Afromusing

There were so many sessions, so much information, that i wish we had a blogging hazmat team like Ethan recommends, to do a ‘harambee’ (working together) type deal where we cover different bits of the conference.
A quick intro of the other co-panelists on the ‘Women Across the World’ session.
Georgia of Caribbean Free Radio took photos
Snidga Sen is a journalist and contributing editor on the Blogher website where you can read her entries (she covers Asia).
Amira Al Husseini, is a contributing author for Global voices, and also blogs as ‘Silly Bahraini Girl‘.
The session is interactive, therefore powerpoint presentations were discouraged.
Mea Culpa: During the session i inadvertently referred to Kenya as having had democracy since 2000, i did clarify that the Moi Regime ended in 2000 and Kenya had experienced some noticeable economic growth. This was in response to a question by Georgia as to the reason behind Kenya being seen as a success story. Sssembonge was kind enough to point this out, Just to clarify, Kenya has had democracy since its independence in 1963, and the specifics on democracy from wikipedia…

“The election held in 1988 saw the advent of the mlolongo (queuing) system where voters were supposed to line up behind their favoured candidates instead of secret ballot. This was seen as the climax of a very undemocratic regime and it led to widespread agitation for constitutional reform. Several contentious clauses, including the one allowing only one political party were changed in the following years. In democratic, multiparty elections in 1992 and 1997, Daniel arap Moi won re-election. In 2002, Moi was constitutionally barred from running, and Mwai Kǐbakǐ, running for the opposition coalition “National Rainbow Coalition” — NARC, was elected President. The elections, judged free and fair by local and international observers, marked a turning point in Kenya’s democratic evolution.”

Ok, now that i got that off my chest, let me point towards some wonderful bloggers and tidbits from my notes at the conference. The session on ‘Professional blogging, Art and Commerce’
What i found pertinent in this session was the issue of licensing content and how we as bloggers use content licensed by others. Specifically sites that have ads could be considered commercial sites, thus technically they should not use content from bloggers who have explicitly stated that their content or images be used only for non-commercial use. This is a bit of a minefield if you have your own domain and you are trying to make a decision as to whether or not to carry ads on your site. Does it dilute your ‘voice’ on the net? Should you incorporate if you are making money from blogging? These are some of the questions that were posed, and you can read more about that from the coverage by Anne Marie Nichols.

I slipped away from this session (not that it wasn’t interesting) and attended part of the session ‘politics of inclusion and exclusion in online communities’. As bloggers, sometimes we encounter trolls or even some purely hateful people. How do you deal with such? Do you find that it is easier to blog anonymously and have a gender-neutral blog name? What freedom or lack thereof is there in blogging anonymously or with your name attached to everything you say? Live blog entry is available here. I got to meet Valencia who participated in the panel; her blog is http://whyblackwomenareangry.blogspot.com/. I particularly liked her recommendation to turn negative comments (including from white supremacists) into a positive lesson for those involved.

Quick note: Visit Lynne D Johnson, very cool website and an even cooler blogger and writer! (Hint, she writes for FastCompany.com and other major publications)

Last but not least, at the keynote breakfast on saturday, i was formulating talking points for the session, but still listening to the discussion about ‘What Humans do with artificial intelligence’. This was just superb! The awesome women talking to Elisa Camahort were:
Esther Dyson She has been described as one of the most powerful women in computing.
Annalee Newitz, - She is a technologist and writes for Wired Mag (I read that thing instead of Cosmo, so pardon me for being so psyched to meet her!)
Rashmi Sinha CEO of Slideshare.
The main takeaway for me from this keynote breakfast was “Embrace your geek”. At times women (including me) tend to play down our penchant for all things geek, because of many reasons, be it cultural, social…whatever. Basically plough on with whatever interests you and ignore the detractors(if any) so if you like robots, or feel entirely comfortable dealing with NP problems, completely adore Carl Sagan or whatever it may be, embrace it and keep doing your thing.

Speaking of geek - Visit Beth Kanter, and see her work with Cambodian bloggers (Cloggers) and don’t forget to download her guide ‘How to cost and fund ICT’

Thanks again to KP, my fellow co-panelists mentioned above, Kui (she was also involved with BlogHer in 2005, when we were talking of sending a representative from the Kenyan sphere) Blogher was awesome. In time I am confident we can put together something like this in Africa. (We shall talk!), and thank you dear reader for reading all this. I will be back to my solar and renewable energy posts soon.

A live blog coverage of the session i participated in is available here,

“… when people talk about africa they talk about poverty but africa would like to say there is a lot of growth and a lot of expertise in africa - linux chicks africa - (Jen says how do we connect linux chicks with the women Jen saw in africa) - have africa speakers talk about changing africa - african solutions for african problems - Ted Talks - TRADE with africans - partner and work with Africans support their ideas - trade, trade, trade - money and capital in the hands of women has a transformative power.”

I then attended the multimedia lab for video -
Editing video for web tips keep an eye on the main blogher site for more entries.

I was fortunate to attend one of the sessions today at the BlogHer conference in Chicago (Thanks KenyanPundit!) BlogHer brings together women bloggers to talk, share, learn and network.
You can follow along with the bloggers writing, taking pictures, and uploading videos by visiting the event site for live blog URLs.
The session was on how to use the internet to support your cause. It was titled “Getting it on(line) for a cause part 2″ Raising consciousness.
Rochelle Robinson -online campaign strategist had a wonderful presentation which you can have a look at here. Its a must read for anyone with a cause - Its concise, specific and has some great examples of how tech can be used effectively. One such example she pointed to is Hollaback. Women had gotten tired of street harassment, so they took pictures of their harassers and wrote about it on the blog.

Green LA girl was next with a great idea of using del.icio.us for a cause. What she and another blogger were able to do was to collect and tag information relating to the starbucks challenge. The idea was to challenge people who visit starbucks to specifically ask for fair trade coffee since starbucks had stated they would be selling fair trade coffee at every location. Turns out it was a promise that was easier said than done…Green LA girl and others were able to prove that it was not the case in all locations. The information they gathered was used by another blogger to create a google map of the locations where people had reported succcess in getting a cup of fair trade coffee and locations where they werent so successful. Read more about the challenge here and the google map is here. It might be a great idea for tracking the elections in Kenya, tagging information regarding constituencies and perhaps mapping it onto Mzalendo’s growing database of information. Just a thought…either way get tagging!

I will be participating on a panel tomorrow with Georgia Popplewell of Global Voices! and Amira Al Hussaini. I will carry the laptop and do a post after we are done with that.

This installation in Chifiri, in North Eastern province Kenya is an example of how wind and solar installations can be used to provide the needs of marginalized communities in arid and semi-arid areas.

Simon Mwacharo, TEDGlobal speaker and renewable energy innovator has written about it in wonderful detail and provided pictures. Read more about it here.

The turbine also provides some power to the nearby manyattas (traditional samburu huts), Simon noticed a Japanese guy camped out near the turbine. That was the only place he could charge his laptop and phone!

Do note that next week, the TEDGlobal talks will premiere on Ted.com. Subscribe in itunes by searching for tedtalks and also check the TED blog for a series of posts from bloggers who attended the conference. A piece i wrote is is alread posted on the TED blog, Like Emily said ‘This is the bloggers story to tell’, because there wasn’t as much coverage of it in the mainstream news. I hope you enjoy the talks.

We truly live in a small world. Its no wonder Frontline on PBS has a tag line of ’stories from a small planet’. This short video [8:35] is one that explores how religion,

sex,

AID, and politics interplay between Uganda and the US.
The strategy of ABC - Abstinence, Be Faithful and Condoms had been successful in reducing the AIDs infection rate, but a reversal of that strategy by President Yoweri Museveni perhaps directly or indirectly due to the strings that came with the aid money to combat aids appears to be counter productive. 1/3 of the 15 billion dollars allocated in PEPFAR - President’s [GW Bush] Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief be used to promote abstinence only programs around the world. That is 5 billion bucks.
You can join the discussion on the frontline page for the video. Particularly welcome are thoughts from the Ugandan blogosphere.

Images courtesy of Frontline World.

On July 26 there will be a video about baseball in Ghana - so do keep frontline world bookmarked.
(Thanks Charlotte for the heads up).

Well, i am paraphrasing Jim Forster’s line which in its entirety reads, “If you don’t like the network you have, go out and make your own“. This was one of my favorite quotables at TEDGlobal in Arusha.

Jim Forster is the distinguished engineer at Cisco, the veritable maker of routers and switches that form the backbone of the internet, amongst other products and services. He is also one of the contributors to the invaluable free resource “Wireless Networking in the Developing World” - An in depth guide to planning and building low cost telecom infrastructure.

In his 3 minute presentation at TEDGlobal he talked about the current state of telecom, likening it to a railroad system where everyone is a customer but it doesn’t reach all the areas ‘last mile’ as it were. The model that we should be considering is one that is composed of many private networks, similar to the model of the internet, or a ‘network of networks’. We need to encourage our governments to support the idea of many networks that are run either privately or as businesses providing network access to others. Please click on the graphic below to download the presentation that he has made available.

There is also more information available on the site Network The World.

While on the topic of wireless networks, Riyaz of skunkworks pointed me to Meraki’s june announcement of the first solar powered outdoor wifi access kit.

Priced at just $99, Meraki Outdoor can send a signal up to 700 feet. Paired with Meraki’s existing indoor $49 Mini, the Meraki Outdoor repeater can power access for dozens of households sharing one high speed connection. Meraki Outdoor can be easily installed on a wall or even a pole outside the house. It marks another step forward in Meraki’s efforts to change the economics of Wi-Fi access, driving the cost per household of high speed connections to $1 to $2 a month.

Adding the Meraki Solar accessory kit will allow the repeater to broadcast a signal without being connected to any electrical source, making it an ideal solution for any community, even emerging markets where electricity is scant or unreliable.

The skunkworks crew and other wireless networking experts, you are very welcome to comment on whether you see any private networks being set up in Nairobi or other parts of Africa that utilize the ideas alluded to above. Meanwhile…no whining!

Image from the internet superstar - Hugh Mcleod.

**Tangential Digression - Weird Cell behavior on the border.

On crossing the border from Tanzania into Kenya and vice versa, i got the following text message on my safaricom line…from Celtel. It stated “Welcome to Kenya & thank you for choosing Celtel.International access code is 000 or +.The tourist help line is +254733617499.Celtel. Making life better.”. Worrisome to say the least. Is celtel just broadcasting a signal to all and sundry? How did they get the safaricom number? What expectation of privacy should safaricom customers have? I later found out that everyone gets that sms whether they are on a celtel line or safaricom. I mentioned it to Mr. Forster and he pointed out that some networks do play nice and share infrastructure even base stations. Its quite curious…Do chime in if you’ve experienced something similar, even weirder, or if you can shed light on how and why this occurs. Does the same thing happen on crossing into Uganda?

Sorry if you thought this was a new dancing fad like the cha cha slide (video)
This is my little corny way of passing along information about a recruitment initiative which brings together internationally oriented African graduates and professionals who are seeking careers in Africa with multinational corporations, intergovernmental organizations and leading African companies.

Date: November 16-18th 2007
Place: Houston Texas
More Info: Global Career Company It is invitation only event so you would need to apply online first.

Companies confirmed to attend the Summit include: Anglo Platinum, Barloworld, Chevron, Coca-Cola SABCO, Cisco, Eskom, Heineken, Intercontinental Bank, Lafarge, OPS, Orascom, SAB, Shell, Toyota and United Bank for Africa. Available career opportunities range from entry-level graduate openings to senior management appointments and cover a variety of functions.

While at TEDGlobal I met Manuel Toscano, a gentleman who works for Emergency USA. We talked shortly about solar power being a great technology for use in remote areas. He filled me in on a hospital that was designed using the following guiding principles.
-The idea of a “hollow” space and a pavilion-based system;
-The choice of the best possible technology given the context;
-The search for an ethical language for this type of architecture.

The choice of solar power for a hospital in an oil rich country might seem a bit ironic, but there is more to this. The specific details of how the energy produced by the panels is used is particularly interesting.

Solar panel: free healthcare, free energy
The average temperature in the Sudan is 29°C, and in the hottest months it can reach 45°C. In order to cool down the hospital, a number of measures were taken during construction. In addition to this, air conditioners were installed after the building was constructed. In the first case, a series of insulating techniques were used. The external walls for example are 58 cm thick and contain an insulating cavity that prevents the building from heating up. The use of traditional cooling systems would have implied high levels of electrical energy or fossil fuel consumption (the needs in terms of volumes of air to be cooled down are hefty: 28,000 m3). In a country rich in oil resources, EMERGENCY has sought out alternative sources of clean energy: the sun. Nine containers left Italy for Khartoum with 300 solar panels, bringing to the country an almost unknown technology, and one that is very seldom used in Europe. Today a plant that contains 288 solar collecting items (for an equivalent of 900 m2, or the area of 10 houses) produces 3,600 KW- as much as burning 355 kg of gas – without producing one gram of CO2. Each collecting item is made up of a number of copper tubes that contain water; these are themselves placed in insulated glass tubes that allow the water inside the copper tubes to heat up. The water transfers the accumulated heat to an insulated 50 m3 tank that keeps the water between 80-90°C. The heat is then cooled down to 7°C in two “chilling” machines. Solar power thus allows the center to produce cold air without discharging any particles into the atmosphere, and limits the use of electric power to water circulation pumps. Two regular boilers have also been installed in case the solar power is not sufficient to run the two “chilling” machines. The cold water is used to lower the levels of heat in the rooms that need to be chilled for medical or other purposes. The machines used for this last part of the cooling circuit are called UATs (Units of Air Treatment). There are 8, each one designed for a specific area of the hospital (CPR, surgery, administration, etc). The UATs draw air from outside and “force” it into a 7°C tube that cools it down. A second system of tubes subsequently transports the cool air to various hospital rooms according to need.

In short, the surgery center is kept cool using a combination of the water from the Nile and the Solar panels. For more detail on the design guidelines of the salam center please click here [pdf]. (Thank you Manuel).

It is becoming increasingly clear that solar tech is flexible enough to allow for innovation in any field. Another example of solar being especially useful in the medical field is the ‘Hospital in a box’ invention by Dr. Seyi Oyesola, a TED Global Speaker and innovator.

Jason Pontin of TR summarized his invention as

It was a simple, portable (well, 150-pound), resilient set of medical devices that makes surgery possible even in the worst parts of the world. The hospital in a box has anesthetic equipment, a defibrillator, a burn unit, plaster-making tools, surgical tools, and an operating table.

In my post on tales of invention, i noted that the ‘Hospital in a box’ can be charged using a truck battery or a solar panel.

Note: TED fellows Dr. Chikwe Iheakweazu and Dr. Ike Anya from Nigeria started the blog ‘Nigeria Health Watch’ to discuss and bring to the fore health care issues in Nigeria and Africa in general. Do visit them and subscribe to their feed if you are in the medical field and want to be in the loop.

Back to architecture: This ted talk from Cameron Sinclair is very inspiring.

Videos from Live Earth in South Africa and around the world have been posted online. Watch them here.

Yesterday i was very fortunate to attend a concert by Vieux Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate’s symmetric Orchestra. They were performing at the Frank Gehry designed Pritzker pavilion in Chicago, as part of the music without borders series.

Vieux Farka Toure is the son of Ali Farka Toure, famed Malian musician who passed away last year. We were all sad to hear of his passing; Jke had a tribute to AFT. Malian music, especially the likes of AFT and Toumani diabate have always left an indelible impression to most who’ve heard it. It definitely did for me in 2005 when i wrote this post.
As the universe works in wonderful ways…Vieux Farka Toure is carrying on the legacy of his father’s desert blues without missing a beat.

I arrived a little late to the concert so i missed about half of Vieux’s set, though from the 3 songs i heard, the man is indeed a sensation. The blues rag says of him… “Mali has a new guitar god, and his name is Vieux Farka Toure”. I quite agree. Listening to him play was special. He is hyper skilled on guitar. That is the simplest way i can put it without resorting to phrases like “Oh my god he was. like. totally. amazing!”.

Click on the image below for the set of photographs i took. I also twittered it a bit.

Toumani Diabate is a grammy award winning Kora player whose discography you can browse on Afropop.
He is the gentleman with the Kora in this picture.

He had reunited with Ali Farka Toure before AFT passed away and had played together in the highly acclaimed CD ‘In the Heart of the Moon’.
He took a break during the performance and explained that he is from 71 generations of griots He also pointed out the Kora, which is a 21 string instrument, made of fishing wire, calabash and antelope skin. He played with 4 Chicago jazz musicians, melding the polyphonic sounds with the jazzy in such a beautiful mashup. Its a shame the concert wasn’t streamed, it was probably recorded though, so it might show up on the world music circuit soon. I was rapt in the music the whole time, it was very cool.
Music to share (For a limited time - I will take them down in a week):
Toumani
Boulevard De’ Independance

Very short Video clip:
Lead singer of Symmetric orchestra gracefully entering the stage

The remaining tour dates for Vieux:
Jul 15 2007 Old Town School Folk Music Fest, Chicago, Illinois
Jul 16 2007 TRAVEL to CA/ Villa Montalvo, Saratoga, California
Jul 18 2007 Nuits d’Afrique Festival, Montreal, Quebec
Jul 19 2007 Grassroots Festival, Trumansburg, New York
Jul 20 2007 Institute of the Arts, Detroit, Michigan
Jul 21 2007 W. Kortwright Center, E. Meredith, New York
Jul 23 2007 Newport Towers, Jersey City, New Jersey
Jul 24 2007 Grace Building, New York, New York
Jul 25 2007 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
Jul 26 2007 Strand Theater, Rockland, Maine
Jul 29 2007 Hillside Festival , Guelph, Ontario
Aug 3 2007 Providence Parks, Providence, Rhode Island
Aug 9 2007 Skirball Center, Los Angeles, California
Aug 10 2007 Grand Performances, Los Angeles, California
Aug 10 2007 Temple Bar, Los Angeles, California
Aug 11 2007 TRAVEL to Canada/Edmonton Folk Festival, Edmonton, Alberta
Aug 12 2007 Edmonton Folk Festival, Edmonton, Alberta
Aug 18 2007 ONE WORLD InnerNational Music Celebration, Horseshoe, North Carolina

Remaining tour dates for Toumani Diabate
Jul 14 2007 8:00P Vancouver Folk Festival, Vancouver
Jul 15 2007 8:00P World Festival, Grass Valley, California
Jul 16 2007 8:00P Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, California
Jul 18 2007 8:00P Hudson Festival, New York, New York
Jul 19 2007 8:00P BAM Festival, New York, New York
Jul 20 2007 8:00P New Mexico Jazz Festival, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Jul 21 2007 8:00P New Mexico Jazz Festival, Albuquerque, New Mexico

For other african artists touring please click here. (Thanks Mweshi for the link).

The African renaissance has a soundtrack playing globally. Enjoy!