As you consider which nonprofits to donate to this year to help Africa in 2011, please take a moment to learn about Kabissa's plans and our funding needs, which I discuss in some detail in an interview published today on the Netsquared blog and crossposted below.

Please click here to make your donation - any amount will help! Thank you for your support!

Interview With A FACT Challenge Winner: Tobias Eigen from Kabissa Connections

We recently announced the 5 Winners for the FACT Social Justice Challenge and we are thrilled at the caliber and impact of all the Projects. As such, we want to give you a closer look at these collaborative technology Projects and the people behind them. Each Monday in the month of November, we posted an interview from one of the Winning Projects using the fact interviews tag. This is the last interview in the series - thanks for following along! 

This week, we're featuring Tobias Eigen from Kabissa Connections. Kabissa is an online network that helps African civil society organizations use ICT to benefit communities all over Africa. The Kabissa Connections Project is an extension of the existing Kabissa platform that will address trust concerns by revealing connections that organizations have with networks, international organizations, supporters and service providers. 

Learn more about Kabissa Connections in the interview below!

Netsquared is starting to post follow-up interviews with the 5 FACT Challenge Winners - Kabissa Connections is among them and will be featured next week. I will be crossposting the African project interviews here to share them with the Kabissa community and invite you to explore the project ideas, learn from them and give them your support. Read on to learn about the E-Peace Building Project in Kenya's Ewaso Ngiro River Basin.

I am so pleased to learn that Kabissa has won the community vote part of the FACT Social Justice Challenge on Netsquared, and that we are in the running for the $5,000 prize and development support which will be awarded to 5 of the 15 finalists tomorrow, 20 October. It is so encouraging - and motivating! - to have such an outpouring of support from Kabissa stakeholders, not just in votes but in comments and "fandom" (53 fans as of this writing!) on our Kabissa Connections project page on Netsquared. Thank you! Please keep the comments coming, and let us know how YOU will use Kabissa Connections or if you want to partner with us to implement it.  

Looking at the Final Judging Guidelines and Voting Criteria, it looks like Kabissa Connections has a very good chance of winning: it is quite feasible, has a high social justice potential by empowering and strengthening African civil society organizations, is already attracting attention from Kabissa stakeholders, makes very innovative use of @civicrm and @drupal, and is very much scalable as an open data, free and open source software project.

Keep your fingers crossed, everyone!

I just went through and made another round of improvements to the Kabissa Connections project idea I submitted to Netsquared to Build Reputation and Trust of Organizations By Revealing Relationships Online. I'm feeling quite good about it and am very excited about the possibilities for Kabissa to serve the African civil society sector in a new way. I'd like to make this proposal the best it can be, so would be grateful to have input and support from Kabissa members.