Posted on 30 November 2011 by Betsie
Durban hosts COP17 for the next two weeks and the city is full of delegates attending the conference.
A number of free events are also being run concurrently. Most of the action will be concentrated along the Beachfront, from Ushaka Marine World to the uMngeni Green Hub near Blue Lagoon. Please refer to the attached docuemnt for names of the specific areas along the Beachfront. There will be lots and lots other events happening all over the City as well, some of which are listed in the attached programme.
Please watch the press and check the website www.cop17-cmp7durban.com for details of additional events, and updates on schedules.
FINAL COP17 EVENTS.pdf
The COP17 Tree at the Durban Beachfront
Posted on 15 November 2011 by Betsie
29th and 30th November 2011
Howard Campus of University of KwaZulu-Natal
DURBAN, South Africa
The Indigenous Knowledge Centre at the North-West University (South Africa) in cooperation with the NRF/DST Chair on African Traditional Medicines (University of KwaZulu-Natal), the National IKS Office (Department of Science and Technology, South Africa), and The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Agency, will be organizing round table discussions and Exhibition during COP 17 UN Conference in Durban (29-30 November 2011) on the Role of Indigenous Knowledge, Young Scientists and Youth on Climate Change in Durban.
The venue will be at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard Campus). The focus will be on indigenous knowledge strategies on food security and health in climate change for vulnerable groups. The round table discussions are a continuation of the International Student Conference on Climate Change and IKS (CCIKS2011) which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa (29-31 August, 2011).
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Posted on 08 November 2011 by Betsie
The Africa Centre (www.africacentre.net) is a Pan-African cultural and arts social innovator based in Cape Town, South Africa. One of its projects, WikiAfrica is run in collaboration with lettera27 (www.lettera27.org).
The aim of WikiAfrica is to redress the critical imbalance of factual information about historic and contemporary Africa on the Internet’s most utilised information resource, Wikipedia. Its goal is to Africanise Wikipedia by generating and expanding 30,000 articles by the end of 2012. For more information on the project, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica and www.africacentre.net/wikiafrica
As an organisation, we are passionate about transparency, participation, collaboration, and open access to information. We value and seek to encourage the contribution of citizen archivists, citizen historians, and citizen journalists across Africa. The project will benefit from partnerships with core cultural and artistic repositories/archives, and individuals from across Africa.
Posted on 17 October 2011 by Betsie
Interesting article which links indigenous knowledge and ICTs to climate change resilience.
The underlying sense of ‘belonging’ and ‘connectedness’ to a social group can play a key role in the ability of vulnerable communities to cope with and recover from the impacts of climate change.
Acknowledging the linkages between cultural identity and climate change resilience is particularly relevant within vulnerable developing contexts given the richness of their traditional knowledge and cultural heritage, the need for innovative responses to the challenges posed by climate change, as well as the new opportunities provided by information and communities technologies (ICTs) to access, assess and use information and knowledge.
The notion of cultural identity is linked to the way in which we relate to the customs, practices, languages and worldviews that define a group or territory. It involves the conservation of social memory, the generational transfer of indigenous knowledge, the ability of a community to self-organise around common interests and shared values, and the maintenance of social networks that are based on trust and solidarity, among others.
All of these factors are pivotal in the capacity of vulnerable communities to deal with change and uncertainty, and to build resilience in the face of climate change.
Read the full article …
Posted on 30 September 2011 by Betsie
Interesting article on mobile broadband penetration in Kenya and the innovation it promotes.
The arrival of the undersea fiber cables in Kenya in 2009 has revolutionized the technology and economic sectors. Kenya is one of very few countries in Africa with a comprehensive framework set up in this regard. Average national download speeds have increased from 670.89 kbps in 2009 to 3,806.03 Kbps in 2011. Further, mobile broadband speeds have also drastically increased while cost of Internet access decreased. Mobile broadband is the ability to access data, voice and video at high speeds over an Internet connection through a portable modem especially a mobile phone. Recently, Safaricom and Orange announced download speeds of up to 21Mbps on their 3G networks .
Read the full article at iHub …
