From July 10th to the 16th I had the great fortune of spending time with the TEDGlobal 2010 fellows and attend the TEDGlobal 2010 and even spoke during the Senior fellows mini conference. It was a blast to say the least. I am still decompressing and reliving that week in my mind.

I wanted to share with you pictures of the TEDGlobal 2010 fellows, and to point you to their profiles in TED.com.
They are an amazing group of people who greatly inspired me during that week. From Adital’s ‘windlight’, David Gurman’s art installations, Teru Kuwayama’s photography, Roshini’s documentary… it goes on and on. I feel lucky to have met them and I hope you get to know more about their work in the coming months.

Moving Windmills: Back in 2007 at my first TED ever, I met a young man we had profiled on Afrigadget. William Kamkwamba.
I took this pic of him and Simon Mwacharo.

Fast forward 3 years later, after the book he co-wrote with Bryan Mealer topped Amazon’s recommended lists, he appeared on the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and now… his book is out on paperback. It is available on the Kindle store for you ipad toting hipsters.
Note:
- There is a whole new chapter in the back about his adventures post-book.
- He graduated from African Leadership Academy prep school in Johannesburg in June.
- He’s going to Dartmouth in the fall
- He just built and electrified a new school in his village with the help of NGO BuildOn.org
- He’s building his parents a new business, a maize (corn) mill that will permanently lift them out of poverty.
- His book has been chosen as the mandatory book for incoming freshman at several U.S. schools and he’s coming in mid-August to visit them.

Amazing.

2. Turn SIM PIN Request off (On Nokia E71 go to Settings, Phone, Security, Phone & Sim Card, PIN Request set to off)

3. Add credit *141 voucher number #

4. Purchase a data bundle by texting the word ‘Activate’ to the appropriate short code. i.e

5. Text 450 to get the balance of the data bundle

6. Once you’ve added credit to the sim card, you are now ready to cut the regular SIM into a microSIM.
Instructions are on this link. You just need a pair of scissors and an exacto knife to trace out the microsim shape on the regular sim.

At this stage, you can also create a regular sim template using the same instructions on Hijinks, as you will likely need it later.

7. Fit the microsim into the ipad tray, you might need to gently hammer the Microsim into the little ipad tray it so it lays flat. Insert the tray into the ipad slot.

8. You can put the new MicroSIM into the iPad and voila’! you are connected to Safaricom 3G.

The tricky part now is how to recharge your account when you run out of credit. The fastest way is to MPESA your MicroSIM number, though that would mean you would be using the more expensive 8 kes per MB instead of the cheaper rates afforded by bundling. At this point, you can remove the MicroSim, fit it into a template created step 6, put into a regular phone, add credit and text ‘activate’ for the appropriate short code and for the bundle you prefer.

On the iphone, you can use the SIM applications to check your MPESA and Safaricom credit balance, that is not currently possible on the ipad. You can view and even send the request for balances, but there isn’t a mechanism to display the response from Safaricom. I am hoping someone can come up with a solution for this, if you know how, please comment or get in touch.

Update with info from @69mb:
Re: Topping up, its possible from a postpaid line to topup a prepaid line with a data bundle from the *200# menu. So if you’ve got a postpaid line / a friend with one you can mpesa their bill for the bundle. Sucks this isn’t also on the *100#

Update 2: Safaricom has MicroSims available. Via @blongwe and @whiteafrican. Yet to find out whether topping up issue is easier on the special MicroSIMs.

PS: Rates on Orange look better, here is a grid (thanks Charles!)

Henry Addo, a true Ubuntu enthusiast and Me.

Taken in Miami during the Ushahidi strategy meeting in April.

Taken at Cairo Airport just as the game was beginning. Later peeps, let me rush to the gate so i do not miss my flight!

Go USA!

There was a major announcement today from Nokia about the release of cheap phones for the emerging markets, featuring dual sims and the ever useful LED flashlight. What is even more interesting is that with the launch of the phones, a bicycle charger kit. According to CNET Asia, the kit will be available by year’s end.

Rounding up the announcements today is the Bicycle Charger Kit, which comprises a charger, dynamo and phone holder. When docked to the latter with a 2mm charger jack, the electrical generator will produce energy to juice up the handset. According to Nokia, the dynamo starts charging when the speed of the bicycle reaches 6kmh and stops when it hits 50kmh. It matches the efficiency of a normal charger when the bike is traveling at 12kmh.

The bicycle charger kit will be useful to many people in Kenya and other emerging markets, its only a matter of time before it is repurposed to charge other devices like small radios. All in all the phones seem AfriGadgetty, what with their dual sims; perfect for markets where people have more than one carrier – thinking of Nigeria here, where its not uncommon to see someone with multiple phones because of varying network coverage/dependability + LED flashlights, it is clear that Nokia is making products that have utility for millions of people around Africa. Personally I can’t wait to try out the phones and mobile kits as soon as I can get my hands on them. Come to think of it, this is hardware localization, something that could go hand in hand with the software localization we are clamoring for in the African market.

For modded bicycle posts from the AfriGadget archive, click here.

Many thanks to my friend Cyrus for the heads up, I think he has just inspired me to blog again.

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.