Apps Let Africans Take Matters Into their Own Hands
My interview with Radio Netherlands about mobile apps, Africa, Abayima, and supporting the continent’s nascent innovators… “A revolution is taking place in Africa,” according to the Fill the Gap organizers. And it’s “driven by mobile technology and rapidly growing access to the mobile which is the key to smart entrepreneurship and citizen participation.” What does … Read more
Mobile Innovation Echo Chamber
Jonathan Gosier, founder of Appfrica speaks about examples of good mobile technology initiatives in Africa at Fill the Gap 9 in NEMO, Amsterdam. Moving ‘beyond the mobile hype’ requires asking different questions about what we do and what we’re trying to accomplish. Moving forward we should consider not just the effects of technology projects but … Read more
A Look at the Apps4Africa 2011 Winners
Appfrica is the organizer and facilitator of the second annual Apps4Africa competition which rewards African technologists for developing creative solutions to some of the continent’s most challenging issues. 2011 was the second year we’ve done Apps4Africa, the first year culminated with this congratulatory message from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton: Last year the … Read more
The Lucrative Skills African Talent Should Acquire in 2012
In the American and European tech space there’s a growing problem. There’s so much funding available for early stage startups that everyone and their college dropout buddy is starting-up, leaving no one out there to hire. It’s one of those first world problems: “We just raised 4 million dollars for our social network for redheads … Read more
…to Redistribute the Future
Last week at Tech4Africa in Johannesburg I gave a short talk. It was meant to be much longer but I got confused on how much time I had, so apologies to the T4A people. Anyways, the topic of the presentation was “The 5 Most Disruptive Innovations I’ve Seen” and it discusses industries and concepts which … Read more
Distributing Content when Communication Networks are Compromised
For the past several months I’ve been working on a project for moving data around when there’s no internet. I talked a bit about this at the Power of Information conference earlier this year in London, but I thought I’d share more here. Abayima applies cold war tactics to mobile data storage and distribution. Abayima targets … Read more
Data is the new Oil, Africa is rich.
The environment is rich in phenomena that has been observed, analyzed, commoditized and, in many cases, exploited. But much like the precious mineral and natural gas resources of the continent, for local societies, the tools for extraction are sparse or absent. In this context we aren’t talking about refineries, we’re talking about the capacity to … Read more
The Day the Designer Died
No one embodies the three things we strive for at Appfrica than the man the world lost today. Design. Leadership. Vision. We salute you, Mr. Steve Jobs. Best wishes from me, Jon, and our colleagues and friends in Uganda.
Tech4Africa Is This Month!
I’m really excited to be one of the keynote speakers at Tech4Africa this year in South Africa. I’ll be there discussing Apps4Africa among other things. If you’re interested in going but are intimidated by the price of admission, here are a few different options for tickets… Tech4Africa runs from 27-28 October 2011 at The Forum … Read more
Zero to Sixty: Setting Up an African Venture
The other day I responded to a student who was seeking advice on relocating to start a venture in East Africa. I thought I’d share the email here since it’s likely relevant to others. The first thing I’d recommend when starting a new business out of the country is to try to find a local … Read more
