Alicia Mitchell

Drawing comparisons to the explosion of creativity and scientific advancement that emerged from the invention of the printing press nearly six centuries ago, Goldin describes our current era as “the new renaissance”: “this is about how the internet and the resultant spread of ideas have led to revolutions in science and society.” In a time of such rapid innovation, he is predominantly optimistic.

However, Goldin’s expertise in global development (before joining Oxford, he was Vice President of the World Bank for three years) leads him to warn against techno-utopianism: “One shouldn’t assume that technologies always give rise to good outcomes; that’s not always the case. It’s not just good things that travel rapidly, but really bad things too.” As examples, he points to the cascading global financial crisis, cyber threats and the spread of extremism. “ISIS has become the organisation with the largest foreign recruitment since the Spanish Civil War, in part due to its effectiveness in using social media.” On the internet, toxic ideas can spread almost instantaneously.

In December, Goldin will address the audience of OEB 2015, the global conference on technology supported learning and training. With a vital message for educators who are attempting to equip the next generation to live in amongst this complexity, Goldin will share his views on our shared responsibility for managing systemic risk.

“While the opportunities are enormous and people’s ability to learn using technology has grown, we need to be aware that this is a very precious thing and also a very fragile thing – this connectedness. We need to be more effective with managing it and managing globalisation, to ensure we sustain the good and are able to minimise the bad.”

According to Goldin, systemic risk management is a multi-level synergetic system of shared responsibility, starting with individuals making choices about the energy we use, the products we buy, the food we consume and the medicines we take.

Once we come together into communities, he says, there are more choices to be made, regarding transport, energy, the climate, cyber defence and financial systems. “At a national level there are big choices about how joined up we are, how much we cooperate with others, how much we help solve problems elsewhere, or create new problems ourselves or aggravate them.“

“At the global level, the choice is whether countries communicate about these crucial issues as well. Are we prepared to be part of coalitions of countries that work towards the solutions for some of these issues, or are we part of the obstructing group?”

Goldin stresses the role of businesses in this system, where they hold the special position of transcending many boarders and having capabilities that governments and individuals do not. Amongst other things, he says, they have the responsibility to behave.

“The terrible case of Volkswagen is an illustration of how these technologies can be gamed, but so too are the banks who brought down the financial system, and the many corporates that act only in the short-term. Businesses need to be long term in their visions and think about the spill-over effects of their decisions, incorporating them into their decision making.” He highlights carbon emissions and water scarcity as potential spill-overs. Misappropriation and misuse of data by global corporations and widespread corruption are also areas in which a responsibility deficit has had wide-ranging impact in recent years.

In the 20 years since, the world has witnessed the exponential growth of the telecoms, technology, software and digital media markets, as well as the impact of these changes on the way that we learn, teach and share information. As many trends have bloomed and withered in the consumer market – think pagers, palm pilots and minidisks – so they have in the world of educational technology, and OEB has been there to bring us the trends before they catch on and to shed light on those that will make it, and those that won’t.

An analysis of the conference’s programme since 1995 reveals the rise and fall of trends and terms in an often turbulent field. Whilst telelearning, video conferencing and distance education were at the cutting edge in the late 1990s, recent years have been typified by the explosion of data analytics, social media, mobile, massification, flipped classrooms and blended learning. Meanwhile, teachers and learner experience have remained at the core of discussions.

At the 20th edition of the conference (Berlin, 3 – 5 December), the convergence between the business and academic sectors is set to be a central talking point, along with the so-called maturation of MOOCs, adaptive learning, social media & bite-sized content, the ethics of educational data, cloud-based learning and coding.

The conference programme will also cover some ‘imminent trends’ that are emerging in other sectors but have yet to be co-opted by educators and educational developers. Think wearable tech, the Internet of Things, immersive learning experiences (such as the Oculus Rift), design thinking and the integration of technology into architecture.

Over the past two decades, ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN has grown into one of the world’s largest global ICT-supported education and training conferences, attended by over 2,000 participants from more than 90 countries, and continues to be the must-attend event for professionals working in and around learning, training and professional development.

This statement was echoed by Dr Auma Obama, speaking on the following day about the work of the Sauti Kuu Foundation. Working in rural and slum areas in Kenya, the foundation teaches children about their “light, voice and fire” or, in other words, their right to be seen, to speak, to participate and to challenge. Sauti Kuu encourages young people to lay claim to these rights and to recognise their own worth within their communities, regardless of their age or income level.

Reading and working around ICT4D and ICT4E, I often hear about ‘the right to a good education’ and the importance of ‘access to knowledge’. These are facts that many of us take as a given truths, but that confidence itself usually comes about as a privilege of already having received a ‘good education’.

It’s all very well and good to build the infrastructure of learning and promote the life-long benefits of education, but what if the people with the most to gain from such practices have not been allowed (through societal, cultural, economic or personal factors) to acknowledge their right to do so, as with the beneficiaries of Sauti Kuu’s work?

Speaking in the same panel as Armstrong, Amy Goodman, a journalist and Co-Founder of Democracy Now!, described journalistic freedom as an integral component of any functioning democracy. In addition to this, I would say it also plays an essential role in any functioning education system and, at a larger scale, a society’s engagement in learning and knowledge sharing. Professor Guy Berger, Director of Freedom of Expression and Media Development at UNESCO, later called journalists “symbols of the freedom of expression of everyone”.  Beyond this, an open press is also a symbol of the right to listen and to learn.

The hope is that by creating an accessible, low-barrier income alternative for poor, low skilled users we can create the incentives for an alternative ladder of opportunity, where the allure of increased income will warrant the expansion of skill sets through the educational content we provide.

How does the structure of the lab help with developing and implementing projects such as this?

BN: CE Lab’s structure is based as a hybrid non-profit startup. This means that while we are focused on achieving our altruistic mission, we need to do it by following the lean and disciplined nature that can allow a startup to be successful.

This means that we are focused on making sure that the project has the potential to be financially self-sustaining, which is often a failure point for similar ICT4D projects. However, it is at the micro level where our startup nature sets us apart. While most of the NGO / government / academic ICT4D projects need to work to meet stringent project requirements and deadlines, we are more concerned at CE Lab to work towards a project that meets our mission.

CE Lab is run more as a series of small experiments, each to test our hypotheses, then iterate or pivot positively from learning we take from these experiments. On account of this, our product is evolving, but I think it is for the better since it allows us to positively adapt in the face of real world data.

An example of this would be that in the beginning, Empowered Internet was simply going to be a portable Internet cafe. However, we quickly discovered that it would be difficult to use solely internet access as an incentive to have customers pay to use our cafes so we needed to further develop our model. After analyzing a number of different approaches, some of which we hope to include in our model at a more mature date, we settled on using the tablets as a platform for increased education and income, since we discovered that if a user is making money they are far more likely to pay the usage fee that needs to exist to make this model sustainable.

How do you see labs such as CE Lab combatting youth unemployment, and underemployment, in Rwanda?

BN: In my opinion, youth unemployment, coupled with aging populations, in China and the Global North is the greatest medium term problems facing the world today. I think that much of the developing world suffers from a similar blight, that what is supposed to be the opportunity of a young and growing work force can be squandered or even turn violent.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Companies are hungry to hire, just the school system in countries like Rwanda is producing graduates whose skill set are unfortunately usually inadequate to compete at a national level or international level.

We seek to address this by taking advantage of the universal nature of the internet, an increasing division of labor of digital work and the low income demands of Rwandese to create work opportunities for young unemployed and underemployed Rwandese. Our goal is to create digital and in person training programs that can intuitively and very quickly train a new user to the point where they can generate a basic income and then allow them to continuously improve their skills and increase their income. We are trying to target as specific training as possible, with the hope that within 10-15 hours a new user will be at the point where they are generating some income.

What makes this a unique opportunity for the young unemployed is that it is not dependent on the limitations of their locality, rather, it is only dependent on having internet access and the skill set to take advantage of these online microwork services. In a country like Rwanda, where within 2.5 years 95% of the population will be within a 4G internet coverage zone, this means that anyone who can access the internet and train themselves will be able to make their own employment.

What makes Kigali a special place for innovators and entrepreneurs? BN: I love Kigali and am always looking for a chance to sing its praises. What makes it a special place for innovators and entrepreneurs are three things: the livability of Kigali, the visionary leadership of the government and the interconnected nature of Rwanda as a whole.

What the government is doing for the tech and business scene is absolutely worthy of deep respect and admiration. I get to take advantage of what the government has already provided, like setting up a business online in under a day, for free work spaces, world class ICT infrastructure, and then to know that they every day they are working to make Rwanda better and better.

The people themselves are what most makes Rwanda a pleasure to work from. It seems to me like the entire country has come together like one communal sports team to work as a unit to bypass the stigma of the 1994 genocide and be known for something that they can be proud of, their own success. I can’t stress enough the excitement of being in a place where there is this tight interconnectedness and unified determination, it feels like the country is dried wood waiting for the spark of a disruptive idea to take off and transform the society.

Thanks Barrett! We look forward to seeing you in Kampala in May.

Barrett Nash will be giving a presentation entitled “Empowered Internet: Portable Tablet Cafes to Bridge Internet Coverage and Internet Access” at this year’s eLearning Africa conference, in Kampala, Rwanda, May 28-30.

Website: http://celab.co/

First question: what was the motivation behind the foundation of BongoHive?

SM: The four co-founders of BongoHive are Lukonga Lindunda, Simunza Muyangana, Bart Cornille and myself. We didn’t set out to create a hub. What we recognised was that, in Zambia, graduates were coming out of college and university with technical information that was lacking or irrelevant. Additionally, graduates did not have the self-confidence that it takes to do tech as a career.

We started by mentoring a group of 15 or so graduates. Over several months, we introduced them to software development, web programming, source code control, databases, the command line and so on. We did this using mostly Open Source tools and software. Self-confidence is harder to deal with. Our approach was to create a space where people’s opinions mattered and sharing was encouraged. Slowly, our group started to try things, fail, try again, succeed and take bigger risks.

During this time, Lukonga got to visit iHub in Nairobi, Kenya, and we decided that their “hub” setup would be good to customise for Lusaka. The iHub team have been like an older sibling to BongoHive.

The name “BongoHive” came out of a brainstorming session with the group we were mentoring. The name came from Charles Mwanza who is now our Hub Manager. It comes from the Chibemba word “ubongobongo” which means “brain” and the English word, “hive”. We think of BongoHive as a place where brains come together to make sweet stuff!

Software developers and creatives in Lusaka were creating great things in isolation and scattered across the capital. We felt that if we could create an environment where they could come and work with each other, we’d all get a lot further. Two things became very important to make this happen. Firstly, we needed a physical space. Secondly, we needed an Internet connection. With those in place our vision to build a thriving community started to become real.

What kinds of opportunities for learning and training does BongoHive offer?

SM: Practically, people can come to BongoHive today to learn programming languages, develop websites, create mobile applications, design games and even program hardware. We want to serve the community well so BongoHive is also a place to network with industry. Business individuals have been generous enough to offer mentorship to BongoHive members who want to turn their ideas in to businesses. Additionally, businesses have started to recruit members who have improved their skills at BongoHive. We are particularly proud of iConnect who provide our Internet. They were the first local company to “get it” and engage with us across our spectrum of offerings.

BongoHive is also a place to meet people. Developing with technology is better as a “team sport” and at BongoHive we have some of the most brilliant minds in the city willing to engage others with crazy ideas. The community is what we are the most proud of and I think the greatest opportunity we have to offer.

Can you describe an average day in the life of BongoHive?

SM: I wonder if there is an “average day” at BongoHive! It really depends on what you want to give and get out of your time here. For me, I work quite a bit with George Mutale our Community Manager to schedule and organise our Meet the Industry and Insaka events. We use these two events to invite experts to come to BongoHive and tell us about industry or share significant life and business experience.

Additionally, I help out the Hacker’s Guild at BongoHive which is the group formed to tackle teaching technology to people who come to BongoHive.

Every day is different!

What makes Lusaka a special place for innovators and entrepreneurs?

SM: Lusaka is not the only place that innovation and entrepreneurship is happening in Zambia. It so happens that all the co-founders were living here at the same time.

That said, Lusaka is growing… fast! I think the city is setting itself up to be a business hub for Central and Southern Africa. Many local and international companies who set up in Zambia choose to have their headquarters here. Additionally, Embassies and High Commissions set up their offices in Lusaka. Importantly, there are several schools, colleges and universities in Zambia’s capital city. This means that local and international men and women learn, live, work, meet and build lives together here. I think that naturally lends a special flavour to the kind of innovation and entrepreneurship that can happen in Lusaka.

What does the future hold for BongoHive and its users?

SM: I think the future holds in it what we focus on building. We want BongoHive to be a place where technology co-founders meet and start businesses that drastically improve their own lives and positively impact the community. Also, we’d like to build partnerships that improve the technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Lusaka. Lastly, BongoHive will be a place where one can continue to meet interesting people and learn. That’s going to take truckloads of wisdom, insight, inspiration, focus and hard work. We welcome people who’d like to engage with us to make that future come to pass.

Thanks for your time, Silumesii, and best of luck for the future of BongoHive!

Website: www.bongohive.com

E-mail: [email protected]

Twitter: @BongoHive

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bongohive

*Check out the Hubs in Africa crowd-sourced map for a comprehensive overview.

Whilst business, learning and socialising are increasingly taking place online, there are still occasions when personal contact can’t be beaten. Pan-African conferences such as eLearning Africa enable people from across the region to gather together and provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge and experience, as well as serving as a meeting place for investors and African businesses. However, such potential will remain underexploited unless all stakeholders are able to participate without hindrance.

Anecdotal accounts, revealing that calls between African nations cost many times more than calls from Africa to Europe, point to a culture of bureaucratic protectionism that is hindering cooperation on the Continent. Uncompetitive markets and irregular regulations result in incredibly confusing and expensive pricing plans for everything from phone calls to air travel.

Talking to the International Business Times earlier this year, Ghanaian businessman and owner of SOFTtribe Herman Chinery-Hessey stated that the diverse problems afflicting air travel on the Continent hurt business in Africa: “You can miss out on making international deals because flights are so unaffordable, delays are typical and customer service can be very unreasonable.”

International travel in Africa is infamously difficult. Alongside ineffectual national carriers with alarmingly poor safety records, the IBT reported that movement is further inhibited by the lack of direct routes between large cities, making it necessary to take lengthy and expensive detours. Add to this the long application processes for visas and expensive fees and you hardly have a recipe for open, cross-border cooperation. However, some have it substantially easier than others.

Talking of the inequality embedded in the bureaucratic travel restrictions placed upon African nationals, Dr Said Adejumobi, the Chief of the Public Administration Section and Coordinator of the African Governance Report (AGR) at UNECA described the situation as “sad”: “the reality is that it is easier for nationals of Western countries, who enjoy visa waivers, to enter African countries than fellow Africans,” he said, “Regrettably, it is often a nightmare for most Africans to get visas to enter another African country”.

One country is bravely bucking the trend: at the beginning of this year, Rwanda began issuing visas upon arrival to all African citizens in a move that generated widespread debate.

Felix Mutati, leader of the parliamentary opposition and former Zambian Commerce Minister, believes that there is no demand for lifting restrictions. Citing the low intra-African trade statistics, he asks “we are not trading with each other. So … what are we going to be moving for?” However, despite reporting the 11% figure, the EDA report itself warns that “substantial and thriving informal trade … is an indication that intra-African trade is not as low as official statistics suggest”.

Conversely, Kofi Asamoah-Siaw, the National secretary of the Progressive People’s Party, Ghana, predicts that allowing the free movement of people would “unleash a certain kind of energy that will propel us to get the economic independence that we want”. Unlike Mutati, Asamoah-Siaw would not hesitate: “It can be done in less than a decade and should be done as soon as possible.”

His sentiments echo the call of the Open Borders movement, emerging out of America. Speaking to The Atlantic, economist, professor of Economics at George Mason University and proponent Open Borders Bryan Caplan agreed that, if given the chance, he would “pull the trigger immediately on open borders” across the world: “my conscience wouldn’t allow anything else.”

Open Borders activists claim that unrestricted movement of people could eliminate world poverty. Development economist Michael Clemens has carried out extensive research into international labour mobility. His findings suggest that the gains from reducing restrictions on movement “are likely to be enormous, measured in tens of trillions of dollars”.

There are plenty of people (economists, development experts and politicians included) with plenty to say against the Open Borders activists. Such a sensitive subject is inevitably bound up with political agendas. However, Dr Said Adejumobi is very clear on his stance against international borders: “our leaders keep the people apart and reify the artificial borders created for us by others. Through these artificial borders, we dehumanise and criminalise ourselves, negating the whole essence of Pan-Africanism.”

With the 2013 African Union Summit dedicated to the theme of Pan-Africanism and the current state of regional movement so confined, these debates will hopefully lead to at least some reform of the African situation.

In practical terms, sustained participation in a MOOC requires a set of resources and infrastructure that is a privilege, as many of us, including Agarwal, often forget. A reliable electricity supply, frequent and uninterrupted access to a device capable of going online and playing video and sound, and a secure, unrestricted Internet connection are essential starting blocks – as is a safe and comfortable space in which to learn. A recently published paper on the experiences of learners using non-personal computers to access online learning resources in Sri Lanka found that local telecentres often restricted access to high-bandwidth sites, such as YouTube, which often form a core part of MOOC resources.

Limited access to these practical resources is not just an issue in the developing world. There are many groups within OECD countries which are equally disadvantaged by the ‘digital divide’, be it those in temporary or communal accommodation, the elderly, rural communities, those reliant on welfare or those living on low incomes. Additional issues arise for those with disabilities, including visual and hearing impairment, who may require specialised technologies to make use of any online learning application.

Even with all these elements in place, there are further barriers to overcome before access is available to all. Firstly, time, or a lack thereof, is a big reason why many people do not pursue online learning, regardless of their situation. Long working hours, multiple jobs, travel time to and from work and caring for children and other dependants are all things that limit the chances to dedicate time, even a few hours a week, to learning, especially for people in low-wage jobs, residents of rural areas and women.

Secondly, there is the issue of learning skills and foundational knowledge. In July of this year, San Jose State University (SJSU) announced that it was suspending some of its online courses due to high failure rates in the final exams. Amongst the resulting blogging maelstrom, the university was keen to point out that the failure rates were the result of a variety of contributing factors, not least the life-situations of the learners that the online model had brought the course in contact with. “It is important to note that at the outset, SJSU made a commitment to working with ‘at risk’ students – many from disadvantaged economic backgrounds; high school students; and students of our own who had struggled with the curriculum (including many who had failed remedial math courses in the past). Without question, these and other factors significantly affect student performance outcomes.”

This is a key concern. The students that failed this course faced many more problems in their education than merely lack of access. Melonie Fullick, a PhD candidate at York University, Canada, and a specialist on post-secondary education, sums up the issue in a recent article: “People need to learn how to learn – they need some basic level of education and the ability to study. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds often lack this (or they wouldn’t be disadvantaged).”

A “basic level of education and the ability to study” spans everything from essential literacy and numeracy to self-motivation, being able to pursue independent research and practice of writing academic papers. Learners without these skills, let alone the foundation knowledge required to follow a university level course, will no doubt struggle to remain engaged.

The first speaker was Deborah Jacobs, Director of the Global Libraries initiative, who began by making the case for libraries as indispensable “pre-existing community platforms for development” that already possess the buildings, staff and services needed to reach out to their local communities. She highlighted inspiring instances of libraries extending their services far beyond just lending books: in Uganda, the Busongora Community Library provides an SMS service, a radio show and training events to over 500 farmers in the region, whilst in South Africa, young people living in an impoverished area of Cape Town receive ICT training as well as access to further training and employment opportunities via their library’s high-speed Internet connection.

Reporting on the status of libraries in Namibia, Veno Kauaria, Director of the Namibia Library and Archives Service (NLAS), shared the success of the Ministry of Education in its efforts to secure the essential development role of libraries in the national agenda. Through negotiations with the Prime Minister, the Ministry won the ability to use part of the its library budget, which was previously reserved for books alone, to buy ICTs, and now all libraries in Namibia employ at least one professionally-trained librarian. “We told ourselves that we need to be relevant”, explained Kauaria, pointing to the NLAS’s dedication to aligning itself with the national development goals of poverty, unemployment, health and education.

Kuauria’s point was echoed by Agnes Akuvi Adjabeng of the Environmental Protection Agency of Ghana, who advocated the use of social media and the Internet by library services: “Libraries need to come up and be seen”, she said, “Today, our readers do not come to us … it is necessary that we take double steps to make use of the resources available to us”.

Charles Kamdem Poeghela, Director of the Centre de Lecture et d’Animation Culturelle (CLAC), in Yaoundé, Cameroon, then spoke of the potential for libraries themselves to influence the actions of government. Although libraries are not a priority of the Cameroonian government, he said, the Ministry of Culture was so impressed by CLAC’s work with ICT-supported learning that Ministry representatives visited the centre to find out how they could increase access to and the use of ICTs countrywide.

New technologies and changing roles also enable libraries to address issues of inequality in education and information access. As the Executive Director of UNISA Library, Dr Buhle Mbembo-Thata has overseen many initiatives aimed at ‘bridging the digital and learning divide’ amongst users of the library. During the session, Dr Mbembo-Thata explained how text-to-audio Easy Reader devices  and mobile library units, equipped with hundreds of thousands of eBooks, eJournals and eDocuments, have increased access to resources for disabled students and those in remote regions. The library also makes use of freely available social media services such as Twitter and blogs to ensure students are able to receive the most up-to-date information on library services.

Digitisation is revolutionising the way the UNISA Library works: this year, for the first time, Dr Mbembo-Thata revealed, the library’s ‘eBudget’ has overtaken its print budget. And what of the library staff themselves? Along with computerised stock management and state of the art self-service systems, these new technologies have freed up the time of library staff, who are now able to dedicate themselves to providing the best possible service to the library’s many users.

Henk Van Dam, Project Officer for Capacity Building at the Dutch Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), shared his experiences of working with libraries in Mozambique and Ghana and described the multifaceted role of the 21st Century librarian as he had come to see it: “an information professional, broker of knowledge and teacher, all in one”.

As a counterpoint, she also shared an example of good management having great outcomes in her recent personal experience of adopting a child: “People say that the process must be awful, but for us it took just three months, all thanks to a great manager. Through her hard work, she saved our little boy from a lifetime in care”.

Outlining the current situation of management training on the Continent, Harrison revealed that, currently, there is only one business school per ten million people in Africa, the majority of which fail to provide the quality teaching found elsewhere. In Africa, she explained, “in-house training is limited, the private training market is patchy, SME support is unsustainable and good role models are scarce”.

The African Management Initiative has set itself the ambitious goal of creating one million effective, professional and innovative African managers by 2023. To do this, the Initiative aims to entrench good practice by building a virtual community of effective managers and produce free online content for local peer learning and on-the-job training. In addition, the AMI will launch the first ever African management MOOC, in response to widespread demand from their users, on June 17th, 2013.

Speaking of the attempts in Egypt to release the vast potential of the local workforce, Ahmed El-Sobky, Head of the Technical Office at the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), pointed to the necessity of encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit on the Continent, referring to the innovation strategy announced in Egypt in 2008, which set in motion efforts to encourage students in early study to be innovative entrepreneurs.

Horst Weinert, Managing Director of Festo Didactic, gave participants an insight into how he encourages a competitive, entrepreneurial attitude in his students and, in doing so, equips them with skills and a realistic hope of employment. By combining hands-on laboratory work using hardware that reflects current industry standards, with interactive eLearning programmes and competition-based projects, Weinert found himself leading a class of inspired, self-teaching students. “When the exams came round,” he beamed, “they knew it all! Half of them had jobs secured before the left, and the top five students left to set up their own companies, creating more employment as they did so.” The key behind these amazing results was the focus on competition and the blended use of eLearning, Weinert explained, which enabled the students to find things out for themselves and allowed the teachers to become “facilitators, rather than pushers”.

Despite both national and international focus on literacy and education in Africa, in part driven by the soon-to-expire Millennium Development Goals, the resulting programmes and policies are all too often delivered in the languages of former colonial powers – particularly English, French and Portuguese – at the cost of excluding the majority and those most in need.  “No country can make progress on the basis of a borrowed language, understood only by a minority,” says Prah, “Only ten per cent of African people can speak French, Portuguese or English fluently. These languages cannot be the only languages of African development.”

The problem is not merely one of shaking off the remnants of the past, but of convincing those within every level of African society that undermining the status of African languages serves the interests of no one. “It’s not just a question of Western arrogance,” explains Prah, “but also of African complicity. The cultural power of the African elite is based on the fact that they are proficient users of post-colonial languages. They instil a new colonial order which excludes the majority from the structures of power.” Prah has found some governments to be supportive of his work with CASAS, but overall there has been little official recognition.

However, he suggests that even those in positions of power are allowing themselves to be limited by the same colonial hierarchies of the past. “They are second-hand users of these cultures. Therefore, they are actually positioning themselves as inferiors. This can lead to a bottle-neck of tension that can explode.”

As an inspirational example for African countries to follow, Prah points to Vietnam and their Southeast Asian neighbours Malaysia and Indonesia. “Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. They stopped using the language of their French colonisers: this is precisely why they are succeeding.”

Language, education and, with the on-going growth in ICT-supported learning, technology are co-agents of change with huge potential. However, Professor Prah notes that with the current default to post-colonial languages in the majority of education ‘solutions’ brought to the Continent, ICT and education remain inaccessible to the overwhelming majority: “Education is still a privilege of the Westernised elite. We talk about development through education and training, but in whose language?”

The knee-jerk response to arguments like these is often that the investment and technology for these ICT products comes from abroad – from the United States, from Europe or Asia – and using ‘international’ languages such as English or French are the only economically viable options, but Prah disagrees. “Some African languages are spoken by fifty or sixty million people. It makes economic sense to develop products for this market, by this market.” If we continue to pretend that African languages are unimportant in the drive to achieve ‘education for all’, says Prah, “we will forever be waiting for 90% of Africans to become English!”

Despite the enthusiastic work of organisations such as CASAS, Prah admits that the movement to champion African languages as a path towards progress is still in the “very initial, half-hearted stages; it is not happening yet”. However, he confidently points to the historical precedent that proves that the democratisation of language is a necessary precursor for the democratisation of society. “For as long as Europe used Latin as the language of authority and academia, knowledge was in the hands of monks, aristocrats and scholars. It is only the common languages – the languages of the street – that can lead to democratic progress. Similarly, for as long as ICTs in Africa are based solely around English, French and Portuguese, we will not get anywhere.” Knowledge is power, and language is the fundamental component of knowledge acquisition and dissemination.

The key message that Professor Prah is determined to share with governments,  investors, development organisations and the world at large is a simple one: for as long as Africans are supposed to use languages that are not their own, no progress will ever be made. “ICT is enormously important – it is moving the world forward and of great intellectual interest – but without African languages, we cannot make a difference to Africans. You cannot lift Africa without African languages.”

Professor Kwesi Kwaa Prah founded The Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS) in 1997. CASAS acts as a research network within Africa and amongst the African diaspora. The organisation focuses on “cultural issues and their relationship to development, and selected basic research on the structure of African society”. In recent years, the focus of CASAS on African languages has led to the production of various publications, including dictionaries and research papers focusing on diverse African languages.

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Mitchell A, 2013. No Country Can Make Process on the Basis of a Borrowed Language. In: Isaacs S (ed.), 2013. The eLearning Africa Report 2013. ICWE: Germany.

Starting in 2009, over 4,000 people have now taken part in the yearly eLearning Africa Debate. This year, each speaker had an opportunity to take to the microphone and lay down their persuasive, if not always sincerely held, arguments under the watchful eyes of the Namibian Deputy Minister of Education, Silvia Makgone, and Dr Harold Elletson, initiator and seasoned chairperson of the eLearning Africa Debate series.  In amongst the high-spirits of the occasion there were serious arguments posed by both sides and the audience was treated to a broad scope of opinion on the motion that reflected many of the discussions and presentations that took place during the conference.

Taking the lead, Donald Clark kicked off the proceedings by comparing innovation to an “annoying and short-lived” mosquito, whilst choosing a far more mellow and agreeable tortoise as the representative of sustainability. Despite some distracting buzzing noises which seemed to emanate from the direction of his opponents, Clark pressed on to pick holes in some widely-lauded beacons of innovation. He then went on to point towards the dangers of high costs and low return, at least for the intended beneficiaries, which can often befall such headline-grabbing projects.

Unperturbed by this performance, Angelo  Gitonga took to the podium and made sure that the audience was under no doubt about what the real meaning of innovation is. “Innovations are processes we undertake to sort out the problems we encounter on a daily basis,” he declared, “Innovations are not inventions”. Technology in and of itself, Gitonga argued, is not innovation. Using his microphone as a persuasive case in point, he explained that the microphone may be an invention but using it to be heard by a large audience across a large space was the true innovation.

The third speaker to make her case was Maggy Beukes-Amiss, who refused to dilute the argument for sustainability, comparing herself and her team mate to an exclusive single malt whiskey that should be savoured on its own, and never mixed.

The final expert to lay down to gauntlet was Adele Botha, as she descended from the stage to walk amongst the audience and bring them along with her on a charge against the competing team. Whipping up general support, Botha spoke on behalf of her fellow Africans and their inherent inclination towards innovation, declaring to the crowd, “we are born innovators, we do not become innovators!” She went on to   insist that innovation will be done “our way: by Africans, for Africans”, and cast the closing blow as she kindly let Clark and Beukes-Amiss know that, once she and her fellows had found out what best practice looked like for Africa, they would share it with them, “when it’s done”.

One of the most globally known mobile success stories to come out of Africa in recent years is M-pesa, Safaricom’s mobile-phone-based microfinancing and money-transfer service. Kaigwa himself has spoken widely on the M-pesa revolution, which saw Kenyans transferring an average of US$1.4 billion each month in 2012.[ii] M-pesa is an innovative answer to specific African circumstances and a great story of Kenyan tech success. So, what’s the next big thing?

Nairobi has been creating an international name for itself as a hotspot for game-changing initiatives such as the iHub, m:lab, and Nailab, and this, says Mark, is indicative of where the Continent is headed. “[Mpesa] is owned by a large corporate organisation … so it’s not the best example of what innovation looks like. Innovation doesn’t necessarily happen in the corridors or boardrooms of organisations like Safaricom: We should expect and anticipate innovation from the hubs, labs, and accelerators.”

Although there are many fantastic projects out there, Mark insists that the real story is an atmosphere of change with a unique African context. “In the seven years that M-pesa has been around, we’ve seen a transformation that’s led to an influx of incredible talent and the entrenchment of user-centred design here. Now people don’t come with preconceived notions and a blueprint made in Boston or San Francisco.

“We have hundreds, if not thousands, of pilot projects: health, manufacturing, 3D printing, education … you name it. Some last a year, two years, or three years, and some are past proof of concept – saying ‘yes, we can scale this’. The more you have an atmosphere where things like this are happening, the higher the likelihood that you’re not going to get an M-pesa, but something greater and possibly in a field or sector that needs it the most.”

Mark points to the two sides of the famed Kenyan tech scene that are contributing to its high profile. “There’s the organic side, and then there’s the more high-level side. The Kenyan tech scene, Africa’s so-called ‘Silicon Savanah-to-be’, is a promising market, but we have more than meets the eye.”

The construction of the Konza Techno City, the Kenyan government’s focus on ICT and local content, and sustained efforts to raise support and encourage large businesses and blue-chip companies to come into the country are only half of a bigger picture. [Read more about Kenyan ICT policy and leadership here.]

“The other is the more organic side of the coin, with hubs and labs investing in entrepreneurs and the very early stages of start-ups. It’s creating an atmosphere where great talent is growing and thriving; good ideas and strong problems are being turned into business opportunities; and investors are finding out what it takes to get involved in an African country.

“People assume that it’s more of the high-level stuff that makes change happen. I really believe, though, that it’s the organic stuff, initiated by the community and on the fringes – the stuff that might not have been on the government’s radar previously. This is what’s really going to transform our country and the rest of the East African region, if not the whole Continent.”

Later this month, Kaigwa will be speaking on African self-reliance at the BMZ’s (the German Federal Ministry for Economic and Cooperation Development) second Future Forum in Berlin.

What role does he see for international government and investors in Africa?

“There’s plenty of room, plenty of problems and plenty of challenges that are going to need smart people to tackle them.

“We are in a very unique place, but you can never stop learning, especially with how far we still have to go. Shared experiences, in both directions, set the tone for sharing ideas and potential partnerships. We can learn what we have in common and what we don’t, and I might discover what I have to learn from the Berlin scene, and Nairobi could probably teach Berlin a thing or two as well.

“However, sometimes I feel that dealing with governments can be very high level: a lot of handshakes, exchanging of flags and books, and that’s awesome. But what does the ecosystem have to gain? What are the incentives for a Kenyan entrepreneur to work with a developer based in Berlin? … Is there an incentive for working together and forging partnerships? What’s the government doing to make it easier for this to happen?”

And finally, what is the secret behind Mark’s prolific personal success?

“I’ve understood some essentials about good communication and branding and have taken some of those concepts to invest in my own personal brand by really connecting with entrepreneurs (young and old) and with investors. I set out to meet people and make an impression.

“The exposure part has been a continuous experiment. Nothing is written in stone. History is ahead of you, and it’s up to you to make it. With this mindset, there is no problem with making mistakes. Fear of failure and rejection is diminished because no one else has set the expectation for you to fall below. You set your own expectations.”

Mark Kaigwa will be giving a keynote speech at the Wednesday evening opening plenary session of eLearning Africa 2013. To find out more about the Conference, please visit www.elearning-africa.com.

Mark Kaigwa on Twitter: twitter.com/mkaigwa www.mark.co.ke

[i] http://graphic.com.gh/Business-News/mobile-subscriptions-in-africa-to-hit-one-billion-by-2015.html

But are these traditions associated with rural life at risk of being lost to the past? The obvious ways to translate the storytelling culture for consumption by a modern audience – recording and transcribing – risk losing the fluid spontaneity which distinguishes oral culture: an essential skill for any griot is to be able to respond incisively and with wit to any situation. If you remove the performative element and the potential for interaction with both the surroundings and audience, then the magic of the moment is lost.

However, this is not a clear-cut battle of tradition versus modernity, in which the winner takes all. There are innovations within technology and thinking that create space for the co-existence of the two. If we interpret some key elements of oral culture as its focus on local context and its inherent interactivity, there are many ways in which modern technologies can encourage, rather than eclipse, the griot values.

A ubiquitous example of this can be found in contemporary rap music. Speaking to the BBC in 2004, Faada Freddy, of the Senegalese rap group Daara J, described rappers as today’s “modern griots”, serving as the “cameras of society”.[ii] Focusing on personal experiences, local issues and the struggles and successes of daily life and combining prepared verse with improvised commentary, the links between rap and griot styles are abundant.

When once the griot might travel on foot for many miles to share the stories of his king or community, now ICT enables local stories to be shared with the whole world online.  In the past decade we have witnessed a revolution in home-grown broadcasting, with high-quality sound and video recording devices included in even basic mobile phones, and websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter allowing young people to share their creative output and perform on the global stage of the Internet.

A modern interpretation of the interactivity of oral culture can be found in the rise of ‘digital storytelling’, which takes advantage of the unique qualities of recorded images, film, sound and text to explore ways in which people can find a voice through digital media.

With its origins in simple narrated slide shows or videos, digital storytelling has progressed to include fully interactive and participatory projects which embrace non-linear and experimental forms of storytelling.

What’s more, creating digital stories is widely accessible to many people, working with low-tech devices and free-to-use software. With just a mobile phone or entry-level computer, it is possible for anyone to compose, design and share their life events in a unique and engaging way. This democratised access has the potential to empower marginalised groups, giving people a public voice when before they had none.

Taking this a step further, we find projects such as the Ulwazi Programme, a community-owned database based in Durban, South Africa. The Ulwazi programme documents and disseminates indigenous knowledge, including “traditional celebrations, traditional clothing, Zulu proverbs, traditional folk tales, the use of spiritual herbs and traditional agricultural methods”, using text, photos and film as well as through online games and an interactive ‘Heritage Map’.[iii]

As a collaborative project, compiled by local people and populated with the stories of their lives and heritage, this i

s a kind of participatory storytelling that would never have been possible without the use of ICT.

Rather than writing them down and filing them away in a static archive, ICT enables us to create, share and celebrate stories new and old. Our interest in storytelling is unlikely to go away and, hopefully, griot traditions will be able to survive, prosper and inspire alongside new modes of storytelling, and with a little innovation and imagination, new traditions will be born.

  The photo included with this article is called ‘Listening to a Folk Tale from a Mobile Phone’ and is a submission to the eLearning Africa Photo Competition 2013. The photographer, Damsel, says ‘With the help of ICT innovation, many Africans (particularly children) can acquire many folk tales more rapidly than before. Therefore, this image is an attestation that tradition and ICT innovation can work harmoniously’.

[i] Offodile, Buchi. The Orphan Girl and Other Stories: West African Folk Tales. New York: Interlink 2001.

[ii] Pollard, Lawrence. Rap Returns Home to Africa. BBC News. September 2004.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3622406.stm

Technology dumping is not only an affliction of developing countries. In an in-depth report into ICT policies, Robert B. Kozma points to “the limited extent to which the information technology paradigm has been incorporated into educational systems around the world”.[i] Kozma cites a study that showed that, in 2006, almost all schools in the OECD countries surveyed were equipped with computers, but only two thirds of teachers had actually used them with their students in the preceding year, and the majority of use was to display pre-prepared presentations. So despite the technology being present, it hardly precipitated a revolution in pedagogical practice.

Obviously something more than just equipment is needed, and ‘teacher training’ is often the knee-jerk reaction to under-used ICT. However, schemes offering computer ‘driver’s licences’ and literacy programmes may provide educators with the basics of operating a computer, but this is merely a starting point. Knowledge obsolescence is something that can occur very quickly as new technology trends sweep the sector. For instance, the emphasis on cheap laptops that sparked projects such as One Laptop per Child (a key proponent of dump-and-walk initiatives) has now been eclipsed by interest in tablet and e-book readers.[ii] With this in mind, basic ‘how-to’ courses in computer usage are not only ultimately limited in their usefulness but potentially a great financial burden providing negligible outcomes.

The issue is not purely that teachers do not understand how to use new technologies and therefore do not use them, but rather that, left unaltered, traditional teaching modes leave no space to imagine how ICT can be effectively integrated in the development of new pedagogies.

UNESCO has been prominent in its research and recommendations regarding the effective deployment of ICT in education through Teacher Professional Development (TPD). In 2008, and then again in 2011, UNESCO published its ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT CFT), in collaboration with global technology powerhouses such as Intel and Microsoft. Then, in 2012, the UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA) published their ICT-enhanced Teacher Standards for Africa (ICTeTSA), “an attempt to help contextualise the broader UNESCO framework and standards based on specific needs and contexts expressed by education policymakers from across Africa”.[iii]

In addition, in February of this year the International Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) launched a three-month long online forum to address the current crisis in Teacher Professional Development. ICT was its second discussion topic, guided by James Lawrie, Education Advisor at War Child. In his blog contribution to the forum, Lawrie highlights innovative use of Open Educational Resources (OER), offline audio, video and text-based teaching material, lesson recording for personal, professional review and computerised student testing systems as ways in which ICT can complement a teacher’s professional development.

Laying down specific guidelines for how ICT should be implemented into the curriculum is only a small part of the journey. The impact of these frameworks and standards, if indeed there are any, is not yet apparent, and there are many other factors that must come into play if teachers are to be able to effectively and imaginatively deploy digital technologies in their classrooms.

But, despite these reservations, it does make a lot of sense to integrate ICT into the training and on-going development process of teachers’ learning. When they themselves have experienced the positive impact that digital technologies can have on their own practice it not only enables them to pass on their skills to their students, but also to enthusiastically participate in the development of new pedagogical thinking.

With career-long support and rewarding personal experience, surely teachers can be equipped with the skills and confidence to ensure that ICT is not abandoned in a dark corner, but rather that it facilitates far-reaching, quality learning for both staff and students.

[i] ‘The Technological, Economic and Social Contexts for Educational ICT Policy’,Robert B. Kozma, in Transforming Education: the power of ICT policies. UNESCO. 2011. p.16.

[ii] Ten trends in technology use in education in developing countries that you may not have heard about. Michael Trucano et al. EduTech, 26.06.2012.

Offering some ideas on how this potential might be successfully harnessed, Niall Winters shared his team’s new report called The Future of Mobile Learning: Implications for policy makers and planners. In his webinar, Winters explained that there were four challenges that mobile learning practitioners and researchers must address over the next fifteen years: Teacher training and support, multi-sector partnerships, learning analytics and mobile learning for marginalised groups.

Winters described teacher support as “absolutely key” to any progress: ensuring teachers are equipped with strong pedagogical design skills for ICT was probably the “strongest take-home” from the report. Strong, multi-sector partnerships between researchers, developers, programmers, teachers, policy makers and other practitioners would, he said, avoid the potential scenario of mobile learning emerging in parallel to, rather than fully integrated in, current education systems.

On learning analytics, Winters said that the link between them and learning theory is very important: technical innovation would be required to better understand how, when and what students learn using mobile technologies. Finally, he emphasised the need to promote mobile learning for all: the potential for mobile to support learning for marginalised groups, including women and girls as well as disabled learners, must not be neglected.

Whereas currently mobile learning is held back by reticence and lack of uptake, Winters predicts that, with focus on these four areas, we could see the term ‘mobile learning’ disappear within the next 15 years, as it becomes holistically and willingly subsumed into the wider eLearning landscape.

The benefits brought by low-tech devices, supported by innovative, user-focused thinking, to mobile learning projects in developing countries were highlighted by both Diane Boulay and Leila Dal Santo in their webinar sessions, who shared their research on grassroots projects across the world.

Diane Boulay leads the UNESCO project ‘Developing Literacy through Mobile Phones – Empowering Women and Girls’, which has been collecting data from case studies from across the developing world that explore the empowerment of women and girls through literacy, learning and life skills development. Along with sustainability issues, Boulay explained, high-spec options like smartphones can add too much complexity where simplicity might yield better results.

Boulay cited a project in Cambodia in which Oxfam has given female community leaders mobile phones to enable them to stay connected and access vital information. In response to fears that the phones could be forcefully appropriated by men in their households or communities, Oxfam worked with the phone provider to produce bright pink handsets. In the patriarchal society of Cambodia, explained Boulay, this was an incredibly simple and non-confrontational way to affirm the women’s ownership of the phones.

In the findings that Boulay reported, it was clear that, although mobile phones naturally played a central part to all projects, success depended on a far wider approach that addressed vital stages of pre-implementation research and preparations as well as careful consideration of sustainability, such as literacy programmes for teachers before devices are delivered (Literacy by Mobile Phone Programme, Pakistan) and committees put together to ensure that programmes continue after the initial pilot has ended (Jokko Inititiative, Senegal).

In her webinar on the Dab Iyo Dahab Initiative (DIDI), Leila Dal Santo of Souktel, shared the details of a low-tech solution to youth education in the Somali regions. Using pre-recorded audio lessons delivered via a free touch-tone menu service, the DIDI was able to provide financial literacy skills to low-literacy Somali youths. The system developed by Souktel enabled learners to interact with content, answer quizzes through the touch-tone system and provide data on learner numbers to the central control centre.

The DIDI, Dal Santo explained, required absolutely minimal infrastructure. All that was required were the basic mobile phones, which were shared between classes of up to twenty young people. The content was provided by EDC, who then handed over licensing rights to local NGOs after the pilot finished. The mobile phones were also passed on to siblings and friends, extending the impact far beyond the initial 500 learners who completed the pilot programme.

Like Niall Winters, Dal Santo finished by emphasising the need for cooperation. Cooperation between mobile networks, policy makers and the private and public sectors is essential for the growth of similar successful projects in the future.

Clearly, the government of Morocco is not satisfying the needs of its increasingly dispirited and desperate young people. Despite singling out Morocco as having the most functional youth unemployment programme on the continent, the details of the AEO report do not ignore the severe organisational and cultural obstacles still holding back employment rates in the country. Like its North African neighbours, Morocco suffers from particularly high levels of graduate unemployment and the rate of unemployment amongst fifteen to twenty-four year-olds stood at 17.6% in 2011, compared to a national rate of 8.9%.

Government initiatives to tackle these problems and encourage economic growth have been undertaken energetically yet the results have failed to live up to ambitious expectations. In 2006 three programmes were founded. The Idmaj, Taehil and Moukawalati programmes aimed to encourage employment of first-time job seekers, provide pre-employment skills and help young entrepreneurs by offering funding options and long-term support.

However, the programmes were criticised from the outset and the government was accused of making token gestures which lacked sufficient planning. The Moukawalati programme set out to create 30,000 new small enterprises and 90,000 new jobs within two years, but three years after the project’s inception the target was reduced to just 10,000 enterprises. The AEO reports that the scheme has led to the creation of just 3,315 enterprises and around 10,000 jobs.

With the accession of a new government in late 2011, led by Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane, hope for real progress was spawned amid the discontent that characterised the time. Just weeks after Abdelwahab Zeidoun’s death the newly-elected Justice and Development Party announced three further youth employment programmes, this time focusing on “employment within community-level organisations in the social and education sectors”, the long-term unemployed and integration of the informal and formal sectors of the economy.

In spite of these new initiatives, the same criticisms are levelled again and again at successive governments and the education sector: firstly, there is a large gap between the government’s ideals and the practical reality of Moroccan entrepreneurial culture. One of the first barriers to the 2006 Moukawalati programme was the inability of young applicants to make well thought-out business plans and, as the protests of last year go to show, self-employment is not seen as an attractive option in the face of an unremitting bias towards public sector employment amongst young people. The AEO report points out that, currently, the private sector is unable to match the stability and social benefits provided by the public sector.

Secondly, business leaders have consistently complained that graduates are not only lacking in appropriate skills to enter the contemporary labour markets, but also fail to understand the expectations of employees, making them unreliable team members. A recent report from the Moroccan audit court has condemned programmes that provide “training that fails to understand job trends and labour market demands at the local level”, meaning graduate recruitment rates stand at less than thirty per cent.

Speaking to the Magharebia news service, sociologist Samira Kassimi was critical of the Office for Vocational Training and Work Promotion and the impractical curriculums the Office oversees: “Once they've obtained their diploma, many young people don't know where to start. You need more than just technical knowledge to secure a job”.

Open and thorough dialogue between policy makers, higher education practitioners and industry leaders will be essential in ensuring that, as the economy grows and jobs are created, there is the professionalism and talent available to fill new positions; naturally a feat that is easier said than done.

In regards to entrepreneurialism, the African Economic Outlook recommends that less red-tape, universal health insurance and better business and legal frameworks could go some way to encouraging entrepreneurial spirit in the country.

Looking back on the reception of the various youth employment programmes initiated since 2006 is as much a lesson in what not to do as it is one in what should be done.  As a country, Morocco can take some pride in its persistent efforts to improve upon a bad situation, in spite of the mixed results achieved. The recognition afforded to it by the African Economic Outlook is, perhaps, not to be viewed as a great success, but an invocation for further work and as both a call to arms and a word of warning to other countries looking to join the race.

The African Economic Outlook. http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/in-depth/youth_employment/government-action-promoting-youth-employment-has-a-poor-track-record/

Thematic Analysis: Promoting Youth Unemployment (Morocco). The African Economic Outlook. http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/countries/north-africa/morocco/

Private Sector and Enterprise Development: Fostering Growth in the Middle East and North Africa. Lois Stevenson. International Research Development Centre. 2012. p.219.

Morocco Launches New Job Creation Plans .Hassan Benmehdi. Magharebia. 30.01.2012. http://magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2012/01/30/feature-02