Ory Okolloh Quotes
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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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Let's make sure that the Internet stays open to those who need it the most.
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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 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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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'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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For Ghana to suggest that they will turn off the Internet, in addition to other countries that have done it like Uganda, Zimbabwe, DRC, Burundi, Chad and others, that's worrying.
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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 resigned from my position as Ushahidi Executive Director and member of the Board in 2010. However, my role as a co-founder and my journey as a woman in the technology space means that I remain inextricably linked to Ushahidi, for better or worse.
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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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People thought I wrote in a very 'masculine' way.
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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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If you want to amplify the data that you have, you need media, you need lawyers, you need the judiciary. Especially when governments try to shut down a particular website or when litigating on an issue.
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While I am a huge proponent of us as Africans telling our own stories and countering the negative stereotypes out there since no one else will, I am also cognizant of the power that the mainstream Western media still has on shaping perceptions of the continent.
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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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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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If I were to have an epitaph, I'd want it to read, 'She did stuff.'
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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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We are raising a generation of children who may not know how to mobilize without Facebook.
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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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Anyone who has been successful and has knowledge to share is a potential mentor.
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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.