Grandiose Parlor

I don’t think it’s immodest to see the June 4-7 2007 TEDGlobal conference as a revolution. Although the conference is several days over, the impact continue to sizzle in the minds of the attendees, and in those who weren’t physically present at the Arusha-Tanzania venue of the conference but tuned in to the sessions via the writings of the various bloggers present at ground zero. Yes, for the four days the conference lasted, Arusha was the African ground zero - if just for no other reasons than the sheer magnitude of the collective passion and human capital of the attendees which if magically milled into action could have transformed Africa for its third world appellation into the Garden of Eden of the new world immediately after the conference closed!

I must say it was a very smart idea to have bloggers on ground, and I wasn’t surprised, Emeka Okafor (of Timbuktu Chronicles) - the program director of the event, is one of the top-notch bloggers from Africa. And as expected, the event hardly came up on the radar screens of the major mainstream media (MSM)…after all this isn’t about famine, war or some grotesque story on the continent. TEDGlobal was about Africans and Afrophiles coming together for four days to showcase the continent and brain-storm in ways and manners that the world has never seen. As sensational as this was, the MSM fell flat on it’s face and dropped the ball - big time!

As expected, more TED materials are coming out of the wood work:

Thomas Ramos has a video interview of Dr George Ayittey - one of the several brain-powers that graced the event. There is a ton of information on this Ghanian Economist, to me the most interesting is his coinage of the terms “Hippo generation” versus “Cheetah generation”. Get Ayittey’s book - African Unchained to understand “what, why and where” these terminologies apply.

Ayittey characterizes several of the conference speakers as “the cheetah generation”, fast-moving people who don’t accept corruption, and who demand that democracy and transparency lead to better governance. “Africa’s salvation rests on the back of these cheetahs.” He contrasts them to “the hippo generation”, the ruling elites, stuck in their intellectual patch, complaining about colonialism and imperialism. “They won’t reform, because they benefit from the status quo.” - Ethan Zuckerman

Benin Mwangi, operating on the Global Voices platform posted a great synopsis of the conference.

Meckel Square, asks the question:” Why is this the only big set-piece event that I can think of that has not been a mind-deadening, life-consuming, jargon-spreading waste of everyone’s precious time.? [Well, with the exception of the Digital Citizen Indaba conference in South Africa, he clarifies in a foot note]

Of course there are several bloggers to mention and I have and continue to in past and future postings, however, the likes of Ethan Zuckerman - the “African” big Geek, who live-blogged the event (how he did it I can’t tell) and opened his blog entries for syndication, and Hash - the White African, whose camera conveyed the beautiful colors of the event thousand of miles away to the African blogosphere, mitigated the pain of missing the conference…well maybe not quite. Now with what I saw, I should have risked getting reprimanded at work!

TED Arusha was an excellent opportunity to showcase Africa, and the bloggers delivered big time!!! To those bloggers who typically and predominately link to materials from the MSM, too bad, they aren’t got nothing for ya. And to those still stuck doing the same-old-same - take a breather, please!. It’s not too late; there is a list of bloggers at White African with excellent contents to read and share…and all it takes is a visit and or a link, be part of the revolution!