Erik Hersman asks us to shed outdated notions of Africa as a unified place plagued by starvation and war. Between mobile phone innovations like M-PESA, social networking like MXit and entrepreneurial spaces like Maker Faire Africa, Hersman sees innovation and entrepreneurship exploding within some of Africa’s—and the world’s—fastest growing economies.
Re-blog From Brian Solis Blog: “For the first time ever in a single day we had 500 million people use Facebook” – Mark Zuckerberg For those who focus on the debate between Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter are missing the true story. Today at Facebook’s f8 developer conference we were reminded about what the story really is…you and me. No, it’s not about features, capabilities, or the number of users. We were reminded about the power of something much more [...]
Categories: Africa, Blogging, Social Media, Technology
Don’t be surprised at innovations and ideas coming from Africa; but rather embrace them because Africa is the future. – Erik Hersman (TEDGlobal2011) One word that keeps coming out of the lips of most tech-preneurs these days in Africa and Ghana is; INNOVATION. Across Africa; especially in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt and Uganda; innovative thinkers and idealists are coming up with unique, frequently low-tech solutions (apps & designs) to high-tech challenges such as energy, education, communications and transport. Come September [...]
Categories: Technology
On September 2, 2009; I was inspired by Rebecca Wanjiku’s article; Free Wi-Fi hotspot locator in Nairobi to also write on Free Wi-Fi Hotspots In Accra which pointed out the various FREE Wi-Fi spots in Accra about 2-years ago. This morning, one of my tech and social media mentors; Erik Hersman shared the link to the Nairobi Wi-Fi map which made me decide on creating and developing the Wi-Fi Map for Accra. The site is designed and built on the [...]
Categories: Accra, Social Media
The success of Ushahidi as both an activist organization and as a technology startup is one that is widely recognized as Africa’s first big ‘garage’ startup success story. The organization was born out of the 2007 post-election unrest in Kenya when Ory Okolloh put out a call to map citizen reports of violence. Erik Hersman, David Kobia and Juliana Rotich all heeded the call and Ushahidi.com was born. In a blog post – Stepping Down as Ushahidi Executive Director; Ory [...]
Categories: Africa
In two weeks time, I’ll be traveling to Nairobi, Kenya to attend Maker Faire Africa. This is an event which is bringing together inventors, ingenious craftsmen/women, artisans and innovators under one roof to showcase their latest inventions & products, dialogue between experts and non-experts and also network in promoting their works. Maker Faire Africa is a celebration of African ingenuity, innovation and invention and will take place in from 27th – 28th, Aug 2010. Last year, I volunteered at the very [...]
Ushahidi won the Weblog of the Year award from Deutsche Welle at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany. The award ceremony took place on Tuesday 22nd June, 2010 at the Planery Chamber of the World Conference Center where the Climate Change and the Media forum were on-going. According to award recipient – Erik Hersman; “The Ushahidi platform is an African technology innovation that is changing a lot of things, not least of which is the way that [...]
