South Africans rock Texas — a detailed report-back on the trip, published in the May edition of Brainstorm magazine.

Crowdsourcing startup investments — A report for ITWeb on South Africa’s own contribution to SxSW.

Tapping the crowd for start-up funding — published on TechCentral.

An update on Eve Dmochowska’s venture gives me considerable pleasure: as you can see on the CrowdFund website, the target of R1 million in pledges has been exceeded, with more than 350 individual investors wanting to get involved in projects to be funded by the CrowdFund.

Austin, it was a truly great experience. Provided we can raise the funding for the trip, we’ll certainly be back next year, in numbers.

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Social media is not an industry, just like word processing is not an industry. Social media is not a way to shout, it’s a way to listen. Transparency goes both ways. If someone thinks your product sucks, you’re going to hear about it, and more importantly, everyone else will hear about it.

There are tools to help you focus. You can search using keywords, using hashtags, and in real time. The fact that you can do all this listening in real time changes the way you think about things, and think about your customers. You can find the people who are really interested in your product. If you’re a movie studio, and you can get feedback on opening night, it can affect how you market it the next day. If you can listen and hear in real time, your whole sales pitch changes.

Social media also affects how you engage your customers. You can engage one-to-one. If you’re the CEO of a company, or a customer service rep, it doesn’t matter. You can step into the conversation at any time, and do so whenever, wherever you want. That kind of direct feedback is invaluable. When you do that on a regular basis, it changes the vendor-client relationship. Your customer feels like they can influence what you’re doing. They can become an army of evangelists, marketing your product for you.

I’m work with Myxer. It’s not my job responsibility to do social media listening, but I do it. I found out someone who wanted to marry the founder of Myxer. Got a message “Thank you Myxer for having Rosemary Clooney ringtones. I’m now a happy person :-)” — from @BornInATrunk.

@RoserMcGowan asked how to get ringtones that weren’t available on iTunes. Suddenly hundreds of people responded to her: you can use Myxer. Hundreds of salespeople not on our payroll. This is powerful.

Being helpful will always come back to you in spades, even if you’re not selling your product directly. Sell someone else’s product when that’s what people need or want, and they’ll remember your brand.

Accessibility is important. Make it easy for customers to get hold of you. And if you do listen, don’t ignore it. You must “h-e-a-r”, be helpful, engaging, accessible, responsive.

www.jeffreysass.com @sass www.myxer.com

Hank Wasiak — from MadMen to Twitter Hawk

Telling stories from his time at Benton & Bowles back in 1965, to now, at a company called The Concept Farm.

Advertising is not dead. Social media has, however, changed the marketing mix. The communications hierarchy has changed. The metrics of success have changed.

Advertising used to change linearly. But with social media, we’re not in Kansas anymore. The foundation is the same: product, price, place, promotion. We looked at social media as promotion. But that’s wrong. There’s a fifth P. People. What we need in a company is a people strategy, and it’s not just a target audience analysis. It’s how to engage people, deeply, profoundly. If you put a people strategy on the same level, it will change the way you organise, strategise, and run your business.

For years, the hierarchy of the ad business has been Attention-Interest-Desire-Action. That was okay then, but not anymore. Add E for Engagement. Consumers are going to talk about you before they talk to you. Add S for Sharing.

Most creative people don’t think that way, but that’s got to change.

Businesses need to run their companies to look at three tiers of profit. Money, social and greater good. That’s what people demand, and that’s what you have to deliver.

We’ve got to see social media as the greatest gift we’ve ever been given, in advertising. It’s not a pain in the ass. It gets us back to the roots: the art of one-on-one selling. We have to learn to listen, as Jeff Sass said. You have to get comfortable with giving up control, so you can give people confidence. It’s counter-intuitive, but if you’re honest and you have a great product, let it go.

New term: collabetition. (Trust an ad man.) Embrace it. The compensation will take care of itself.

Remember, we’re in the idea business. We’re a creative business. We’re not run by techniques, tools, metrics, analytics. My fear is we’re going to analyse social media to death, and miss the greater opportunity.

“An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.” — Bill Bernbach. You wanna hang out with magicians. Don Draper wouldn’t like what he’d see today. I’m 66, and I love it. Everyone is much too rooted in where they are, but I can’t wait to see what happens.

Wm. Marc Salsberry, photographer of the geeks
@wmmarc on Flickr

Twitter & photography. The last three years have changed SxSW. I used to take pictures that might appear in newspapers. Now, everyone takes part in making each other look good, and photographs end up on the web.

How we view ourselves is just as important as how the world views us. We’re in a fishbowl, looking in a mirror, looking back at ourselves.

It’s easy to make beautiful people look beautiful. You can make pretty people look good. Photographers who shoot tech, who shoot what they love, always looks good. Leo Laporte isn’t good looking. (Blurry image of Leo crowdsurfing.) But he looks good, because he loves what he does, and I love what he does, and that comes through the lens.

A terrible photograph of a guy who isn't that good-looking. Yet this is Wm. Marc Salsberry, looking good.

Whether you’re a photographer with a $5000 camera, or a photographer with an iPhone, if you love people, you can make them look good.

Missed the name Possibly Paul Hyland…
2 wonky & geeky things you need to know about Washington DC.

Open government movement is big in DC. Combining citizen talent with open government data is producing applications for smart phones… here’s an example: a heat map of liquor licences overlaid with crime data. Cops knew this, by gut, but to see it confirmed is amazing. Census data about the neighbourhood where you are: demographics, emergencies, errand facilities, crime. I’ve got an iPhone app that gives me a colour-coded threat meter depending on which neighbourhood I’m driving through.

Data.gov — real-time datasets. Apps for Democracy. Look up #opengov, #gov20, digitalcapitalweek.com, #dcweek running from 11-20 June 2010.

We’re experimenting with mass collaboration, focusing on technology, innovation, and all things digital in the US capital. We’re action-oriented. We’re looking for people who actually want to do something. Congress is the problem in DC. The people and companies are the ones who do things. That’s what the open government movement is all about.

Bowen Payson: Virgin America

Our Twitter Story — how it… unfolded, matured, grew

We had no strategy, no plan. We just started to roll with it. It unfolded organically, and with that we stayed close to our audience. We now have 60k followers, influential and loyal. We have a great employee, Nick Schwartz, 23, who is our voice. He loves this stuff.

People don’t buy tickets every week. Our engagement with them is different from that of a supermarket. We’re not going to get conversion every time we talk to a customer. So we have to understand participation, integrate it with their other contacts with the company.

Big wins: tweeting from 35 000ft. We were the first to put WiFi on planes, so we got a lot of cool firsts.

Chihuahuas. RPC = Revenue Per Chihuahua. There’s too many chihuahuas on the west coast, and there’s demand in New York. So we got on board, and ended up working out that we got $20k revenue for every chihuahua we moved for the adoption agency we worked with.

@virginamerica @twoplank

Guy Kawasaki tried to tweet himself inflight drinks. We advise you use the call button, however. It’s more efficient, and you’ll get served more quickly.

Some other airlines are doing it, like SouthWest and Jet Blue. We talk with them, and we share some learned practices. There’s a lot of cooperation. There’s also cooperation with other industries, which makes the learning richer.

We have done ad hoc Twitter activities for passengers, like A Day In The Clouds.

Christopher Weingarten, has reviewed 1000 albums on Twitter. Music critic for Rolling Stone.

@1000timesYes

I reviewed 1000 records on Twitter last year. I invested a comically large amount of time.

There’s no publication that can cover all the music that’s out there. It’s up to individuals. Anyone can do this. The only difference is how much time you invest.

Steal as much music as you can. A RapidShare account is cheap. It’s worth it. Just don’t get caught. Then blog or tweet about them.

Rappers have embraced social media better than anyone. They realise that the future of music is not about making records, but about putting out music to support yourself as a brand. Music itself is worth nothing. It can get you in movie soundtracks, advertisements, and other paid gigs.

—————cut——————
Ivo Vegter says: It’s time to wrap up. Hope this gave you some inspiration or food for thought. I have to prepare for St Patrick’s Day in Austin, Texas. I’ve heard promising rumours about it. I have a green shirt, which says “I was drunk on 6th street when I bought this shirt”. That may be why I lost the other shirt I got, which says Austin Rocks. It does. But I don’t have the t-shirt anymore.

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It was three years ago, at SxSW, the community discovered Twitter. For a few days this year, something strange happened. Twitter became less relevant to the community that made it happen. Foursquare and Gowalla took over the need to tweet where you are, where you’re not, where you need to be. Being able to see where your friends are changes the game.

It’s not that a connected group of people like cool new toys. Location based services are coming of age. For years, telcos and consumer device makers wanted people to use location-based services, and it’s always been a #fail. But now, when you can layer all this information together, location, mood, commentary, the ability to have real-time information where the gatekeepers are gone… Two earthquakes ago, it took 40 minutes between the first report on Twitter, and it appearing on news.google.com. Guess where you wanted to be if you’re into financial arbitrage? You can be ahead of the market by aggregating information from classified ads, for example. You can take advantage of the real-time web and take advantage of events before they are reported.

We had a conference when the Iran elections took place. It was weird to see people turn up wearing green. Nobody asked the Iranians to tweet their dissidence. It just happened, and connected people, and started conversations. There was real value in that.

What companies need to understand is that behind every tweet, there’s a person. When I was young, I used WA2POT as my social media handle, on amateur radio. That was a platform to reach out, and we were very active during emergencies to pass traffic. Recently in Haiti, ham radio did a great deal to help finding out what was happening, and coordinating early response. There was a Doctors Without Borders plane that had to land, and they needed to get hold of the US Air Force, so I retweeted Ann Curry’s call, and I got a response within a minute. Since when do you get an instance response from a government agency like that? An hour later, that plane was in Haiti. So, since the US Air Force is following me, I invited them to my next conference. Are they here? Yeah? Give them a round of applause. (Glad to help, says US Air Force guy from the back.)

This kind of stuff is game-changing. Forget the business models. It changes lives. I’ve met so many people with unique and amazing stories like that.

Twitter kids of Tanzania

Stacey Monk, Melissa Leon & AJ Leon. Got @mamalucy to tweet from Tanzania to tell her story, and build a school in her area. From eight kids, she now has 400 kids at the school.

@gideon_gidori is one of those kids. He tweets: @StaceyMonk Wow, that is great the whole world this is like a dream!!!!!

Stacey Monk, Melissa Leon, AJ Leon and Jeff Pulver discuss how Twitter is changing the lives of kids in Tanzania

@leah_albert is another one, asking people to share whatever they’re grateful for. If you respond, you can donate. If you donate, you get your Twitter handle added to the Thank You wall at the school. “This classroom was built by gratitude.” Amazing story, helping kids build their own schools.

@carren_martin i lost my mom when I was in 4th grade. ppl can’t make the hurt go away, but it will in time. — sent by someone who shared her experience.

Melissa Leon: We started with this social media curriculum in New York City. We realised they important thing was not to teach the kids to use Twitter, but to really understand what they were doing.

No comment required. Go ahead, tweet @glory_abraham.

The first experience of those kids in Arusha, Tanzania, was to get responses from kids in the United States. It blew them away. It changed their lives. The kids, for them to be able to speak and be heard and tell their story is just magical.

AJ Leon: It changes how they think about themselves and their place in the world. Mama Lucy created an oasis for these rural kids online. They get transported through conversations to the States, Europe — places they couldn’t dream of going physically.

Melissa: You really give kids an opportunity to share, and connect.

AJ Leon: There were kids who were shy, because they stuttered, and they turned to tweeting their questions in class to a live Twitterfall. There are people doing the same in India, the Phillipines. They’re using the technology not just to raise funds, but to amplify their voices. Even in the outskirts of Arusha, there’s internet access through Zain. It’s crappy, by our standards, but it works.

Audience guy: I grew up in Tanzania, and have been looking for a way to get back. This just gave me an idea how I can do that.

Nicole Kelly: Do you think those kids can use this and get opportunities to get out of their poverty?

Stacey: Every point of human connection is such an opportunity.

The kids have 12 laptops, and a local ISP account.

AJ Leon: Get involved. Tweet with them. They’ll do a lot more for you than you can do for them. [Twitter list to follow]

Love 2.0

Marlooz Veldhuizen. Dutch filmmaker and blogger. Here’s her blog. And here are more social media links.

I started tweeting three years ago. I’m @marlooz. I met this guy online, and he was kinda cute. So I asked him out. @gabemac was the lucky guy. We live-streamed our first date. He asked me out with a link on Google Maps. We were both geeks. Two hundred people watched our date. The whole idea was that it was an interactive date. They got to ask questions. I got to ask all these questions that I couldn’t have asked otherwise. One of my followers called the restaurant and told them to get us a drink. Then the restaurant told us we had to stop filming. Now nobody goes to the restaurant anymore. It’s a year later, and we’re not in a relationship, but we are roommates. There’s a sign in our room: anything you say and do can and will be used for entertainment. It was Twitter love. Sharing it with all our followers.

Another Love 2.0 story: I lost my laptop once. It was my baby. I couldn’t afford a new one. So I tweeted that I was freaking out. @idsedepree tweeted that if all my followers gave me a Euro, I could buy a new one. Michiel Berger started the hashtag #dontloozeit. And people all over started donating, and in 8 hours, they’d raised €1800. I cried harder that people thought I should have a new laptop so I could carry on tweeting, than for losing my old laptop.

I’m going to go on another Twitter date. I auctioned myself for a Haiti charity. I am worth $200. I’ll live-stream this one too.

Other #140conf notes

Celebrities on Twitter. One challenge is what Pulver calls “fourstalking”. Location-based services have implications that digital producers have to grapple with. (This doesn’t go only for celebrities, of course. It’s a serious issue.)

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Half an hour before the “keynote interview” with Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, the queue stretched the length of the Austin Convention Center. Along with a row of other bescarved South Africans, I find myself front and centre, in row seven. We’re excited to be there. There are half a dozen other large ballrooms to which @ev is being broadcast. All networks – wi-fi, 3G, GSM, the works – are heavily overloaded. The expectation is palpable as the huge hall fills to capacity.

Then Umair Haque of Harvard Business Review walked in, with his interviewee, and the afternoon went pear-shaped.

Excited throngs before Evan Williams keynote

It started well, with an announcement by Williams of a new product for content publishers which allows them to integrate Twitter tools better with their websites. These tools open in a floating box, and allow readers to easily log in, or follow writers or topics, directly from the byline or keyword. It’s useful to Twitter users, because it makes discovery and connection easier. As a revenue generating model, it will not impose advertising on Twitter users, which is promising.

The lesson Williams says he learnt from Twitter is that your initial assumptions are almost always wrong, so you have to be willing to experiment and correct errors and move on. This goes as much for the product, which was forged more by its openness to users, and how developers adapted it to specific purposes, as for the business model. The openness of Twitter (as opposed to mere transparency, when users can look but not touch), is a survival mechanism.

That was, said Haque, interesting. So were all the rest of the platitudes that he set Williams up for. This wasn’t William’s fault, of course. But Haque looked unprepared, and much too often fell back on self-absorbed musing about how the latest interesting comment related to something he had recently written about.

Occasionally, Williams made an impression, such as when he related the e-mail from someone in Chile who’d used Twitter during the aftermath of the recent earthquake, and was very grateful for its existence. “We’re living terrible days after the earthquake, and thanks to Twitter, we can find people, help people, spread warnings…”

He added that it had always been Twitter’s goal to reach the least connected in the world, which is why the SMS channel remains key to its strategy. “This is why SMS is still important, and we’re seeing strong growth in places like India, where SMS is ubiquitous, and we’re hearing back from these regions that it’s of tremendous value to them.”

However, the interviewer let down the audience badly. He seem ill-prepared, and entirely unable to engage even Williams, let alone the audience. In my notes, I described him as “[I]nept. He waffles, he repeats what Williams has already said, and he finds everything an interesting point.” “He is so pompous,” said my neighbour. “Evan Williams #SXSW keynote boring — can haz better, less pompous interviewer?” agreed @planettroy on the back channel.

The exodus started. One wag posted to Twitter: “The queue to get out was longer than the queue to get in.”

“Should have kept the #mondaykeynote to 140 characters,” chirped @zuno. And @mikeminer: “Every time the moderator says ‘let me talk for a minute about. . .’ a baby angel dies in heaven.” Added @chrisbergman: “Score. Just saw @guykawasaki walk out on the #mondaykeynote Guess he has betterness figured out.”

Yup, Haque talked for a minute about something he calls “betterness”.

I didn’t fly 48 hours to Texas to be insulted by an interviewer who didn’t prepare for a keynote. I got up from front and centre, and joined the throng at the door.

Says @stitchmedia: “#mondaykeynote w/ @ev is being called a trainwreck. I can assure you it wasn’t. Trainwrecks keep my eyes open, this did not.”

Leslie Jensen-Inman, whom I met shortly afterwards, described it the best: “The #mondaykenote is like the Titanic. The moderator is the iceberg and everyone is running for the life boats.”

Kawasaki, hosting a panel of his own immediately afterwards, began: “My name is Guy Kawasaki and I have an extensive vocabulary and no affiliation with Harvard.”

This is an object lesson on so many levels. If you’re moderating, engage the audience, and stop talking about yourself for a minute. If you’re on stage, ignore the back channel at your peril. And if you’re going to address an audience of thousands, many of whom travelled far to get there, and queued for an hour in the hope of not being relegated to one of the half-dozen overflow halls, have the common courtesy to prepare, rehearse and put on something that’s worth the (very expensive) price of admission. A modern audience will not have the common courtesy to stay put and show respect you have not earned.

To Evan Williams’s credit, this is how he responded: “@ev: I heard on the backchannel that people want me to answer tougher questions. What’ya want to know? Will answer 10. Go.

That earns respect. But don’t ever inflict Umair Haque on us again, m’kay?

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Scott Kirsner, with Gary Hustwit

In the past, studios were the major gatekeepers. More and more, however, filmmakers turn to identifying, recruiting and building their own audiences, people they think will resonate with the theme or genre of the film.

Making media used to be a monologue. But on the internet, people want to engage. They want a window into your process. They want some kind of relationship which makes them feel involved. They’ll help you out in incredible ways.

Witness Girl Talk, a remix artist, who got a free rotoscoping animation from a bunch of students which he included in his own film.

Another example is an artist who paints in public, and realised that when people are more engaged, talking with her while she paints, they’re more likely to buy her paintings.

Witness, Ok go, here it goes again, which has been emulated and copied and remade by many viewers. They noticed this, and ran a competition to get people to make their own versions, and gave the best one an opportunity to dance with them on stage. They got 50 million YouTube views. That sold a lot of music.

Recognise the power of links. Example, 24 Hours On Craigslist, where the filmmaker got
got links on every Craigslist site.

Kirsner himself got a link on Boing Boing, by knowing someone who happened to be guest blogging. He offered free downloads of his book.

Whatever you put online, make it easy for people to include it, embed it, retweet it, Facebook it. The reason viral videos spread, is because you can see it all over the internet. The best anti-example is ThinkFilm, which requires a username and password for press downloads, and never gives you instructions how to get one.

One big caveat about audience-building: you can’t wait until your post-production headaches are open. You have to start early with pre-promotion. Start as soon as you’re committed to make the film, start building an audience. It happens over time, not instantly.

See also these free tools for audience-building, distribution and commerce.

Gary Hustwit sent his trailer for the documentary Objectified to Gizmodo, which promoted it widely because it is about product design including consumer electronics.

“By launching a blog, and soliciting comments, I get a ton of ideas and feedback, which have influenced both Helvetica
and Objectified,” says Hustwit.

Hustwit has 18 000 Twitter followers. He doesn’t know how it happened, but he started it at SxSW last year. It’s in his e-mail newsletter. He used it for announcing preview screening dates and location, and he’d sell out shows only using Twitter.

“Now, the most active thing I do is tweet to keep people updated with what’s going on.”

There are also merchandising ideas, like putting the film on a 60GB USB drive, for $75. Limited edition of 500 is sold out. That gets a lot of people to pre-order the DVD, and to talk about it in social media. Make something a little cooler, a little extra, they’ll buy it directly from you, which means you make a little more margin and fans feel a little more engaged.

Does he seed the world with reviews? No, he lets it happen organically. For both his films, he got involved with festivals like SxSW, which has an audience that largely coincides with people who’d be interested in his films. But once he can reach the audience directly, he doesn’t bother to invest in festivals anymore.

His site is built in the form of a blog, based on Wordpress, and not a typical film-trailer format. This engages the audience much more.

Using crowdsourcing and participation is growing as a means of promoting, selling, and even creating films. There’s a lot to learn, but there are new revenue models here that are waiting to be exploited.

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Teddy Ruge, co-founder of Project Diaspora, whose mission it is to mobilise, engage and motivate Africa’s Diaspora to do more for the continent. The belief is that Africa’s development has to go through its own people. $40 billion in remittances, going to projects in Africa.

Teddy Ruge, founder of the Diaspora Project

Examples of projects funded by the Diaspora are UMPG Ltd, which works with 1500 farmers to teach them to plant medicinal crops, and Women of Kireka, trying to switch women from quarry workers to jewellery and fashion designers.

Development of technology in Africa is a passion of mine. How can I talk about it? One thing I was reading earlier this week… Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. I read about the birth of technology in America and how it came about. The parallel with Africa was really striking. There are many similar things about how people become successful. One factor is the environment you were born in, and the 10 000 hours it takes to become who you are.

I looked at Silicon Valley’s outliers. All had similar traits. All were born around the same time. All had opportunities at very critical points in their youth.

The internet is growing everywhere. But on a world map, Africa doesn’t even show up. India, 60m users. Brazil, 67.5m. China 250m. But I was on the internet. Why wasn’t I counted?

Steve Song’s map for the Shuttleworth Foundation shows how connectivity has exploded in the also 18 months. African undersea cables being laid between 2008 and 2011 will finally bring the world, broadband, to Africa.

I looked at the capacity they will deliver. We’re going from unknown, around 2007/8, to 17 Terabits of design capacity by the end of 2011. That’s just cables. The addition of O3b networks, satellites backed by Google, will provide alternatives to 3G, WiMax and terrestrial bandwidht.

This is pointing to a revolution in development. In 2009, the billionth baby was counted in Africa. 53 countries. Compare that to 450m and 300m. There are 450m Africans under the age of 15. The entire US population is just 300m.

This is the Cheetah Generation. George B.N. Ayittey called them that: they’re disruptors to the status quo.

I can’t think of a better group of people who’re going to revolutionise Africa, technology. They’re going to grow up in the information age.

Mobile subscriptions are up to 450 million. Almost half the population. Growth curve, through 2013, is projected to be 12%, but I think it will be a lot higher. Those kids will want the latest and greatest. So that growth number is very conservative.

Mobile phones have made life and business so much easier in Africa. They’ve played a huge role.

Let’s make a call. [Live demo, Skype call. Calling his mother, Milly Kugonza in +25. The phone is busy.]

For her as a peasant farmer, a mobile phone makes it easier to decide whether to sell crops now, and in which town. She also suffers from asthma, so she can text the doctor in the next town, so it’s a life saver for her.

What’s the direction this will take? Accelerating the online participation of Africans. Currently, there are 67 million online Africans. Why weren’t we on that earlier map? Good question. Nigeria has the largest share, 24 million, Egypt has 13.5 million, South Africa has 5 million. That accounts for only 3.8% of global traffic.

My premise is that “the connected palm” is where the internet will go in Africa. We’re really good at leapfrogging. We leapfrogged landlines, straight to mobile phones. We’ll leapfrog laptops, and go straight to smartphones.

“Smart” is as smart does. For many people, the mobile phone is their first introduction to technology in Africa. It’s joining Africa 2.0. It will create Africa 3.0.

And interesting stat is the use of Opera Mini. In Africa, there was 177% growth, and it works even on dumb phones.

Steve Jobs has to know something is happening in Africa, to be present with the iPhone. How does he think he’ll make money with the iPhone in Africa? It is present in many African countries. How do we afford them?

I contacted Brian Herlihy, the CEO of Seacom. He says pervasive, fibre-connected towers, will make the handheld device pervasive in Africa. Most transactions will be by mobile phone. M-PESA demonstrates what the mobile phone can do in terms of innovation.

In order to have an environment to foster innovation and creativity, you have to have areas where these under-15s can go. There are technology parks being built in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Afriac, Nigeria… even governments are starting to see technology as the future, where we need to be. We also have individuals who are building centres of excellence, such as Appfrica Labs in Ugana, Limbe Labs in Cameroon, Banta Labs in Senegal, and iHub in Kenya. This is where Africa is going to put in its 10 000 hours. This is where our Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, will be found.

[He calls Bill Zimmerman, Limbe Labs. Really scratchy ringing tone, but it's going through. The line is noisy, but the video works. Southwest province of Cameroon. Video shows some of the coders in a small rec room. Shiny, chequerboard tiled floor. Among the projects they're working on is an SMS-based phone directory. There are a lot of graduates in Africa that make this possible, and Limbe is near the 3m-strong capital of Cameroon. Our connection here is 1Mbit/s, so it serves our needs. Video interview is jumpy, but good enough.]

A Skype call to Limbe Labs, in Cameroon

[Jon Gosier, Appfrica Labs, in Uganda.”We're an incubator. Ugandan technology entrepreneurs start businesses here, and we also work as a tech consultancy. This is Victor.” “Hi. Silica is something I'm working on, involving natural language processing. Working with Ushahidi to extract key words from reports, and create tag clouds to index and comprehend content.” “Udima is a platform for transparency, showing how aid money is being received and spent.” “Our internet was down just now, we were worried we wouldn't make the conference.” – big lag – “the idea now is to continue what we're doing and scale up a bit, and engage the global market with Facebook, iPhone, Android applications. This type of business isn't typically done here, but it's worked really well for us. Mobile is incredibly important. It's the go-to platform here. I'm really excited about products like the Nokia N900, which is really a good platform to create content, rather than just consuming it. In terms of reach, there's no comparison between computers and mobiles. Even in developed areas, computer penetration is usually only 1-2%, while mobile is up to 90% in some areas.”]

[Trying to call Milly again. “How much do you want to bet that phone is on a taxi, going to be recharged. She's also the local MP, so her phone rings a lot.”]

You couldn’t have made that Skype call in 2007. But you can now. There’s so much room for growth, but I’m really excited about the future of technology in Africa.

For decades, we sat around a paraffin lamp, learning from second-hand books. Mobile is how we do it now.

If you’re an investor, an aid agency, empower through education. The more access we have, the more we learn, the more independent and empowered we get. That is the future. We’ve seen kids who go to BarCamps turn out to be coders at Appfrica Labs. This is how we’re going to get employed, make a difference, and rise.

Question: What’s the role of government in providing infrastructure?
We do have massive infrastructure problems. This isn’t just about the rosy side. It’s a breadbasket of trouble. The government has to play a role to make sure the infrastructure is present, for Africa 3.0 to have a realistic chance of succeeding.

Question: Does this leapfrogging mean that Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC project is superfluous?
My view is OLPC is a failed project. It’s a top-down solution imposed by outsiders. It doesn’t engage Africans and augment their lives in the way they want. It’s dead in the water, really.

Question: Before you get your Bill Joys, Steve Jobs, you needed the universities. Is there the right infrastructure available to educate people to their leadership and entrepreneurial potential?
You’re right. Our education system is woeful. It’s still based on the old colonial model of stuffing you with prescribed knowledge and regurgitating it. There isn’t a lot of opportunity for exploration. But that’s why I’m excited about mobile. Now you have the opportunity to learn on your own, to explore. You can bypass the teacher as gatekeeper. In countries where governments are not stepping up to the plate in terms of providing education, like Kenya, the private sector is starting to fill the gap.

Question: How can we dispel the myth that Africans and Afro-Americans are not helping each other? How are you reaching out to the American bloggers and media to get information out about what’s happening in Africa?
Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Write, write, write, write, write. Participate. Wherever you can. Find a niche, own it, and put out good content. If you can’t move the mountain, you can kick a few pebbles and try to cause an avalanche.

Teddy M.S. Ruge
@tmsruge
www.projectdiaspora.org
www.tmsruge.com

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I also attended the Mark Cuban vs Avner Ronen battle about television, but found it mostly an uninspiring clash of egos. There was some clever wit here and there, but in my view neither Cuban nor Ronen really made great points about either pay TV or internet television. Perhaps the disorganised, rapid-fire nature of the argument (and the interruption by the evacuation alarm) spoilt it. I came away thinking not about the future of television, but about the value of moderators in debates. I’m fairly sure that wasn’t the intent of either participant.

Here’s a gratuitous picture of the dawn over the Austin Convention Center:

Dawn came an hour late, because the night was an hour short. Daylight saving time is weird. But then, Austin prides itself on being weird.

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