Video

FrontlineSMS at The Feast ’09

Posted on Mon, 09/06/2010 - 04:26

I’ve always maintained that the greater the distance between an ICT4D ‘problem’ and the problem solver, the greater the chance of failure. The difficulty here is that quite often the problem and the resources available to fix it are in different places, and available to the wrong people.
While ‘we’ – those who rarely fully understand the problem – have easier access to the technology and funding, those who do more fully understand it don’t. This is why the current proliferation of local innovation and IT-focused business hubs across Africa is so exciting and has so much potential.

Round-up Makers Faire 2010

Posted on Sun, 08/29/2010 - 08:34

The following videos provides impressions of the Maker Faire and gives some Makers the chance to present their projects.

Emeka Okafor on Makers Faire 2010

Posted on Sun, 08/29/2010 - 06:30

Emeka Okafor is a venture catalyst and entrepreneur. He lives in New York City. He is the Maker Faire Africa curator.

Emeka is pointing out some very interesting facts on Makers Faire among others:

  • create awareness for African innovation
  • building a “productive class” whose foundation is laid on building problems solving systems
  • celebrating existing knowledge Africa already has and connect it to knowledge outside
  • building a community is a basis for business
  • African makers focus on things for which there seems to be an immediate need (= market)
  • the biggest market is the indigenous

Eric Hersman on Makers Faire2010

Posted on Sun, 08/29/2010 - 06:25

Eric Hersman, one of the organizers of Makers Faire 2010, talking about his learnings from last years event and what they are planning for this year.

After the first day I have to say that I love the spirit I have felt at the event. The same like last year … very vibrant community, expiriencing that they do have omething to give, to show and then – indeed – to celebrate!

Maker Steve Song on VillageTelco

Posted on Sun, 08/29/2010 - 06:22

Steve Song is founder of VillageTelco, based in South Africa and he is one of the makers at Makers Faire 2010.

A Village telco is a community based telephone network. It is based on a suite of open source applications that enable entrepreneurs to set up and operate a telephone service in a specific area or supporting the needs of a specific community [1].

The first village telco has been established by Dabba at Orange Farm, a township near Johannesburg, South Africa. Users can make free local calls to other Dabba subscribers, as well as use pay-as-you-go vouchers to make calls to ‘phones on other networks [2].

Technically, a village telco consists of:

Solar powered street light system

Posted on Sun, 08/29/2010 - 06:20

At Makers Faire 2010 Joy Tang and I interviewed to Norbert Okec from Uganda on his prototype of a street light system ..

Meet the Makers

Posted on Sat, 08/28/2010 - 08:30

A sample of many of the ‘makers’ found at the 2010 Maker Faire Africa held in Nairobi.

FrontlineSMS @ Thinking Digital 2010

Posted on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 17:06

“Thinking Digital is an annual conference where the world’s greatest thinkers and innovators gather to inspire, to entertain, and to discuss the latest ideas and technologies”.

FrontlineSMS was invited to give the closing address at the end of the second day of the conference. In this 30 minute video, we talk about innovation more broadly, and our work developing mobile tools specifically for NGOs around the world.

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