Sitting in the 140conference in Washington, something got my attention. Or should I say someone. His name is Blake Hall, co-founder of TroopSwap, a recent Harvard Graduate and Army Captain. Initially, he just made me feel inadequate, and then he started his presentation by saying: “ I was asked here to speak about Enterprise 2.0 and the military”. As any good conference attendee would, I instantly Googled the term Enterprise 2.0. Half expecting to see a page full of Star Trek references, I was instantly surprised about how big of a deal this concept is.​

(more…)

Last month I taught the first ever course on “Technology and Peace” at the UN-mandated University for Peace (UPEACE) in Costa Rica. The course drew 16 participants from 11 countries, representing a number of distinguished organizations including Ashoka, the Council on Foreign Relations and George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR).

(more…)

Several of us at TechChange had the privilege of attending a great event MobileActive and the World Bank put on last night that focused on those failures that I’m sure most involved try to forget. FAILFaireDC brought together some real pioneers in the ICT4D space to discuss issues they had dealt with and well-intentioned projects that went wrong. While the fails ranged from election monitoring and e-governance to ICT for education and health, some key concepts kept popping up. Most importantly? Hubris kills.​​

(more…)

A technique recently used by Russian spies to communicate with their handlers could be used by dissidents to spread information from within totalitarian regimes. Unlike cryptography which encodes a message with a cypher, steganography hides content in plain sight.​

(more…)

An issue that comes up time and again in the technology for development space is whether to focus on an applications’ reach or the richness of services provided. In the next couple of posts I’m going to be looking at how this debate is playing out in mHealth.

(more…)

With the help of Leonardo DiCaprio, we know what blood diamonds are. And now, thanks to the Enough Project, we are starting to know more about conflict minerals. Conflict minerals are generally defined as: “minerals mined in conditions of armed conflict and human rights abuses, notably in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, by the Congolese National Army and various armed rebel groups, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda”​​.

(more…)


Three days later as if to highlight the challenges that still remain the Seacom fiber optic cable connecting east Africa to India and Europe failed. The disruption brought connection speeds in Tanzania and Kenya to a crawl while Uganda and Rwanda switched back to more expensive satellite connections. Submarine cables are difficult to repair and vulnerable to accident or malfeasance. In 2008 large parts of the Middle East and Asia were left without connections after an anchor severed the FLAG cable in the Mediterranean.

The challenges don’t end once a cable is laid; extending the connection to rural locations is difficult and costly. Copper wire used for low bandwidth lines is frequently stolen with South Africa alone estimated to lose $1 billion dollars because of replacement costs. These examples highlight both the potential and vulnerability of an increasingly sophisticated communications infrastructure.


On July 2nd, the Main One Cable company finished construction on a 4000 mile fiber optic cable linking Nigeria to Western Europe. The new pipe promises 20 times the capacity of sub-Saharan Africa’s entire satellite network. The Main One is one of 10 new cables being laid to Africa which promise to drive down costs and expand access.

(more…)

Anyone can submit work for this project. All you need is  a camera and access to an email account. Refer to the following guidelines for submissions:

Submission Guidelines

Images must be taken in public spaces with consent where possible. Images of children and those of illegal or compromising behavior will not be accepted.

Submissions need to include the following:

Name of the photographer
Location of the image(s)
Time/Date of the image(s)
Brief description

Submit through:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/techchange

Email: Images may be sent to keith@techchange.org

Submission deadline: August 15, 2010.