mweshi

What has transpired in Kenya since the election has been quite depressing to say the least. It’s sad to see a nation that was well and truly on its way to economic prosperity suddenly digress in that manner. The scale of violence has left me speechless, especially after getting firsthand accounts from friends caught up in areas that witnessed the worst of it.

Nonetheless, amid all of the political bickering that continues while lives are being ruined, cheetah innovation, ingenuity and passion shines bright as a group of friends and fellow TEDsters have come up with a new tool to help people chronicle/document incidents of violence, looting, etc. around the country called Ushahidi, Swahili for witness.

Thanks for the tip Hash.

Back from a semi-self-imposed boycott of my laptop over the four-day weekend, blogging drought, and continuing along the conversation of film, here’s a link to a short animation project Patrick Algaé of Treelion had talked to me about during TED Global called “The Return of Liaram.”

The Return of Liaram is an animated short film project directed by awarded Caribbean director Joel Cimarron who won in 2003, the International Competition Project Award of Annecy International Film Festival.

The film has a duration of 9’30 and will use a special animation paintings technique created by Joel Cimarron.

The influence comes from “Notebook of a Return to my Native Land” (1939), the early master work from surrealist Caribbean Poet Aimé Césaire Godfather of the Negritude movement whom surrealism movement’s founder Andre Breton said of “Notebook of a Return to my Native Land” : “this poem is nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of our times”.

The Return of Liaram is an attempt to make him a tribute.

To get a feel for the special animation paintings technique, it’s best you watch the film’s teaser trailer. I was fortunate enough to get an amazing explanation from Patrick that had my imagination doing acrobatics from the sheer passion in his description of the project!

Hat tip to Afromusing for the Return of Liaram link

Coincidentally, Pictoon is an animation outfit based in Dakar, Senegal (founded by Pierre Sauvalle, an animation director from Cameroon and Aïda Ndiaye, a Senegalese businesswoman) and under Patrick Algaé’s Treelion distribution umbrella that produced Africa’s first ever animated television series, Kabongo the Griot. Pictoon’s currently working on a project that will coincide with Africa’s hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa called, “The Invicible Lions.” True African superheroes in the making!

Armed with a few thousand dollars, digital cameras, and some lights, Nigerian directors have created a $250 million industry, thousands of jobs, and a sense of hope on a continent better known for blight and despair…

- This is Nollywood website

While at TED in Arusha, I had an interesting conversation with three film directors from Nigeria about the state of Nollywood and what may done to improve the quality of film making on the continent. Andrew Dosunmu (photographer and filmmaker) and Newton Aduaka (winner of the grand prize at FESPACO 2007 for his film “Ezra”), both based outside of Nigeria and making films of a different caliber than Nollywood and with bigger budgets, and Bond Emeruwa a Nollywood-based filmmaker featured in Franco Sacchi’s documentary “This is Nollywood.”

The question put on the table was whether Nollywood movies can be made with a higher quality of production; Andrew and Newton challenged Bond that they could produce good quality feature films with the same budget, equipment, crew, and actors.

Now, I have watched a number of Nollywood productions some good-some poor and I appreciate the fact that a lot of them have showcased stories of concern to Africans by overcoming several barriers and embracing digital film production. Granted, Nigeria is a 10lb. gorilla in terms of the number of films produced every year and no country on the continent can compare. However, I still believe the production quality can be improved and streamlined even with the budgets some of these films are made on.

In an earlier discussion with Bond, we talked of some sort of capacity building projects for aspiring film makers from around the continent to travel to Nigeria to learn from Nollywood and with the experience of Nollywood and perhaps an improvement in production quality, we might have an extremely powerful pan-African film movement highlighting all of this rich continent’s great stories, kingdoms, cultures, languages, and civilizations.

I can’t recall the last time a feature film was made in Zambia, but it seems we’re on the way to having our very first feature titled “Bad T!ming.” While doing some research online, I came across a project that was started sometime last year to document the production of Bad T!ming on the Film Zambia website and apparently the film is now in post production. One film every two years is certainly a far cry from the 1,000 to 2,000 that Nollywood would have produced during the same time, but I guess it is a start…

Well, TED Global wrapped up yesterday and quite a few of us were left a tad sad that such an amazing week was over. I believe the people of TED provided us with a great platform with which to communicate with one another and if we can harness the power of those present at TED, Africa’s future is looking very bright! Here’s a quick summary of some of the talks from yesterday.

Patrick Awuah - Cofounder, Ashesi University in Ghana

Africa can only be transformed through enlightened leaders.

The question of transformation in Africa is a question of leadership.

Every society must be intentional about educating its leaders.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala - former Finance Minister of Nigeria and Fellow of the Brookings Institution

Why is it that Africans want to totally take the other side of the aid coin by completely refusing it. Africa has been giving aid to the west since the slave trade and we should not be ashamed or refuse if they want to give it back. The US and Europe could not have been built without Africa’s aid. Let’s not be on the defensive for what the west is giving back.

Support women and create jobs. Put more resources in the hands of women:
Placing more resources in the hands of women results in greater spending on human capital, i.e. household services, health, education and food

Aid should be channeled to the right places with total involvement of its recipients from the onset; if this trend continues we won’t achieve any development. Africans need to take charge of where aid should be channeled.

Planted seeds

Emeka put it well when he summarized the conference and said “what we have done at this event is plant seeds.” Indeed the seeds of change, progress, and a new African renaissance have been planted!

I can’t believe the conference is about to end in a few! This has been the most fulfilling, thought provoking, inspiring and educational event I have ever attended and as I mentioned this morning to conference attendees, thanks to TED for this wonderful opportunity of brining together so many progressive Africans. What happens after this conference now is entirely up to all of us who love our continent. To all TEDsters out there, let’s make this event the genesis of the cheetah renaissance!

Salim Amin is asking every African and those interested in the continent to help his for Africa by Africa 24-hour news channel, A24 come to fruition. With 900 million people on the continent, we continue to look to international news channels to provide information about our continent.

Amin’s channel aims to provide training for journalists across the continent as well as breaking news with 46 stations, offered to all terrestrial television providers free of charge and revenue will be generated through advertisements.

It’s time Africa got its own 24-hour news channel. Most of the talks and discussions here at TED this week have focused on the fact that we rarely have positive viewpoints on Africa from western media and this channel will definitely bring and help to paint a positive light on the continent.

James Shikwati just finished his talk and his main point is that we kick aid out and start thinking of new and ingenious ways of growing African economies, especially through business and youth empowerment.

Ory Okolloh, a lawyer, activist and blogger from Kenya gave a pretty poignant talk about reversing the brain drain and what can be achieved if Africans in the diaspora were to come back and simply take the plunge to help the continent.

President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete also spoke to us this morning about uplifting our people by giving them opportunities and incentives. As a TEDster and an African, I would personally like to thank President Kikwete for the wonderful hospitality Tanzania has given to us through the week.

Tanzania is one country that in my eyes continues to work hard at political stability, economic growth and a solid succession path that has always looked for fresh ideas and new leadership especially in a time when most African states have political dinosaurs continuously imposed on them without a transparent process.

Connecting the Continent

AMD’s Héctor Ruiz, the CEO of AMD just put up a chart on the use of the Internet per 1000 people and it’s sad how far back we are on the continent because of high costs to internet access.

AMD’s 50×15 initiative is a business venture and not a charity, it’s focused on simple, accessible, and human-centric solutions; it’s based on a “geo-sensitive” approach and is about fostering local, integrated, end-to-end ecosystems. AMD’s vision of local integrated, end-to-end ecosystems encourages the building and development of complete hardware and software solutions locally to provide solutions. Architecture for Humanity is also involved in the design of the best-suited computer lab for the emerging world.

A very important point Héctor made throughout his talk was of his father’s constant reminders for Héctor to strive and achieve more than he did, in the context of the continent, the current generation has to do better in all facets of their lives than that of our parents and we should wake up every morning wanting to achieve more and better than they did. Africa’s Cheetah generation (as Dr George Ayittey referred to the current conscientious and increasingly passionate generation) couldn’t have been challenged any better.

Herman Chinery-Hesse of theSOFTtribe gave a good talk about being proud to be an African and working in Africa once you have acquired the necessary skill set. One should not wait for government to provide a job, but come up with innovative solutions and business ideas as this is what will change Africa and not aid because we’re resourceful people. His other argument is that in order to get any services, rural areas the people will need to have cash and theSOFTtribe has come up with a system that will enable people to send cash to one another via the mobile phone.

One champion for all of us that decided to come back home after spending years away to startup businesses has to be Nick Nesbitt of Kenya’s KenCall; he made a decision to come back initially thinking he was coming back to save the continent but has now shifted gears to actually trying to get a business going that empowers his employees.

Here’s a brief run-down of the talks from this morning at TED. The conference is still on and we just heard from AMD CEO, Héctor Ruiz. Enjoy.

Tales of Invention
Bola Olabisi an African innovation evangelist and founder of the Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network (GWIN), a group that wants to “improve self-confidence and self-esteem, increase motivation, broaden horizons and experience, and raise the aspirations of creative, inventive and innovative women” all over the world.

What stood most about her talk was her showcasing of lo-tech inventions by some of Africa’s up and coming women inventors and innovators. Definitely an inspiration for a lot young girls and women on the continent and the world over.

Following Bola’s talk, we had the wonderful opportunity to listen to another inventor and chemical engineer, Moses Makayoto. He’s the inventor of the popular Mama Safi detergent, produced cheaply using local materials. His challenge to TEDsters was that Africa must industrialize in whole and not in parts! A very poignant statement considering we have so many great inventors on the continent and yet we do not have any manufacturing plants.

Continuing with the ingenuity that stems from necessity in Africa, William Kamkwamba is one of many unsung heroes that are enriching and empowering not only their lives but the lives of those around them as well. William Kamkwamba created a windmill in Malawi using locally available materials after reading a book called “Using Energy” by Atwater, M. et. Al. His main materials consisted of:

• old bicycle parts
• wooden poles
• plastic pipes
• an old car batter for energy storage, etc.

The windmill provides enough electricity to light up his family’s hut and power their radios, saving them about K600 (Malawian Kwacha or US$4.00) per month in paraffin and radio battery costs. In an age when young adults tend to wallow in their sorrows by picking up a beer bottle after failure or disappointment, 19 year-old William chose to do something for himself and his family. In recognition of this tremendous contribution to his community, he’s back in school again with the help of well-wishers, this after he had to drop out because of a lack of school fees. William’s now looking for assistance in getting more materials to improve his windmill to provide more energy for various uses in the household and to pump water for the irrigation of crops.

Noah Roberts, another TED Fellow and the CEO of docvia, a company that deals with Health Informatics gave an inspirational short talk on the power of Open Source in delivering healthcare solutions to people in the developing world. I sat down with Noah at the beginning of the week for dinner just before TED began and I believe he’s got some brilliant ideas and I would implore African leaders, politicians, healthcare specialists, etc. that want to raise the effectiveness of healthcare delivery to start talking to people like Noah.

Mohammed Bah Abba of Mohbah Rural Horizons from Kano, Nigeria designed and created a food preserver/refrigerator that’s currently being used in places like the Sahel and the Darfur region to help preserve and cool vegetables and other perishable foods in these extremely hot environments.

For the Health and Heroism session of the morning, Ernest Madu put his mouth where his mouth was by starting the Heart Institute of the Caribbean, a facility that has brought world-class medical services to the West Indies at 10% of what it costs to run and provide similar services in the continental United States. His argument is that through tele-medicine technology and education, we can improve the livelihoods of millions of people in the developing world. Also utilizing electronic medical systems to patient information that can be used in rural areas as well at a low cost.

Don Cheadle gave a brief talk via video on the crisis in Darfur and how we can all bring an end to the dehumanizing state the people of the Darfur region find themselves in today, please join participate.net in raising awareness on the crisis.

For someone who has seen first hand the destruction of war in two of Africa’s former war zones of Liberia and Sierra Leone, it makes me proud to know that no matter what many people go through in war, there are always individuals who do great things in bringing awareness to the rest of the world about the plight of the true victims of war, the population. One such individual is Corneille E.N. Ewango an environmental defender that has dedicated his life to protecting the Okapi Faunal Reserve. His talk also echoed the importance of education for the youth of the continent as that will be the best way of empowering the continent.

Just had another amazing day of TED talks. Day two of the conference had some really interesting and inspirational talks focusing on the marketplace from Eleni Gebre-Madhin who’s building the Ethiopia’s first commodities market (Ethiopia Commodity Exchange - ECEX) to empower farmers through information that’ll be available on the market. Also got to hear from Idris Mohammed, a private equity pioneer on the continent who’s committed to promoting modern investment funding in Africa and has some good ideas about investing in Africa and the progress that the continent’s markets has experienced over the last 5 years in terms of market capitalization. Speaking of progress, nothing hit the nail on the head like Kwabena Boahen’s speech during the emergent design session. Kwabena, a bioengineer is doing research to understand how brains work and adapting that to the computing industry. Definitely pioneering work and as he said, the reason why computer chip development has remained stagnant over the last few years is because “there’s no Africa in computing.”

For the opening of the fifth session, we were entertained and touched by the sounds of Abenaa, a singer-songwriter with stunning vocals and lyrics. There were other interesting talks that followed in the afternoon sessions by Alieu Conteh (founder, Vodafone Congo) and a wonderful talk by Ted Kidane of Feedelix which is a mobile phone piece of software that enable text messaging in non-Latin scripts. But the thing that stood out the most about Ted’s talk was his challenge to everyone in the room to change the manner in which they look at the word POVERTY; which in his words defined as Prosperity, Opportunity, Validation, Enthusiasm, Resilience, Trust and Yes!

During the late afternoon session on “Listening to Nature,” we had the priviledge of listening to some very powerful ideas from the likes of Spencer Wells (anthropologist, geneticist) and head of the Genographic Project; a study for National Geographic that’s looking for the roots of all humanity in Africa. Now, how much more exciting can you get!

Following Spencer’s talk, we heard from Simon Mwacharo, an alternative-energy visionary and in my opinion one of Africa’s best. Simon invented and markets the Wind Cruiser turbine, a small wind- and solar-powered generator designed for use around the continent. Now with the photograph we were shown earlier really depicting Africa as the “dark continent,” Simon’s invention can go a very long way in bringing alternative energy to countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone that didn’t have a power grid for a very long time following civil wars in the respective countries as well as other remote and rural parts of Africa.

Now, the world has quite a few true heroes and Jane Goodall’s one of them. She followed Simon Mwacharo as the last speaker for the day and as the old cliché goes, TED saved thee best for last on this one. She speaks with such a wonderful, soothing and motherly voice yet she speaks with power and authority. A wonderful combination to have for someone dubbed by her biographer as the “the woman who redefined man” - TED Global Program Guide. As one would expect from a woman of immense knowledge and compassion for primates and people, hers was a talk of inspiration and challenge for all of us to do good for the planet and humanity.

There comes a time in your life when you experience some of the really wonderful things life has to offer and non of those moments can be as fulfilling and rewarding as attending a TED conference especially one concentrating on helping Africa to move forward. This is a very exciting time on the continent and it couldn’t be more evident than what I have experienced in this, my very first TED conference.

Where else can one have the wonderful opportunity of meeting so many champions of innovative solutions to many problems that plague the developing world and more importantly Africa? As part of the TED pre-conference tours, we began with a visit to a farm that grows Artemisia annua, a shrub used to extract Artemisenin, a drug used in the treatment of multi-drug resistant strains of malaria. Now, for someone who’s taken the fall to malaria on the continent this was a really worth-while visit as it showed me what sort of plants where used in treating me when I had to bout the disease. As the tour was drawing to a close, we got quite a pleasant surprise from someone really championing the fight to alleviate some of Africa’s malaise when Bono showed up, yes!

The farm was only the first part of our half-a-day long trip. Following the farm visit, we saw how debt relief has helped to bring about improved health care and education in a clinic that provides ante-natal and post-natal services to mothers and would-be mothers as well as two schools located on the outskirts of Arusha. The morning trip was all organized as a package sponsored by DATA (debt AIDS trade africa) and the ONE campaign. Had a very good conversation with Jamie Drummond the Executive Director of DATA on the way to the farm about ways in which Africans can help to bridge the trade imbalance.

Here are a few pictures from the trips, will try to post most of them on flickr once I have enough time.

To cap it all off, the talks in the first day of the conference were amazing these included talks from the likes of Carol Pineau , director of the Africa: Open for Business documentary and a true inspiration to those of us doing business on the continent because she’s given us tools to use when looking for ways in which to develop the continent with real life examples! What followed at the end of sessions one and two was a performance by Rokia Traore, one of Africa’s true musical gems. Her performance was breathtaking and it was evident that she truly touched and moved the audience. It was a dream come true to listen to her live in concert and talk to her after the performance.