Archive for the ‘From the home office’ Category:

Quick Hits for Oct 11

{ Posted on Oct 11 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
While Google & PayPal leave cash on the table in Sub-Saharan Africa, smart ePayment solutions are left up for grabs. In a video interview, Oluniyi David Ajao describes the business opportunity for West Africa. (via @ICT_Works & @niyyie) ICT4D.at has ...Read More »

Avoiding the Zone of Suck with the 80/20 Rule

{ Posted on Sep 21 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
Most people are familiar with the concept behind the 80/20 rule or Pareto Principle. It generally states that 20% of a population consumes 80% of the resources. It’s attributed to a 19th century Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who ...Read More »

Weekly Quick Hits

{ Posted on Jul 26 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
Throughout the week I make note of interesting news pieces, blog posts, online debates and trending topics with a focus on technology and Africa. This is an experiment in sharing some of these items, filtered by yours truly, in ...Read More »

Naijaborn – the Nigerian Social Network

{ Posted on Jun 12 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
There's been a lot of buzz in African tech circles lately about Naijaborn.com, a web community for Nigerian residents and diasporans, which entered its public beta on June 1st. The self-funded startup is a partnership between Francis Omokhape Oghuma ...Read More »

iYam.mobi – Africa’s Mobile Directory

{ Posted on Apr 09 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
It’s no secret that mobile phones are firmly entrenched as the predominant mode of telephony in almost every African nation. In a continent of one billion people, the number of African mobile subscribers today is estimated to be around ...Read More »

The Virtues of Small Software

{ Posted on Mar 09 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
Essayist, poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson had this to say on the subject of beauty: We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of ...Read More »

Rural Internet: Lessons from Radio & FidoNet

{ Posted on Feb 27 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
I’ve been mulling over this topic in my head for quite awhile. Yesterday, Dibussi provided the inspiration I needed when he tweeted a story about the impact a community radio station has had on a remote village in Cameroon’s ...Read More »

Kiva and the Case For Nonprofit Open APIs

{ Posted on Feb 10 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
Recently, Kiva announced the official launch of the Kiva API and a new developer website, build.kiva.org. This is a smart move for them, as freely opening up their micro-lending database both increases data interoperability with their partners and fosters ...Read More »

Announcing the Village Diary Project

{ Posted on Feb 07 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
We’ve been hard at work for the past couple of months laying the groundwork for a new free and open source software (FOSS) initiative. I alluded to this in an earlier post, Gearing Up for an Offline Application. Around October ...Read More »

A Man, A Plan, A Cyber Café

{ Posted on Feb 02 2009 by Bill Zimmerman }
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Categories : From the home office
Sometimes, it’s the small successes that make everything worthwhile. This isn’t a story about a Gates Foundation grant, a fabulous new software project, African tech startup, or a microfinance program designed to serve the needs of thousands. Rather, ...Read More »
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