Mark Kaigwa is a digital strategist, consultant, speaker, writer and self-proclaimed ”power networker.” Nairobi-based Mark makes it his business to keep absolutely up to date with the developments of the technology and communications sectors and uses his expert knowledge to help businesses, start-ups and non-profits to launch into the thrilling environment of African entrepreneurialism. Ahead of his keynote speech at eLearning Africa 2013, we […]
Opinions
Storytelling yesterday, today and tomorrow
A poet, singer, historian, musician, comedian, an entertainer, an archive. The griot is all these things and more. Through storytelling and music, the griot has shared and maintained the identities and histories of communities in West Africa for centuries. Oral culture on the African continent has persisted when elsewhere in the world it has all but vanished. But with shifting populations and the rise […]
No dumping allowed
In January this year the eLearning Africa news service reported on the progress being made towards the impending Millennium Development Goal (MGD) deadline and highlighted the worrying trend of prioritising quantity over quality in efforts to reach the target of universal primary education by 2015. New eLearning technologies offer the tantalising potential to spread high-quality education across the developing world. This could be an […]
Join a conversation on technology and management education in the developing world
Although eLearning is hardly a new concept, recent developments in mobile and online courses have put it front and center in the minds of educators around the world, and business schools are no exception. This is why at the annual conference of the Global Business School Network (GBSN) in Tunisia this June we will be taking a close look at how technology can be […]
Boosting mobile learning potential for women and girls in Africa: lingering considerations
During the past five years at least five major mobile learning initiatives have been implemented in Africa that sought to directly benefit women and girls, or which included women and girls and provided some evidence of benefits to them. The Jokko Initiative (Senegal), Project ABC (Niger), the Somali Youth Livelihoods Project (Somalia), Nokia Life Tools (Nigeria), and M4Girls (South Africa) are interventions that used […]
Africa’s choice: digitise traditional knowledge or lose culture and development
In this excerpt from The eLearning Africa 2012 Report, Gaston Donnat Bappa argues that African traditions and cultures, the foundations of the Continent’s development, have been spoiled by five centuries of slavery and colonisation, so that their survival today is threatened by ‘modern’, drifting lifestyles. This leader of a rural community says the ancient, ancestral knowledge of Africa is still alive and the use […]
Treasure island: unearthing Lamu’s untapped talent
“If you’re going to be a transformative teacher, you have to make sacrifices,” says Zuhura Hussein Omar. Having spearheaded the construction of Bright Girls Shella Secondary School on the Kenyan island of Lamu, she speaks with the authority that can only come from a school principal who is dedicated to ensuring that her underprivileged students don’t remain that way for life. By Prue […]
Training of youth “the backbone of society” says Obama
She may have a famous brother, the US President Barack Obama, but Dr Auma Obama’s true claim to fame is the success of the work she is doing with her not-for-profit Sauti Kuu Foundation, of which she is Founder and Director. What’s behind her thinking, and what will she discuss when she takes to the stage at the Africa Forum on Business and Security?
Learn like an Egyptian
“eLearning culture is facing a paradigm shift,” says Ahmed El-Sobky, the Director of the Technical Office of Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA). He spoke to Prue Goredema of the eLearning Africa News Service about how far eLearning has come and how Egypt is well-placed to share its ICT expertise.
Adopting a holistic approach to technology in education
Just as technology is defining the pace of life and work, it is also defining education. If we want youth in Africa to compete on the world stage, we need to give them the tools to empower themselves to do so. By Samba Guissé, Education Lead, Microsoft West and Central Africa Region At Microsoft, we see tremendous potential for technology in Africa to transform […]