Give youth a chance: media freedom and innovation in Africa
Since June 2012 I have been responsible for the development of strategic partnerships with various organisations and institutions. The ultimate goal of such partnerships are innovative implementations and additions and improvements to Sourcefabric open source media tools. An important part of my work is to identify financing opportunities for the implementation and software development work.
Sourcefabric is a non-profit organisation. It does not generate income through trading of its products. Sourcefabric software code is available in the open source domain. Part of Sourcefabric finances come from provision of paid professional technical services to some of its clients, however for now, a large part of Sourcefabric financing originates in external funding, such as donations or grants from foundations and other kinds of funding institutions. These external sources of financing have been essential for producing and maintaining the already widely used open source tools - Newscoop, Airtime, Booktype, Live Blog and the currently developed Superdesk and Citizen Desk.
Sourcefabric is determined to serve news organisations globally. It is mainly in economically underdeveloped countries and countries suffering from restricted media freedom, where Sourcefabric assistance can deliver much needed affordable technology to boost media outlets. Sourcefabric provides media organisations in these countries with fully professional technological solutions. They enable organisations to provide news, making it more accessible to the public and also to operate safely. Sourcefabric helps organise the newsroom to be more efficient and sustainable. Because Sourcefabric carries out such operations on a non-profit basis external support from various institutions is needed.
Working with free media worldwide
I am constantly meeting interesting news organisations, bloggers, activists, community organisations, human rights defenders and other active teams and individuals in many different countries. I try to engage with them, listen to their experience and see if we can support their work. I am also looking at organisations who are doing work related to ours. Organisations like Transitions Online, Internews, Meedan, Access Now or Tactical Technology Collective and many others are very inspirational and it is in our interest to join forces with them for greater impact.
I am focusing on working with various institutions who support open source online technologies, innovative technologies for media organisations and free media worldwide. This includes private foundations such as the most widely known Knight Foundation funding programmes and some national governments, for example the Swedish or US governments, and some international institutions, such as the European Commission for example.
Upcoming goals
I believe we have assisted a number of organisations in various parts of the world to use open source technologies to make their work easier and more effective. We need to build on the lessons we have learned and help news organisations and other groups be more independent and sustainable. One of our ideas is to focus on establishing regional or local centers of knowledge in the area of open source technologies with particular focus on the needs of media, journalists and online activists. We would like to make sure that technical support and advice is easily available to the clients and that local conditions are considered in the solutions available to the news organisations. Another great area of interest are technological solutions for citizen journalism, particularly citizen news verification and the gateways for collection of the news from the field. We are working on Citizen Desk in cooperation with a very dynamic and innovative news organisation @Verdade in Mozambique. So the solutions and innovations for citizen journalism are also an example of our current goals.
Youth in Africa
The BMZ Future Forum 2013 was focusing on Youth in Africa. The event was a great discussion forum between various active young people from the African continent and governmental and non-governmental organisations from Europe, particularly from Germany. Since youth and young adults currently form approximately 65% of the population in Africa, it is clear that their interests, view of Africa and of Africa's relations with the global north and understanding of Africa's needs must be explored and addressed. Communication technologies are on the rise in many African countries, though by far not in all, since access to the Internet, mobile connection or even electricity is extremely uneven and varies not only among countries but also inside individual countries between urban and rural areas. Nevertheless, a lot of work is being done by active young educated individuals and organisations in the realm of information and news distribution, online activism and other areas pertaining to online and mobile communication.
Working experiences in West and South Africa
Sourcefabric has done some work in West Africa and the South African Republic and is partly aware of the needs related to free and open use of the internet and mobile communication in Africa. We are really interested in learning more about the work being done in various African countries. We hope to find interesting innovative partnerships with more African organisations and individuals. The BMZ Future Forum 2013 was an extremely valuable event particularly for making contacts and listening to experiences of the active African young people.
South Sudanese and Kenyan visitors in Berlin
We had two guests visit the Sourcefabric Berlin office recently, whose origins and backgrounds very well illustrate the vast differences between various African countries. Lagu Stephen Samuel from South Sudan is a young medical student, film-maker and civic activist focusing on increasing computer literacy and access to Internet in South Sudan. South Sudan is an example of a country with poor to no internet connectivity. The governmental authorities appear vigilant towards the idea of greater internet access. Stephen Kovats, who was also with us during this visit, mentioned the fact that the university in Juba, South Sudan's capital, has no internet access on its property. This was as a very clear illustration of the extremely low availability of internet access in South Sudan. Furthermore, the country has no history of open discussion between the public and the governmental authorities. Civic activists are wary of approaching public authorities and attempting dialogue. Along with key infrastructural and economic development, the practice of open dialogue and public debate is probably going to be the next step for South Sudan. At the same time though, the vast online tools for exchange of information, knowledge and opinions should be introduced to help strengthen media and information freedom. At the moment it is hard to assess, what Sourcefabric can deliver for activists like Stephen in South Sudan. The country is nevertheless on our radar and hopefully we will not only maintain a working contact with Stephen, but carry out an assessment of needs in South Sudan to make relevant recommendations and plans.
Will Mutua is the founder of the highly progressive Kenyan website Afrinnovator. Kenya and Nairobi in particular, is the location of a massive internet revolution. Much is happening in Nairobi in the area of online news, online activism, electronic culture and other similar areas. Will has been captivated by the technological progress and entrepreneurship in Africa or the lack of it. He has established an online knowledge hub, Afrinnovator, which offers abundant quality reporting on the state of technology, infrastructure and innovation, but most importantly provides an original analyses of the available data. Will's project has a massive entrepreneurial potential and serves African citizens and the African diaspora as a one stop shop for valuable information on business and infrastructure. Will has been developing many ideas to make his website more useful and financially sustainable. We are discussing with Will how Sourcefabric tools might serve some of his needs.
Some obstacles for Africa's next generation
These young, realistic, educated, skilled, independent, creative and engaging people have a deep insight into the current problems as well as the potential of African countries and are ready to work very hard. A clash of generations occurs in many African countries, as traditional respect for older generations is enforced regardless of merits. Young people in Africa, especially if educated, can be under a lot of pressure from their families, as it is expected that their expensive education will pay-off and the educated young people will be able to support the rest of their families. Relationships between various African countries are not as abundant as some may assume.
There are blocks of cooperating countries connected by former colonizers and hence official language, religion, geography or other factors. Language differences, infrastructure and financial constraints are some of the key practical obstacles to closer cooperation inside Africa - travel between some countries inside Africa can be more expensive than travel between Africa and Europe for instance. Online communication is obviously a strong enabling tool. But paternalistic, intrusive and manipulative practices by the EU, other international communities and many western national governments and companies in doing business and development work in Africa are widely perceived as an impediment to development in Africa.
Brain drain from Africa may not necessarily be a risk with the current young generation, as educated young people appear to love their countries and want to keep living and raise families there. They are however looking for cooperation opportunities, experience sharing, inspiration, support and fair partnerships with organisations and individuals outside Africa. It is very hard to capture a realistic picture of Africa or its individual countries because some basic information sources, such as for example statistics, are missing or hugely outdated.
Open models provide new methods of support and development
Information, knowledge and education is hard to reach and can be expensive. Open data, open knowledge and open source tools can provide a massive support for economic development of Africa. State of the art communication technologies are widely used by many young Africans, but they remain well aware that much work needs to be done and decisions are waiting to be made by people, and no technology can substitute the vital human input and active participation in the development of their countries.