Web Worker Daily

My obsession with portable solar energy continues — in the past I’ve written about Suntrica’s portable chargers, Reware’s Juice Bags and Noon Solar’s range of bags. Suntrica’s chargers, though difficult to purchase outside Finland, currently offer the most elegant and practical solution for cheap, mobile and clean solar energy.

Interestingly, a unique field test of mobile solar power is taking place in a handful of African nations, where electrical power is often unreliable: AfriGadget’s Flexible Light And Power (FLAP) initiative. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of weeks ago, the White African blog discussed the need for coworking spaces in African cities, driven by the needs of emerging tech communities in some of the continent’s major cities.

Writer Erik Hersman argues the case for communities that are part coworking communities, part startup incubator and part VC/investor hubs. Establishing a coworking space isn’t trivial or easy, requiring some time for a healthy community culture to emerge; developing and leasing the physical space is relatively straightforward.

Hersman cites a couple of interesting African coworking options, such as the Regus-owned Habitatz (more like a serviced office than coworking), but it’s uncertain whether they see the same need to conflate investment, coworking and incubation. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is Blog Action Day, and Web Worker Daily is participating by blogging about this year’s theme, poverty.

When I hear that word, I think of Africa, a continent that has historically been, and still is, either criminally exploited (to put it mildly), or shamelessly neglected by the rest of the world.

When it comes to web working, Africa is one of the last frontiers. In most sub-Saharan African countries, people tend to use mobile phones more than the Internet for business-related activities and communications. Factors contributing to this are high illiteracy rates and linguistic diversity. In addition, the high cost of bandwidth and lack of infrastructure are a serious problem. Many African countries also lack workers skilled enough in information and communication technologies (ICT) for web working to be a viable option. These factors are obstacles to adoption of the Internet as a tool for business, but access to computers and the Internet would contribute greatly to overcoming the obstacles that hinder their adoption and use in the first place.

Read the rest of this entry »