Mac-Jordan Degadjor's Blog

  The East Africa edition of the All Amber organized mobile technology conferences, Mobile Web East Africa 2012, is set to take place in Nairobi on the 22nd and 23rd of this month. The conference is supported by Kenya’s *iHub and m:lab East Africa. The conference is organized by UK based company All Amber and focuses on facilitating the growth of the mobile ecosystem in the region through interaction and relationship building. Mobile Web East Africa is going to be an action packed, [...]

Yesterday during lunch at the Pizza Inn on the Ngong Road by the Uchumi Supermarket, the question about the number of Ghanaians on Facebook came up again after it was reported that, Ghana is the least country that uses the micro-blogging platform – Twitter.

On February 12th, I left Accra en-route to Nairobi to work on a project by Blogging Ghana – #BLOGH on Ethiopian Airways with a 3hr lay-over in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We touched down at Bole International Airport (formerly known as Haile Selassie I International Airport) at approximately 20:45 GMT+1 local time. Arrival: I was very impressed with the clean nature of the airport and how the security guards were available to assist with any questions ranging from transfers/transits to baggage [...]

Most people these days  think the social networking tool – Twitter is an American or European phenomenon, but you’ll be surprised how heavily it is been used on the African continent based on research findings by Portland Communications and Tweetminster from the last three (October, November & December) months of 2011. Twitter map: how Africa tweets Young people tweeting from mobile devices are driving the growth of Twitter in Africa. This pan-African analysis of Twitter traffic was complemented by a [...]

While researching towards this article, I couldn’t use any quote to support my opening than borrowing this from the BBC: “Democracy does not begin and end with the ballot box” I vividly remember how the socio-political and economic grievances in Tunisia forced the computer science graduate- turned-fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi to set himself ablaze on Dec 17, 2010 which sparked the Arab Spring. On Jan. 14, just 10 days after Bouazizi died President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali‘s 23-year rule [...]

Who is going to lead the world in 20 years? What would have happened if established global leaders met not only when they were in their 50s, but already when they were in their 20s? While many eyes are on the WEF in Davos next week, Sandbox, the foremost global network of exceptional innovators under 30 already this weekend (from 20 to 22 January) gathered 200 high-profile members from 32 countries in Europe’s City of the Year. The goal of the [...]

Mocality – a business directory start-up by Stefan Magdalinski with a Kenyan-wide coverage accuses search-engine giant; Google of antitrust-style behavior with its Google+ search integration. You should read Mocality’s blog post about the situation in full, but below is a summary: As we all know, there are no Kenyan Yellow pages, so the business directory from Mocality was crowd-sourced; paying over Ksh. 11m (over $100,000) to thousands of Kenyans to help create and validate its database of business & ventures in [...]

Re-blog from How We Made It In Africa From “the hopeless continent” to “Africa rising” – how The Economist made a U-turn on Africa. In May 2000, respected magazine The Economist on its cover called Africa “the hopeless continent”. One of the articles painted a picture of a continent ravaged by war, famine and disease. “Floods in Mozambique; threats of famine in Ethiopia (again); mass murder in Uganda; the implosion of Sierra Leone; and a string of wars across the [...]

Nokia has stated it has a broad portfolio of mobile devices specifically targeted at the African market for its African market. Blanca Juti Nokia’s Vice President Product Marketing Mobile Phones made this known during the just concluded Nokia World conference held in London. According to her, Nokia acknowledges that even though most people in the continent have the aspiration and the need to communicate, not everyone can afford a supper high phone that is why the company has designed a [...]

From 28th – 30th Oct, 2011 I shall be working together with Magnus Gameli Adzaho & Jo Webber on the Kuyu Digital Project; a digital literacy program introducing a group of high school students in Keta Secondary School and other surrounding schools in the Anlo District to: Basic Information & Communication Technology Skills (ICT4D) Emailing & Social Networking Engaging in Social Media positively and Video Reporting (Citizen Journalism) The key to successful implementation of digital technology in our society and [...]

From October 6 – 8, 2011; Inventors, Developer, Makers, Idealist, Entrepreneurs and Bloggers will meet-up on the campus of American University in Cairo for Maker Faire Africa 2011 under the hash-tag: #MFA11. As was the case in Accra, Ghana (‘09) and Nairobi, Kenya (’10); MFA 2011 will present and spotlight the vibrant & endless creative individuals that have come to represent the spirit of ‘making’ throughout our dear continent. According to Emeka Okafor; these innovators, artists and tinkerers will be [...]

World’s leading mobile manufacturer, Nokia is living up to its promise to connect the next billion to the internet using its platform, the Nokia phone. One of the moves is to push for the development of quality applications for their S40 mobile platform. And Nokia is doing just that. About Create 4 Millions Contest Reflecting Nokia’s stated strategy to deliver mobile phones and services for the next billion, there will also be a tremendous need to offer outstanding apps for [...]