ORD Camp Chicago Jan 28th 2010

Berlin – Transmediale Festival
Feb 2nd – 7th

TED Feb 10th 2010

TED Feb 11th 2010

TED Feb 12th

TED Feb 13th – Last day with the Fellows…

PS: I took too many pics, and therein lies the problem, can’t really sort through all of them. Whenever possible, I took a pic of the speaker’s name then the images from the talk.

Excellent coverage of TED 2010 is available on the TED blog and on Maria Popova’s Brainpickings.

PS: For my flickr friends, its probably easier to browse my photos by sets or collections…

The transmediale festival is examinining futurity now what the ‘future’ as a conditional and creative enterprise can be. At its heart lays the intricate need to counter political and economic turmoil with visionary futures. With FUTURITY NOW! transmediale.10 explores what roles internet evolution, global network practice, open source methodologies, sustainable design and mobile technology play in forming new cultural, ideological and political templates.

What follows is my perspective on where the future is headed, particularly as it regards thinking of futurism, technology and Africa.

Before I get to the five ideas that shape my perspective on futurity in Africa, I found myself asking, where are the African futurists? In the discourse of futurist manifestos, there is a dearth of the African perspective. Perhaps its a hold over from the old and tired meme of colonization, post-colonial construct that characterized the 20th century.
or

Or perhaps its because African futurists are few and far between. This remains an open question for many Afrophiles I encounter.

Let me begin with a big disclaimer. When I speak of Africa, its a major generalization, though in the technical space many of the trends we see appear to be similar in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Kindly allow me to generalize by using the term Africa to refer to the grouping of countries comprising, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Malawi, Zambia, Nigeria and Ghana. Many examples that i will refer to will be from East Africa, particularly Kenya.

There are five points i’d like to make.

1. There is a new meme emerging. As we begin 2010 in earnest, Africa is growing, and some might even say it is experiencing a renaissance of sorts. The future of the web is already here, and it is in Africa.

The growth of mobile phone tech has been explosive. 550% in the last 5 years. The word leapfrogging doesn’t even begin to describe the transformative effect mobiles have had in Africa. Its been revolutionary. It has led to innovations that have applications around the world. Case in point, MPESA (#MPESAishowdoit) a service that started with 52,000 subscribers in April of 2007, it currently has 8.5 million users and processes nearly 10 percent of Kenya’s GDP in transactions that average less than $20. Since its launch, the cumulative amount of money transferred from person to person is 300 Billion kes. When it comes mobile money, the third world is first That this innovation took hold in Kenya first before its adoption in other parts of the world like Afghanistan is something that no futurists could have foreseen.

Many new users of the internet will experience the web through their mobile phones. The development of user interfaces and key research is happening in Africa, with Nokia and IBM setting up research centres on the continent, and home grown innovation hubs such as ihub present exciting possibilities.
My colleague and friend Erik Hersman wrote that if it works in Africa, it works everywhere, from current events in the African tech space, we could go further and posit that If its awesome in Africa, its awesome everywhere.

2. The promise of technology for social change. With the influence of writers like Dambisa Moyo challenging previously held beliefs about aid, and pushing the idea of microfinance aided by technology in the form of projects like Kiva, we see the potential of technology being used for real social change. Making Africans less poor by investing in their enterpreneurial drive as opposed to financing dictator’s lavish lifestyles. There are myriad organizations incorporating mobile tech in provision of services. Its not just mobile, just as Twitter aims to be the pulse of the planet when it reaches a billion years; We are seeing use of crowdsourcing software Ushahidi as an interesting indicator of what can happen when information is crowdsourced and visualized. Tighter coupling of the SMS realm, mobile and the cloud are exciting prospects in Africa.

3. Note: The knowledge economy is not an enclave of the west. The myths about the developing world being left behind have already been debunked by noted statisticians like Hans Rosling. It is a fact that technology is transforming Africa, and it has an important role to play in increasing GDP. As the tech space grows and matures, there will be more localized applications to help increase efficiency and overcome bottlenecks. There is alot of room for growth here, we will see the continued growth of Mixit (SA stats and Africa growth for this innovative application -stats) Pesa Pal, OboPay, Black Star Lines and other companies betting on the mobile and tech growth opportunities in Africa. Students in Africa will have to rise up to the occasion to provide these localized applications. We are clearly not there yet, but i would wager that the brilliant minds in African universities will step into the Global economy and fill an important gap.

4. I grew up in a country where authoritarianism/post cold war stupor? was the other of the day (80’s and early 90’s). There was a sense of oppression, even artistically there wasn’t as much self expression as we’ve seen in the late 90’s and early 2000’s (noughties). There was the age of conversation – with forums and IRC. This gave way to the age of participation, with blogs twitter and social networking, characterised with co-creation and well, the mashup culture (and LOLcats) For African’s online this trajectory has closely mirrored the global phenomenon of social networks, though it was only accessible to the well heeled or diaspora Africans. The problem was basically a lack of large pipes connecting Africa to the world. This is changing. With the arrival of Seacom cable in September 2009, streaming a you tube video is no longer an exercise in futility. What this means is we are likely to see the age of participation and co-creation as more new users get online. Twitter-like services are gaining popularity with the growth of Naija Pulse (uses Laconica) and aggregation services like Afrigator just to name a few. Take for instance KBC – Kenya Broadcasting service – When I was growing up it was the only tv station. Now they have a twitter account for their breakfast show and for some strange reason asked me a trivia question without giving me a prize.Its a new time. You’ve got foursquare, we’ve got smoke signals – Just kidding, there is growing use of google latitude. Hipster Kenyans with smart-phones were turning on their google latitude to find out where their friends are and where the party is during the holidays. One guy and his dad use google latitude to pinpoint their locations and triangulate the nearest bar to meet up for after work drinks. With the introduction of low cost GPS enabled phones in the African market, we are going to see some interesting uses of this technology and innovations that we cant completely foresee.

So what else is in store. I am going to harken to Clive Thompson’s observation about twitter, that it gives the user some sort of prio-perception/ social sixth sense. I do have to mention too that Clive Thompson also wrote about the point in social networks where the conversation stops because the social network gets too big.

5. The internet has enabled the diaspora to keep in contact with their countries, and with this comes the cultural exchange that’s been part of globalization in general. Project Diaspora is a great example of this. Teddy Ruge and his team are using the internet to support a community whose only source of income is from back breaking work at a stone quarry. The diaspora is part of the solution to poverty in Africa, and the internet is the medium.

There are transnational activists (some of them are my friends) participants in what Ethan Zuckerman calls the polyglot internet,
and whom David Sasaki calls ‘Believers without Borders’. They are participants in the mashup culture and could even be called cultural mashups if there was such a term. They may have been born in Africa, but; are global citizens by identity.

This cultural mashup sees an exciting time revealing itself through the retelling of old stories with technology, breathing a fresh perspective into African identity and self expression online. We already see this with the emergence of African Digital Arts, Animations made in Kenya (Just A Band) Senegal (Tree Lion), and the incredible creativity seen as part of the brand tourism around World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

The old memes are almost dead or as Fergie of black eyed peas would say, its so 2000 late. The new meme of Africa is unfolding in front of us. Technologically and culturally the future of Africa is absolutely refreshing.

Below are the slides

- Many thanks to Jepchumba for helping me out, and the Transmediale organizers for inviting me.

Solutions
- Put the processing in the cloud. Think Amazon EC2. Put the storage there too so the mobile acts as a dumb terminal of sorts. Storage space on mobiles is still quite expensive, but storage online can be very cheap, and processing information online is much easier that on mobile phones.
- Create a common platform that all mobile phones can share. Its tedious to make apps for the myriad OSs like Android, Iphone, Symbian, J2ME
- Integrating solutions like PesaPal

Think of the potential of processing information on the cloud and delivering it through mobiles. With the increase in mobile subscribers forecast to reach billions in future. Think of the young people who have dreams of being a pilot, a doctor…whatever. Can we meet the challenge of providing this information through mobiles? Can we develop applications that meet our local needs of educations on basic phones?

Attached is his presentation… I was greatly inspired by his talk… off to lunch to chat about this some more.Mobile Cloud Computing.pptx

The ‘Sun King’ consists of a polycrystalline solar module, cable, a stand and a ring of LED lights. It can work as a small torch, a task light, and a hanging light.

Below is the video with a brief overview.

Solantern from afromusing on Vimeo.

It retails for 25 usd/ 2000 kes and you can call +254 721 211 406 to order.
Email: info [at] africarenewables [dot]com
Twitter: @thereva

Physical Address:
150 James Gichuru Road Opposite Lavington

PS: I would dissuade anyone from getting the Safaricom ZTE Simu Ya Solar. Its shoddy and a waste of money at 3000kes. I bought one in August of this year and its Kaputt now. A much better gift is this solar lantern which is priced quite well at 2000kes. I will be testing it further this christmas, but from initial looks of it, the module is sturdy and the design is quite functional.

There doesn’t seem to be a workable deal that would take into account the developing countries’ vulnerability to climate change (think Maldives and Madagascar) with money allocated for helping them deal with climate change. Without this it is unlikely that the poor countries will agree to any deal. It is a standoff, a mexican standoff with no one as a clear winner, but the climate ofcourse as a clear loser.

Just hearing that people pepper sprayed on the bridge near the Bella center. There is just too much drama here. That aside… as the plane circled in to approach the runway at Copenhagen airport, I saw a glimpse of the offshore wind power turbines. It is a magnificent sight.

cc licensed photo by Pastalane.

That Denmark generates 25-30% of their energy from renewable energy is commendable and is often an example to many countries, and probably the reason why COP15 is being held here. I spoke with a local Danish citizen and he expressed his dissatisfaction with the progress towards targets for increasing the %. I am not sure what % of energy generated in Kenya is from renewable energy, but I can tell you this… I am quite envious of the Danish 30%. With all the craziness happening now in CPH, It helps to refocus on the specific ways that we each can contribute positively to the environment. It is unlikely that some substantive agreement will be reached this week at COP15 talks, so its probably more useful to focus on what you and I can do and the technology that can help.

I am going to start with taking a ride in a hybrid bike by MIT, then continue planting trees during the christmas holidays in Kenya.

For COP15 updates, I am checking the Dot Earth blog, Tck Tck Tck and ofcourse Global Voices Online.

PS: I saw a christmas tree with lights connected to a bike, so when a child pedals, the christmas trees light up! A festive example of using human power! Sorry, no pic, its snowing a lot here.

Back in Nairobi, finally boarded the flight to Zurich, which was delayed by more than 45 minutes, meaning I would miss my connection. That is why I am typing this at Zurich airport. The roaming wifi is so slow, I had to use the voucher for free wi-fi. Problem is the voucher is only good for an hour. Enough time to just look through emails, download docs and get berated on twitter about my carbon footprint

So, I will be in Copenhagen later today for some Ushahidi meetings, get caught up on the COP15 talks (which were thrown into disarray last week, and this week, the G77 negotiator walked out of the negotiations with some African countries in tow.) Still hoping that ‘Nopenhagen’ does not become the pun of the week. Denmark has already embraced’Hopenhagen’ (There is a Danish person somewhere grimacing at this chicanery- sorry!). I shall cover what I can on this blog, but do check out the Global Voices aggregator for COP15, which collates posts from GV authors in Copenhagen.

Remember the quote about a lie going around the world before the truth has its pants on? Solana writes about the fake press release that ended up on WSJ about Canada’s allegedly shifting policy to a more positive one that supports a reduction in greenhouse gases and contribution to a fund for poorer nations facing climate change.

PS: I covered the plenary meeting on climate change in 2007 for Global Voices, this was a meeting that led to the Bali talks (nothing much happened there because of GW & US’s throwing a wrench in the talks with a last minute proposal that basically scuttled any movement) The talks here in Copenhagen have an air of hope because Barack Obama has indicated a change in attitude. Problem is the change in attitude also needs to happen in the House and Senate back in the US. All in all, I look forward to seeing what comes of this…

Note to self: Find time to see Bjarke Ingel’s building. Below is his TED talk “3 warp-speed architecture tales”

Update: Arrived safely in Copenhagen. Tired… will blog/tweet tomorrow. Cheers!

PesaPal is a service that enables anyone with an MPESA or ZAP mobile money account to buy goods and services from approved merchants. Why should people with credit cards and paypal accounts have all the fun? For the 6.5 million users of MPESA in Kenya, PesaPal will be a welcome service, particularly to those without credit cards, but do have MPESA accounts. Granted the number of merchants available right now is limited, as merchants sign up there will be lots of choices for buyers as to the services and goods they can order with their mobile phone and the web.

PesaPal is a product from Verviant Consulting, a company that has made inroads in the IT consulting business, providing end to end IT support. This new product ushers in a new form of commerce. The CEO Agosta Liko recently spoke to Capital FM in Nairobi regarding the advent of fiber optic cable in Kenya, and the new way to do trade online…

“I call it ‘new commerce’ because e-commerce was the era of credit cards and all. We will own this era where I should be able to pay for mangoes from Mombasa and pick them in Nairobi. I see it becoming the way by which we buy,” he projected.
Mr Liko said this development would most likely be driven by increased competition, the need to ease the cost of doing business and remain competitive.
“From this point going forward, people are going to see how they can make money from the internet, how you can save operational costs and how customers will be willing to pay on time,” he said.

I see this a tighter coupling of the mobile phone and the cloud. Something I have alluded to in the past . Its gratifying to see homegrown solutions to the problem of trading online in a seamless way, we need not wait for Paypal to get its act together and include sub-saharan countries, we can just get on with business.

Online merchants, click here to register your business to accept PesaPal, and friends in .ke, sign up here for the service. Developers, do not fret, here is the info you seek, on how to use the PesaPal API.

Disclosure: Liko Agosta is a close friend of ours, and I bum off of the Verviant offices bandwidth whenever I am in Nairobi. I was a pre-beta tester of PesaPal

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is compiling a report on competitiveness in the mobile market. Excuse me while I laugh up a storm. It is glaringly clear to many consumers in the US that there isn’t much competition to speak of. AT&T Bought Cingular, Sprint is supposedly to be acquired by T-mobile. Sad really, I used to work at Sprint when it was THE company to beat. A story for another day. Its 2009 for gosh sakes, our mobile costs should not be increasing! Besides, there are no SMS bundles for texting overseas, I am willing to pay 9.99 usd a month for an international texting bundle, just like I pay 4.99 for 300 domestic SMS. Do it T-mobile. Just do it already. We know the real cost to the Telco’s for SMS is darn near zero, so why rip us off?! Yes I know its for the money, but come-on…

CC licensed image by Cayusa on flickr. I wish he was chewing on a mobile, but hey, this works!

I started using Google Voice. This is helping me deal with SMS costs (pretty much free right now, even to Kenya. *Shh, don’t tell everyone*) though I am reluctant to make the full switch to that number because so many of family and friends have the T-mobile number. I still might, because the google number forwards calls to all your phones, allows you to screen calls, and transcribed voicemails. I hate leaving messages, and checking them too is rather tedious, so I absolutely love the transcription service. Think of it as Jott for your mobile phone (Whatever happened to Jott anyway?). Be warned, SMS to some countries is blocked, your mileage may vary.

Hey FCC, you can probe Google Voices’ practices all you want, but do listen to consumers like me who are sorely disappointed with wireless providers. Here’s an idea, force the wireless companies like AT&T, T-mobile etc to allow for number portability to Google voice. That would really irk them into behaving as they should. Treat Google as a player in the Telecoms market and usher in some real competition. How long do we have to wait? As it is, it will probably take awhile before the FCC concludes, ‘yeah, these guys are totally overcharging customers, tsk tsk tsk lets punish them’. We all receive letters in the mail telling us of some class action suit or credit from our wireless providers, to the the tune of a couple of bucks…all the while the big wigs at AT&T congregate in a dark club house, hold flashlights underneath their chins and go ‘Muahahahaha – got you suckas!’.

Let me stop here…before the rant on Wimax bubbles to the surface.

The outdoor space atop the main gallery and before the future lab space seems to tie the old architecture of the church to the futuristic style of the Ars Center. Click on the image below for a larger size, the church is to the left of the future lab stairs.

It is one of those buildings that people either love or hate…I loved it. At night, the LED lights that line the outer glass wall change color. Something like a nocturnal visual surprise every time you glance at it.

The festival itself is something to experience. Since its now over, i would highly recommend visiting the Ars Electronica center to see some of the pieces that formed a benchmark of the festival. Besides, I am convinced that Linz would make a perfect location for any techy, futuristic or even a good action movie. Be it Minority Report 2 or next Bond 007, I can totally vouch for the stunning imagery it would evoke if someone like Daniel Craig would rappel down the Ars Center and straight into a boat on the Danube. (Spielberg, Soderberg, Wachowski brothers and whoever produces 007 – you are welcome )

Ahem, pardon my digression. Back to nerds needing art.

This has admittedly been a very busy year for me, and I have to admit that I did not expect it to be. With time, I’ve realized that being in the tech space can sometimes sap your sense of wonder. Or maybe its just me. If you are one of those people who feel mired in tech and sometimes feel like the ‘wow’ factor is gone when you see new innovations…and it elicits a bland ‘hmmm’ reaction and god forbid ‘meh’ – Well you need a healthy dose of art. Attending Ars Electronica helped me marvel again at what artists, architects, performance artists and idea mongers have to share. Below I will share afew of the pieces i particularly enjoyed, and provide some links to blogposts by the other wonderful speakers and friends from the Cloud Symposium.

Quartet.cc

Quartet is a Web-interactive robotic music installation. The machine you see in the live video feed is housed at an innovative museum in Linz, Austria, ARS Electronic. Seeing the machine live, inches away is an visceral experience that shows the real power of live music… and that robots can be a part of that experience. Visitors at the museum are able to enter melodies from a laptop in the museum for immediate interactivity

You play a short melody on the site Quartet.cc then you see the music interpreted onto the machine. Try it…

Since I have a thing for mobile phones (Nokia) I greatly enjoyed the robot controlled by bluetooth.
This is a picture of the phone.

This is the little robot it controls. How fun!

The Anoto pen

This is basically the livescribe pen on steroids. You can write and record audio which is digitized and transferable pdf docs or uploaded online. The steroids bit: The Anoto pen can be used to navigate a map, displaying relevant data on a big screen. For example, if you click on a specific point on the map of Linz, and would like to know the demographics of the region, you can tap on the legend provided on a page to give you stats on number of divorced people between the age of 21 and 45. This was preety cool because it combines maps, tactile input of using a pen and a digital display to add more data.

I got to play the loopscape game with the renowned tech journalist Cyrus Farivar. I really could claim victory, but really…it was a draw.

“loopScape” is an innovative video game for two players that blurs the conventional distinction between good and evil, between “my side” and “the opposition.”

The action doesn’t take place on a flat display but rather on a 360° band arrayed around the edge of a ceiling-suspended metal “doughnut” that’s circumnavigated during play. The object is to shoot down the opponent. But be careful! If a fired missile misses its target, it continues on its trajectory and threatens to strike from behind the game figure that launched it.

This loopscape game is a form of interactive device art, and for some reason, it brought to mind the idea of participatory art. Something that Wambui, Sciculturist and I were discussing at RAMOMA gallery in Nairobi. Check out this ‘Watoto Wa Kwetu’ piece by Wambui. More pics are on this flickr set. I think the loopscape game has participatory qualities just like the Watoto wa kwetu paintings, because both pieces are best experienced with others. There are some observations that Wambui made on the Watoto wa kwetu paintings that I would not have noticed. Do note that the paintings are done by a group of children, and not one artist. So, there is that aspect too.

This is just but a sampling of what was in store at Linz. I havent even touched on the animations. I hope you enjoy the perspectives shared by the others on the Cloud Symposium blog, videos posted there and the following links too.

Kristen Taylor – Mosaics, food and the cloud If you are wondering about her cool dress, its vintage. I had to ask I am not much of a beer drinker, so her suggestion to get some Secco (Austrian white sparkling wine) with our dinner was just invaluable.

David Sasaki – An outsider’s guide to Linz Indispensable. His talk about cloud intelligence provided the framework for discussion that day.

I keep digressing from this nerds need art theme, but hopefully i can tie it all together.

In the quest to not lose your sense of wonder, sometimes you need to look inward, be quiet and just think about the bigger picture. To find the creative place. If you’ve ever used the words ‘code is poetry’ ‘Math is elegant’ or ‘no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should’. There is this need to look inward, to find that inner muse and embrace the imagination. I think whenever you need to go to such a place, art can provide that gateway.

The Thinking Chair by Arthur Ganson

Where does inanimate material end and where does life begin? Arthur Ganson lets his “Thinking Chair” straddle the boundary between those two states. Through its movements—which resemble the gait of a human being walking on two legs—the chair exhibits animate traits. Arthur Ganson had the idea that led to this work while taking a walk. Near his studio, there is a small rock outcropping on a trail, which he likes to walk around in slow circles, deep in thought. During this walking meditation, each cycle finds him back in the same physical place but in a slightly different emotional place

Read his essay here and you can catch the rest of the cloud intelligence symposium live stream here.

Free TV : Ustream