More Updates from Indigo Grantees

In a recent post, I mentioned the progress that three of our grantees had made over the last few months, the impact they had enjoyed and the challenges they had faced. Continuing along that same theme, here are some more updates from our grantees:

• Mobile Consortium Ghana hosted one of the country’s first ever events dedicated to mobile app development. Despite some challenges with regard to internet connectivity and the reliability of electricity access, the interest and enthusiasm stoked by Mobile Consortium Ghana has led some large mobile operators and manufacturers to look at the possibility of hosting their own events in Ghana. The increased awareness of and interest in mobile app development has been the biggest success of this project, according to MCG’s Kwesi Eyison:

‘[Our biggest success is] the fact the we were the first to host an event in Ghana primarily aimed at promoting mobile technology and its impact on the community. We managed to get the dialogue of local development into place and now more people are interested in knowing more about the impact of mobile technology.’

• In September, we announced that we were funding Map Kibera Trust to carry out outreach work and create a directory of organisations working in Kibera. One of the things that impressed us then and continues to impress us now is the simplicity of their outreach work. Aware that for many in Kibera internet access is a luxury, Map Kibera Trust have designed a series of offline outreach activities to bridge the digital divide. As well as video screenings and presentations at community meetings, the team will also be handing out paper copies of the maps and creating murals throughout Kibera. For more on how the Trust is reaching out to the people of Kibera, why not take a look at their blog post here?
• Although Project Kopano is yet to start, SHM Foundation are already giving serious thought to documenting its (potential) impact. The project, which seeks to provide young HIV+ pregnant women with an SMS support group made up of their peers, is due to launch in the next few months. On the issue of impact and value-for-money, SHM’s director, Anna Kydd comments:

‘If we can show that the model can have a considerable impact on PMTCT [Preventing Mother-To-Child Transmission] rates then we believe that it would be cost effective for government agencies to provide this model to all pregnant women diganosed with HIV/AIDS in South Africa.’

This evidence-based approach to development is one that we wholeheartedly endorse and in times of economic difficulties it’s an approach that has clear and obvious benefits. Only by building up a robust evidence base can organisations and individuals interested in the power of technology for development create a compelling argument for investment in such approaches.

The Growing Tech Community in Rwanda

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Greetings to all from East Africa.  In my recent trip, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet with some of the inspiring people who are working hard to ensure that Rwanda’s tech community is given the opportunity to thrive.  Here’s an overview of some of the fantastic organisations and people I’ve been connecting with.

Wikimedia Foundation & Orange Reach Landmark Deal

Having recently supported the Wikimedia Foundation with a grant to improve mobile access and editing facilities for Wikipedia users, we were delighted to hear the news that they had reached a deal with mobile operator Orange to provide free access to Wikipedia for Orange’s 70 million customers in the Middle East and Africa. This new partnership is due to be launched in 20 countries this year and it’s hoped that other mobile operators will follow suit.

To read more about this story, why not take a look at the Wikimedia press release?

The Rwandan Government’s Commitment to ICT

The Rwandan government is highly committed to harnessing the power of ICTs to tackle social challenges across all sectors.  During a recent trip to Rwanda, I was fortunate enough to meet with several government officials and their partners to get a sense of some of the work they are doing in this space.

I met with David Kanimugire, ICT advisor to the Minister of Science, Technology and Science Research, who is exploring ways to open up government, in line with the  Open Government Partnership, which supports governments across the world that are interested in the principles of openness, transparency and citizen empowerment and engagement.  David expressed the government’s commitment to these principles, though currently they are still at the conceptual stage of engagement.

I showcased some of our grantees and David was hugely enthusiastic about the concepts presented to him and hopes to pilot several tech for social change projects in due course.

I was also introduced to Patrick Nyirishema, head of ICT at Rwanda Development Board, who is interested in establishing an innovation hub and incubator in Rwanda.  They have already started exploring their role in contributing to this.  He also expressed interest in harnessing the power of technology to stimulate entrepreneurship, particularly targeting women and young people and in using ICTs in education.

I also met with the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) team in Rwanda, who are funded by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation.  The AGI team are working across governmental departments to build strategic and staff capacity and strengthen service delivery.  They take their lead from the government and trust the people they work with.  Their main areas of focus are investment, agriculture, electricity and mining.  They were keen to explore the ways in which technology can contribute towards their aims and other development outcomes, taking The Minister in the Office of the President in charge of ICT, Dr. Ignace Gatare’s lead on which concepts to take forward.

I also met with Paul Kaiser, head of the Democracy and Governance team at USAID in Rwanda which aims to strengthen governance in a number of ways with a particular focus on citizen participation.  They are currently concentrating on land tenure, government capacity building, the private sector and civil society. In addition, they are supporting community radio platforms and access to information.  He believes that government is hugely committed to ending corruption and interventions in this space could be hugely impactful.

I was delighted to take part in such animated conversations with government officials interested in ensuring that Rwanda takes a lead in the field of technology on the continent.

Updates from our Grantees

At Indigo, we’re always keen to hear from our grantees and learn from their experiences. It’s for this reason that we recently sent out a survey to all our grantees to ask them of their experience working with Indigo, the challenges and successes their projects have faced and where they see their organisations in five years’ time. Here are just a few thoughts, reflections and pieces of feedback that we’ve received so far:

• iCow, one of our most popular grants, has gone from strength to strength over the last 12 months. Not only was it profiled on the BBC back in 2010, it was also voted one of the Best African Mobile Apps by Forbes. It’s not bad going for a small, young start-up. The iCow team have also recently conducted their own survey that shows 40% of farmers using the system have seen an increase in milk yields of 2-4 litres per cow.  Here is just one farmer’s story to come out of the recent survey:

David, a farmer from Bomet County  has six mature cows and four calves. When the iCow team initially spoke to him in August, his cows were producing an average of 14 litres of milk per day. As of January this year, his yield has increased by at least 4 litres, which he sells for 23 shillings per litre. He says iCow has really helped him especially in the area of feeding his dairy cows well and he now has fodder crops.

• During the recent Nigerian fuel subsidy protests, Zubair Abubakar’s Nigerian Constitution App received an estimated 40,000 downloads, causing him to exceed his server’s bandwidth. At present, Zubair is developing the app to work on even more phones and even has plans to develop future versions of the app in multiple languages, thereby making it accessible to those who don’t read English. On a continent with more than 2,000 languages, ensuring equal accessibility for all is a very real challenge and will require some innovative solutions in the years ahead.
• TEDx Dzorwulu, meanwhile, tackled gender stereotypes by hosting their event with a majority female audience. It’s a clear and welcome demonstration that technology, innovation and entrepreneurship are not male-only domains.

This is just a snapshot of responses we’ve received so far and hopefully we’ll have plenty more anecdotes and insights to share over the coming weeks. If you are one of our grantees and haven’t yet filled in the survey, we look forward to hearing from you shortly and finding out how you’ve been getting on.

Grant Awarded to SODNET

It’s widely acknowledged that the Kenyan government has been something of a trailblazer when it comes to open data and transparency. The Social Development Network (SODNET), a Kenyan NGO dedicated to fighting the causes and consequences of poverty and disempowerment, has worked consistently to use this data to improve the lives of ordinary citizens through its Infonet programme. The programme aims to provide a proactive platform for local communities to engage in knowledge production and exchange ideas, promote alternative practices, and to voice concerns. It aims to weave technology, open data and citizen empowerment into a potent product for social change. The programme itself supports four different projects:

• Ugatuzi: A budget tracking tool designed by SODNET to enable citizens to engage in public finance management. It provides constituency-level information on projects funded by devolved funds: project timelines, description, project status and multi-year disbursement schedules. It allows organized groups in communities to input comments and identify incidences of corruption and malpractice.
• Huduma: A platform that enables citizens to amplify their voices in the demand for services directly to authorities and service providers. It’s a web and mobile-based platform that aggregates and channels concerns and observations of citizens (SMS, voice, video etc) directly to authorities for redress.
• Uchaguzi: A platform that enables citizens to report any issues surrounding elections and related service delivery concerns directly to election officials, the authorities and the media. Uchaguzi aims to increase electoral transparency and thereby strengthen the democratic process.
• Nanionline: A platform and portal for social movements that will allow them to connect and interact with one another.

It’s with pleasure that we have awarded them a grant of £30,750 to go towards the salary costs of employing an Infonet Development Programme Lead and a Programmer. Both of these posts will allow SODNET to develop the Infonet programme – to expand its reach and improve its efficiency.

Philip Thigo was recently a keynote speaker at Indigo’s Power of Information conference. This is his talk on the importance of democratic transparency and accountability:

New Grant for Africa Gathering

In late 2010, we announced that we had supported Africa Gathering to host a conference aimed at bringing together innovative thinkers and doers with a passion for Africa. This year, we will once again be supporting the organisation to host up to two events in Africa with a grant of £5,000.

£3,000 of the grant will go towards supporting the first of Africa Gathering’s 2012 events, which has already been scheduled for later this month. The event, which will be hosted in the offices of fellow Indigo grantee, HiveColab, ‘will bring together Ugandans who are embracing technology to put their country on the map’. Aimed at a diverse community of people who care about Africa and want to share ideas for positive change in the areas such as sustainable development, new technology, social entrepreneurship, health, education and good governance, this one-day event will be of interest to all those with a passion for grassroots progress, emerging technologies, and development solutions that are relevant to Africa. Having attended previous Africa Gathering conferences, we know that they provide a stimulating and sometimes challenging atmosphere for debate and exchange of ideas. Indigo’s Executive, Loren Treisman, will be moderating the event.

If you are interested in attending the Ugandan event, further information and tickets are available here.