Erik Hersman
About: African technologist and blogger. Accidental geo-activist through www.ushahidi.com.
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BlogDay and Blog Action Day 2008
--A heads-up on two upcoming blog event days that are worth participating in. BlogDay 2008 - August 31 I really like BlogDay as it’s a chance t...
Google on Anonymity VS Trust
--Last weekend there was a live screencast of the Aspen Institute’s Forum on Communications and Society, and one of the meetings that I tuned i...
Out of Office Message
--See you Monday.
What Twitter’s Global Failure Means for Africa
--Biz Stone let the world know that Twitter’s SMS service is no longer active in Africa - or anywhere outside of the US, Canada and India. To ...
Quick Hits Around Africa - Focus on Nigeria
--Jeremy at the NaijaBlog talks about two eCommerce websites in Nigeria: Reloadng and Wishstop. He has another interesting one on a simple power sol...
Africa.Alltop.com - A Little Backstory
--A couple weeks ago Ellen Petry Leanse and Kaushal Jhalla announced that they wanted to put on a Barcamp Africa for afrophiles living in the San Fra...
Mobile Broadband Internet in Africa
--The Africa Report’s quarterly magazine has come out, this time with a report on mobile phones, internet penetration, BPO zones and mobile ban...
Mobile Phone Reporting in Africa
--For the last year there has been quite a bit of talk about mobile phone reporting in Africa. For good reason too, since this lowers the technology...
An Opportunity to Make Real Money in Africa
--Just today Google has shown that they are willing to invest in African mobile phone businesses. Does Google’s purchase of an equity stake i...
5 More African Conferences/Events
--A few more conferences to add to my earlier list of events going on around the continent, though one is in the US and another is in Europe, and are...
I Need a Good Illustrator
--I am badly in need of an illustrator to help with the Ushahidi.com redesign - mainly for accenting and icons. I’m looking for someone who ca...
Testing the new WordPress iPhone App
--So, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the new iPhone WordPress app [iTunes link]. Not because I forsee creating a lot of new content with my thumbs,...
2007 African Mobile Phone Statistics
--Africa Telcom News has released a free report, called the African Mobile Factbook, that gives all of the major numbers on subscribers, penetration...
NYT Article on the Kenya Tech Scene
--Gregg Zachary happened by Barcamp Nairobi last month and had a chance to meet with a few of the techies who were lingering around after the event. ...
The DIY Wireless Mesh Guide for Africa
--Spurred on by a question from a reader about successful implementation of wireless mesh networks in Africa, I started to do a little digging. The ...
Happenings on the Web Front Around Africa
--Worldclass Brand Monitoring Service from South Africa South African marketing firm Quirk has launched a new brand monitoring service called Brands...
Africa’s Internet Exchange Points (Map)
--Last week I talked about Google’s Global Cache, and how they will be housing this new project at Internet Exchange Points (IXP). A quote fro...
Investing in Africa Redesign
--Over the last couple of months I have been in the process of moving from my consultant position to working full-time on Ushahidi. One of my favori...
Google Kenya and the Google Global Cache
--Google is well known for snatching up top-level talent, this holds true in Kenya as well. ICT groundbreaker Joe Mucheru heads up the Kenya office,...
East Africa: Praying to the Undersea Cable Gods
--The most recent technology review has a good article on the transoceanic internet cable build-out happening world wide. It’s got a nice litt...
Thoughts on Ecommerce Problems in Africa
--Recently, I’ve noticed a sudden buzz about ecommerce in Kenya. Brian Longwe talks about the beginnings of this with Mpesa, emails are bounci...
Refreshing WhiteAfrican’s Design
--I decided to update the look and feel of WhiteAfrican.com last night. No drastic changes, more of a cleanup really, as things seemed messy to me b...
A Talk with Jamati’s Founder: Elias Mageto
--I’ve been tracking a site called Jamati, an African entertainment portal, for a little while. Sitting out in Nairobi last week, I got an ema...
FrontlineSMS (v2) is Reborn & Ready for Use
--One of the guys that I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know over the years is Ken Banks. He’s a tireless believer, and more importa...
Barcamp Nairobi ‘08 - Final Recap
--Barcamp Nairobi ended up being quite an event, with 228 attendees and an overwhelming amount of good conversations. The list included bloggers, we...
Kenya 31, South Africa 12 (Safari Sevens)
--What a great “day off”! The Tusker Safari Sevens was such a fun way to spend a Sunday. Taking sports photographs is one of my favorit...
Barcamp Nairobi Pictures
--I’m totally abusing the great (relative term) wifi connection left over at the Jacaranda Hotel after Barcamp Nairobi. Getting images loaded ...
Barcamp Nairobi Begins
--Things started on Nairobi time, we had some chai and samosa, now we’re beginning the sessions. There seems to be over 100 people here alread...
Some Happenings from Week 1 in Kenya
--Man, things are crazy. This last week has been very busy, and full of interesting stuff. Some of the more important, mixed with fun and mundane: ...
Watching Zimbabwe: Sokwanele Charts are Damning
--Part of you wants to ignore it and hope it will go away. Zimbabwe is such a messed up place that it hurts to even think about it. In the midst of...
Kenya’s ICT Board on eCommerce
--I was quite excited at the opportunity, provided by Al Kags of Kenya’s ICT Board, to be a part of their meeting on eCommerce. This has alway...
Steve Mutinda: Brains, Initiative and J2ME Skills
--Every once in a while, in this line of work, you get a genuinely welcome and unexpected surprise. That’s what happened the other night when ...
A Fun Night of Hacking & Brainstorming in Nairobi
--One of the thing I love about coming to Kenya is the passionate developers that are scattered around Nairobi. Tonight 6 of us got together to hack...
Wananchi: Severely Curbing Web Costs in Kenya
--Wananchi is one of the largest ISPs in Kenya. I was invited to come see the installation of Wananchi’s brand new Intel Sat satellite dish, f...
Apparently, Ugandan’s Like to Drink
--Nigeria places a distant second, while 2 more Central/East African countries are heavily in their drink too (Rwanda and Burundi). Can’t say ...
Upcoming Technology Events Throughout Africa
--I’m starting to compile a list of interesting technology events happening around the continent. If this ends up being useful, I’ll cre...
On the Road to Kenya (and links)
--I’ll be offline for the next couple days as I hit the road for Nairobi. I’m arriving just in time for the Safari Sevens rugby tourname...
iPhone Conquest Turns to Africa
--Above is the map of the, “iPhone conquest of the world” shown at Apple’s WWDC keynote today. 15 African nations are getting in o...
Barcamp Nairobi - June 21st
--Coders. Designers. Bloggers. If you’re in Nairobi on June 21st, mark your calendar! We’ll be meeting at Jacaranda Hotel, going from...
Two New East African Web Sites
--Two sites recently caught my attention coming out of East Africa. Bongoza is a new search engine for Tanzania. I’m intrigued by this idea ...
We WON!
--Wow, we’re absolutely stunned, but we just won first place at the NetSquared Challenge! That means we have a check for $25,000 that we can s...
Quick Hits: Ushahidi and African Mobile Posts
--We’re at the NetSquared conference (day 2) still, where we’ll learn the verdict of the voters on whether or not we win. So, cross your...
Thanks for Sending Ushahidi to NetSquared!
--I need to write a big thank you post today. It was through you, the greater African community, that David and myself are heading to San Francisco ...
Mapping Xenophobic Attacks in South Africa
--The Ushahidi engine (version 1) is being used to map reports of the current xenophobic attacks happening in South Africa on a site called Unitedfor...
Blueworld: South Africa’s Social Network
--Charl Norman is one of the great examples of new media entrepreneurs coming out of South Africa. He’s has an amazing work ethic, showcased i...
WhereCamp 2008 Rundown
--I’m glad that I decided to stay the 2 extra days following Where 2.0 in order to attend WhereCamp 2008, held at Google’s offices. Fran...
TED Africa Canceled
--Unfortunately it looks like TED Africa won’t be taking place in September of this year. A lot of us were looking forward to this, so it̵...
Activist Mapping Presentation at Where 2.0
--I had the honor of closing O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 Conference today, where I gave a talk on “Activist Mapping” and some histor...
Where 2.0: Data Overload and Some Announcments
--Where 2.0 has started. One series of speakers down, and much more to come. I have the distinct impression that I’m going to have some seri...
Crossing the Mapping Chasm
--As I was putting together my talk on “Activist Mapping” for Where 2.0, I realized that I was getting a little to fragmented in message....
A Brief Timeline of Blogging Engines
--October 1998: Open Diary begins and pioneers reader commenting March 1999: LiveJournal started July 1999: Pitas launches the first free build your ...
Open Source Rifts at the OLPC
--An article over at Ostatic blog about the escalating open source wars at the OLPC got me thinking again about this project. In general, I’m ...
Nokia and the Developing World
--There is a reason that Africans, by and large, love Nokia and there’s a reason that the brand has made such an impact in that part of the wor...
Clay Shirky at Web 2.0: Gin and Cognitive Surplus
--This was my favorite talk at the Web 2.0 Expo - probably one of my favorite talks period. I promptly went out and bought Clay’s new book, He...
Quick Hits Around Africa
--“Building a Startup You Love is Hard” A new paper by South African Gareth Knight that gives valuable advice for new entrepreneurs in th...
South African Tech: A Tale of Two Success Stories
--There are a number of technology companies from South Africa that have had no small amount of success. I want to take a minute to highlight two of...
Think Different: Africa’s Technology Gap
--I was fortunate enough to spend an evening talking to Kaushal yesterday. He’s a third-generation Kenyan of Indian descent, now working in th...
Online Shopping Services for the African Diaspora
--There are more and more services popping up created for Africans living abroad to shop and deliver commodities to their relatives in their home cou...
Measuring Africa’s Internet Connectivity
--ICTP Science Dissemination Unit has been monitoring and testing internet connectivity to 45 universities in Africa for the past 12 months. Using a...
Random Thoughts…
--Everyone has to answer phone calls after midnight. Thankfully, it’s usually not the emergency that you’re dreading it will be, but a w...
Thoughts from Day 2 at the Global Philanthropy Forum
--The only other event that I’ve attended that brings as many high profile and high net worth individuals together besides the GPF is TED. Wha...
It’s Always About the Data
--I just got through reading an excellent post by Bret Taylor, ex-Googler and creator of FriendFeed, about the need for open data sets. He makes a c...
Global Philanthropy Forum and Street Hacks
--Today is the first day of the Global Philanthropy Forum. Last night I was pleased to find out a couple of connections from TED Global were present...
Network
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Chris Blow (mutual) fan, want-to-meet |
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nick fan |
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Dave Troy fan |
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Chaitanya Kuber (mutual) fan, want-to-meet |
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Catherine Burton want-to-meet |
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Mikel Maron (mutual) want-to-meet |
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Steve Coast fan |
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Jeremy Irish (mutual) fan |
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Andrew Turner (mutual) fan |
Comments
Eric, can't wait to see you again this weekend.
http://ushahidi.com is fantastic.
Looking forward to meeting other folks working on activisty geohackery.
PS: puh-lease give the OReilly talk again.
Great talk at Where 2.0 the other day. I was very impressed and inspired. Would love to chat during WhereCamp.
