#icwe

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.

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/

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.

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.

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”.

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