I spent Saturday at the first (and I hope) annual Africa Gathering conference, an orgy of ICT4D organized by the guys behind Geekyoto and held in Birkbeck College, London.

First up with a BIG statement was Tim Unwin, UNESCO ICT4D chair. His message was loud and clear.

It’s time to stop doing pilot projects and start doing things that are substantive and substantial.

Shades of Tim O’Reilly’s call for us to work on stuff that matters and I couldn’t agree more

The $100 laptop

ICT4D PhD candidate David Hollow had some insights into how the initial rollouts of $100 laptops in five Ethiopian schools. Using qualitative and quantitative research he painted a picture of laptops being enthusiastically received by students but ultimately alienating both teachers and parents. Students are learning how to use their new computers far quicker than their teachers and in many cases both teachers and parents have concluded that the laptops are good for nothing but games

There was a clear message that there simply isn’t enough meaningful content on these laptops. Until there are more textbooks and lesson modules uploaded as standard the laptops are going to continue to be used as glorified digital cameras and MP3 players. In other words it’s not enough to get these laptops into the field. They have to be supported with localized software and content. And it’s vital that parents and teachers are ahead of the training curve. So stick that in your USB drive Negroponte.

SMS on the Frontline

Frontline SMS setup. Super simple.

Ken Banks presented one of the standout presentations, how his SMS management tool, Frontline SMS has been utilized across the content. Frontline creates an SMS messaging hub by allowing a standard phone to be connected to a standard PC using a standard cable.  Why has he been so successful? Because Ken’s given the users the very basics and let them roll with it. He’s trusted them to follow some instructions, souce the gear, but the airtime even though this means the barriers to entry are slightly higher. When users do get everything working they feel massive ownership and become his best evangelists.

It takes big NGOs and government organizations months to build and deploy tech for similar usage, Frontline SMS allows end users such as field doctors and local media organizations bypass the tape and get on with connecting to their audience. And crucially it bypasses local authority structures, very important when monitoring Zimbabwaen elections for example.

Ultimately Ken makes a great point on the direction of technology in Africa. He’s distributing a small software package and letting people run it for themselves.

Mobiles in Africa: The Movie

Martin Konzett of ict4d.at presented this trailer of his current project. The full documentary is released next month. Great to see some humour in the mix.

Old School Networks: ColaLife

The most bizarrely innovative  story of the day was that of Simon Berry, the man behind ColaLife. This is a case of using social media tools here in the UK and around the world to push a cause in Africa. So far so standard, but it’s the cause itself that’s super-impressed me. Simon’s idea is real simple:

1. Lots of kids in Africa die from dehydration related illness.
2. Many can be saved if only hydration salts and medcines could be got to them.
3. Let’s use the existing distribution channels of Coke deliverers to spread the good stuff.

Here’s the video:

Could it be that using old-school distribution channels we’ll create new human collaborative networks? This simple idea has huge scaling potential and it’s something that companies like Coca-Cola should be jumping aboard way before Simon and ColaLife force them. We can apply this to all sorts of distribution channels and supply chains all around the world and the great thing is that the concept works without any hi-tech rocket science. Once the guys in the distribution centres are on board we have a winner.

And the rest…

A couple of interesting points from whiteafrican and Ushahidi co-founder Erik Hersman. In Africa it’s very hard for people to bounce ideas off each other. Here we do this with tools like Twitter, IRC, Facebook etc. Yet the speed of communication and thus the time it takes to disseminate ideas in Africa remains slower.

That said clearliy technologies, particularly of the open variety have leveled the global barrier to entry for developers everywhere. Technology allows Africans to overcome life’s inefficiencies,  whether that’s government, food or health.

And if there’s one technology holy grail right now is an open mobile payment structure that isn’t tied to any operator or even any country. Achieve this and then the playing field really does level off in a big way. If you’re to believe Erik and the majority of the attendees of AfricaGathering the phone operators have no incentive and are bringing no urgency to this issue. Having a worked with the European and US arms of many of these operators this comes as no surprise.

Finally,  just to show the day wasn’t all serious save-the-world ernestness, Juergen Eichholz gave a quick presentation on Afrigadget and the even better and funnier Afrifail.com. Check them out for some great upcycling action.

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AfriFAIL [photo (c) flickr.com/photos/jennerm

-Edit

Here are some more blog pieces on the day which I’ve just lifted from Alasdair Munn’s piece on the day. Cheers Alasdair.

• My Take on AfricaGathering in London - Juergen Eichholz
• ICT4D.at – Africa Gathering: Talk 1 summary
• ICT4D.at – Africa Gathering: Talk 2 summary
• ICT4D.at – Africa Gathering: Talk 3 summary
• ICT4D.at – Africa Gathering: Talk 4 summary
• ICT4D.at – Africa Gathering: panel discussion
• Karola Riegler’s Flickr Photoset on AfricaGathering