New tech iniatives for Africa

Submitted by sokari on 22 January, 2008 - 19:42.
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Three excellent ICT initiatives from Africa are the Paradigm Initiative Nigeria; the Open Cafe based in Potchefstroom, South Africa and online; and the TrainersPod which is a three country project in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.
Starting with the Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, this originated as an online volunteer programme to connect young Nigerians with ICT opportunities in the country. Since then it has developed into a fully fledged consultancy with capacity building in the area of "Youth-led Social Technopreneurship", a research element and a Telecenter Network such as the Ajegunle Center

While the overall objective of Ajegunle.org is to create better livelihoods through ICT opportunities, the project’s specific objectives include: (a) Capacity building for 25 trainees every other month. These youth will be equipped with ICT and Entrepreneurship skills which they will then pass on to other youth, along with starting their own business; (b) Community PC Ownership scheme that will provide an opportunity for trainees to acquire personal computers for their personal development and business needs; (c) Telecentre development which will explore a sustainable telecentre model (built through the collective effort of project graduates, PIN and the community) that will provide ICT opportunities, and will be easily replicable in other locations.

and the Cane Village based in the Lagos districts of Maryland, Victoria Island, Alapere and Ajina.

A social enterprise initiative of PIN, the three-phased project is aimed at:
* increasing the business capacity and improving the livelihoods of cane furniture makers in an under-performing artisan market Nigeria;
* strengthening an existing market and creating new ones by maximizing technology opportunities and leveraging on the skills of Nigerian graduates;
* encouraging entrepreneurship and creating employment opportunities for Nigerian youth.

The Open Cafe is an open source tech project

specialises in the usage, distribution, training and technical support for open sourcesoftware.

Whilist in South Africa last year I was able to visit the Open Cafe and was very impressed with the level of training and support given to the local community. The Cafe also provided support for accredited online courses in computer skills, an internet cafe with support for graphic design as well as the use of various internet related technologies such as email and web 2.0. An Open Source package is available free for anyone who drops in as well as Freedom Toaster which allows users to copy open source software.
The Art Market is a branch of the Open Cafe which supports artists who wish to use computer technologies to support their work. So if you are an artist of any kind and need tools to enable you to publish, market and sell your books, songs etc. check out this site.
Links: Where to find Open Content
Finally the Trainers Pod, provides support with E-learning, E-business and E-healthcare and how these can be integrated with ICTs. They provide a monthly subscription newsletter which lists current courses.
Although all the above projects aim to provide easier access to learning and knowledge sharing in Africa, due to internet costs and lack of appropriate infrastructure such as electricity supply in particular, the majority of Africans are still unable to take advantage of the services. The mobile phone is far more an appropriate tool for learning and knowledge sharing in Africa due to the huge take up of mobile phones which ranges from between 40% up to 90% in some countries on the continent. A number of projects have already begun to use mobile phones for learning, knowledge sharing, advocacy and healthcare to name a few. I will discuss some of these projects in the coming weeks.

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