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This email confirms that you have paid OLPC Foundation $847.90 USD using PayPal.

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November 20, 2007 in Africa, nptech, OLPC, ICT4D, Loband, Poverty, Education and Children. 0 Comments

My kids can’t read, so I can safely share the news here that my father has very generously given me the go ahead to buy them OLPC Laptops for Christmas. Believe you me, they (and I) are going to be very excited to rip open their presents this year. The deadline for participating is November 26th, 2007 - so as of this writing it’s still not too late to order yours!

I complain alot about the OLPC project, but at the end of the day I am excited about the devices and am pleased that my children will finally get to have one - and in the process help to make sure that some kids (hopefully in Africa) also get to have them. I am also pleased at least to perceive that Nicholas Negroponte and his OLPC Foundation appear to be coming back to earth and are developing realistic plans for deploying millions of these laptops in the third world. Perhaps I will even stop calling it a dam project with bunny ears.

Despite my excitement, I can’t help but continue complaining a little. It’s not so much about the devices but the attitude of Negroponte and the appearance of OLPC as traditional, very costly, top-heavy and not especially participative development project.

According to the Terms of “Give One Get One” page on the laptopgiving.org website (reposted below), that $847.90 purchase has involved us irrevocably in a global educational movement - participation may not be cancelled - even though there are no assurances as to when our devices will actually get here. The reason for this is that their priority is not me but the children in poor countries that will get the donated machines. If we decide to change our minds and ask for our money back, we have to act within 30 days, even if the devices are not in our possession and we haven’t decided if the laptops work well for us. And once we have them we will be seeking help using it from friends, family and bloggers. Wow!

I’m a geek and am used to getting help online, and everyone who knows me can attest that I am always eager to join global movements for change, especially when they involve creative uses of computers and the Internet, but these terms are still fairly heavy handed.
Continue reading ‘This email confirms that you have paid OLPC Foundation $847.90 USD using PayPal.’

NGOs going mobile… join the nGOmobile.org competition for grassroots groups in the third world

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Tobias Eigen

September 18, 2007 in Africa, Civil Society, nptech, Kabissa, Web 2.0, ICT4D, Loband, web2fordev, SMS and MobileActive. 2 Comments

Via the mobileactive mailing list, I learned today about the nGOmobile competition, which is kicking off today! Grassroots groups in the third world seeking the tools and resources to use mobile phones and SMS in pursuit of their missions are invited to participate.

I am particularly excited because I have observed over the last two years, since participating in the first Mobile Active Convergence in Toronto back in 2005, that the opportunities of mobile phones for advocacy in the third world have been out there and available, but not fully exploited. The case studies (what works and what does not work) have not been widely shared and discussed for others around the continent to benefit from. More civil society groups need to see examples of how this technology is empowering others - and can empower them.

This competition will go a long way to remedying that problem - so hats off to kiwanja.net, 160 Characters and the others involved in putting on this competition. Read on to see the announcement, or go straight to ngomobile.org to learn more. Please help spread the word about this terrific initiative. Continue reading ‘NGOs going mobile… join the nGOmobile.org competition for grassroots groups in the third world’

Small Price Laptop

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Tobias Eigen

September 14, 2007 in nptech, OLPC, ICT4D, Loband and Nigeria. 8 Comments

Tope Famayegun, a colleague and Time To Get Online training partner in Lagos, Nigeria, asked a poignant question in an email to our all-trainers mailing list today:

Does anyone know what has happened to Professor
Negroponte and the $100.00 Laptop per Child Project?

I was struck by this since she is in Lagos and probably held the laptop as it made the rounds in the audience during Negroponte’s speach at the Digital World Africa 2006 Conference in Abuja.

Since Nigeria signed up to be in the first round of recipients of the device, I’d be interested in hearing more from our Nigerian colleagues about how the project is unfolding there. Continue reading ‘Small Price Laptop’

Images FOR Africa - Flickr group promotes Creative Commons and sharing of Images FOR Africa

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Tobias Eigen

September 4, 2007 in Africa, nptech, Web 2.0, WordPress, Blogging, Media, ICT4D, Flickr, web2fordev and Creative Commons. 1 Comment

I love Creative Commons. I love pictures. And I love Africa! So I was very pleased to encounter - and promptly join - the Images of Africa - Images FOR Africa group on Flickr. The group gathers images of Africa by people who want to share them with others. The photos shared by the group can be used freely under a generous Creative Commons license, and of course can be browsed, discussed or searched in the usual nifty Flickr ways.

There is even a beautiful Flickr map so you can place your own photos on the map and allow people to browse them by country.

I am enthusiastic about the new channels this provides for building networks of shared interest among likeminded and generous people in Africa.

I would gather that Flickr groups like this with such a clear common benefit for group members will provide a wonderfully gentle route into Creative Commons for people that otherwise are skeptical of the hype surrounding Web 2.0.
Continue reading ‘Images FOR Africa - Flickr group promotes Creative Commons and sharing of Images FOR Africa’

Gathering stories about Web 2.0 in African civil society

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Tobias Eigen

August 17, 2007 in Africa, Civil Society, nptech, Kabissa, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Blogging, ICT4D and web2fordev. 2 Comments

Hey folks - I’m going to web2fordev in September and in the lead up to that am finalizing various outputs, including..

A paper I have been working on for the University of Washington’s Evans School about Web 2.0 in African Civil Society and which will be published on the Kabissa Wiki
An article about Kabissa and Web 2.0 for ICT Update
A presentation to give at the web2fordev conference about Kabissa and Web 2.0

As part of this, I wanted to get an update from Kabissa members and others in African civil society about their use of blogging and other social networking tools - remarkably, there are not that many case studies available despite the clearly active use of these nifty new tools and the massive potential dangling out there.

So I wrote a post on the Kabissa blog inviting grassroots groups to share their stories and sent out a quick mailing to members to invite them to come check it out. It should be interesting so stay tuned. If you have some good stories and links to share, please do so!

Negroponte’s “$100 laptop” plans: yeah, right!

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Tobias Eigen

May 8, 2007 in Africa, nptech, Free/Libre Open Source Software, OLPC, ICT4D and Nigeria. 3 Comments

By way of the very useful and positively glowing with goodwill and open source optimism mailing list Bytes for All, I learned about India’s ambitious $10 laptop answer to Negroponte’s $100 laptop. The Times of India article reads like The Onion, I must say, and the first thing I did was go to The Onion website and look up related keywords. Unfortunately nothing about the $100 laptop, though I did find a good picture of MIT researchers and their $30 million dollar love tester and other silliness.

But I digress. I must agree with Jacqui Cheng when he writes in India’s “$10 laptop” plans: yeah, right:

It doesn’t take an engineer to realize that $10 per laptop will be a very ambitious project indeed. The current (and final) iteration of MIT’s OLPC stands at $176, 76 percent higher than originally estimated.

… Continue reading ‘Negroponte’s “$100 laptop” plans: yeah, right!’

Casting a ballot for Africa at netsquared.org

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Tobias Eigen

April 10, 2007 in Africa, Civil Society, nptech, Kabissa, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Blogging, Free/Libre Open Source Software, Web Development and ICT4D. 1 Comment

I was psyched to see my Casting a ballot for Africa blog post on the frontpage of the Netsquared.org website, and various blog postings about the Kabissa 2.0 proposal at WhiteAfrican.com, globalvoicesonline.org, and Meandering Passage - wow, thanks everyone for helping to get the word out. It would be stunning if plenty of projects oriented towards Africa and the global south were to be among the finalists for the Netsquared Innovation Award, which is being decided between now and Saturday, April 14th at noon. And I certainly hope Kabissa 2.0 is among them!

Netsquared.org is an initiative of Compumentor (the same folks who created Techsoup.org) and is creatively challenging advocacy groups and nonprofits to make good on the promises of the Internet for revolutionary change. According to http://www.netsquared.org/about:

Our mission is to spur responsible adoption of social web tools by social benefit organizations.There’s a whole new generation of online tools available – tools that make it easier than ever before to collaborate, share information and mobilize support. These tools include blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, podcasting, and more. Some people describe them as “Web 2.0″; we call them the social web, because their power comes from the relationships they enable.

Last year I attended their first conference, which was a rather loosely organized event exploring the power of Web 2.0 for social change. I was interviewed then, in fact, about Kabissa 2.0. This year promises to be more “action oriented” - especially given the grandiose competition going on at netssquared.org right now. Last month they issued a call for proposals for innovative Web 2.0 for social change projects, and this week the Netsquared community is voting on the amazing 150 proposals submitted. The top 20 will be represented at the conference - all expenses paid - and duke it out for the top prize for the Netsquared Innovation Award. Of those even the losers are no doubt going to get plenty of attention.

Audioblogging by Mobile Phone? Round 2: Nigerian Election Blog Blueprint

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Tobias Eigen

April 4, 2007 in Africa, nptech, Web 2.0, WordPress, Blogging, Media, Politics, ICT4D, Loband and Nigeria. 6 Comments

When considering a Civil Society Election Blog for Nigeria, we realized fairly quickly that it has to be possible for people to contribute to it via their mobile phones. Post via the web and e-mail, yes, but also somehow via phone.

The obvious first destination is blogging via SMS, for which various tools are available. However, the constraints of SMS are immediately apparent - the limited number of letters you can send in a message, and that (apparently) SMS service is spotty in Nigeria. SMS messages simply do not always arrive at their destination. There are also not many carriers, and it seems risky to develop a strategy that depends too much on one carrier even if it seems likely that service will not be interrupted (after all, the police rely on their mobile phones as much as anybody else).

The next destination, audioblogging by telephone, is compelling. In fact, it’s so compelling that I’m surprised it has not caught on already.. especially in Africa. Why should it not be possible for activists and election monitors - and indeed citizens - to call a number and leave a message about problems they are experiencing or issues dear to them, and be able to expect their message to be immediately made available for listening on a blog?

We brainstormed on the topic, and it is remarkable how many affordable options are available. Read on to join me in looking into three of them - PhoneBlogz, Skype-In with Voicemail, and Evoca. Maybe you know others? None so far seem to make it particularly easy to provide a local Nigerian number to dial into, however it may be possible for some Mobile Activista to figure this out - so stay tuned for that.

Continue reading ‘Audioblogging by Mobile Phone? Round 2: Nigerian Election Blog Blueprint’

Stockholm 009

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Tobias Eigen

March 13, 2007 in Civil Society, nptech, Kabissa, Web 2.0, Social Networking and ICT4D. 0 Comments

I received this photo today. There must be something wrong with the notion of a “Tobias Grill” but I can’t get my head around it. Better than “Grilled Tobias” I suppose!

The “Stockholm 009″ photo comes from Eric Berg, who runs Learning for International NGOs (LINGOs) right here in Seattle. LINGOs provides international NGOs with (among other services) some very interesting online collaboration tools, e-conferencing, and a learning management system. Eric and I met last week at the “Communications Community of Practice” meeting in Stockholm hosted by the Global Water Partnership for Global Action Network-Net.

XO Man: Sugar and Spice, and all things nice?

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Tobias Eigen

March 2, 2007 in Africa, Free/Libre Open Source Software, OLPC, ICT4D and Loband. 1 Comment

This picture looks to me like an old Atari video game a childhood friend had hooked up to his TV, but in fact it’s the One Laptop Per Child answer to the traditional Mac/Windows Desktop. Continue reading ‘XO Man: Sugar and Spice, and all things nice?’