*iHub_ Research. Refugees United iHub Research and RU have crafted an exciting research project based around assessing RU's mobile WAP tool as well as the processes surrounding the use of the tool.
Refugees United ... SPIDER M-Governance The Governance project launched in September 2011 and is an attempt to address the fact that the Kenyan government has been slow in providing adequate and quality services to its ... ICT Hubs (in-house) iHub Research is initiating a research series that will disaggregate the unique factors that make up ICT hubs in Africa (Afrilabs). Infographics (Ongoing) graphic visual displays of information, data or knowledge, so far, iHub Research has created infographics for Mobile... Mobile at the Base of the Pyramid Globally, there are 2.5 billion people who live on less than $2.50 a day (Kshs208.2). Internews Ghana Internews Nigeria Internews Kenya Refugees United. Africa has the fastest growing middle class in the world. The numbers are compelling: Africa’s population explosion has seen its middle class population triple over the last three decades, to a whopping 313m people.
In the report, The rise and rise of Africa’s middle class, Deloitte forecasts that the African middle class population will swell from 34.3% to 42% of the continent’s population by 2060. The report reveals that the African middle class is roughly the same size as the middle class populations of India and China. With at least 75% of their populations classified as middle class – defined as those spending between $2 and $20 per day – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Gabon have the highest concentration of middle class among their populations. Tunisia tops the list, with a middle class that makes up 90% of its population. Africa: Development Aid in a Changing World. The World Bank’s fund for the poorest, IDA, was created more than 50 years ago to meet an urgent need—to make sure the world’s most vulnerable have a real chance at a decent life.
A lot has happened since then. With IDA’s help, hundreds of millions of people have escaped the vicious cycle of abject poverty—through the creation of jobs, access to clean water, food security, schools, roads, electricity. Blogs » Lynne Featherstone. Here’s my article for Liberal Democrat News about my recent trip to Africa: I’ve recently returned to London from a visit of firsts: my first trip to Africa in my new role as Africa Minister in the Department for International Development – the first Liberal Democrat to hold any position in DFID, of which I’m incredibly honoured.
I travelled to South Sudan, the newest country in the world after gaining independence from Sudan in July 2011. NSN aims to make 1GB a day at $1 a day profitable for operators. By BiztechAfrica - Nov. 8, 2012, 2:30 p.m.
Image: NSN’s Karri Kuoppamaki and Rufus Andrew. By BiztechAfrica With mobile data demand expected to top 1GB a day per user by the end of the decade, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) says it is focusing on enabling operators to deliver this profitably. Rufus Andrew, MD of NSN SA, said at a media briefing in Johannesburg, South Africa, today that the company now focused its strategy on mobile broadband coupled with optical networks and customer experience management (CEM) “This is a sustainable strategy for us,” he said, “and now our competitors are all doing the same.” Technology a pathway out of poverty. Social media and access to information and communication technology is a pathway out of poverty, according to new research.
By Adam Cooke. Jean Louis Thomas of Haiti writes a text message to a friend. Many people living on less than $2/day already have access to a mobile phone. Euro-African Cooperation on ICT Research. Welcome - Africa Open Data. African Green Revolution Forum 2012: technology for food security. Food Security, according to the World Food Summit of 1996, exists “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”.
This definition takes into account both physical and economic access, availability and use of food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences. In Europe and North America, people are increasingly becoming socially conscious to eat ethical – most times opting for “clean” pesticide-free food. In sub-Sahara Africa, however, where the food imports of most countries far outweigh local production levels, the ‘luxury’ of choosing what to eat is yet to gain momentum as people would rather dream of sufficiency in food availability. The introduction of appropriate water management systems to use as irrigation, increasing use of fertilizers and improved seeds and preserving natural resources are critical to securing a greener Africa, said Prof. Www.agrforum. Open Data for Africa. Open data has the potential to take African development to new levels of success.
The time has come for every African nation to provide the opportunity for citizens to understand more about their world. African governments have withheld information for too long. Honest data, even if it shows negative trends, is better than concealed data. Informed discussion between all levels of society is important. Truly sustainable development (which Africa greatly needs) simply isn’t possible without accurate data and targeted community involvement. Spotlight on Africa - Mobile Statistics & Facts 2012. Africa: Fresh Blood for the Horn of Africa, but Can New Leaders Fix Old Problems? Johannesburg — You wait ages for a new leader in the Horn of Africa, and then two of them come along at once.
SIMON ALLISON reports on Ethiopia's new prime minister and Somalia's new president, and the daunting challenges faced by both. The Horn of Africa is a generally known as a region where leaders can settle down and make themselves comfortable in power. Social media for empowerment – a guide for African climate change workers. The social media guide for African climate change practitioners After a couple of months of hard collective work on it, and after several other months of to-ing an fro-ing between AfricaAdapt and ILRI, the Social media guide for climate change practitioners in Africa is finally OUT!
The final version of the guide as a PDF doc is only 10 pages long (about 2000 words) and an easy reference for anyone not all too sure what social media are and how they can be used for climate change (and other) work.The complete version of the guide, as a wiki, is more comprehensive and is the object of this blog, as it really emphasises ways that social media can empower people, in this case particularly African climate change workers. Social media can indeed be an incredibly powerful way to mitigate imbalances between groups by pooling resources together – when the wisdom of the crowd turns into the power of the crowd. What the social media guide offers, altogether. Seven ways mobile phones have changed lives in Africa.
Mobile phone technology has grown significantly over the past decadeNigeria has close to 100M mobile phone lines, making it Africa's largest telecoms marketWe look at ways that mobile phones have changed lives in Africa Mobile phones have become an essential part of our everyday life.
Through a special month-long series, "Our Mobile Society," we examine how phones and tablets are changing the way we live. Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- A little over a decade ago there were about 100,000 phone lines in Nigeria, mostly landlines run by the state-owned telecoms behemoth, NITEL. Today NITEL is dead, and Nigeria has close to 100 million mobile phone lines, making it Africa's largest telecoms market, according to statistics by the Nigerian Communications Commission. Across the rest of the continent the trends are similar: between 2000 and 2010, Kenyan mobile phone firm Safaricom saw its subscriber base increase in excess of 500-fold.
Redirecting to New Agriculturist article - - rss. Socialmediaguideafrica.wikispaces. Internet Society Chapters Webcasting. Africa's Talking brings cell phone applications to Africa. Rwanda Map of Financial Inclusion. Download the Data The Rwanda Financial Map of Financial Inclusion investigates the landscape for financial services providers in Rwanda to provide insight into access to finance and financial inclusion within Rwanda.
The site provides locations of bank branches, microfinance institutions, Umurenge SACCOs and mobile banking agents. For more on this dataset, please see our blog post. Quick Hits Around African Tech: July 2012. Africa: Clinton Should Urge Leaders to Address Abuse. (Washington, DC) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her trip to Africa should promote freedom of expression and association and encourage countries to address police and security force abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a public letter today. Secretary Clinton is scheduled to visit Senegal, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and South Africa between July 31 and August 10, 2012. “While some of the countries on Secretary Clinton’s agenda engage in serious human rights violations, others have made notable progress in promoting transparency and accountability,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
In Rural Developing Regions, Free Software Turns Simple Mobile Phones into Tools of Advancement. A simple open-source telephony platform is bringing communications networks to developing nations where literacy is low and Internet access limited. Freedom Fone is free software that enables organizations to create voice-activated communications networks. In regions where simple mobile phones are more common than toilets, let alone Internet access, Freedom Fone can be used to access, share and report information. In one compelling example that caught the attention of a World Bank blogger, it allowed women in the Congo "...to anonymously access pre-recorded information regarding sexual assaults such as their legal rights and health with a function to request call back.
" Africans and Latin Americans Discuss Capacity Development. IICD's training partners from Africa and South America came together for a writeshop at IICD’s office to discuss capacity building. Startup Weekend enables companies to be created in 54 hours – even in Africa. The Startup Weekend premise is simple: Create communities and build companies in a single weekend (54 hours). The global results are impressive: 468 events completed, 190 more planned, 5,005 startups created, and 45,000 entrepreneurs in attendance. Africa: Social Media Skills for African Youth With Disabilities. Africa Roundtable at OfficeXpats on 6 July, 2012. Africa: Roadmap Might End Bottlenecks in Sustainable Technology.
Investor network comes together to launch African ventures. ICT training for physically challenged. The Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has charged public and private institutions to stop discriminating against persons with disability (PWDs) in the engagement of workers, indicating that such discrimination is “illegal, immoral and unacceptable”. Tambalina.com – La première plateforme de financement de projet TIC en Afrique. – Afrique IT News. Sénégal Le crowdfunding ou financement communautaire, c’est avant tout une nouvelle source de financement. A mi-chemin entre le micro-crédit et le capital-risque, le crowdfunding rassemble et fédère une communauté d’investisseurs -the crowd (le groupe) - autour d’un projet, d’une entreprise ou d’une cause pour en assurer le financement.
Le crowdfunding vient répondre à des besoins de capitaux allant de quelques milliers à plusieurs centaines de millions de francs CFA. Vu les difficultés que rencontrent les porteurs de projets Africains à trouver des financements leur permettant de ‘lancer’ leurs entreprises, le crowdfunding apparaît comme une solution taillée pour le marché africain. Sub-Saharan Africa economic growth remains robust – World Bank. How Africa is embracing “the cloud” on its own terms. You’re probably one of the lucky people. You live within the coverage zone of a 3G or 4G cellular network, you have access to Internet at home and work over a connection measured in tens of megabits per second, and when you turn on your laptop (or your tablet, or your smartphone) you can see three, four, or twenty nearby WiFi networks.
How not to write about Africa; parents like conditions; see inequality from space; growth stars; financial arms races; Rio+20 draft text; Family Planning Summit: links I liked. EMEA Reporter: Spotlight on Africa by Nic Laycock. Why we need vocational education - The Answer Sheet. Africa’s top innovators commit to firm path forward. Nigerian banker urges a businesslike approach to poverty in Africa. Report on eLearning Africa 2012 in Benin. Updates from the Field. African nations embrace e-learning, says new report. Africa Day dawns on new, connected continent. Eskimi Rapidly Spreading Across African Feature Phones. eLearning Africa 2012 / International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training. An Annual Event for Building eLearning Capacities in Africa. Analogue Digital - Uncovering Global Cultures of Technology. Where to invest in Africa. East Africa: Using technology to counter floods.
World Economic Forum 2011. World Economic Forum - World Economic Forum on Africa 2012. Mobile money in Africa: Press 1 for modernity. Fondos de inversión y gobiernos ya han comprado el 4,8% de la superficie agrícola de África. New_high_speed_UbuntuNet_link. Mobile Convention Amsterdam. Big shifts and what they mean for Africa and Kenya. Mobile as media – Why it will change everything about marketing in Kenya, and the rest of Africa.
African Conference on Measuring Well-Being and Fostering the Progress of Societies. More Support Needed for Climate Change Adaptation in Africa, says Workshop - UNEP. Our biggest development challenge. East Africa Philanthropy Awards (EAPA) 2012 – Apply Today. Africa Rural Connect. In Sudan, a new strategy to censor the press. Can Coffee Kick-Start an Economy? April Events: Join a Mobile Discussion! OER Africa. Africa: International Radio Astronomy Project to Benefit Africa. The hardest hardcore is Angolan hardcore. IBM Smarter Cities Challenge – Africa Winners – Accra, Nairobi, Rabat and Tshwane. Telecoms and ICT Training. Ned Breslin: Few Celebrating MDG Success in Water. Top Ten African mobile apps.
African voices respond to hyper-popular Kony 2012 viral campaign. ICT Projects in Africa. African Apps Gain Global Recognition. Mobile Trends 2020 Africa.