AfricaFeed

CNN tries to outdo Fox News in the copyedit #FAIL game. Libyans,...

Tue, 10 May 2011 15:24:08 +0200

CNN tries to outdo Fox News in the copyedit #FAIL game. Libyans, Egyptians, heck, it’s all the same, right?

"69% of Africans are very or somewhat comfortable with mobile advertising. This is the highest in..."

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:53:16 +0100

“69% of Africans are very or somewhat comfortable with mobile advertising. This is the highest in world with the US and Europe at only 61%.”

- Five key findings about the mobile advertising landscape in Africa, by Nur Bremmen for Memeburn.

Safaricom, Kenya’s leading mobile network operator, and...

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 03:59:37 +0100

Safaricom, Kenya’s leading mobile network operator, and arguably the nation’s most omnipresent brand, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

To mark the occasion the company produced this spectacular and uplifting ad.

The commercial, shot with a huge cast of Safaricom staff, who are members of the Safaricom Choir, and put together by the firm’s advertising agency Redsky, will
be relayed through a fully integrated 360 degree execution that will see it on TV, radio, retail units, press, billboards, websites, cinema screens and digital media platforms.

I just love this spot to bits. It’s such a powerful piece. With over 16 million subscribers and a suite of innovative mobile money products, Safaricom has done more to to unite and empower Kenyans than than all the squabbling fools in this house.

Have a look at this to find out more about how the Niko Na Safaricom video was made.

shada: Buy it here: Shadawear via afropolita-i-n-e

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 23:57:00 +0100

shada:

Buy it here:

Shadawear

via afropolita-i-n-e

"I was also an early writer. And when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil..."

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:16:00 +0100

“I was also an early writer. And when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading. All my characters were white and blue-eyed. They played in the snow. They ate apples. And they talked a lot about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out. Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria. I had never been outside Nigeria. We didn’t have snow. We ate mangoes. And we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to.”

- Not a new TED talk, but still one of my favorites. Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Recently published by the Netherlands Study Centre for...

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:12:55 +0100

Recently published by the Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends.

afro-art-chick: Ituen Basi’s Independence Collection

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 21:54:34 +0100

afro-art-chick:

Ituen Basi’s Independence Collection

"Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) has introduced a fast, effective and efficient system of..."

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 21:51:17 +0100

““Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) has introduced a fast, effective and efficient system of receiving results through SMS. Dubbed ExamSMS, this service will provide results for Primary Leaving Exams (PLE), UCE (Uganda Certificate of Education), UACE (Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education), Technical and Business College exams.””

- The service was developed by SMS Media, one of Uganda’s leading providers of SMS products. Read more about how it works on the Uganda National Examinations Board’s web site.

fyeahafrica: Men attending the Durbar festival in Northern...

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:06:00 +0100

fyeahafrica:

Men attending the Durbar festival in Northern Nigeria.

kilele:

Samari

Photo taken in Kebbi State, Nigeria by Irene Becker

"Are designers the new anthropologists or missionaries, come to poke into village life,..."

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:04:33 +0100

“Are designers the new anthropologists or missionaries, come to poke into village life, “understand” it and make it better—their “modern” way?”

- Bruce Nussbaum, Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism?

fyeahafrica: Place Menelik, the main square in Dijibouti, in...

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:07:31 +0200

fyeahafrica:

Place Menelik, the main square in Dijibouti, in 1905.

iambrooksy: whoalopez: thedailywhat: PSA of the Day: For...

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:16:43 +0200

iambrooksy:

whoalopez:

thedailywhat:

PSA of the Day: For their latest anti-domestic-violence campaign, the non-governmental organization People Opposing Women Abuse set up a disturbing bystander effect experiment in a townhouse complex in Johannesburg.

Be prepared to dislike humanity quite a bit.

[noob.us.]

this is so sad :(

2004 was the summer of Raï’n’B in...

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:14:00 +0200

2004 was the summer of Raï’n’B in France.

“One album that has further diminished the boundaries between cultures and musical genres is Raï’n’B Fever, which marries Algerian raï music and R&B/hiphop. The project is the brainchild of producers Kore & Skalp, who have compiled material by some 20 acts of various origins including Willy Denzey, Khaled, Rim’k, Cheb Bilal and Faudel. The album was released in June on Sony Music France’s urban imprint, Small.”

H/t to africansunset

afro-art-chick: Unity by Aissata

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:45:56 +0200

afro-art-chick:

Unity by Aissata

ladyfresh: Nigeria 70 cover

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:37:14 +0200

ladyfresh:

Nigeria 70 cover

Well at least it had the right date of birth. Happy Birthday...

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:48:00 +0200

Well at least it had the right date of birth. Happy Birthday Mabida.

mylowercase:

tsepeaces:

Nelson Mandela’s Ethiopian passport, issued in 1962, under the false name David Motsamayi, he was not allowed to travel at that time. Upon his return to South Africa he was charged and arrested for this trip. During his time in Ethiopia he received military training, most likely in Holeta Military Academy.

In his words: “Ethiopia has always held a special place in my own imagination and the prospect of visiting [it] attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African. Meeting the emperor himself would be like shaking hands with history.”

In related matters, the Namibian ex-president & liberation fighters were trained in Ethiopia. The plane that took the president into Namibia on independence day was Ethiopian Airlines flown by an Ethiopian pilot who still gets invited to participate in independence day festivities.

— info brought to you via very resourceful friends of mine, who were active members of the Ethiopian Students Association International (@myESAi).

The 10th Annual Ethiopian Students Association International Summ it is taking place March 25th - 28th, 2010 in Toronto, Canada for the first time outside of the U.S.A. Follow @Esai2010 for updates.

I did not know this!

“Wiki-Bike believes that bicycles would be invaluable...

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 19:12:13 +0200

“Wiki-Bike believes that bicycles would be invaluable tools to improve living conditions in Africa, reducing poverty, improving access to health care, education, potable water, and combating climate change. They’ve just announced the African Bicycle Design Contest with the aim of producing a bicycle that is well-suited to the the needs of future bicycle riders in Africa.

The guidelines are pretty straightforward; the vehicles should be durable, sustainable, and able to be produced locally. 5 finalists will be chosen to have your ideas prototyped; then the best prototype will be delivered to Kenya, where the winning designer will train and assist a local team in the bicycle’s production. To compete, get your entires in by September 30th.”

Kenya's Tech Innovations, Japan's Digital Divide

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:40:33 +0200

If you follow my blog, you know that I like to report on the many technological innovations coming out of East Africa, especially Kenya. There is no shortage of subjects to report on, from the nationwide spread of mobile money to portable solar solutions, but also the inventiveness of individual “hacks”, such as SMS-powered remote locking systems and home-made mobile phone sonar fishing devices.

While Kenya’s young tech entrepreneurs show no shortage of ingeniousness, the lack of technological advancement in Japan, of all places, is becoming a major cause of concern for policy makers and analysts.

“Police stations without computers, 30-year-old “on hold” tapes grinding out Greensleeves, ATMs that close when the bank does, suspect car engineering, and kerosene heaters but no central heating.”

In a recent piece for the BBC entitled Revealing Japan’s Low-tech Belly, Michael Fitzpatrick paints an alarming picture of a nation whose hi tech prowess was once the envy of Germany and the US.

“Japanese banks, post offices, government offices, all are staffed with three to five times the employees because they must do every process once on paper and then again on computer.”

An aging technophobic population, a government bureaucracy which refuses to go digital, local phone manufacturers rapidly losing market share to Apple, “tech standards and business practices incompatible with anything beyond its borders”. This is the digital divide crippling Japan that we rarely hear about.

listening to "Tito Puente-Tito and Mongo on timbales"

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:39:54 +0200

listening to "Tito Puente-Tito and Mongo on timbales":

@EFR56: Tito Puente - “Tito and Mongo onTimbales” from “Puente in Percussion”(1957)For percusssion aficionados and lovers of good Afro-Cuban rhythms”

"Why do people tweet? What is the driver of them spending time doing this? I think it’s because..."

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:44:00 +0200

“Why do people tweet? What is the driver of them spending time doing this? I think it’s because they think they have people giving them attention, and they do everything to play with that attention. The reason Twitter works so well is that they don’t have a feedback-loop, where people can realize just how little attention they’re getting. I’m not saying the system was set up that way deliberately, but it’s a very well setup system. People can fool themselves into believing that others are listening, which is not easy in real life. When you’re talking to other people on the street and nobody is listening, after a while you sort of have to stop talking. Not so on Twitter.”

- Amazon’s Former Chief Scientist, Andreas Weigend