Trends

Trends

La révolution numérique selon les Africains

Un rapport récent révèle que les ordinateurs et les téléphones portables sont désormais, et de loin, les nouveaux dispositifs d’apprentissage les plus populaires en Afrique. Les tablettes, quant à elles, accusent un retard malgré leur engouement, et ne sont utilisées régulièrement que par 20 % des professionnels de l’eLearning. Voici l’une des conclusions surprenantes du Rapport eLearning Africa 2013. Lancé aujourd’hui (jeudi) au Safari Conference […]

Trends

African Voices on the Digital Revolution

A new report shows that laptops and mobile phones are now far and away the most popular new learning devices in Africa – while, despite the hype, tablets are still lagging, only being used regularly by 20% of eLearning practitioners. This is just one of the surprising findings contained in the eLearning Africa Report 2013. Launched at eLearning Africa 2013 by the Namibian Minister […]

Trends

Restoring the Vernacular: the 60-year struggle for African languages

How can children reach their full potential, when their early education is taught in a language that they are both uncomfortable and unfamiliar with? In countries with diverse linguistic communities this is the harsh reality for many children growing up as part of a minority group. In Africa, the problem is rendered especially tricky by the prevalence of foreign and colonial languages in education, […]

Trends

The potential of eLearning for health

Skilled human resources are the backbone of any performing health system. But many developing countries face a human resource crisis due to health workforce shortages, brain drain and lack of adequate training. Increasing health interventions aimed at reducing child and maternal mortality and tackling diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB require more and better-trained healthcare personnel. In order to meet the health-related Millennium […]

Trends

Skype’s 10th Birthday – tell us your story!

This week marks ten years since the web address www.skype.com was registered. At the time, telephone companies were concerned: by offering free video calls over the Internet, Skype had not only introduced a form of communication more futuristic than mobile telephony (almost, perhaps, the stuff of science fiction), but also fundamentally undermined the communications industry’s business models.

Trends

ICT against Inequality

International Girls in ICT Day this year saw new projects set up worldwide to create an environment that encourages girls and young women, at present disadvantaged by a gender-based digital divide of worldwide prevalence, to consider careers in the field of ICT. But why is there a gender imbalance in the technology sector at all, and what’s being done to fix it? The eLearning […]

Trends

African Libraries under Threat

The Latin poet Horace famously brags that his book of Odes is “a monument more lasting than bronze”. It is certainly pleasant to believe that an author’s ideas can live on in print after his death, according him a certain measure of immortality: the sight, however, of a shelf of crumbling paperbacks is enough to shake the firmest faith in the durability of the […]

Trends

Building lasting bridges: Good and bad eGovernment strategies in Africa

The successful implementation of ICT in governmental operations can help to bridge a gap between citizens and governments by promoting transparency and a more citizen-friendly style of government. When used effectively, eGovernment can act as a catalyst toward sustainable development and help to build and stabilise economies. However, technology is not the solution in itself, and governments need to think about exactly how to […]

Trends

Reaching Africa’s remotest

The development of Africa’s communications infrastructure reflects many of the complexities inherent in the situation of the Continent. Any examination of it must deal with matters of scale: the Internet is a fractal network spread over vast and minute distances, linking landmasses, countries, towns, villages and people across the world. On the continental level, there are the satellites and the undersea cables which, since […]

Trends

Mali to offer free Internet domains

Mali has become the first African nation to offer free Internet domains, joining just a handful of nations across the world. The move to provide free domains has been explained as an effort to encourage the use and development of Mali’s IT industry, and to demonstrate the technological opportunities that the small landlocked African nation has to offer.  “We are proud to be the […]