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Run, don’t walk to vote for Pambazuka News in Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics

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September 20, 2007 in Africa, Civil Society, nptech, Kabissa, Web 2.0, Politics, Create Peace, Democracy and Poverty. 0 Comments

If you haven’t done so already, go now to vote for Pambazuka News!

It’s easy to do. No login required, just go to http://tinyurl.com/2yo3vy, look for PAMBAZUKA NEWS on the list and click the “Vote” button.

Vote for Pambazuka News!

For the third year running, Pambazuka News has been selected as one of 25 finalists for the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics.

Pambazuka News is produced by a pan-African community of some 300 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women’s organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators.

Winning this award would be a tribute to all the many contributors who have made Pambazuka News essential reading for all concerned with the cause of justice and freedom in Africa.

With your help, we could win this award. Please vote for us at: http://tinyurl.com/2yo3vy

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’

Interview with Walter Turner on Kabissa, Web 2.0, African civil society and more…

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Tobias Eigen

September 4, 2007 in Africa, Civil Society, nptech, Kabissa, Web 2.0, Social Networking, WordPress, Blogging, Free/Libre Open Source Software, Democracy and web2fordev. 0 Comments

I was pleased to learn from Nunu Kidane (Priority Africa Network) this morning that an interview Kim Lowery and I did with Walter Turner back in May aired on KPFA in Berkeley yesterday and is available online.

The interview came on the heels of the Netsquared conference on “remixing the web for social change”, so Kim and I were very much jazzed up by - and no doubt still processing - the attention our Kabissa 2.0 proposal received at the conference and the many remarkable projects and ideas we were exposed to. We discussed Web 2.0 concepts but Walter Turner also challenged us to go into detail about the history and justification for Kabissa, on what we think civil society is and how we support the important work of organizations in 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!

Camping out with the Drupallers in Seattle

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Tobias Eigen

June 30, 2007 in nptech, Kabissa, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Free/Libre Open Source Software, Web Development, Drupal and Seattle. 5 Comments

The Seattle Drupal Users Group met for a Drupal Camp yesterday. It was an all day affair, with Drupal developers hiding out in one room learning about such things as theming and jviews with Robin Barre and noobs like me in a larger room with Gregory Heller from CivicActions doing a so-called Barn Raising. Donald Lobo from CiviCRM also happened to be there and we took adantage of the opportunity to sign a contract and review the specs for the CiviCRM component of the Kabissa African Voices project. It feels good to be implementing CiviCRM at long last, after years of planning and false starts with other vendors, and I very much like the way we are doing it.

Back to the Drupal Camp: I found the Barn Raising to be very helpful - we basically learned all about Drupal, a leading open source content management system, by planning and implementing a Drupal site in a day. I was able to get alot of my questions answered which will help me a great deal in finalizing the migration of the Kabissa site from Joomla to Drupal (keep your eyes peeled on http://www.kabissa.org for a new site appearing shortly!). Roland Taglao from bryght.com came down from Vancouver. Roland took loads of photos which presumably he will upload to his DrupalCamp Seattle 2007 set on flickr and recorded video which is currently available, in rather raw form, at http://ustream.tv/roland. The Seattle DUG is a lively group, and I very much enjoyed and appreciated the open, friendly atmosphere. I hope to make sense of my notes here, but for the moment have just pasted them in below. Read on at your own risk!

Oh, and before you go: yes, I did go watch Candy Mountain on YouTube as strongly recommended by Gregory. What is it, a morality story teaching about the perils of peer pressure?
Continue reading ‘Camping out with the Drupallers in Seattle’

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.

Kabissa is now blogging! And at the NTC!

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Tobias Eigen

April 4, 2007 in nptech, Kabissa, WordPress, Blogging and 07NTC. 0 Comments

Greetings, and welcome to the Kabissa blog!

The Kabissa team is now blogging at http://www.kabissa.org/blog - and I for one am very excited about it. I have enjoyed having my personal blog here at saidia.org, but having a team blog at Kabissa will encourage all of us to share more regularly about our day-to-day experiences and the learning we are doing about ICT in African civil society. The blog will also give us opportunities to take some of our fiery Kabissa debates to the blogosphere so others can join in the fun!

And just in time, too. Kim and Liz are participating in the huge NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference, which kicks off today in Washington DC. I don’t plan to quote myself often between these blogs, but I will now to avoid repeating myself:

Participating in NTC over the years has been greatly influential to my thinking about emerging technologies and how we as Kabissa can contribute to the important work of African civil society organizations as they grapple with new opportunities the new technologies are offering.

That Kim and Liz are at the event and I am at home on Bainbridge Island is an exciting change for us. I participated in the last three conferences, in Philadelphia, Chicago and Seattle. This year, my colleagues will be mixing with friends I have been getting to know over the years, and also meeting new people. As for me, I will be vicariously enjoying the events from afar, by monitoring their contributions to the Kabissa blog as well as the online activities of some of helpful “Web 2.0 hype enabled” colleagues (such as Ryan Ozimek at Picnet and NTEN) that will be providing blow by blow reports of the action.

Joomla launches powerful new forge

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Tobias Eigen

March 13, 2007 in nptech, Kabissa, Web 2.0, Web Development and Joomla. 0 Comments

New Joomla Forge

All in one week, the Joomla Open Source Content Management System has, in in the awe inspiring hype enabled words of its developer team, “pimped its ride“, “shifted Forge’s Gears“, and marked a “defining moment in the Joomlasphere”.

Today marks a defining moment in the Joomlasphere, which sees the launch of our gForge. Yes, the new ‘V8 hot rod’ has arrived — and we believe it will provide the best development environment for a number of reasons but primarily to future-proof and cope with huge load.

All giggling aside, I’m very pleased by these developments. Joomla is not messing around, and I am hopeful that this effort to future proof their forge (where Joomla software and extensions live) means the much anticipated public release of Joomla version 1.5 is nigh. The Kabissa website is built using Joomla 1.0 and we actively promote it to our African civil society members, and 1.5 promises to be even more powerful and userfriendly. I know we are eagerly awaiting 1.5 because it has been more than two years now since we adoped Mambo, which became Joomla, and there has been no major new release in all that time.

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.

Reporting Africa, blog by blog - Becky Hogge article on openDemocracy

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Tobias Eigen

March 1, 2007 in Africa, Kabissa, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Blogging, Media and Global Voices. 2 Comments

Via the DigAfrica Yahoogroup I came across Reporting Africa, blog by blog on openDemocracy. This article by Becky Hogge should be required reading by anyone with an interest in Africa, media and blogging. It covers a new partnership between Reuters and the powerful Global Voices “bridge blogging” service, and explains the history and nature of the Global Voices project very nicely. According to Becky, Reuters launched a new news portal which includes direct feeds to Global Voices blogs on the “News by country” pages.

I found it interesting that there was no mention of allafrica.com, which also provides a news portal used by many to follow events throughout Africa and hosts the BlogAfrica blog aggregator site which appears to have been the precursor to Global Voices. I’d be interested in hearing more about that history and how allafrica.com, which I have always found to be a most useful and valiantly offered service, fits into all of this.

Becky also gets into the discussion of how difficult it is to report out of Africa, and fears that reporters might have of media outlets seeking to have blogs replace journalism. Time will tell - but in the meantime I’m very pleased to see the contribution Global Voices is making to encouraging Africans to speak out to the world and make their presence known.

She concludes:

Rachel Rawlins, managing editor of the Global Voices project, believes the Reuters move “demonstrates the increasing value placed by news organisations on the ability of authentic voices to provide perspective, background and context to the events they cover.” But she recognises that the value this provides is only nascent. Announcing the Reuters project to her community, Rawlins ended with a hope that “the involvement of bloggers in projects such as this not only gives a platform to those whose voices have long been left unheard, but also encourages others to join the conversation and brings pressure to bear on behalf of those who want to speak but cannot.”

Good stuff. Yes, I’ve now added the Global Voices badge on my fledgling blog. I encourage you to do the same!