Google Sponsors Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge

What is Wikipedia Kiswahili Challenge?:

We invite you to take part in this challenge to create Wikipedia articles in Kiswahili. We hope to make the online experience richer and more relevant for 100 million African users who speak Kiswahili.

Winners of the prizes will be determined by a point system taking into consideration the number of articles submitted and the quality of the articles. We will also award prizes to the second place participants and runners up.

Prizes includes laptops, mobile phones, prepaid internet access modems, Google T-shirts, and more. Participants will also receive certificate of participation.

Read full details here.

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PamojaConnect: Connecting the web, SMS, twitter, Googla Map for Villagers in Africa

PamojaConnect (Pamoja means together in Kiswahili) is a new project intending to connect the web and SMS:

It connects on the web and through mobile-sms allowing everyone to be part of the conversation. One of the cool things is that with just a low-end mobile phone someone in a remote village I can send a text message to PamojaConnect. For instance, that message could tell about the work their Self-Help Group is doing to improve their native habitat — telling how it brings jobs to uneducated youth and helps prevent flooding in the area and improves the crops.

Now someone in the who lives in a remote village in Kenya has never used a computer or the internet, but they have access to a mobile phone. With PamojaConnect that message is integrated as if they used a computer. It is posted live to Pamoja where it shows up on the Google Map and is broadcast on Twitter. The message is now public and people from all over can respond.

PamojaConnect blog.

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Legal and Policy Framework for Information Society In West Africa

I am attending a workshop on Legal and Policy Framework For Information Society in West Africa in Saly, Dakar . There is a blog for the workshop. Kwami of PenPlusBytes (Ghana) is twittering.

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African Blogs Are Not Only About Politics...

So African blogs are not only about politics and technology. Read about the Literary Blogren in Uganda:

Uganda's bloggers are increasingly using their blogs as forums for literary expression, and online poems, short stories and multi-part novellas are becoming increasingly popular.

And Kenyan poet and artist bloggers:

The need to start blogs, as most poet bloggers shared with me, was mainly due to the fact that most, if not all, could not get any publishing house willing to publishing their works. This frustration and the demand by the now growing number of fans, led these poets to venture into blogging as a way of publishing their poetry.

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Photos From Waxal Award Ceremony

Waxal Award ceremony took place March 9, 2009 at Just4U restaurant in Dakar, Senegal. Check this photo of the winners and Ndo Kanaute performing during the ceremony.

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Waxal: Blogging African Award For Journalists

Here are the winners of the award...

Waxal (pronounced WA-HAL), which means “speak” in Wolof, captures the essence of the evolution of the worlwide web as a platform for conversation and for raising marginalized voices. The first edition of the award recognizes the use of new media by professional journalists in Africa and by African media organizations working to promote the production of alternative information and citizen expression.

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