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Tech4Africa – The Tech4Africa Blog http://blog.tech4africa.com Musings, announcements, and collateral damage from Tech4Africa. Thoughts our own. We're looking for contributors from across Africa. Email hello At tech4africa DOT com. Mon, 26 Oct 2015 12:30:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.32 6 Reasons to attend Tech4Africa http://blog.tech4africa.com/6-reasons-to-attend-tech4africa/ Tue, 29 Sep 2015 08:52:56 +0000 http://blog.tech4africa.com/?p=8729 Continue reading ]]> Speakers from: World Wide Creative, Techstars, Sw7, Parcelninja, Discovery Health, PayFast, Microsoft, Junk Mail, Opera, Datawind, Gumtree, SA Florist, Nic Harry, Barclays, Memeburn and Thoughtworks. Covering disruption, eCommerce, IoT / Makers, Leadership, Marketing, Mobile, The Next Billion, Social, Startups, Tech, UX & Women in Tech.

Bigger & Better
This year we have 12 tracks, 4 event days, with 79 excellent speakers in 70 sessions.
Tech4Africa is the largest tech innovation, startup and entrepreneur platform in Africa.

Covering topical, relevant subjects you won’t find in Powerpoint sales pitches
Disruption, eCommerce, IoT / Makers, Leadership, Marketing, Mobile, The Next Billion, Social, Startups, Tech, UX & Women in Tech

Networking on Steroids
We congregate the African tech industry. Expect to meet: marketeers, entrepreneurs, technologists, opinion leaders, business strategists, start‐ups, educators, corporates, journalists, tweeters, bloggers, developers, VC’s and more. So there is plenty of opportunity for meeting new people.

Skill up, Hack on, Start up, added learning opportunities
On the two days prior to Tech4Africa there will be a Random Hack of Kindness, and the day after Tech4Africa, we’re putting on a Startup Day By Entrepreneurs, for Entrepreneurs.

New location
We’re now in the iconic FNB Stadium, and we love it!

Always fun extra stuff
We are going to race drones in the FNB Stadium!

Lots of networking opportunities before, during and after.
Did we mention lots of FREE coffee?
After-parties both nights.
Over R25k of prizes, lots of tech schwag to take home!

Don’t miss out. Get your tickets now.

Food available on-site
No need to worry about finding local eateries for your breakfast and lunch. We’ll have food available at the venue.

Who goes to Tech4Africa?
Account Manager, Africa correspondent, Blogger, Campaign Manager, CEO, Chairman, Chief Sales and Marketing Office, Co-founder, Communications Officer, COO, CTO, Corporate Communication Specialist, Customer Experience Lead, Developer, Digital Brand Manager, Digital Platforms Manager, Editor-in-chief, Enterprise Architect, Executive Editor, Founder, Group CEO, Group Communications Manager, Hacker, Head of Analytics, Optimisation and Usability, Head of Digital Communications, Head of Digital Media and Marketing, Head of Engage, Head of Optimise, Head of PR and Communications, Head of Social Media, Head of Technical Operations, Head of Technology, Head: Digital Marketing Campaigns, Head: Digital Presence, Head: Product Development & Portals, Managing Director, Managing Editor, Managing Partner, Marketing & Commercial Manager, Marketing & Sales Manager, Marketing Director, Marketing Manager, MD, Online Manager, Operations Manager, Owner, Partner, Product Development Manager, Product Manager, Project Manager, Researcher, Sales Director, Senior Business Analyst, Senior Manager: Strategic Contract R&D, Social media evangelist, Software Engineer, Technology Solutions Manager, Surveys Editor, Systems & Devices Manager, Talent Development, Technical Director, Technical Evangelist, Technology Editor, Technology Strategy, Usability expert, User Interface developer, Writer

Quotes from previous attendees:
@rudshep: Really an awesome day at Tech4Africa conference. This level of energy and optimism I have not seen anywhere else. SA Tech Rocks!
@ShawnGraaff: @Tech4Africa has reached out to over 150 cities, mostly main cities in Africa, this is how you empower and innovate a continent #T4A
@liambeeton: We have come to the end of @Tech4Africa #T4A. I really enjoyed myself, met some great people and am taking so much info away.
@imel: @Tech4Africa great being here, fantastic optimism in the air #t4a
@glenbvuma: Made the right choice by attending @Tech4Africa instead of marching with Malema. Really learning a lot from the guys. #T4A

Don’t miss out. Get your tickets now.

]]> Introducing the Random Hack of Kindness (RHoK) http://blog.tech4africa.com/introducing-the-random-hack-of-kindness-rhok/ Sun, 13 Sep 2015 16:33:12 +0000 http://blog.tech4africa.com/?p=8685 Continue reading ]]> tl;dr:

We think that Hackathons in Africa are enjoying mixed results:
There are opportunities which are being missed by focusing on the wrong problems.
There are lack of skills around Shipping Product.
There are also skills gaps around determining the business case of projects / problems etc.

There are of course exceptions to this, thankfully (!), but by and large we’re thinking that by focusing on workplace relevant skills, and problems which can product viable businesses, a Hackathon could have more long term value to the people who participate.

We don’t think that it’s our place to take sides on specific Technologies, and we don’t really want to replicate what other people are already doing.

Which is why the Tech4Africa Hackathons moving forward will do 4 things only:

Focus on one utility problem which is local & relevant
Include collaboration technology and business case skills transfer for everyone
Focus on User Experience – this is the key driver for adoption and is largely ignored
Result in Shipping an MVP Proof of Concept

Background:

Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs — Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs

We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what the opportunities are in Africa right now, and what’s clear is that it’s not going to play out the same way it has in the “developed” world until now. The reason is that when you look at the building blocks of the internet, there are clear un-met challenges which make those opportunities both different and harder.

When you dissect the landscape using Maslow as your reference point, and then you overlay that with the mobile market data, we think that the major differentiation will be:

most everything is going to happen on a mobile device rather than on a desktop PC;
whilst the rest of the “developed” world is focusing on top of the pyramid problems around self-actualisation, creativity, problem solving, authenticity and spontaneity (as memes for products), the African market still has pretty much all the layers of the pyramid left as opportunities, with the bottom of the pyramid still largely untapped.

When you dissect the opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid, you’ll find that they are primarily “utility” problems which exist in the lives of people everywhere, every day, in all markets.

For example: most diagrams will show “internet” or “wifi” as the base of the pyramid, and as such is probably the biggest opportunity (which is why the Telcos are so dominant in people’s lives).

So this is what has led to our mantra of:

Want to build big tech product for Africa?

Focus on product with daily value for user. This is the utility & viability part.
Mobile first. This is the market demographic & adoption part.
Make it easy to share. This is the common sense part.
Make sure cash-flow has you in it. This is the “Don’t waste your time” part.

So, when you unpack this, we see examples (these are simple ones) coming out of:

Education: I want to add to or complete my education
Transport: I want to be somewhere on time / I need to inform my employer / I need a lift
Utilities: I want water / gas / electricity / housing
Personal finance: I want to make a payment / I want to send money to my family who live far away
Employment: I want to work to earn an income / I have jobs to offer
Information: I want to know what is going on around me
Family: Where are my family? Are they safe?

When applied to communities and devices (Internet of Things), some examples could be around:

Medical devices which are designed for low-resource hospitals
Infant phototherapy / General health issues
Smoke alerts
Air quality
Using 3G to connect communities and make them aware (using something like BRCK – https://www.brck.com/)
Tablet devices pre-configured for education and learning
Community security via drones
Smart metering applications (eg: energy usage)
Community / family communication (single button modes, not Group chat)

So we’re not going to be encouraging an “Uber / Facebook / LinkedIn / Buzzfeed / Slack etc for Africa” – what’s the point?

Solutions:

Maslow's Heirarchy of Software Development — Maslow’s Heirarchy of Software Development

So, instead of following the usual Hackathon experience you can find anywhere, our approach moving forward will be different:

We’re going to give clear direction on a product that could become a business.
The RHOK will focus on problems which occur in everyday life (this is where the business value is).
It will solve something which will mean people will talk about it (because it has given them value).
There will be a reasonable vision of adding transactions for cash flow, although this won’t be the focus for the RHOK itself.
Everyone will work together as a team.
The development focus will be on executing for mobile devices.
We WILL ship an MVP product in 2 days.
All skills learnt over the two days will transfer to the workplace.

And instead of focussing on the usual set of development skills (or taking sides on what stack to focus on), we’re going to focus on skills which enable collaboration in teams and shipping code and realising something beyond the Hackathon:

GIT (source control)
Continuous Integration (CI – easy stress free deployments)
App architecture (essential for teamwork)
App business case (just, essential)

We’ve engaged with Microsoft who have the vision to believe in what we’re doing, and they are going to help with:

Cloud servers on Azure – The machines will be small but adequate, and limited to the Hackathons.
Cloud training help, eg: how to build machines running Linux/Win/MySQL,IoT, etc on Azure.
Free online training via Microsoft Virtual Academy.

Execution:

For anyone attending, this is roughly what to expect:

We will announce the problem / focus area of the Hackathon
This will more than likely be a single page, Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach
Explain what viable use & business cases mean
Group everyone into teams of logical skill sets
Go through application architecture & needs
Assign responsibilities
Push first code to Github
Setup servers to push & pull code
Review progress every 3 to 4 hours
Setup a booth to record teamwork & results for everyone to see

And the rewards will be:

At the RHoK:
1. Learn new skills
2. Learn how to ship a product in 2 days
3. Meet new people
Present at Tech4Africa Day 2
From Microsoft:
1. BizSpark / Azure offers
2. Demo of Azure Cloud setup for learning
3. Small Azure instances to attendees who participate in the RHOK.
4. Free training vouchers for their Virtual Training Academy

Summary:

We’re really excited by what this will produce, and we’re looking forward to rolling this out across all of the cities we go to. See you there!

]]> Africa: It’s time to rise http://blog.tech4africa.com/africa-its-time-to-rise/ Fri, 04 Sep 2015 11:02:24 +0000 http://blog.tech4africa.com/?p=8675 Continue reading ]]> I can remember what it was like as a young “digital” person in Johannesburg in 2000. The internet was exploding on the other side of the world, and (South) Africa was an afterthought (and still is for many), over and above being a small market. There were various attempts at exciting things, much like all over the world, but most of them fizzled and died, and that no-mans land between 2004 – 2009 was a worrying time.

Looking at the industry now, things are looking very different. Now has never been a better time for innovation, disruption, and growth.

If you’re in Africa, and if you don’t already know, you should know that there are circa 800m mobile SIM cards in Africa, which dwarfs the rather paltry 250m odd desktop PC’s.

And unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’d also know that the cost of mobile smartphones is just about at that inflection point where it becomes affordable for the majority of the mass market.

On top of that, it’s never been cheaper to start, test, and re-iterate an idea. Crisis, I remember the days of buying in $100k email servers just to send email! Imagine what you could do with $100k today?

For anyone reading this now, those three ingredients mean that for the first time in Internet history, we’re going to see a tidal wave of consumer technology and service adoption in Africa, on mobile devices, which I believe will dwarf the early oughts’.

If we’re really lucky, it will bring with it a surge in economic, social and political change too.

I say really lucky because for the economic, social and political change to take root, the benefits of this disruption need to be realized by people who are local and who keep those benefits local. If all the benefits are gained by people who are based overseas, then that trickle down, knock-on effect you see in other parts of the world, won’t happen. I know which one I want…

So we believe that there’s going to be 3 to 5 year window where local knowledge, local networks, local people and local expertise will play a significant factor in success. So where will you be when this happens?

After that, and like any other emerging market which is seen as a growth opportunity, that local experience and knowledge will be bought in or acquired, and then the opportunities will get harder and harder, and require more capital.

So if you’re involved in tech today, then now is the time to show yourself, to launch your product, to find that co-founder, to hustle those first deals, to look for that growth, to seize the moment.

There hasn’t been a better time in history, and there likely never will be again.

As for Tech4Africa, we’re going to do four things:

Be more aggressive about the opportunities we see as important for us.
Be more vocal about our opinions.
Continue to focus on catalysing the ecosystem through relevance, leadership, authentic content, and connecting people and ideas.
Roll out our model and platform throughout Africa, focusing on local tech innovation, startups and entrepreneurs.

And whilst doing that, we’re going to remain open to help and collaboration from anyone.

There hasn’t been a better time in history, and there likely never will be again.

]]> Getting ready for Tech4Africa tomorrow http://blog.tech4africa.com/getting-ready-for-tech4africa-tomorrow/ Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:03:28 +0000 http://blog.tech4africa.com/?p=8658 Continue reading ]]> Email sent to delegates today, applies to everyone at all Tech4Africa events!

Hi All,

Just a quick note to remind you of a few things for Tech4Africa.

To get the most out of Tech4Africa, you should be doing the following:

Arrive early so you miss traffic, and you get parking
Bring a power supply for your laptop
Bring a 3G dongle, just in case (Always Be Prepared, Scouts motto!)
Bring business cards so you can network
Bring a notepad & pen for notes, you’ll get distracted by typing something whilst listening to talks
, and it’s easier to walk & write!
Create an account & setup your own custom schedule:
http://jhb2014.tech4africa.com/signup
Make sure you know where the rooms are for the talks you want to go to
Don’t treat it as an easy day out of the office – come prepared to learn and be inspired
Bring an open mind
Go to sessions which are out of your comfort zones
Sit next to people you don’t know, introduce yourself, say hello!
Have fun!!!

If you are a speaker:

Make sure you are tweeting about your talk from now until you do it!
Make sure your talk title is exciting and engaging
Make sure your description is accurate
Make sure you have a picture setup in the schedule
Make sure you post your slide deck online, and tell people so they can download it
Make sure you bring business cards to hand out afterwards
Make sure you arrive at least 30 mins before, and that your presentation is ready to go. There will be music between sessions, so we’re not waiting for anyone if they run late in their session.
Make sure your slides are NOT Death By PowerPoint – if they are, it’s your fault if people walk out of your talk due to boredom
Have fun!!

If you do all of that, it will be awesome!!
And that’s about it

See you all tomorrow,
Team Tech4Africa

]]> A note to (all) Tech4Africa speakers http://blog.tech4africa.com/a-note-to-all-tech4africa-speakers/ Fri, 05 Sep 2014 07:40:07 +0000 http://blog.tech4africa.com/?p=8644 Continue reading ]]> Just written an email about how speakers should conduct themselves…

Published here for reference:

Don’t make the assumption the audience is dumb. Ever.
Do present compelling content.
Do make the time spent worthwhile.
The best content is a story, a case study or a learning.
The best speakers speak from the heart and through experience, not from a practiced powerpoint.
The best content is 20 to 30 mins long, is uncomplicated, has 3 core messages, and has slides with one single point on each, and no more than 10 slides.
The best speakers have the audience on the edge of their seat, or in the palm of their hands, in the first 5 mins.
Do respect the audience, do respect the time they give to listen.
Do remember that everyone is ahead of someone else, and behind someone else. We are all learning every day. No-one has it all figured out. Well, maybe Elon Musk has a little

Be honest, be open, be curious, be humble and most of all make sure the audience walk away just a little richer for the time they gave you.

Don’t do corporate bullsh!t. People see through it immediately.
Don’t do sales pitches. Everyone has heard them, they are boring. The audience is there to learn something, not pay R500 to get sold to.
Don’t do Death by Powerpoint.
Don’t have a speaker who can’t answer questions.
People see right through suits & ties at an event where people are learning. A tie doesn’t infer seniority. Hopefully you’re not wearing a tie right now.

These are all simple things, but believe me I’ve seen an audience of 6k people turn on Mark Zuckerberg in 15 mins when being interviewed by Sarah Lacy (http://www.wired.com/2008/03/sxsw-mark-zucke/) and it was a train wreck.
Put a big brand on the stage with poor content, and the audience will turn and tweet about it mercilessly.
Put a big brand on stage, and give the audience something they can chew on, and they will sing their praises all day.

PayPal did it well last year.
XXXXX sent in a sales guy, and the auditorium emptied in 20 mins because he pulled out a powerpoint and told an audience full of tech people that XXXXXXXXXXX….
^^ above to protect the reputations of people who should know better.

Comments welcome.

]]> JoziHackathon Hashtags http://blog.tech4africa.com/jozihackathon-hashtags/ Fri, 23 Aug 2013 08:11:30 +0000 http://tech4africa.com/?p=8493 Continue reading ]]> Hey everyone,

We’re going to be starting with the following hashtags for todays Hackathon at JoziHub:
JoziEducation, JoziSchools, JoziPower, JoziCorruption, JoziSection27, JoziCops, JoziRoads, JoziCrisis, JoziEvents, JoziFun, Jozi, Johannesburg, JHB, Gauteng, Tech4Africa, JoziHack, T4A, JoziHub, JoziEducation, JoziSchools, JoziPower, JoziCorruption, JoziSection27, JoziCops, JoziRoads, JoziCrisis, JoziEvents, JoziFun.

Pls use these hashtags if you can, so that we can get *more* data around Jozi
We’ll be posting tag clouds during the day, and if you would like us to track more hashtags, pls just comment below.

Thanks!

]]> A quick update on the #JoziHackathon tomorrow http://blog.tech4africa.com/a-quick-update-on-the-jozihackathon-tomorrow/ Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:41:19 +0000 http://tech4africa.com/?p=8483 Continue reading ]]> Hi All,

A quick update on the schedule for tomorrow, looking forward to a great day!

The following is the rough schedule we’ll follow during the day:
We’ll start at 10:00am.

We’ll make sure everyone get’s an intro, and knows where to find coffee, red bull, food and wifi etc.

We’ll then ask questions to find out what:
everyone can do / is capable of
what everyone wants to get out of the day
what people are passionate about.

After that, we’ll group everyone into logical groups, with groups max 5 in size.
We’ll then ask the teams to work out who is doing what using the massive JoziHub whiteboard!

At around lunchtime we’ll do a quick standup session to see what everyone is intending to work on.

After that, we’ll focus on getting the most out of the time and people we have left, with:
lightning talks from speakers and mentors; no one will be forced to attend / take part.
demo’s from various people on different technologies.
There will be the mandatory talk on GitHub!

At about 4pm, we’ll stop everything to do something fun. This is a surprise!

After that, we’ll carry on coding, and aim to code through the night and into the morning, taking turns to sleep and get features / functions / classes / API’s etc built.

First thing Saturday morning, we’ll take a look at what everyone has done.
Of course, some things will break, so there will be time to work on fixes.

After that, we’ll get all groups to put their work onto the whiteboard with the following:
Name; Description or Problem / Solution; Technology used; People involved
And then we’ll take photos!

At around lunchtime we’ll break for presentations, where we get to look at what has been done and how.
Ideally, we’re looking at 3 to 6 minute presentations each, and some questions from everyone else.
After that, we’ll open source whatever the coders want to open source, write up group progress, blog the photos and screenshots and then go to the pub!

Looking forward to it!

Team Tech4Africa.

]]> Quick update on the Hackathons http://blog.tech4africa.com/quick-update-on-the-hackathons/ Thu, 15 Aug 2013 13:55:09 +0000 http://tech4africa.com/?p=8378 Continue reading ]]> A quick update on the Hackathons.
Both Hackathons are all nighters – so be prepped for 24Hrs of Hacking. You can however join at any time.
Cape Town is tomorrow (16th August) at the Bandwidth Barn.
Jozi is next Friday (23rd August) at JoziHub.

Confirmed speakers (Cape Town and Jozi):

Cloud:
#DiData will have speakers on hand to talk through getting setup in the Cloud. They will also be giving away FREE vouchers for anyone attending.

Agility:
Patrick Turley from #Thoughtworks will be talking about Agility and the hard graft of getting products to market.

Mobile:
Ben Adlard, Product Manager for #Vumi at #Praekelt, will be at the hackathon to take questions and give away free accounts for Vumi. The entire core dev team will also be available on IRC during the hackathon to assist any developers with questions. Vumi is the product Wikipedia has selected to deliver content over USSD and SMS.

Product:
Gareth Knight, founder of #Wedo and #Tech4Africa, will be giving a talk on “Talk is cheap. Execution is everything. Product management in the ADD world of today.”. He will also be on hand to answer product dev / execution questions, and is easily bribed with good coffee and pizza.

We’re working on more speakers, which we’ll announce over Twitter and on this blog. Stay tuned, and stay classy.

]]> What to expect from a Tech4Africa Hackathon? http://blog.tech4africa.com/what-to-expect-from-a-tech4africa-hackathon/ http://blog.tech4africa.com/what-to-expect-from-a-tech4africa-hackathon/#comments Mon, 12 Aug 2013 22:38:17 +0000 http://tech4africa.com/?p=8150 Continue reading ]]> In a recent post regards Hackathons we talked a little about what we think Hackathons should be about. So in this post, we’re going to go into a little more detail, to make things a bit clearer. Applies primarily to: #JoziHack | #CptHack.

Enter the dragon

First, we make the assumption that most people who code for a living these days are in the typical corporate 60 / 30 / 10 trap. That is, 60% of their work is uninteresting / lacks stimulation, 30% is kinda interesting, and then perhaps 10% is the icing on the cake, the really co0l w00t, w00t, super interesting, I wanna do more kinda stuff. It’s not abnormal, so we’re not trying to change that – but we can offer a nice distraction

Secondly, we make the assumption that most devs work in teams that are less than 10 people (and if they’re lucky the team is 50% real developers / engineers), and so their proximity to other people like them is pretty low. As a result, feedback loops are limited to what is read online and in forums (which is cool, we all do that), but that also means limited potential for peer reviews, some closed mindedness and narrow perspectives, fewer super technical discussions which make things interesting, and of course simply people who understand that Dependency Injection and Factory Pattern can be complimentary to each other.

Third, we make the assumption that most non-technical people who sign off on projects don’t know enough about technology to make good decisions (they’re driven and motivated by different things), and so the potential for trying new things is also pretty low.

In fact, most teams are probably still deploying code from 3 years ago, or they’re caught maintaining code that was written 3 years ago because there is no budget to update. Very, very seldom is there an opportunity to try new things, change old things to work better, or just improve skills. And so the typical developer ends up continually doing change requests, small features, maintaining old code to keep the site from breaking when new things are tried, and of course good old releasing 4 week projects by next week Friday.

So, when you put all of that together you get frustrated devs who would like to be challenged more, who would like to meet more people like them, and who want to try new things.

Enter the Hackathon

So our solution to this is to give developers, engineers, hackers, coders, savants, curious folks, learners, students, designers and even sysadmins

a place to get together and do the following:

Have fun hacking on cool new stuff [1]
Drink beer, eat pizza, drink red bull, play poker, eat pizza, go for breakfast, write mad SQL, deploy
Meet new people, hang out with people they already know and do stuff they enjoy doing
Take a look at an interesting problem, figure out ways to solve it
Learn about cool stuff that isn’t on the radar at work

[1] Hack is not a four letter word

And that’s it. We figure (from experience) that the most important element to this is beer, and for everyone to have fun. After that, all the magic happens!

So what’s the deal?

There are 3 parts to our Hackathons, and they are
a) having fun
b) learning new stuff
c) meeting new people
d) kicking ass.

That’s 4. Glad you can count. Keep up

Free as in beer

For a) We make sure there are people, music, beer, pizza, Red Bull, loads of coffee, snacks, all on tap.

We also think the following principles are important:
Hackathons are free.
Everyone is welcome.
Anyone is welcome.
You don’t need credentials to join us. You don’t have to belong to a particular tribe (I’m talking to you, Mr Erlang).
You can be at school, you should be at university, and you’re never too old.
We encourage curiosity, humour, sharing, communication, open data, open thinking, open source, solving problems, being proactive, being humble, no bullshit, no suits, no ties, no malarkey.
Lastly, execution is everything. Ideas are cheap, indeed everyone has ideas, but execution is what makes ideas happen, and that’s what Hackathons are about.

Learning is good

For b) We make sure there are talks throughout the Hackathon. Some will be longish, some will be shortish, and others will be impromptu. For each Hackathon we’ll find folks who can contribute by helping / teaching / imparting knowledge.

Sharing is caring

For c) We’ll make sure that everyone gets to meet each other, talk about what they’re doing, what they’re interested in, and what they’re working on at the Hackathon.

Everyone wants to kick ass

For d) We get out of the way, and leave that up to the folks doing the Hacking.

We’ll do our best to promote the work that comes out of any Hackathon, we’ll demo good work at the Tech4Africa conference to show people what is possible with a small group of committed people, and we’ll go to bat for you with the larger companies who wish they could innovate but can’t becuase they move too slow, so that you get more time to hack

The truth is that most of the major innovations and success stories in the last decade came from developers Hacking at an itch, and then productising their work. So that’s what we’re trying to encourage. Join us, do something fun, do something cool, solve a problem you care about, and most importantly, just come along for some fun!

]]> http://blog.tech4africa.com/what-to-expect-from-a-tech4africa-hackathon/feed/ 1 2013 Tech4Africa Speaker Entries Deadline is July 31 http://blog.tech4africa.com/2013-tech4africa-speaker-entries-deadline-is-july-31/ Fri, 26 Jul 2013 09:48:32 +0000 http://tech4africa.com/?p=8028 Continue reading ]]> Howdy,

Greetings from Tech4Africa, we hope your winter is going splendidly!

I just wanted to remind you that the 2013 speaker submissions for Tech4Africa (http://tech4africa.com/speak-at-tech4africa/) is now open and accepting speaking proposals. You, as the community, play a large role in telling us what you would like to see more (or less of) at Tech4Africa by submitting and voting on entries, and we hope that you’ll submit an idea this year. With the deadline for submissions quickly approaching, we urge you to visit http://tech4africa.com/speak-at-tech4africa/ and submit sooner than later. Be sure to make note of the following important dates in the 2013 Tech4Africa process because October will be here before you know it!

* July 15 – 2013 Speaker voting process begins
* July 31 – 2013 Speaker entry process closes
* August 31 – 2013 Voting process ends
* Mid-September – First speaker announcements for 2013

Got questions regarding what it takes to make the cut, or just want to get some helpful tricks of the trade? Then please be sure to get in touch.
As a freebie, we will say that for 2013 we will continue our trend of increasing the number of solo, dual and instructional workshop programming that we accept, in lieu of panel sessions.

We look forward to reading through all of your super awesome ideas. Remember that Tech4Africa is positioned at the forefront of technology, so get creative with it. The more innovative your speaking proposal, the better!

Signed,
Your friendly Tech4Africa team

]]> Saying some things that need to be said… http://blog.tech4africa.com/saying-some-things-that-need-to-be-said/ Fri, 12 Jul 2013 11:08:48 +0000 http://tech4africa.com/?p=7895 Over the last two days since writing this and this we’ve had 1 comment, and many more emails saying that it’s great to see people talking about stuff that is not being said, and that we should do more of it.

So we’re going to keep doing it

]]>