working hard to squish them as we find them.
We’d welcome African Web 2.0 geeks to get involved to help us identify bugs and to help out with some of the work, like creating cool icons, integrating Google maps into civicrm, and solving tricky Drupal theming puzzles.
See http://www.kabissa.org/about/news/welcome-kabissa-2-0 for details about how to submit bugs and join our Kabissa Web Google Group.
Cheers,
Tobias
February 8, 2008 at 1:08 am
Thanks for sharing that. Had I not visited this site I never would have heard of Kabisa so thanks for introducing me to that, the blog is now added to my Google homepage.
I have no tribe is just a beautiful initiative as far as I am concerned. It was truly amazing the levels of venom and hatred that were spewed on the Mashada forums and the way David reacted pretty much showed why his is the best website in Kenya.
February 10, 2008 at 9:24 am
intersting sites. Thanks for sharing!