The first ever Nigerian ICT barcamp held last weekend in Lagos, and from what I’ve been reading, it was a success.
One the innate problems I think most Nigerians have — based on my experience and observations since 2005 — is the lack of cohesion and reluctance to pursue common purpose goals. These limitations, plus the over-aching lack of focus of the top national policy makers — as Oro blog points out, have resulted in a Nigerian ICT sector that has repeatedly failed to live up to expectation, particularly in comparison to other African countries like Rwanda, Kenya, and South Africa.
It is uplifting to read about the BarCamp Nigeria; my hope is that the event will translate into a series of ripples that invigorate the entire nation, both private and public sectors.
As the most populous African nation with a burgeoning base of Internet users, (Nigeria is currently second to Egypt at 10 million internet users), nature and geography have bestowed on Nigeria the ability to take huge strides; it is an absurdity that Nigeria lacks a national agenda on ICT.
One area I think Nigeria stands to gain the most is the use of web and related technologies in effecting/augmenting/facilitating changes at the social, economic and political levels of endeavor. The emphasis should not be ‘clone-hatching’ of existing works, but a creation of value-adding applications, deplorable at the enterprise level.
The Boston Celtics crushed the LA Lakers to win the 2008 NBA championship. By the time the buzzer sounded for the last time, the score was a stunning 131-92!
It was remarkable watching the Lakers being buried, but seeing Kevin Garnett (KG, above) shed profuse tears of joy was priceless.
Why?
I watched KG struggle here in Minnesota – several frustrating hard years without a championship ring, and with a team going nowhere – before being traded to the Celtics last year.
What was clear after the game is that success is indeed sweet. No doubt. And and one doesn’t need to imagine how KG felt to embrace the Hall of Famer Bill Russell (a former Celtics Center) after the game, saying “I got my own. I got my own”.
KG-the-Big-Ticket as we fondly call him here in Minnesota has fought several great fights since 1995, the year he got drafted straight from high school into the NBA, but when his moment came 13 years later, it came with a bang!
Kevin and his team mates pushed the Celtics to its 17th win, 23 years after its last championship, on the 17th day of June, with a 39-point victory! KG is back, baby!!!
Seeing the Challenges in Africa as opportunities…Euvin Naidoo, VP of South Africa’s Standard Bank speaks at TEDGlobal conference, Arusha-Tanzania. He provides the facts and figures, and forces you to see beyond the obvious.
Prepping for the premiere of the conference video of the Arusha TEDGlobal conference in August, TED Blog is featuring postings from some Afro-bloggers, including yours truly. Here are excerpts from Imnakoya:
As one of the missing-in-action Fellows who couldn’t attend the conference, the only rational thing I could do was plug into the mainstream media (MSM)-dominated information pipeline to follow the event. Well, this didn’t happen; the MSM dropped the ball — there was little or no coverage. Unexpectedly, the African bloggers stepped up to the plate, giving a comprehensive and almost hourly rendition of event. This is unprecedented in Africa. As I write this piece, African blogs are the only existing and extensive source of information on the TEDGlobal conference.
Just as no one would have thought some “ragtag bunch of unschooled bloggers” would become so relevant in broadcasting and amplifying what ensued in Arusha, no one would have deemed it possible to cull so much intellectual and entrepreneurial energy at one time in one remote location in Africa.
Hash’s (at White African) blog response (“Where were the Hippos?â€) to the Economist article on the TED African conference is interesting. This is the statement that provoked the Hash:
There were notably few of the hard-knuckle African politicians who often run the interior or defence ministry or act as kingmakers, sometimes bankrolling rotten presidents. – Economist
The issue raised in the Economist is valid. And I don’t think the writer is “missing the bigger picture” either.
The Arusha TED conference pulled its attendees mainly from the social catalyst and entrepreneur/business crowd – who came with the “we can do†mentality and highly energized to proselytize the gospel of the change that Africa needs so badly. While this was fantastic and offered an unprecedented opportunity to see Africa in a new light and spur fresh and creative ideas, the inclusion of the Hippos – the “hard-knuckle African politicians and kingmakers†– would have made the event more wholesome. Just as the presence of Bono and Ayittey – two die-hard pro-aid and pro-trade proponents – lent some balance and interesting perspectives to the conference deliberation, the presence of the Hippos would have done same.
The Hippos are not becoming irrelevant as Hash emphatically states in his post; they continue to dominate core segments of the African public sector! And will not be made to disappear just by the abundant passion and creativity the Cheetahs possess.
If the plan of the Cheetah generation is to “wrestle†power from the Hippos, acquire more clout and/or attain widespread social impact via their ventures, they need to find ways get into the heads of the Hippos. At the very least present some notable Hippos the opportunity to listen to their messages. This kind of communication and interaction is yet to happen in Africa…maybe this ought to be the next TED agenda for Africa or in the minds of the TED Fellows as they continue their post conference discussions.
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: Continue reading…
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!