Ory Okolloh Quotes
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Let's make sure that the Internet stays open to those who need it the most.
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Whether you are planning a safari, doing a homework assignment on Botswana, or promoting your local business, Street View will allow you to experience a slice of the country.
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Press and Internet freedom correlate against economic and social success, GDP, innovation, number of patents filed, and educational attainment. The more freedom there is, the more information, the more choice, and ultimately, more power for each individual.
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I'd like to see technology to move beyond the hype and be considered part of infrastructure... the way you see access to water. I would like it to move away from apps and mobile money. So that everyone has their TV and their Wi-Fi, and it's just ubiquitous. I think that's where we should be headed.
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I'm concerned about what I see is the fetishization around entrepreneurship in Africa. It's almost like it's the next new liberal thing. Like, 'Don't worry that there's no power because, hey, you're going to do solar and innovate around that.'
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As much as innovation is important, I think we also need to just make stuff. If we look at Kenya, where I'm from, as an example, we are importing everything down to toothpicks.
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The city of Johannesburg built an app because they are getting so many complaints on Facebook and Twitter about potholes. The app allows you to report a pot hole and take a picture of it. Then, you can actually track the progress in terms of the repair, when it happened.
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I think the Internet is having an impact in very diverse ways anchored around amplifying voice, from enabling what I like to refer to as micro-activism.
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I think there's sort of an extra oomph with the younger people coming up. They're writing. They're communicating. They're sharing, and they are very much technology-driven.
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I think a lot of Africans in my generation, and especially those of us who have spent time overseas before coming back, are quite comfortable moving between the two worlds, though always with a lens of, 'What can we do to help our countries or regions?'
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It's one thing to tell people to make informed decisions, but that's difficult when there is no information.
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Anyone who has been successful and has knowledge to share is a potential mentor.
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We are raising a generation of children who may not know how to mobilize without Facebook.
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People thought I wrote in a very 'masculine' way.
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I spent a lot of my early blogging career sort of highlighting all the ills of the government in Kenya and all the corruption and problems.
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That's one thing you Americans take for granted, you know? That you can grow up, you know, not so good circumstances, and you can move. Just because you are born in rural Arkansas, whatever, that doesn't define who you are.
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An absence of credible information prevents citizens from participating in public decision-making, particularly on key issues of concern such as education, health, and governance.
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I always ask the question: As more Africans are going online, are they finding content that is meaningful and relevant to them, or are they just consuming from everywhere else. As Africans, we have the capacity to generate our own content.
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Ninety percent of my mentors have been male, most of them with very little in common with me on a personal level - from life experience, work experience, backgrounds, etc.
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I didn't grow up in the slums or anything that dire, but I know what it is to grow up without having money or being able to support family.
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I always tell people that I am most proud of the fact that the Ushahidi story has provided an inspiration to other techies in Kenya and Africa as an example of the kind of talent the continent holds.
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Technology is the perfect refuge for African capability stifled elsewhere by badly run governments and years of misplaced foreign aid. Ubiquitous connectivity in a world without legacy infrastructure, together with the potential to learn coding or anything else online, has allowed technology entrepreneurship to flourish.
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When I was in law school at Harvard, the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the U.S. was a big thing. I remember the fight between the army recruiters and Harvard University due to 'Don't ask, don't tell.'
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The Internet Governance Forum - which brings together NGOs, government officials and companies - needs to do a better job of including representatives from Africa, Latin America, and Asia and addressing their issues.