It’s time to reinvent the industry. The personalization market is dying – the days of big money in ring tones and wallpaper is over. The economic crisis is tough and the regulatory market is not benign. So, why be optimistic?

1. Applications. Apple’s iPhone has changed the customers view of what an application is. The fact that a farting application can make $800,000 sends a certain signal. The question is how does this model change things once it moves beyond the early adopters?

2. Mobile social networking has become the epicenter of innovation. New business models and money making opportunities are being thrown off by this new market.

Operators, especially in places like the US, are trying to control what content shows up on the network. The government regulators and the operators policies are out of control, in fact there are some cases where the industry is suiting on the behalf of the customer. This will cause a downsizing in the US market for the next couple years from the content providers.

Keys to succeeding in the mobile social networking space:

• Alternate billing solutions. You have to have your virtual currencies tradeable on the social networking platforms. All payment methods must be accepted, from SMS payments to credit cards.
• Content. You have to have something there for people to use, read, play with. Quiz applications are the big thing right now (brings up example of a quiz app being #3 on iPhone apps right now).
• Discoverability. The main problem from users perspective has been trying to find the applications and content that they want. This is an issue for both the content providers and the operators to solve.

Role of the operator is changing, it specifically has a large impact in billing. They need to take a significant cut in the amount they charge for this service – 50% is just ridiculous, it must change as it’s not sustainable or excusable.

“Apple’s app store is the big shadow hanging over all of us, except of course that they’re never here…”

Before I get started on today though, I need to give a quick shout out to Gever Tulley, who helped re-awaken my love of tinkering and creating with my hands. I spent yesterday afternoon bending wire, strapping down chopsticks and creating power with rubber bands. My masterpiece was a catapult-driven car. Best of all, Gever runs the Tinkering School, and he’s a big AfriGadget fan.

Saul Griffith started us off with some amazing visuals supporting his studies into energy use by himself over one year. You can join in at his crowdsourcing project of personal energy use at a site called Wattzon. It’s really quite interesting to see the breakdown of energy use by those of us who travel a lot.

Malcolm Gladwell spoke about capital usage by societies - I’ve read both Blink and The Tipping Point, so am also going to buy his new book Outliers when it comes out. Frankly, he’s an amazing speaker and it was just enjoyable listening to him talk. Funnily enough, I got to chat with his mother during the break, which was unexpected.

David Harrison is on a mission to save disappearing languages from all over the globe. He’s a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore University, and expressed well the need to save languages as we lose so much human knowledge that cannot simply be translated into a “global language”. Harrison has developed the idea of “language hotspots” - examining where the highest diversity of languages are, where the danger is most and where knowledge that is not widely known exists.

I actually didn’t know anything about Imogen Heap before I heard her here at PopTech. It was an absolutely fascinating moment for me, as she used technology to start echoing her voice and did a full song with only her voice weaving in and out in a symphony that can only be heard, not explained. Amazing. You can also follow her on Twitter @imogenheap.

It was wonderful to finally meet Rob Katz, who started NextBillion.net - the website that tracks and keeps discussions alive around products and services targeted at the “bottom billion” people in the world. We have big plans of having a good long talk over the next couple days, more after that.

Lastly, a new friend of mine that is also a part of this year’s PopTech 2008 Fellows class, is Eric Dawson. One of the more grounded individuals that I’ve ever met, he exudes peace. This is good, as he runs an organization called Peace Games, focused on ending youth violence. His short talk was well done, asking us to not feed the evil, but the good in ourselves.

Best of all, the bags handed out by PopTech are by Timbuk2, and are excellent bags. However, anyone who wants to can donate their bag to Eric’s Peace Games organization for one of the 40,000 youth taking part in their program.

If you’re like me, you don’t blog for a living, but you’re trying to blog while you’re living. I need tools and features that simplify my life and make it easy for me to be more effective as I’m doing the day-to-day things that actually run my life. That means I mainly want tools to work in the background, or I want a system coordinated in such a way as to make the work I have to do a lot easier and streamlined. So, it’s a little bit about making things easier and being productive while going about it.

My next consideration is how cluttered additional items make the site look. Your mileage may vary - and it will depending upon your readership, but I like to keep my sidebar clean. Not empty, but with items that are relevant. So, I’m extremely careful about adding a new sidebar item. For me, this rule also applies to the posts themselves, so I’m careful not to add too much before or after the main text as well.

• The cluttered look itself
• Slow page load
• Ads - Takes away from things that are making you money
• Most readers don’t care! (about your Technorati or Alexa rank, about the local weather in your area, etc…)

Okay, so let’s dig into a few of the tools that I use, and I’ll explain why I use them and why you might want to use them to. I’ve broken these down into a couple categories: 3rd party tools and plugins.

First off, I want to run down the “must haves”, then I’ll give you a list of items that are also worth looking into.

Email signup (Feedburner or Zookoda) (3rd party)
Most people don’t know what RSS is, make it easy on them and allow them to get a simple email whenever you post something new. By the way, I’ve seen this happen on to many blogs to think it an accident - most blogger’s feeds double when they install this. Oh, and talk about a secondary way for ads to be delivered too…

Subscribe to comments (WordPress plugin)
Want people coming back for more? For many readers, this is the best way to stay involved in a conversation that was started on your blog post. They don’t need to keep checking to see if anyone responded to their comment, they can just get it in their email box.

Contact Form or Page (cforms) (WordPress plugin)
Please, please, put a simple contact form on your blog. There’s no excuse for not providing a way for readers, old friends and potential advertisers from getting in touch with you this way. This has the additional impact of not putting your email address (however mangled) onto the website. Simple and it can be done really easily with plugins.

One of the easiest ways to be a little more productive is to integrate blogging with other third party tools and websites that you use. For instance, I like to take pictures, so I make sure that I can easily blog straight from Flickr as needed. The same rule applies to YouTube, or any of the other video or image hosting sites like Picasa.

I’m a big WordPress fan, though I have used Blogger before, so I apologize in advance to any Typepad users when I start talking plugins - I just don’t know much outside of the WP plugin world. I don’t use a ton of plugins myself, usually between 5-7 of them is all that I really need, here are my favorites:

• Akismet
• Contact form (cforms)
• Subscribe to comments
• Feedburner feed replacement
• Role manager (more than one author)
• WP database backup
• WP Super Cache
• Recent Posts
• Related Posts

All of the previously mentioned tools are good and useful, but beyond the tools directly used in your blog you should also think about some of these others that will help you manage your content and track what readers really like.

• Twitter - using either Monitter or Twitter Search
• Your RSS reader - being informed is a very important part of the blogging process, plus it really helps with blogger’s block
• Moleskine notebook - For all those ideas that you get in the strangest of places
• Google Alerts - track yourself, your blog, or important words
• Technorati - see who’s linking to you

Tech4Africa - The Technology for Africa conference has a group of really interestin speakers from around the web, mobile and ISP space in Africa. A lot of grassroots guys who are actually doing things, intermixed with some international, and well-known, speakers.
Dates: October 3-4, 2008
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

Int’l Bloggers Roadshow - Still being put together, it sounds like an interesting group of US-based big name bloggers will be heading to South Africa. More by Matthew Buckland.
Dates: Unannounced
Locations: Unannounced

FOSS4G (Free and Open-Source Software for Geospatial) - A meeting of international mapping gurus. Hopefully we can get some major African mapping work started here.
Dates: September 29 - October 3, 2008
Location: Cape Town, South Africa

BarCamp Africa - Organized in California as a way to bring people interested in Africa, on a variety of levels and topics, together in one place for a day of exploration, connection and enjoyment. Some big Silicon Valley names are getting behind this. (more on Twitter, Facebook and the wiki). Note: not the real logo above, I made that up…
Dates: October 11, 2008
Location: Pending

Surprising Africa @ Picnic’08 - A one-day program designed to inspire and update the Picnic public - creatives, innovators, trendsetters and technologists - with a range of cross media and culture happenings from various Africa countries. From South African urban identity photography to Ethiopian architecture, to mobile banking to Kenya (online) critical writing, amongst others.
Dates: September 26, 2008
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands

It was a real trip to be amongst some of these true geo/mapping gurus, which led to some great discussions. A few memorable ones:

• The 4th dimension: Time
• Are the big map providers (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) destroying the mapping ecosystem?
• Using ham radio for location using APRS
• Open Streetmap on how to get better data and simplify the user experience

Of all these discussions I was most interested in the one on “time”. It’s one of the areas that we felt made Ushahidi so much more usable, and so we’re trying to figure out ways to make it even more useful in the next iteration. Time is one of the few variables that hasn’t been well represented in map visualizations, but I think this year will see that change significantly.

And, of course, the lightning rounds were a lot of fun. Each person had 5 minutes to talk about whatever they liked. We heard about everything from geocaching games to visualizing crime via heatmaps, to NNDB’s mapper tool that allows you to map relationships between people and things.

Google handed out tents for all of us, so there were quite a few who camped out in the open area over night. Great way to keep people around, and a fun little item to remember the event by.

[more images on Flickr]

Is There Something to be Learned from the Blogging Evolution?
In my last blog post I showed a slide talking about the timeline of major blogging engines. I did this because I was exploring a premise that there might be something in common with the way self-publishing tools on the web have developed, and the way mapping tools are developing. As I’ve dealt with mapping solutions on eppraisal.com and Ushahidi, I can’t help but think how powerful they are, but still so hard for a non-programmer to really master. The beauty of the blogging engines is that they finally created a way for an “ordinary” person to create a personal website.

When I look at that timeline, I wonder if we’re not in the same era with mapping that we were in with blog CMS tools back in the early 2000’s?

Comparing 3 Digital Activist Tools
As I was thinking about mapping, blogging and activism, I also thought about another one of the core digital tools that activist use worldwide: mobile phones. What would a simple comparison be between the 3?

Blogging’s learning curve is fairly shallow, if you can handle email or word processing, then you can understand how blogging works and do it. It’s middling when it comes to accessibility worldwide, due to bandwidth and PC requirements.

Mobiles are moderately hard to work into good activist campaigns, additional software can make this easier, but planning the campaign doesn’t necessarily take a technologist. Accessibility is widespread and simple to g

Getting from the Tech Elite to “Everyone Else”
Those thoughts led me to think about Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm book, where he talks about the difficulties of getting technologies to leap from the technology elite to the the masses. By anyones definition, I think we’ve seen that happen with blogging. Not so with mapping… yet.

Within the mapping ranks there are definitely those that are trying. Google’s My Maps and Platial/Frappr come to mind as I think of good examples of consumer-facing self-generated mapping applications. However, so much of what is being done (as cool/powerful/amazing as it is) is still only understood and grokked by the mapping gurus of the world.

This is seen first hand in what we had to do with Ushahidi. The ability to just create a map system that was even slightly geo-coded correctly for Kenya took a little work. Not everyone could just jump right in and mashup something as simple as that. Will it ever be as easy as jumping in and creating a blog, or will mapping always be a tech-centered effort?

• October 1998: Open Diary begins and pioneers reader commenting
• March 1999: LiveJournal started
• July 1999: Pitas launches the first free build your own blog web tool.
• August 1999: Pyra releases Blogger which becomes the most popular web based blogging tool to date, and popularizes blogging with mainstream internet users
• June 2001: b2Cafelog starts being built by a few unemployed hackers
• October 2001: Movable Type released
• August 2003: TypePad launches for the non-technical masses
• May 2003: WordPress.org begins as a branch of the b2Cafelog code, and quickly becomes the most popular self-hosted blogging engine
• December 2005: WordPress.com launches
• July 2006: Microblogging tool Twitter launched
• October 2006: Vox Released by Six Apart
• March 2007: Tumblr microblogging tool launches

Sources: I put the above graphic together from the following timeline that I found on Wikipedia, Enterprise blogs and the platform owners blogs.

Why?
I’m working on my talk for Where 2.0 next week and am starting to think that there is an analogy between current consumer-facing mapping tools and where we were in the early 2000’s with blogging and journaling tools. Not sure if I’ll even talk about this, but thought the research into blogging engines was worth sharing.

The big question he answers is, “Where do people find the time?”

Enjoy the 15 minute video:

Read the transcript here.

I’ll be speaking on a panel here tomorrow called “Early Warning: Listening, Technology and Activism“. My fellow panelists are:

• [M] Mitul Shah, Senior Director, Technology Partnerships, United Nations Foundation
• Mark Smolinski, Director, Predict and Prevent Initiative, Google.org
• Erik Hersman, Web Strategist, Ushahidi.com
• Jan Chipchase, Human Behavioral Researcher, Design Team, Nokia

In the evening I’m heading off with Jan Chipchase (who I happen to be a big fan of) to an Adaptive Path event about using mobile phones, design and development called, “Street Hacks and Long Wows“. Should be a lot of fun! If you’re in the area, come and join us.

The Africa 2.0 Panel

[image by Martin Kliehm]

I had the honor of sharing the stage with Kofi, Uduok and Nii today. Kofi moderated the panel, and did an excellent job of keeping it going. He was the one who put in all the hard work to make this panel happen, and then to organize us enough in advance so that we had a coherent conversation on stage.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect, since it seemed to be a rather eclectic group. Nii is from the finance and business world, Kofi from design and marketing, myself from tech and Uduok from fashion and design. I don’t know much about the fashion industry, but Uduok did and was incredibly well spoken and poised as she discussed it. I learned a lot from just listening to her discuss Nigeria, Nollywood and the fashion industry.

The best part of the panel was the after-panel discussions though. A dozen of us got together and went to grab a bite to eat, where we continued to discuss the uses of technology in Africa. Discussions ranged from activism to sports (Nike was present) and everything in between. Another highlight for me was when fellow African blogger Gareth Knight showed up, and we talked about his new and highly successful “family tree” app: Kindo.

The Keynote Trainwreck…

The trainwreck that was the Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) keynote by Sarah Lacy was just so awkward. In fact, it was rather ugly. Read about it here, here, here or here. Watch the non-empathetic after-video of her here, or the full video here. Just amazing to watch someone lose it this bad.

[reference and more stats from USIP]

When I talk about “Africa”, I tend to paint with a broad brush. After all, what I’m really doing is generalizing, and mashing together, 54 separate nations - as ridiculous as that sounds. However, that’s not really true either. I tend to talk about “Africa” as sub-Saharan Africa, and gloss over nations like Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. In reality, when I (or any of us) talk about mobile phones, blogs, social networks and the web in general I should be including the whole continent.

Okay, so today the session is discussing how to deal with Muslim extremism on the web. Mohammed Suleiman Khan discusses some of the difficulties that they’ve had with their Muslim blog network Hadithuna.

“It’s not the websites. Those are static. The real action is in the chat rooms.”
- Frank Cilluffo Dir. Homeland Security Policy Institute

It’s an interesting talk, primarily because it’s an issue that affects everyone, no matter if you’re in Kenya, South Africa or Egypt. What are the repercussions if you operate a website that starts to attract “fringe” elements (be they Muslim or otherwise)? What policies should you have in place so that you’re not caught napping?

Another uncomfortable question arises when you start thinking about “fringe” groups is whether they’re on the fringe for political reasons, and whether or not that is actually bad? For instance, would you consider a minority group in Zimbabwe fringe because they want to oust Mugabe? The government might call them radicals, but who else would?

“It’s tough to monitor text and pictures, I wouldn’t even know where to begin with video.” Khan, in response to a lady from Seesmic asking what they need to be doing to be ready to handle this type of extremism on a dynamic platform. “I would suggest you harness the other users of the service.”

Lastly, there seems to be a few areas where the Muslims in Africa are further ahead than the rest of the continent. Tunisia has one of the largest blogging groups in Africa (I think somewhere around 28,000). North African countries tend to have greater bandwidth and therefore more apt to use social networks, and tools like YouTube and blog platforms. Across the Muslim communities there is widespread use of forums and chat rooms. What can we learn from them and apply to sub-Saharan Africa?

This panel of bloggers and marketers will dissect ten terrible ad campaigns that abused the ideals of people-powered media, then award The Suxorz Trophy to the worst.

(more…)

Ending just now, this group of highly respected web application developers brainstormed ideas and then outlined an application.

It ended up being “Mailr.com” or “MailModel”, an application to help people who get tons of email a day keep track of them and keep their contacts updated on when they might expect an email.

Panelists:
Ryan Carson (FOWA)
Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch)
Blaine Cook (Twitter)
Kevin Hale (Wufoo)
Leah Culver (Pownce)
Alex Bard (Goowy)
Gary Vaynerchuk (WineLibrary.tv)
Kevin Rose (Digg)
Carlos Garcia (ScrapBlog)
Cal Henderson (Flickr)
Matt Mullenweg (WordPress)

I actually really enjoyed this panel, just for the thoughts and comments bouncing around between these high profile web guys.

One of the main reasons I decided to attend the Future of Web Apps in Miami today was because of two speakers: Kathy Sierra (of Creating Passionate Users) and Matt Mullenweg (of WordPress).

Kathy Sierra is up now, talking about how the brain, technology and human interaction. I still think she’s one of the top communicators online with her visuals, now I know she’s equally adept offline and in-person. Her visuals in the presentation are quick, interesting and applicable. Lastly, if you’re looking to learn HTML/CSS, she has written the best book I’ve seen on it (book link). It’s a real treat to be here and worth my time and money.

Some Kathy quotes:

“It’s not about the tools we build… it’s NOT about beinga “tool” expert. It’s about what the tools let them DO. People don’t become passionate about the tool, they become passionate about what the tool lets them do.”

“Usability is merely a prereq.”

“What do you help your users kick ass at?”

Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress (what this blog and millions of others are built on), just took the stage. I last heard him talk at the first FOWA conference in San Francisco. Besides being a wunderkid, he comes across as really laid back and down-to-earth.

Listening to Matt talk about scaling large web applications has become suddenly interesting to me, due to my recent thoughts on a global, open-source version of Ushahidi. Those who I’ve had a chance to chat to about this project have heard me spout endlessly about using the “WordPress Model” (more on that some other time).

Some Matt quotes:

“One of the most important items that developers need to do to scale is separate their static from their dynamic content.”

“As the founder, you have to be the most passionate user, because everyone who comes on after you will be less passionate. This means you need to be in the community answering questions and helping solve problems.”

“I recommend you stay away from locking yourself into particular revenue levels (ex: $15 for x level of goodies). With WordPress we’ve set it up like a good buffet where you can just pick up an upgrade from a big group of options. However, that didn’t work perfectly, so we added non-intrusive ads as well.”

Matt just mentioned that it’s actually kind of sad how the CNN political blog that he serves on WordPress.com VIP system still gets less votes that Icanhascheezburger on its worst day… (sad, funny, and I’ve been looking for a reason to link to that site for a while).

[My Flickr Pictures of FOWA - Pictures by everyone else]

The conference rundown:

• Inman Real Estate Connect NY - New York, NY (speaking)
• NAIAS (N. American Int’l Auto Show) - Detroit, Michigan
• DEMO 2008 - Palm Springs, California (speaking)
• Harvard’s Berkman Institute Meeting on Digital Activism - Istanbul, Turkey (speaking)
• Future of Web Apps - Miami, Florida
• SXSW - Austin, Texas (speaking)

Upcoming Conferences
Next week I’ll head down to the Future of Web Apps in Miami. I attended the very first one in the San Francisco area a couple years back, and I have to say it’s the best value for the money spent period. The content, conversations and connections made are just unbeatable for $145.

The following week I’ll be at SXSW in Austin, Texas as part of the “Africa 2.0: Affecting Change Using Technology” panel lead by G. Kofi Annan. It really looks to be an interesting discussion, with a good mixture of individuals with a wide range of interactive experience on the panel.

If you’re going to be at SXSW, let me know so we can get together.

After SXSW things look to be calming down. The only conference that I really have on my radar is TEDAfrica happening in Cape Town at the end of September. This is probably good, as I’ll finally be able to focus on my projects a little more.

We covered some interesting items, but nothing in any great depth. It was a basic “intro to African tech” kind of panel.

Others on stage:

Juliana Rotich of Afromusing, also the environmental editor of Global Voices and contributing editor to AfriGadget.

Mike Stopforth of Afrigator

I don’t know the people behind TEDAfrica, but if it’s anything like what we experienced at TEDGlobal last year, then I’m sure it will be worth every penny spent to attend. They are handing out 50 TEDAfrica Fellowships (fully paid), so make sure you sign up for one of those soon too.

DEMO 2008 is over, and it was a great time. Above is a picture of Juliana Rotich and myself with Chris Shipley doing panel on Africa (Mike Stopforth is off the frame). We discussed a wide variety of topics, covering mobile phones, innovation, cultural differences and how to manage for crisis situations on the continent.

Hopefully our goals of helping people understand that Africa isn’t all the media paints it and that there are real investment opportunities to be had all over Africa was met. Judging by the conversations with investors, developers and media afterwards, we were successful.

DEMO God Awards
Chris gave out 10 awards to honor the top products of the 77 that presented. Though I liked all of the ones she brought up, I decided to give my top 10 as well. Some of these are groundbreaking products, others are just very well executed.

As a user, all you need to do is enter in a search term, so it’s a simple and easy to understand tool. I was able to spend some time talking to Silobreaker’s team, who are based out of London and Stockholm, it wasn’t surprising to find out that many government security agencies, multinationals and risk-assessment firms use their service. Beyond public usage, I can see how Silobreaker’s engine could be useful for large enterprises who are trying to map people, documents and events internally.

The tool becomes really interesting once you get past the initial aggregation of news and start looking at the “Network Search” and “Trend Search” tools.

Network Search
This is the part that I enjoyed the most. I did a search for Kenya, since it’s on my mind a lot these days, and started drilling into the content revolving around the conflict. Correlations between people and events started to emerge, and I was surprised to find that the people profiles had a lot more data on each person that I expected.

Silobreaker auto-extracts, in real-time from thousands of articles, the most related companies, people, events, etc - and displays them in the relationship network. By hovering over over the midpoint of any relationship the user can easily see the articles that explain the association between two points.

Media Trends
The Trend Search view shows the mainstream media’s focus by topic. Below you can see how the media has followed then entrance of Kofi Annan and John Kufuor as they try (tried) to mediate in Kenya.

Hotspots
Track hotspots by date and geographic location. The size of the hotspot indicates the number of articles written about that specific geographic location. You can drill down into any of them for further information.

My favorites so far…

Blist
I just got excited about a really cool product: Blist. They describe themselves as, “a database for the rest of us”. Basically, Blist allows anyone to create a database, you don’t have to be a programmer or DBA in order to do this anymore.

I liked the way the presenter described how so many of us twist programs like Excel to our needs. We do, and it generally doesn’t work very well. Have you ever tried inserting images into cells on Excel? Not fun, easy or usable. Anyway, I’m going to get on the beta list and try this out in greater detail. I really like the potential of this product.

Voyant @Home (PlanitwithVoyant.com)
Possibly the best execution on a demonstration yet, absolutely flawless. Voyant @Home is allows you to manage your financial planning on your own. You can model different financial options, and you can also visually see what those decisions might mean for you.

When I first heard about their service, I thought it was a competitor of applications like Mint. It’s not though, if anything it starts where financial tools like Mint leave off. The social tools available within the Voyant @Home application look interesting as well. Definitely one to watch.

Sprout
A tool that makes it easy for anyone to create a Flash widget by anyone, which they call “sprouts”. Watching the demo, it looks like it really does allow anyone to create a sophisticated Flash widget without laying down any lines of code. See one below:

GreenPlug
This is an interesting device that cuts out a lot of the wire clutter you see at desks worldwide. This technology allows for the charging of multiple DC-powered devices with differing power requirements from a single power supply.

“DEMO is the premier launch venue for new products, technologies and companies. For more than 16 years, DEMO has established a reputation for identifying and presenting to an elite audience the products most likely to have a significant impact on the marketplace and market trends in the coming year. “

Africa: The Untapped Continent
I was initially approached because of my writing on AfriGadget and WhiteAfrican - where I try to cover the spectrum of low-tech to high-tech innovation happening in Africa. Juliana (aka: Afromusing), another AfriGadget editor and also an editor of Global Voices, will be on the panel as well. [Update: Mike Stopforth will be there to represent some of the views from the South African community as well - which I’m thrilled to hear!]

What they want us to discuss is the future. Specifically, this audience is highly interested in investment, so we will be discussing how Africa is a virtually untapped region, areas of growth, and we’ll be filling them in on companies and ideas that they had no idea existed.

My goal, as many long-time readers will expect, is to get the audience to understand that there are huge opportunities in Africa. This runs the gamut - from low-tech innovations that can be scaled for distribution globally, to high-tech mobile phone services that grab millions of consumers in Africa.

Needless to say, I’m really excited about this. It puts me right in front of an audience who have the resources necessary to make the ideas that I talk about everyday into reality. These are the people who can help African companies grow and become players on the world stage.

If you want to see more of what types of things go on at DEMO, check out their past DEMO videos.

Here’s the email:

TEDAfrica will be held in Cape Town, South Africa on September 29-October 1, 2008 (save the date!), and will follow the format of this year’s event in Arusha, Tanzania.

The conference will be organized by a wonderful local team with whom we have just signed a license agreement. The four-person team includes TED Fellow Kelo Kubu and the conference will be operated out of a new South Africa-based non-profit organization devoted to promoting a better future for the continent, the “TED Africa Foundation”.

We will be supporting the foundation both financially and logistically to help ensure that the event maintains and builds on the quality and success of the Arusha event.

Initially we had intended that conference to be a one-off, but we received such enthusiastic feedback that we had to find a way to bring it back and in the summer we invited groups to apply for a license to host the conference. Kelo’s team were one of several who submitted bid and we were stunned by the quality of the proposals. The winning bid included several brilliant ideas to make TED Africa even better, and also featured a strong plan to ensure the event’s financial success and long-term sustainability. We therefore have enormous confidence that the next TED will every bit as exciting as Arusha was.

The organizers have already begun feverish preparations and when registration for the event formally opens, we will put out another note. Meanwhile, if you want to suggest a speaker, discuss sponsorship, or offer other help, you can write to contact@tedafrica.org. A new website promoting the conference will eventually be launched at www.tedafrica.org.

Kelo wanted us to forward the following note:

“It has been an honor and a privilege to be part of the TED Africa process . The team is naturally excited to be hosting TEDAfrica 2008, and we look forward to the challenge of generating the usual TED cocktail of inspiration and magic. The task is undoubtedly a daunting one but Africa provides the perfect platform, and Cape Town the ideal location for yet another memorable event.

We look forward to welcoming the world to the southern most tip of Africa to share, spread and nurture groundbreaking ideas that could open new possibilities to growth and prosperity on the continent.”

Our congratulations to her and her team. We hope to see you in Cape Town!

Very best,

Chris Anderson
Emeka Okafor

I hope to be there, let’s see what the next evolution of TED looks like in Africa!

Well, once again, TED and their sponsors have pulled through. Google and AMD promised all of us TED Fellows a Mac or PC, and I just received my confirmation receipt from Apple today (also confirmed with TED). My new 15″ MacBook Pro is in the mail, and should be here this weekend. I’m stoked!

Once again, they didn’t stint on the gift. They easily could have given us the smaller, cheaper version - instead we get the top-of-the-line computer that does everything we need.

[update: Tom sent an email stating, “Since you waited so long, we upgraded everyone to MacBook Pros and you’ll get Leopard for free.”]

Thanks Google. Thanks AMD. Thanks TED.

In the spirit of this gift, I too will be gifting my current computer to someone else.

On Developing Apps in Africa
Riyaz is an amazingly smart guy and is also the nexus of the growing technologist network in Kenya. Here are a few of his quotes from our multiperson Skype chat where we were debating the need for startup capital when creating a new web application.

“Building web apps is cheap. Scaling needs money. But build something good - and you won’t have a problem finding the money to scale.”

“…it DOES take time, effort, dedication …….. but money won’t give you that!!”

“In 10 years a blogger conference will be as exciting as what an email conference would be today.”

- Shel Israel, author of Naked Conversations

Interesting, he’s talking about the orphanages that are blogging in Kenya. I’ll have to touch base with him after the talk to talk a little more about his research in Kenya, and Africa as a whole.

I just got back from a fun day spent at Kennedy Space Center with a bunch of bloggers and tech guys coming into Orlando to take part in BlogOrlando (tomorrow). Last Sunday was BarCamp Orlando, an unconference for techies in the area. While in South Africa I took part in a Johannesburg 27 Dinner, a monthly event for creatives and developers. In Nairobi, Kenya I was able to sit in on the weekly Skunkworks meeting where like minded developers get together to share ideas.

These are all wonderful events that provide a reason for the local community of developers, creatives and bloggers to get together and meet each other face-to-face. You might live in the same town for years and not realize some of the amazing people living right near you.

What’s the common thread here?
There is ALWAYS a consummate networker that takes the time to foster relationships. There is ALWAYS a person who steps up and champions the local community into getting together.

In Orlando you find guys like Josh Hallett creating excellent events like BlogOrlando out of his own time and imagination, Gregg Pollack stepping up to drive super successful events like last week’s BarCamp Orlando, and Ryan Price fostering the Florida Creatives.

In Africa you have Mike Stopforth and Dave Duarte bringing the bloggers, technologists and designers together monthly in different cities around South Africa for their 27 Dinner. In Kenya there is Riyaz Bachani and Josiah Mugambi creating a local Skunkworks group and organizing BarCamp Kenya.

Being Part of a Community
Everyone in the areas that these community catalysts touch should thank them for all the work they do. They should also make sure that they too stand up and be a part of that community. It’s not good enough to stay cooped up in your office or home, it’s imperative that everyone get together to continue to grow both personally, professionally and as a local community.

The collaboration and relationships that grow from face-to-face interaction have a multiplying effect that tends to improve the lots of everyone who takes part. A closer tech and designer community tends to bring more credibility and business to all those who are involved.

Again, a special thanks to Mike, Dave, Riyaz, Ryan, Josh, Gregg and Josiah. They don’t do it alone, but they are the catalysts that make it happen.

A couple good quotes:

If you want to know about Africa, read our literature. And not just Things Fall Apart, because that would be like saying I’ve read, Gone With the Wind, and so I know everything about America.

Language complicates things.

(more about Chris Abani at TED)

I know not everyone agrees with my sentiments about George Ayittey’s explanation describing the differences between the “cheetah” and “hippo” generations in Africa. However, the discussion on this has just begun. TED has just released the new TED Talks videos that were shot at TEDGlobal in Arusha in June.

Look for more TED Talks coming out this week. Let’s hear what everyone else has to say after seeing and hearing these talks for the first time!

[Extra: Catch another interview of George Ayittey on PBS by Bill Moyer]

He’s the keynote speaker at the real estate conference that I’m attending this week in San Francisco. Through a chance encounter I had the opportunity to spend a good hour or two talking over a drink. It was really quite interesting hearing his views on the rules that govern A-list blogging, discussing the pros and cons of our boarding school experiences and me learning a great deal about the hard work behind cartooning.

Quote of the night (Twittered by Hugh):

“Authority is 80% compassion”

It makes sense - think of “the Godfather” movies and you’ll get it. Apply that thought to how you deal with people in real life, and within the blogosphere.

Hugh, when you make a cartoon for that saying, let me know.

Honestly, I was stunned to see Ethan’s posts go live 5 minutes after a speaker finished talking - full of links, solid commentary and useful information. This post helps explain the how behind it all.

There were notably few of the hard-knuckle African politicians who often run the interior or defence ministry or act as kingmakers, sometimes bankrolling rotten presidents.

The backstory here is from George Ayittey’s brilliant speech in Arusha, where he likened the TED Fellows and other entrepreneurs present as the “Cheetahs” willing to do anything, regardless of government help, to succeed and make Africa better. Whereas the “Hippos” were the old guard of politicians and big business who were happy to wallow in their role as victims of colonialism and poverty.

Ethan takes it a step further, where he poses that the World Economic Forum could be labeled Hippocon, while TED was where the Cheetah generation could be found.

My question is why was this person from the Economist so fixated on there not being enough hippos? Is it because that’s the only way he sees things getting done in Africa? If he believes that is so, then he’s missing the bigger picture. The message at TED was that regardless of the hippos, the cheetahs will find a way to make change happen.

The story wasn’t that there weren’t any hippos at TED, it’s that they are becoming irrelevant.

[Hat tip to Ory, and image credits to 13 months]

Web2ForDev 2007 is the first conference devoted to exploring the ways in which international development stakeholders can take advantage of the technical and organizational opportunities provided by Web 2.0 methods, approaches and applications.

From what I can tell, the Web2forDev blog is open to register and contribute on. If you have something to say, or share, in this space, it would probably be a good place to start. Their blog also has some interesting discussions around Web 2.0 and poverty and the challenges of Web 2.0 in Africa.

So, why is it interesting to me?

• They’re talking about using high-tech in low-tech areas
• I didn’t see a single US organization listed on the organizing committee. Since the whole Web 2.0 meme started in the US, I want to hear what the rest of the world has to say about it.
• I want to hear strategies for how Web 2.0-type applications will be implemented in low-bandwidth areas

He was the posterchild for TEDGlobal 2 weeks ago. William represented what so many at the conference understood about African entrepreneurship, creativity and ingenuity. He now sits in a position to further those dreams.

Now, with the help of TED and an unnamed benefactor, he has started his own blog, is using a TED-borrowed computer and has an email address. Currently, his mentor in Malawi Dr. Hartford Mchazime, is working with TED to find a good school for him to finish up at. Since William has an obvious bent towards mechanics and engineering, they are looking into opportunities to further his education in those areas as well. What a life changing event TEDGlobal was for him!

So, welcome to the African blogger ranks William, you are a very welcome addition.

For the first 2 days at TEDGlobal few had heard of William. Since I had written about him late last year on AfriGadget, I realized who he was and had a chance to talk with him during one of the evening events. He is a very quiet individual, and seemed a little overwhelmed by the conference. This is a life changing event for him, and from the personality I saw in the time we had together, I would guess that he will leverage it for greater things. He’s one of the guys I hope to be writing about again in the near future, and I think I will be…

I wanted to use eBay’s new “to go” widget to put it on my blog, so here goes:

[Note: this widget seems a little borked… I can’t get an image to show up.]

Harambee is a Swahili term that means “pulling together”. That mentality, the willingness to work together, was what made it possible to cover a busy event like TEDGlobal.

Some of the African bloggers at TEDGlobal

It was a lesson in communication and coordination.

On the very first day everyone realized that Ethan Zuckerman must have dual processors in his head, there was no other way that someone could get a post up on every single 18 minute talk, 5 minutes after it was over. A number of us immediately discussed whether there was any use in duplicating all that effort, or if our time would be better spent adding our own angles on the speakers and event.

Some of us decided to take pictures, some did interviews between sessions and others decided to summarize the day. Everyone who blogs has their own voice, and I think it showed in the coverage. What could have been an amalgamation of everyone saying the same thing turned into a fairly well-rounded coverarge of the event.

There is a great Global Voices recap of all the coverage as well.

The TEDGlobal Africa Bloggers:

Soyapi - Malawi
Rafiq - South Africa
Andriankoto - Madagascar
AfroMusing - Kenya
Mental Acrobatics - Kenya
David McQueen - England
Ethan Zuckerman - Pan Africa
Ory Okolloh - Kenya
Ndesanjo Macha - Tanzania
Emeka Okafor - Pan Africa
Mulumba Lwatula
Philemon Msangi - Tanzania
Bankelele - Kenya
Andrew Heavens - Ethiopia
Jen Brea - Pan Africa
Ramon Thomas - South Africa
Fran Osseo-Asare - Ghana
Fifth Culture
Ellen Horne
Reuben Abraham
Heresy
Sam Ritchie
Class V

[If I missed someone, send me an email]

Of course, I believe this is best embodied in the tech sector. Specifically, we see it on the web and in the mobile space. Companies are building new web applications, web sites and mobile tools that connect Africa in ways not previously seen.

There is a new drive, I saw it in the 4 different countries I visited in the last 2 weeks. Individuals are striving to take charge of their own little part of Africa, I talked about it with the technologists from 40 different countries at TEDGlobal.

In South Africa, we see the traditional media (The Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian) embracing new technology to reach a younger audience. We see startups web apps like AfriGator, Zoopy and MXit creating the next level of web interaction for South Africa.

In Kenya, the designers, developers and business types are talking. Skunkworks is a weekly meeting started by Riyaz Bachani, Michuki Mwangi and Josiah Mugambi that opens discussions that cover the spectrum. The ideas expressed there for mobile applications and locally-hosted web apps are incredibly innovative.

In Tanzania I talked to developers that were working on local solutions that weren’t being met by the big global companies (much like what Softtribe does in Ghana). In Uganda there are some soon-to-be-announced capabilities in the mobile space that will drastically affect interaction between individuals in East Africa as well as in the diaspora.

Overall, we’re seeing Africa come into its own. In my area of expertise, technology, I see it more than most. What TEDGlobal did was allow me to see this same innovation and desire to control Africa’s destiny showcased in a number of different fields. From media to medicine, Africa is stating that it can create it’s own wealth. I have no doubt that we’ll see this trend continue and come to fruition in the coming years.

On Stage (more TEDGlobal pictures on Flickr)

I was given a moment to share some of the stories from AfriGadget here at TEDGlobal. Speaking in front of this group was a little unsettling, so I tried to prepare something that was both to the point and interesting.

My main point was this:

African’s are bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges.

The examples on AfriGadget showcase African ingenuity, the type of ingenuity born of necessity.

I did a quick recap recording of what I said, or at least what I think I said, since it’s all a blur now…

A presentation on “Massively Multiplayer Object Sharing”

ZDNet on “Web 2.0 Being Less Participatory than Assumed”

Web 2.0 Expo: All Things Widgets from Read/Write Web

Scoble on being on live web video “Always on Isn’t for me“