35 Reasons to Worry About Privacy in Africa
Over the last five years there has been a steady trend for African governments to implement mandatory SIM card registration policies. This means that you can’t buy a SIM card for a mobile phone without…
Cape Town to Lunenburg
Yesterday I touched down with my family in Halifax, Canada, our new home for the next few years. Well, actually near there, a small town south of Halifax called Lunenburg. When you have a foot…
The Complexity of the White Industrial Saviour Complex
This post is inspired by the whole KONY2012 debacle and in particular by Teju Cole’s piece “The White Industrial Saviour Complex”, which is a fairly searing indictment of those who seek to do good in far away places. A piece all the more cutting for being close to my white bones.
AfTerFibre – GitHub, KML, and finally a plan
The idea for AfTerFibre is simple enough. Distribute the load of gathering information on terrestrial fibre optic cable projects in Africa by creating an online resource that anyone can contribute to. When I conceived of this project, I just assumed there would be an easy way to this. After all, we have Wikipedia, Ushahidi, Fusion Tables, and loads of rapidly growing Open Source GIS initiatives.
How the ANC is Squandering South Africa’s Digital Future
The release last week of ResearchICTAfrica (RIA)’s report on mobile phone pricing in Africa has provoked a little controversy in South Africa. The facts are quite damning. South Africa has some of the highest mobile costs on the continent. This is odd given South Africa’s comparative wealth and infrastructural advantages. By rights South Africa ought to have the cheapest phone calls and the fastest bandwidth on the continent. We don’t. Why would that be? Well in South Africa we are very good at finger pointing. Industry points to government and the regulator. The regulator points to industry and government. And the government points at the regulator and industry. And so this merry-go-round has gone on since the turn of the century.