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

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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.
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Are you in Nigeria? Text your election observations to 0808-4032739

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Tobias Eigen

April 20, 2007 in Africa, Civil Society, nptech, Web 2.0, Blogging, Media, Free/Libre Open Source Software, Nigeria and Democracy. 3 Comments

According to this Texts monitor Nigerian elections article on the BBC News website,

Anyone trying to rig or tamper with Saturday’s presidential elections in Nigeria could be caught out by a team of volunteers armed with mobile phones.

The number to text to is 0808-4032739. Note that number and tell everyone you know! According to the Network of Mobile Election Monitors (NMEM) website, here is how it works:

The success of our endeavor rest solely on the effectiveness of our volunteers. To participate is simple. First of you have to register as a volunteer, simply text the following information to 0808-403-2739. We will send a reply sms indicating we have signed you up as volunteer.

As a volunteer, you are expected to go out on Election Day and vote. This is the only way you can participate and report correctly on the election.

Volunteers are required to send in two reports on the conduct of the polls in their location.

The first report should be sent in before 12noon and should cover the following aspects of the polls.

Poll opening times

Voter accreditation

Ballot box / materials delivery times

2nd report at the close poll should be sent in before 6pm

Vote counting / result

Turn out at polling station

General conduct of election

Exit polls

And some more details from the BBC article:

The Network of Mobile Election Monitors (NMEM) will use SMS to feedback their observations to a central computer hub.

The collected text messages will then be passed on to other monitoring groups and authorities including the EU.

NMEM hopes the system will stop fraud, especially in areas considered too dangerous for other groups to enter.

“We want to set a precedent,” said Emauwa Nelson of the Human Emancipation Lead Project, a Nigerian NGO that helped set up the project.

“We want people to know that if they are trying to rig the election, there could be someone behind them and that person may send a text message saying what happened.”

… and don’t forget about blogging the election!

Then, if you are able to get to a computer with a microphone, please share your voice so the world can hear about what you are seeing and experiencing. Record a voice message to be posted directly on the greenlightnigeria.org election blog website. Or, if you prefer, send in your submissions via the greenlightnigeria.org contact form.

This is terrific news and I am very pleased to see that election monitors are making use of Ken Banks’s Frontline SMS tool to make this possible. These examples of SMS use for defending democracy are extremely important and can be applied everywhere in Africa.

Congratulations, Ken and NMEM, and may you succeed in helping to keep Nigeria from erupting tomorrow. All eyes are on you.

(If you can, please share your observations about your experience using this technology in a comment to this post - I’m very interested to hear about it.)

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.

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Blueprint for a Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog

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Tobias Eigen

March 15, 2007 in Africa, Civil Society, nptech, Web 2.0, Social Networking, WordPress, Blogging, muti, Media, Politics, Create Peace, Nigeria and Global Voices. 15 Comments

Nigeria’s election in April promises to be full of surprises - and I am worried for the people in Nigeria and the region that it may not go well and descend the country into chaos. A Nigerian friend who should know has already said the country has only a 50/50 chance of getting through this unscathed. I don’t think he’s exaggerating, considering the rather shocking reports coming out of the country, such as this recent Amnesty International Urgent Action alert about another old friend, Anyakwee Nsirimovu. The organization Anyakwee started in Port Harcourt, Institute for Humanitarian and International Law, is one of the first 10 members of Kabissa. Here’s a quote from the AI alert:

Anyakwee Nsirimovu, Executive Director of the Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (IHRHL) in Rivers State, in the Niger delta, was attacked on 4 March, a week after an apparent threat to kill his family if he did not stop his human rights activities. Amnesty International believes that his life may be in danger.

There will no doubt be more reports of incidents like this as we get closer to the elections, which is discouraging to contemplate. However, I am heartened by the strong solidarity shown by members of the African Democracy Forum in response to a posting on their e-network of the AI alert about Anyakwee. People around Nigeria, Africa and indeed the world unequivocally stated their support and readiness.

One way to perhaps help to prevent widescale abuses might be to make this solidarity more readily visible on the Internet through a Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog. I did an Internet search and while there are some bloggers (like this and this and this ) discussing the election and Global Voices and Pambazuka News have been covering the elections, I did not see any clear effort to use blogging specifically to prevent violence during the election.

Perhaps I am being naive and there are good reasons for this - I’d love to hear them. But I’m very enthusiastic about the blogosphere and am always wondering how it might be applied to the important work of civil society organizations in Africa. I have jotted down some ideas below that perhaps others might pick up on or that might spur a collaboration. And if not in Nigeria, maybe it will be useful for someone trying to do the same in another “emerging democracy”. Read on, and let me know what you think.

Even if such a coordinated effort does not take off, I’d like to encourage everyone that knows anything at all about what is going on in Nigeria these days to blog actively about it and to tag blog postings at Technorati, Del.icio.us and other social networking sites. The election must be carried out as much as possible in public view, and Nigeria must know the world is watching. If you are concerned for your own safety, you can always blog under a pseudonym at WordPress.com or one of the many other free blogging sites out there.

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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!

Terrific New York Times video of Last King of Scotland premiere in Uganda

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Tobias Eigen

February 23, 2007 in Africa, Uganda, Media and Politics. 3 Comments

The New York Times covered the Last King of Scotland Movie Premiere in Uganda on Sunday, February 21, 2007. Watching the online video is a giddy, emotional affair. I am so glad this film was made, and am very much looking forward to watching it myself.