Psychology of Technology Blog
Today is the first day of the annual World Wide Web applications conference hosted this year by the University of Johannesburg, where I’m currently registered for a Masters in Information Science in the Department of Information and Knowledge Management. The opening address was by Prof Derek vd Merwe, Pro Vice-Chancellor.
My friend Henry Addo notified me of this event via the African Bloggers Group. The Digital Citizens Indaba, which is a Blogging Conference, will take place again this year from 9-11 September 2007.
Last year I was a speaker at last year’s event. There was a lot of talk about blogging being used to for activism and the now stale debate on blogging vs journalism. There were several international speakers like Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices and Emeka Okafor, program director of the TEDGlobal 2007 conference. There was a very small focus on blogging for business and so I sincerely hope they will bring more of that into it this year. If we really want to make an impact with blogging we need to get more companies in Africa to use it as a tool.
On Tuesday this week I did another one of my blogging seminars for Douglas Green, a very big wine and spirits company in SA with distribution in Europe and America. They are reeling with possibilities based on the Stormhoek success. And I helped them see these possibilities more clearly.
Perhaps the most important thing we need to do is to help individual Bloggers , especially those from other African countries, make money or generate an income or get some consulting work for themselves from their blogs. It certainly works for me here in South Africa. And I can say once again that my experience at TEDGlobal in Tanzania has taught me how fortunate we really are here in South Africa. My friend and mentor, Tony Roocroft, makes more then R1 million per annum from over 100 websites even with the high prices of Internet and broadband costs.
Last Friday, I launched my first Blogging for Business seminar. This workshop has been in development for several months. And the response has been huge. There is such a great opportunity for South African businesses to benefit from blogging. A reminder to those who attended of the core benefits of blogging for business:
You can download my presentation from here:
Last Thursday I delivered the following Blogging for Business presentation for ePages.net at a breakfast seminar in Durban. This was the most amazing experience because just after I started with my presentation electricity was lost in the whole area. The biggest implication blogging has for business is that you enter into a conversation with our clients, your partners, your suppliers and also your staff. And as said in the Cluetrain manifesto, the more people participate in a conversation in any given market, the smarter the market becomes.
You can download my presentation from here:
Dr Okonjo-Iweala, Distinguished Fellow at Brookings Institution and former Finace Minister from Nigeria presented the final talk at TEDGlobal: Africa the next chapter. She spoke at the TED conference in Monteray, Califorian in Feb 2007. Africa the old: the next chapter. The growth in sub-Saharan Africa is strong and inflation is under control but the question is still out on poverty. External debt has come down to almost 50 billion to 12 or 13 billion. Reserves has been increasing. Foreign Direct Investment into Sub-Saharan Africa has increased from 6 to 18 billion. This all shows confidence. 62% of the population is below the age of 24. This is a clear sign the focus should be on the youth and bring them into a productive economy. A strong case can be made for supporting women by placing more resources in the hands of women – spending patters between men and women are different. Women spend more on human capital goods: household services, health, education and food.
The US and UK could not have been built without Africa’s Aid. When you situation is dire, and personal, you don’t care if it’s aid money or where the money comes from. Spain received $10 million in aid from the European Union. Ireland received $3 million in aid, and is now one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. Neither of these countries felt guilty or bad in any way receiving this money.
A new set of aid entrepreneurs are emerging in the individuals who founded very wealthy foundations. They may take over from the aid received from governments one day. The question is open as to how interested they really are in helping Africa. Are they listening? Are invited to serve on their boards to help with making decisions? The answer is no!
Aid has to be a facilitator, it can be catalytic. China says Nigeria needs infrastructure and discipline to succeed. Within the private sector maybe aid can be used as a money guarantee. Her punchline is to help women get more access to resources – the research and statistics of this speaks for itself.The final question is what you will do with aid, the government, the private sector and the African as an individual.
Read this excellent interview with Dr Okonjo-Iweala here.
Noah Samara is a satellite radio pioneer. Growing up saw a lot of people battered by many problems but there has always been a hope. He is impassioned about empowering people with information. Because of HIV/AIDS 17 million people would die by the end of the decade in the 1990s would die and simply because of a lack of information. This prediction was being made in the late 1980s.
Since nobody was doing anything he decided to build his own satellite radio station. His wife said once you’re finished go and get yourself a real job. It was daunting task because it had not been done before to allow satellite to broadcast to terrestrial radio. A 131 countries allocated frequencies. By 1996 $1.1 billion was raised. And for the first time technology was launched in Africa before it was handed down to America.
Some of the programming include daily soap operas, weather information and other types of information that are locally relevant. About 90% of funds are raised inside Africa. Some young people, children of refugees, were interviewed it was an goosebumps moment when they heard themselves on radio from Cape to Cairo the next day. So the question is now how do we scale this impact from anecdotal stories like that of William who built a windmill to serve his family’s energy’s needs. How much of the positive force created by the TEDGlobal conference can be unleashed.
For more please read the Noah Samara page on Wikipedia and also visit Worldpace radio website.
Fred was invited onto the TED stage for another 3 minute slot…renaissance, steam revolution, information age: pc, mobile and Internet. President Thabo Mbeki proclaimed the African Renaissance. The African Leadership Academy was launched. Goal is to become more systematic and being proactive about bringing about peace and prosperity. Young people from all 54 countries in Africa who have the potential to change Africa. Bring them together and four 2 years. In 50 years about 6,000 leaders will have been developed. Ended up with a short video clip to show the reality of young people and their perceived negative future.
Session 11 was closed off by a speech by the President of Tanzania, the honourable Mjue Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete. He started out extending a warm welcome to all guests and visitors to Tanzania and Arush. It’s the beginning of the winter but it’s not snowing yet.
He referred to a conversation he had with U2′s Bono, who was at TEDGlobal earlier this week, who complained once about loneliness when you are flying around the world in planes to and from countries. And it seems presidents and rocks stars share similar experiences. The tide is turning around with unemployment at 12.7% and HIV infections now down to 7%.
There is a strong confidence by Google, Kickstart, Technoserve and others who are investing into small projects in Tanzania. This is the basis for much larger future successes. An open invitation to the global community to do business with Tanzania.
The president sat down for a one-on-one with Chris at the end his speech. There is a question about political leadership failing. What is the key change between Africa’s people and it’s people. In the past military people just announce they are new president. They would walk into radio station and make the announcement. This was the worst period of Africa. More democratic elections are taking place to elect the leaders. All in all this is a very courages move from a head of state to speak to such a diverse audience as the TEDsters.
Africa is a continent full of contradictions. You’re Harvard educated and you’re coming here to tell us what to do? She told us about her experiences growing up. Although not in the slums she grew up poor. She was sent to a expensive school and kept being thrown out. And once when she failed she went with her father to request that the teacher make an exception. The teacher insulted him, asking him who he thinks he was asking for this special request.Father died of AIDS in 1999. She figured it out because she’s a nerd and used the Internet to make her own diagnoses of the infections. She got the right slide show again.Afrigator was highlighted as a South African project which allows African bloggers to spread the message. The Swahili Wikipedia has 5 contributors, 4 which are white males, 1 is from Tanzania contributors. Gwyneth Paltrow featured on Vogue in the “I am African campaign.” She mentioned Enablis, the Canadian non-profit that helps entrepreneurs in South Africa and now in East Africa. She also mentioned her Mzalendo blog which tracks performance of Kenyan Parliament. As Africans we need to take responsibility for our continent.
