Digging deeper into the localness of participation in Sub-Saharan African Wikipedia content

16 December 2014 0

The previous two posts about the geography of contributions to Wikipedia showed both the different types of local engagement that different regions have, and the primary reason that Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, has such a low proportion of locally created content.   However, while the graphic in our previous post (also included above) gives a… Read More: Digging deeper into the localness of participation in Sub-Saharan African… »

Harare’s Fledgling Tech Entrepreneurs

14 December 2014 0

Tech entrepreneurship is definitely on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, actually, this rise is not evenly distributed across Africa’s vast geography. Leaving aside South Africa, we can observe that the emergence of content and application startup activity has so far concentrated in the sprawling capital cities of two countries with growing economies, large populations,… Read More: Harare’s Fledgling Tech Entrepreneurs »

Explaining locally-contributed content in Wikipedia about Sub-Saharan Africa

12 December 2014 0

An earlier post showed how different parts of the world have very different levels of engagement with local content in Wikipedia. The data presented there showed that a majority of content about North America and Europe are created in those regions, whilst only a small minority of content about Latin America, the Middle East and… Read More: Explaining locally-contributed content in Wikipedia about Sub-Saharan Africa »

New book drawing on fieldwork in Sub-Saharan Africa

10 December 2014 0

I’m delighted to announce the release of a new book that I co-wrote with colleagues Dan Hammett and Chasca Twyman: ‘Research and Fieldwork in Development.’ The book draws on our experiences of doing fieldwork about development (often in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa) and explores both traditional and cutting edge research methods, from interviews and… Read More: New book drawing on fieldwork in Sub-Saharan Africa »

First Geonet Publications Start Taking Shape

2 December 2014 0

The first stage of the Geonet project aiming to broadly understand the diversity of new practices in Sub-Saharan Africa’s knowledge economy is off to a good start. Beyond collecting data about the quaternary sector, IT-enabled services, and knowledge production in the region, we have started drafting the first articles. We will start by reviewing the… Read More: First Geonet Publications Start Taking Shape »

Kigali’s Evolving Tech Innovation… Ecosystem

25 November 2014 0

“Ecosystem” has become one of the most common terms in tech innovation. It rolls easily off the tongue, probably because it has a communal connotation, and evokes ideas such as “collaboration” and “multi-stakeholder.” Where “innovation system” sounds like a technocratic term that emphasizes institutions and deemphasizes people’s agency at the grassroots, “ecosystem” sounds like a… Read More: Kigali’s Evolving Tech Innovation… Ecosystem »

Reflections on the ITU’s World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium

25 November 2014 0

A very short update from the ITU’s World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium in Tbilisi Georgia that I just attended. One strong theme on the first day of the meeting was that “The illiterate of the 21st century are those that cannot use ICTs” (a quote from the Ministerial Roundtable). This idea is also reflected in the… Read More: Reflections on the ITU’s World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium »