Over the past year and a half, I’ve come to love writing about African style and business issues and interacting with the many inspiring people and ideas which I’ve come across through this blog. In my experience, today’s technology has provided us with the most effective vehicles to communicate and has caused an acceleration of African ideas AND actions across borders and even hemispheres. In my first attempt at taking our online conversations offline, I’ve proposed a panel idea for the upcoming South by SouthWest (SXSW) Interactive Festival being held in Austin, Texas March 7-11 2008. The proposed panel, Africa 2.0: Affecting Change Using Technology, will discuss how blogs, social networks, digital media and mobile technology are being used by businesses and citizens — both African and foreign — to affect change in Africa. The group of panelists will discuss adoption of mobile technology, community activism online and offline, and digital media’s effect on African entertainment industry growth. The process of developing the final schedule for the festival relies on a public vote to decide which panels actually get added. Please take a moment to VOTE to add the Africa 2.0 panel to SXSW Interactive schedule. My panel seems to be the ONLY Africa-related panel idea for the interactive festival.
In related news, I am hoping to put together a panel/roundtable to be held in New York City sometime this fall. I’m looking to bring many of you together to discuss opportunities and experiences in African business. If anyone has any ideas or would like to suggest any sponsors please contact me. I’ll have soe more specific information soon. Now go VOTE for panel!!
Other panels which deserve your vote:
- Anastasia Goodstein (Ypulse.com) – What Teens Want — In a Game
- Clyde Smith (ProHipHop – Hip Hop Marketing & Business News) – From B2B Blog to Media/Event Empire
- Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide) – Business and blogging panels
- David Armano (Critical Mass) – From Long Tail to Fuzzy Tail
Hat tip to you sir. This is a wonderful idea, I hope African bloggers and your readers visit the SXSW site to vote and be part of this event!
Thanks for the support CareTaker. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a series of similar events.
Definitely agree with what you are doing and it is overdue. On my way to go vote!
Good luck with it.sounds interesting. It seems with countries like Ghana we are jumping a technological ‘era’ – in the sense that you can browse the internet on your phone with ease but the availability of broadband in homes is partial. We have more mobile phones than land line phones. So those this change make us a progressive nation or does it hamper us from building sound foundations on which or comunications industry should be based.
I sit here shaking my head, wondering how I missed this call to action… I was to late to vote, so I wrote them an email instead, letting them know how great of an idea I thought this was.
I’d love to see someone like you on a panel.
Thanks Hash. Hopefully the organizers will give us a chance to diversify the content of the festival.