Have a look at this video:

If you are interested in art and wwod cut, you may look at The curse of Coltan or at Agu (child work).

Global trends:
- In November 2009, more than 41.7 million people used Opera Mini, a 5.3% increase from October 2009 and more than 154% compared to November 2008.
- Those 41.7 million people viewed more than 18.8 billion pages in November 2009. Since October, page-views have gone up 9.5%. Since November 2008, page-views have increased 231%.
- Opera Mini users generated over 285 million megabytes of data for operators worldwide in November 2009. Since October, the data consumed went up by 8.3%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 2.6 petabytes of data in November. Since November 2008, data traffic is up 213%.
- The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage (in order): Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Vietnam and Poland.

Trends in Africa:
- Facebook has taken the lead in Africa; it is the most popular site visited by Opera Mini users in six out of 10 countries and the #2 site in the three countries where it isn’t #1. Google is also very popular, and is ahead of Facebook in a few of the top 10 African countries. Yahoo and Wikipedia are also ubiquitous in the top 10 lists of the various African countries.
- The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in Africa are (in order): South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Libya, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Tanzania and Namibia.
- Some numbers regarding Africa: From November 2008 to November 2009, page views in the top 10 countries increased by 374%, unique users increased by 177%, and data transferred increased by 183%.
- Since our last spotlight on Africa, Kenya jumped from #4 to #3, Ghana jumped from #11 to #5 and Ivory Coast jumped from #8 to #7.
- Growth rates in Africa: Ghana and Kenya lead the top 10 African countries in terms of page-view growth. Ghana and Ivory Coast lead the top 10 African countries in growth of unique users. Kenya leads the top 10 African countries in page-views, with each user browsing 525 pages on average each month.
- Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets are extremely popular in Africa, but Samsung is a significant exception, boasting the most popular phone used by Opera Mini users in South Africa, Zambia and Namibia. ]]> http://www.open-source-africa.com/?feed=rss2&p=85 http://www.open-source-africa.com/?p=83 http://www.open-source-africa.com/?p=83#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:24:20 +0000 Joachim Graf http://www.open-source-africa.com/?p=83 The African Affairs Advisory Group has an open call for submissions of web papers. All submissions are due by December 10, 2009.

in the following styles:

NEWS:
• News pieces may include articles on a project, program, or service dealing with a topic relevant to Africa in the areas of: information policy, information sharing and international law; intention awareness and cognitive science; mathematics; military information science and strategy; emerging technology; political psychology; political science and social sciences. Reviews of recent literature and information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers will also be accepted. A news piece should be no more than 600 words.

EDITORIAL:
• Editorial submissions include guest commentary — timely opinion pieces that are thought-provoking and elegantly written. We will publish commentaries from a diverse range of perspectives, but all successful submissions are focused on an issue of major concern to Africa, fact-based, persuasively argued and constructive in tone. An editorial piece should also be no more than 600 words.

REPORTS:
• Traditional academic manuscripts regarding Africa that share empirical, methodological, and/or applied findings;
• Research-based academic essays regarding Africa with proper citations;
• Research- and/or interview-based articles regarding Africa; and
• Interactive and non-interactive projects regarding Africa, accompanied by project documentation.

Title Page, Abstract, and Biography: The title page for papers should include the title of the work, the names of all authors, the affiliations of all authors (university or institution, position), and an email address at which the author or authors may be readily contacted.

Please include an abstract of no more than 100 words, as well as a brief biography of no more than 50 words. The abstract should include as many keywords from your essay as possible. The biography should include a current academic or professional affiliation and any recent publications or activities.

Formatting: Manuscripts must be typed, double-spaced, and should not exceed 10,000 words including references. AAAG adheres to The Chicago Manual of Style for formatting of all headings, tables, figure, and references. For more information on The Chicago Manual of Style please visit the following URL: http://chicagomanualofstyle.org. All references must be in the form of numbered endnotes and should be strictly limited in number. Images, illustrations, and graphics may accompany Abstracts and Full Submissions as appropriate. AAAG accepts JPG/JPEG or PNG file formats up to 300dpi resolution (or highest available). However, all images, illustrations, or graphics must be extracted from Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format documents and sent separately.

Submissions: Manuscripts may be submitted to the editors electronically to the African Affairs Advisory Group. Manuscripts submitted via e-mail should take the form of attachments formatted in Microsoft Word. Submissions should be sent to africanaffairsadvisorygroup@officeliveusers.com with “Paper Submission” in the subject line and include all aforementioned information.

Google Africa

Africa, which has the world’s highest mobile growth rate and where mobile phone penetration is six times Internet penetration is Googles new centre of light. Extending his service in Africa, Google is announcing Google SMS, a suite of mobile applications which will allow people to access information, via SMS, on a diverse number of topics including health and agriculture tips, news, local weather, sports, and more. The suite also includes Google Trader, a SMS-based “marketplace” application that helps buyers and sellers find each other. People can find, “sell” or “buy” any type of product or service, from used cars and mobile phones to crops, livestock and jobs.

Meanwhile, if you’re curious about what Google is doing in Africa, especially in Uganda, learn more at the Google Africa Blog. There do you find this Video:

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/dPaMe0Nj6zM&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/dPaMe0Nj6zM&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowScriptAccess=”always” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

The ict@innovation programme, a partnership between FOSSFA and InWEnt, is looking for
African experts and institutions wanting to become qualified trainers on the subject of
building businesses with FOSS. Trainers have the opportunity of incorporating FOSS
business training into their institution’s curriculum and/or developing FOSS business
training as a new revenue stream.

You have the opportunity to:

• thoroughly deepen your knowledge about doing business with FOSS
• become a trainer on the subject of building businesses with FOSS
• establish FOSS business training as a revenue stream, and incorporate FOSS business
  training into your
  institution’s curriculum
• become part of an exciting community of African FOSS experts and businesspeople

InWEnt in collaboration with FOSSFA is organizing four Trainings of Trainers (ToT) in
four different Eastern and Southern Africa countries. Held between July and October 2009,
each of these trainings will consist of a presential full-time phase of two weeks, and be
accompanied by 4-6 weeks of part-time online training.

These trainings are offered at no cost beyond a minimal registration fee. Applicants will
usually have to bear their own travel costs. Board and accommodation will be paid for by
InWEnt.

East Africa has seen a phenomenal increase in demand for Internet connectivity, with users rising by 1062% from 2000 to 2008 (Source: Internet World Stats).

The development of telecoms in East Africa has been restricted owing to its dependence on low capacity expensive satellite based connectivity. which suffered from quality issues and increased round trip delay not suitable for large streams of rich multimedia content The new subsea cable will radically change the economics of high capacity bandwidth for the East African telecoms industry, enabling businesses to get more capacity for less cost, and at a higher quality.

SEACOM’s new fibre optic cable will run along the east coast of Africa, creating a digital super highway that links South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya with Europe and South Asia. The cable will extend to Marseilles, where it will connect to Interoute’s network providing a speed of light route to Europe, North America and the Middle East. The new subsea cable is scheduled for service in June 2009, and will offer 1.28 Tera-Bits Per Second of capacity, the equivalent of streaming approximately 1,600,000 simultaneous YouTube videos and will enable high definition TV, peer to peer networks, and IPTV, as well as supporting surging Internet demand.

The TPI Index, which measures commercial contracts greater than $25 million, also showed that India-based providers made steady and significant increases in market share this year. However, it also indicates that the global financial crisis is impacting the form of outsourcing contracts as corporations focus on near-term concerns related to their day-to-day business.

Total contract values (TCVs) softened in the second half of 2008, producing one of the weakest half years for TCV performance on record. Strong performance from the first half of the year sustained the $90 billion year-end TCV. Annualized contract value (ACV) — the TCV divided by the duration of the contract — was the largest ever with a record $17 billion. This fact reflects the impact of shorter overall contract duration, another evidence of a tactical orientation to outsourcing.

In 2008, the market was defined by a 12 percent increase in smaller contract awards. These comprise contracts of less than $1 billion in value and represent the inherent demand for outsourcing among corporations.

While the first half of 2008 witnessed 12 mega deals, or contracts valued at more than $1 billion, the second half of 2008 only had three mega deals — making the first half of 2008 very front end heavy. Historically, mega deals have been move evenly spread across the half-years. These higher-valued contracts weigh heavily on the TCV record for the full year tally.

With more providers that have deeper capabilities than ever before, the industry stands prepared to respond quickly to these challenges. In many ways, 2009 will be a defining year for outsourcing as the industry steps up to help clients find near-term cost-realignment opportunities.

Additionally there were telling industry sector and geographical trends that are important to note. Declining activity in the financial services sector had the greatest impact on overall 2008 values while manufacturing, telecommunication and energy increased their TCVs a moderate or substantial amount. In the second half of the year, financial services TCV actually increased as a result of companies divesting captive offshore operations and issuing an associated outsourcing services agreement.

Contract volume and its share of the total market have increased in EMEA, with the region accounting for 55 percent of the global outsourcing market TCV, while the U.S. accounted for 38 percent. 2008 is the first year EMEA contracts surpassed those in the Americas. The regional contrasts in the use of IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing are also noteworthy. EMEA adopted the most IT outsourcing – 62 percent in 2008. The Americas adopted the most business process outsourcing – 43 percent in 2008.

While contract values remained steady in the Americas during 2008, EMEA saw its strongest half-year in the first half of the year followed by a drop of nearly 50 percent in the second half. Asia-Pacific values nearly tripled between the first and second half of 2008 with a TCV in the second half that was at its highest in two years. This can be attributed to significant gains in the Indian market as well as captive center disposals as it now ranks fifth among countries where companies were awarding the most outsourcing contract value.

“I still think that 2009 will be a defining year for outsourcing”, Mike Slavin from TPI says.

The Black Weblog Awards were created in 200 a) to recognize the best black bloggers in the industry and b) to serve as a platform for supporting and uplifting those shaping the minds of the black community through the use of online technology and communication.
The Black Weblog Awards’ mission is to empower and encourage black bloggers to continue creating more original content, open dialogue, unique storytelling and diverse views. “Our lives, our stories and our voices matter.”

But, I am afraid, in the list of winners there are mainly Americans, mostly in the field of fashion and mostly strict conservative.  “After 9,400+ nominations and over 1,500 votes” (more nominations than votes….), its the whitest Black Weblog Award, you can set up.

A24 Media is Africa’s first online delivery site for material from journalists, African broadcasters
and NGO’s from around the Continent. The organisation is committed to building the
capacity of reporters and photographers to compete globally for share of voice for African
issues and is thus solely structured with the journalist’s needs in mind.

Content generators will send their material to the main office in Nairobi where it will be
verified and re-edited as necessary to create a slick, marketable and branded story. The
stories will be checked and verified for balanced, accurate and independent content, and
will be of the very highest technical and journalistic quality. Feedback will also be provided to
the contributor in order to promote a culture of journalistic excellence.

A24 has allready opened an office in Berlin, headed by Kani Tuyala.