Nairobi
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2 Tech Tools for Emergencies from our Westgate Experience: Ping and Blood Donation
As we mentioned yesterday, it’s been a bit of a crazy few days in Nairobi. The full Ushahidi team met yesterday (many virtually, of course), and we talked about many issues surrounding the Westgate siege and our own tools. This lead us to then think through our skills and tools, and where we could be useful. Two thoughts came immediately to mind: Read More »
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A Crowd-Sourced Public Transportation Map for Managua
There is no map for the 42 bus lines in Metropolitan Managua, capital of Nicaragua, where 80% of the 2 million inhabitants that are dependent on buses to commute to work or school. But engaged citizens used Free Technology and the power of collaboration to create the first digital public transportation map. Now they seek support to print it. The public transportation network has grown over the years in Managua, capital of one of the poorest countries on the American continent...
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A Doctor Leverages Open Source to Learn How to Code And Improve Medical Care in Africa
Judy Gichoya is a medical doctor from Kenya who became a software developer after joining the open source medical records project, OpenMRS. The open source project creates medical informatics software that helps health professionals collect and present data to improve patient care in developing countries. After seeing how effective the open medical records system was at increasing efficiency and lowering costs for clinics in impoverished areas of Africa, she began hacking on the software herself to help improve it. Then she set up her own implementation in the slums outside Nairobi, and has done the same for dozens of clinics since. This is a classic story of open source contributors, who join in order to scratch an itch. But Gichoya was a doctor, not a programmer. How did she make the leap?
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A Kenyan Startup is Showing Global Businesses How to Talk to Their Customers
A florist chain in Argentina, a food delivery service in Hong Kong, and a Singaporean travel agency—these are a few of the companies relying on a Kenyan startup to help them talk to their customers on WhatsApp, WeChat, and other messaging apps. Ongair, a Nairobi-based startup, says instant messaging could and should replace the traditional channels of customer service—frustrating phone calls, inefficient e-mail exchanges, online chats that don’t work well on a smartphone, or SMS messages that costs businesses per text...
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Access to Open Data ‘Key to Sustainable Development’
Open access to scientific and technological data could help Africa achieve sustainable development goals, a meeting has heard. According to information and communication technology (ICT) experts who attended the International Workshop on Open Data for Science and Sustainability in Developing Countries in Nairobi, Kenya, early this month (6-8 August), open access will enable researchers, policymakers, technology developers and the public access information and share knowledge for informed decisions. Read More »
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Africa’s Tech Edge
How the continent's many obstacles, from widespread poverty to failed states, allowed African entrepreneurs to beat the West at reinventing money for the mobile age
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Are Innovation Hubs The Future Of Open Government In Africa?
Set alongside one Nairobi’s main roadways, the Bishop Magua Centre looks on the exterior no different than any other mid-rise office building. However, inside its drab khaki walls are some of the most innovative technology projects in Africa... Read More »
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Building BRCK: The Story Behind Ushahidi’s Mobile Internet Router
Why do we rely on equipment made for Berlin, Orlando and Tokyo when the conditions we have in Nairobi, Lagos or New Delhi are completely different? Read More »
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Citizen Cartographers Fill The Gaps In Maps
...[M]aps are a vital resource, especially when deciding what infrastructure to build or in the event of a humanitarian crisis. Now teams of mappers are working to chart some of the most obscure corners of the developing world using OpenStreetMap (OSM), the citizen-mapping tool that today has over 1 million registered users.
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E-Learning In Africa: Massive, Online And Free
Coming to a laptop near you, the Brazilian model of free online learning that could revolutionise African education.
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Google’s Boss Eric Schmidt Projects Kenya As Africa’s Tech Leader
After a week’s visit to sub-Saharan Africa that included meetings in Lagos and Nairobi, Executive Chairman and former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt has labelled Nairobi as the ‘maybe’ silicon valley of Africa. Read More »
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HELINA 2018: Call for Papers
The 2018 edition of the Pan-African health informatics conference (HELINA) is scheduled from 3rd – 8th December 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference will be hosted by the Kenya Health Informatics Association (KeHIA) and will focus on how technology is being used to strengthen health systems in the African Region. HELINA conferences have been known to provide a platform for both academia and industry to showcase results of scientific research and industry practice.
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In Kenyan Slum, Mobile Phones Pinpoint Better Water
Single-room shacks with mud walls, metal roofs and dirt floors sleep families of eight here. Plastic bags filled with human waste are thrown into unpaved streets [...].Trash piles up in front of homes and storefronts. The flies are everywhere. People struggle to survive but the appetite for change is strong. Read More »
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Join The Crisismappers!
Crisismappers of all map forms, organizations and disciplines will be converging on Nairobi in November 2013 for the 5th Annual International Conference of Crisismappers (ICCM) . Join important humanitarian, human rights, development and media organizations along with the world’s best technology companies, academics, journalists and hackers. [...] Read More »
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Joining Up Ghana's Healthcare To Save Lives
[Giving birth] kills more mothers and babies than anywhere else in the world, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO)...In Ghana, for example, the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) declined by 49% between 1990 and 2013 to 380 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2013 - but this still leaves some way to go to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of 185...
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