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2011 TEDGlobal Fellows Announced – Femi Akinde And Four Other Africans Made The List

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In an email communication from our Founder who is a TED Fellow, he forwarded this list as the names of the new 2011 TED Global Fellows. Five Africans made the list, including Nigerian Femi Akinde.  We congratulate the winners.

 

Femi Akinde (Nigeria | US) – Mobile commerce innovator
Founder of SlimTrader, the first platform in Africa allowing consumers to shop for goods and services via their mobile phones through text.

Jodie Wu (US | Tanzania) – Appropriate technologist
Founder of Global Cycle Solutions, an organization developing and selling appropriate tech in the form of bicycle add-ons.
Alex Odira Odundo (Kenya) – Agricultural machinist
Kenyan inventor of the Sisal Decorticator, a device turning sisal plant into fibre, and the Sisal Twinner, a device turning sisal fibre into rope.

Serge Mouangue (Cameroon | Japan) – Cross cultural designer
Tokyo based Cameroonian cross cultural artist + designer — bringing both African and Japanese techniques into his work.

Somi (Rwanda | Uganda | US) – Singer + cultural activist
East African soul-jazz vocalist + songwriter and founder of New Africa Live.

Others are:

Manuel Aguilar (Guatemala) – Energy entrepreneur
Founder of Quetsol, an organization meeting the energy needs of the Guatemalan people with appropriate tech solutions.
Suleiman Bakhit (Jordan) – Comic creator + social media entrepreneur
Jordanian social media entrepreneur creating comics, animation, and games for the Middle East.
Yana Buhrer Tavanier (Bulgaria) – Mental health activist
Investigative journalist working to expose the inhumane treatment of children and adults with disabilities and mental illness in the Balkans.
Monika Bulaj (Poland | Italy) – Photo documentarian
Photographer + documentarian telling the stories of people and places in conflict.
Bilge M. Demirkoz (Turkey | Switzerland) – Particle physicist + educator
Particle physicist + educator currently working at CERN on the ATLAS experiment, looking for new physics.
Julie Freeman (UK) – Tech artist
UK based artist combining science, technology, and natural systems, in order to create work that “translates” nature.

Jose Gomez-Marquez (Honduras | US) – Medical device designer

Director of the IIH (Innovations in International Health) Lab at MIT, inventing and deploying medical technology for global health.


Lars Jan (US) – Transmedia director
US based media artist and founder of Early Morning Opera, a multidisciplinary art lab creating works about “America right now.”
Christine Lee (US | China) – Bio-archeologist
American bio-archeologist working to uncover and better understand
Mongolia and China’s ancient civilizations.
Jae Rhim Lee (US) – Scientific artist
Founder of the Infinity Burial Project, a project developing a unique strain of mushroom that decomposes and remediates toxins in human tissue.
Jon Lowenstein (US) – Documentary Photographer
Photographer specializing in long-term, in-depth projects around power, poverty, and violence — also working to create a foundation committed to social justice through visual communication.
Sonaar Luthra (US) – Water testing innovator
Creator of Water Canary, a water-testing device that collects real-time water quality data from the field.
Nathalie Miebach (US) – Weather artist
Boston based artist using weather data to create sculptures and music.

Genevieve von Petzinger (Canada) – Cave art researcher

Canadian doctoral student studying ancient geometric signs from the Ice Age.
Lucianne Walkowicz (US) – Stellar astronomer
Postdoctoral Fellow studying the effects of stellar activity on exoplanets with the Kepler Mission.
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Would You Buy Made In Nigeria? The Nation Must Build A Tech Industry Before Firms

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What do you think of when you first hear the phrase “made in China”? There was a time when that term stood only for inferior and counterfeit goods, but not any more. “Made in China” is a changing and growing brand across the world.

 

Now what about “made in Nigeria”?

 

Speaking in terms of the arts, music, culture, fashion, this might not be a problem, but how about a made in Nigeria car, flats screen plasma 3D TV, or an android powered smart phone? Sure, that is another matter.

 

As passionate as I am about the development of this country, and as a player in the technology sector, aspiring for the day when every gadget in the average Nigeria home, can be made in Nigeria; however, I would never buy a “made in Nigeria” product out of sentiment.

 

IT MUST HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER.

 

I know we still have a long way to go, but if we must become a force to reckoned with in quality design and products, when even while starting small, we must start well.

 

These are my expectations of Made in Nigeria products

 

Quality

The first point of call is quality. I have no reason to buy an iPad when an Ovim can give me what I want. With the advent of the Android platform, almost every special feature offered on the iPhone is being offered on the Android, the only thing left is qaulity.


There is this widespread attitude of sacrificing quality for quantity, and it’s one of the greatest killers of progress, we must avoid it like a plague.

 

Customer Support

If I want a phone, I would rather buy a Nokia because of its reputation of durability, and the fact that Nokia care centers are everywhere  and I can always get repairs and anything I need. As for laptops, I’ll go for HP. This may seam like a small issue but no one would like a product that can never be repaired even if it has a little fault.

 

Constant development and Innovation

Bill Gates once admitted that the heart of the Tech industry is constant innovation, anyone that fails to constantly change and improve will die out quickly. there is no tech giant now that hasn’t at least two to three innovations within this year alone. Apple has the iPAD2, the iCloud is coming out soon, and rumors of the iPhone3 is in the air as well. Microsoft is introducing Win8, Dell is delving into Table PCs, just name it. We must be prepared to start, and never stop innovating.

 

Local Content

Constant innovation is not possible if the intellectual property was entirely imported. Some local brands are only involved in assembly and marketing of their products, the entire technical work is done abroad, making it impossible to upgrade and improve on at will. This has to change and is obviously changing. Manpower must be trained and innovation encouraged. We can only preserve and improve on technology that we own.

 

I must highlight this point  which believe in so much: We must first build an industry before building businesses. By this I simply mean that no tech industry in Nigeria will reach the significant international prominence if we all don’t work together first to build an industrial platform and foundation upon which any company can stand and build an international brand. This foundation needs knowledge sharing, sacrificial investment in research and development, and significant plowback of profits at the onset.

 

Looking forward to Made in Nigeria products competing on the Global market.

Parts, Kits, Tutorials, Forums, Tools And More – This Is Where To Find Them Online

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The internet has become indispensable to our lives as humans and more so as professionals in a global market.

I had a friend post on Facebook “how can I obtain ENERGY from FREQUENCY PULSES” and he got the response “ By boiling the frequency pulses in a pot for over 30mins”

When he told me, I thought to myself “what do you expect when you post a technical question on a social network like Facebook?”

As professionals, we always need to know where to find it online. This is a short list of some of the best online tech forums, please feel free to update this list with some that you know.

Programming Forums

www.stackoverflow.com

This is an awesome platform for everyone into everything, including programmers. News has it that in some quarters, ones “reputation” on stack exchange actually helped secure a job. The forum is unique in its layout, and loaded with professionals in practically every programming language and field.

In addition, there are sister-sites called stackexchange sites like electronics.stachexchange.com,  android.stackexchange.com, webapps.stackexchange.com, security.stackexchange.com and others. The stackexchange sites can be accessed from the top right corner of the stackoverflow site.

www.element14.com

This is one of the fastest growing design engineering communities, with links to ask professionals, discussion board, blogs, design works, and so many other things.

www.eetimes.com

This is an awesome site with advanced tutorials on cutting edge technology, constant webinars, trainings schedules, conference informations and the whole works.

For beginners to intermediate embedded forums, check out the following

www.electro-tech-online.com I have been using this site since my second year as an undergraduate and it has been great

www.edaboard.com

www.8051projects.net

Of course a good place to find datasheets, application notes (these are one of the most relevant information you could get on any product) and latest information, visit manufacturer websites and forums. From these sites you can easily find information and data sheets on chips, microcontrollers, application notes, sample codes, code libraries and much other useful information.

www.ti.com for texas instrument

www.microchip.com for microchip

www.mikroe.com for a wonderful range of development boards on various microcontrollers and peripherals like touch panel displays, GMS/GPRS/GPS modems, sensors, PLC kits, compilers, etc

www.arm.com for everything you need or ARM based chips

www.cypress.com for cypress series of MCUs and the interesting PSOCs

www.maxim-ic.com for maxim chips,

Application programming is not left out, as we also have

Android Developer

where you can find practically everything you need to start up with android development. The good thing is the entire website including the complete SDK, samples, tutorials, and complete android documentation can be downloaded  from the download section on the home page.

The Java Tutorials

This provides a wonderful tutorial on Java development. The entire site with all detailed explanation, tutorials and a long list of sample codes can also be download free from the website.

Various other resources about for all other programming languages and design platforms.

I’m yet to find a single question that I couldn’t get an answer to online, so let’s maximize the resources of the web.

The Tablet War – Dell Strikes With Streak Pro and Deal With Mobilink

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Global PC makers, Dell, has rolled out its newest tablet, the business-focused 10.1-inch Streak Pro, according to reports. Dell’s tablet, which runs Google’s Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” operating system, will join a long list of media tablets set to roll out during this period as a growing number of vendors look to gain traction in the rapidly growing tablet space currently dominated by Apple’s iPad.

 

 

The new device will be Dell’s third tablet, joining the Streak 5, which offers a 5-inch screen, and the 7-inch Streak 7. Earlier reports had Dell’s Streak Pro being powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 T2 5 SoC (system on a chip), which among other things is 3D-capable. However, according to a May 19 report in SlashGear, the device will be powered by a slower Nvidia chip, the 1.0GHz Tegra 2 T20, which does not have the 3D capabilities.

 

The Streak Pro will offer a 1280 x 800 touch screen and weigh 1.59 pounds, according to reports. It will offer models with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB flash memory, a 5-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel camera on the front, will include Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities, and will come in a number of colors, including black, blue, red and pink. Included accessories include an in-car changer, a “productivity dock” and a folding cover with an integrated keyboard.

 

Dell is one of several vendors that wants in on a tablet space that market research firm Gartner has said will grow from almost 70 million in sales this year to 294 million in 2015. The challengers to Apple are coming from both the PC world—Dell, HP and Acer, and the smartphone space, including BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion, Motorola and Samsung.

 

For Dell and HP, tablets are a way of expanding their reach in the industry beyond the PC. On May 17, executives with both companies, while announcing quarterly earnings, said they saw revenue drops in their consumer PC businesses, though sales of their commercial PC units were healthy. Analysts have debated the impact of tablets on sales of traditional laptops. Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, in a May 17 blog post, said tablets were part of the problem facing Dell, HP and Acer, but not the biggest.

 

“Tablet cannibalization is only a minor contributor to soft PC sales,” Epps wrote. “The bigger factor is the Windows release cycle—so many consumers bought new PCs when Windows 7 came out, and without a new version of Windows this year, there isn’t the same catalyst to buy.”

 

Meanwhile Dell has launched the android powered Dell Streak 5 through a Pakistan-based local cellular operator Mobilink, even though they have a separate distribution channel. Dell’s regional manager Ali Jaleel at the launching ceremony said that Dell had grown to a certain point where diversification seemed like a good option to grow business in the country. “Mobility seemed like an interesting scenario for this.”

 

“Amongst other things, the upcoming 3G auction is also one of the reasons that Dell has begun to explore mobility products in the country,” he added. The android powered phone with a 5-inch touch screen confused analysts whether Dell is launching a tablet to try and compete with the I-Pad frenzy. Mobilink in the past worked with Dell’s global competitors such as Samsung, HTC and Motorola to launch their products. An interesting thing about Mobilink offerings is that the phones they offer can be used with a sim card of a competitor operator as well.

Ghana Hosts 6th Symposium on ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change

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ITU is organizing the Sixth Symposium on ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change on 7-8 July in Ghana. The event will be hosted by the Ministry of Communications (MOC) of Ghana.

 

 

This is the sixth symposium on climate change following successful events held between 2008 and 2010 in Kyoto, London, Quito, Seoul and Cairo. The Symposium will be preceded by a Training Seminar on Conformity and Interoperability for Africa that will be held from 4 to 6 July 2011, in Accra, Ghana.

 

 

The main purpose of the event is to move forward the agenda on using ICTs to monitor climate change, mitigate and adapt to its effects and, in this light, identify future requirements for ITU’s related work – including standardization of ICT equipment and networks as well as development activities. (see Resolution 73 of the 2008 World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-08), Resolution 66 of the 2010 World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-10) and Resolution 182 of the 2010 Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-10)).

 

 

The symposium in Ghana will focus on the issue of ICTs, the environment and climate change in Africa and the needs of developing countries. Topics to be discussed will include mitigation and adaptation to climate change, e-waste, disaster planning, cost-effective ICT technologies, methodologies for the environmental impact assessment of ICTs, challenges and opportunities in the transition to a green and resource efficient economy.

 

 

The symposium will identify possible goals, commitments and modalities of the ICT sector engagements to be developed in the process leading to the forthcoming 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17-CMP7), to be held in Durban, South Africa in November 2011. The event will also develop a set of recommendations for action in relation to ICTs, the environment and climate change towards a green economy, as a contribution to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD 2012 or Rio+20).

The symposium will bring together leading specialists in the field, from top policy-makers to engineers, designers, planners, government officials, regulators, standards experts and others.

 

For more about this, visit here.