Came across this whilst doing some convergence research. Fantastic.

"Alfred Sirleaf is an analog blogger. He take runs the "Daily News", a news hut by the side of a major road in the middle of Monrovia. He started it a number of years ago, stating that he wanted to get news into the hands of those who couldn't afford newspapers, in the language that they could understand."

the session on the urban challenges of Africa remains embedded in my mind. we had seven amazing contributors who had agreed to participate. they all arrived early so that we could run thru the session and talk a bit about what was going to happen. the time to start came and passed with only about four participants in the room. it was staggeringly disappointing...but then, a few more trickled in and then more and more. in the end, we had about thirty all told. a good solid group with whom we had a really robust discussion. we found out that a session had been added on the Future of South Africa....and as the saying goes...the future of Africa goes as the Future of South Africa.

There are two things that have lodged themselves in my mind that make the urban situation of Africa quite different that than every city of the Northern Hemisphere, and perhaps of every other continent. An African does not see the city as their home. it is the place that they stay, but their home is their village. When this was stated, every black African around the circle of chairs nodded their head. A white South Africans at a breakfast session the following day stated 'and this is the problem' when i brought this up as an issue.

i believe that this duality could be the saving grace of the continent IF it could get pervasive broadband to every village. The question is, how can it be possible for a villager to have access to government services even in their own remote homes. Would it be possible, as was suggested in the workshop session, that that the continent could become known as the LEAPFROG continent. It has already done so with the use of the mobile phone. Could it do so with other technologies to enable the the continent to skip the paradigm of centralized industrialization? I hope so.

It could also be that i have a deep empathy with this idea of living a life in which you have one foot in one place that you exist every day, but have a deep affinity with another place. The Zulu believe that you need to do three things to become a man; plant a tree in your village; have a story to tell and to do so, and to kill a man. I am not keen on the third, but each have deeper meanings about commitment to the community; about giving back a gift that provides over time.

so.... where is home?

Graham Mackay. [Chief Executive SABMiller http://www.sabmiller.com/index.asp?pageid=356]
I have heard that there needs to be a focus on the creation of a benign investment environment across Africa and and deep need for infrastructure. We feel our investments are safe here and that it is a good place to invest. good double digit returns. he feels very hopeful in looking ahead.

Maria Ramos. [Group Chief Executive, Transnet Limited, South Africa ]
there are a number of things to take away:
1. leadership and values. this is the courage to implement the decisions and policies which have either already been made or are about to be made.
2. the crisis will not end with one event. there will be many opportunities that will arise.
3. regional stock exchange needs to be established.
4. climate change will pose a great challenge and provide opportunities. the opportunities are greater than the constraints.
5. implementation is a big issue. if we are capable of building stadiums so why not put this implementation capability to work in the reconstruction of civil society. the only things which stops us is the imagination. we do not need another plan or review. we need to get going on projects. if we get one wrong, so be it; we get nine right.

Klaus Schwab - summarized as YES WE CAN, BUT WE DON'T. why not?

Ramos - the problem is accountability.

Graca Machel [http://www.theelders.org/elders/machel.aspx]
a plea to bring more women and young people into the forum and its activities. her main take away's..... to take advantage of this crisis to make sure that 'nothing about us without us' will be considered and to ensure that the voice of women is part of the G20. the second thing is that the leadership of the nations need to improve.

Graça Machel (born Graça Simbine on 17 October 1945 in Incadine, Gaza Province, Mozambique) is the third wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela and the former widow of the late Mozambican president Samora Machel. She is the only person in the world to have been married to the presidents of two different nations. She is an international advocate for women's and children's rights.

Soud Ba'alawy [Executive Chairman, Dubai Group, UAE http://www.dubaigroup.com/aboutus/managementprofiles_en_gb.aspx]
spoke to the potential of pooling liquidity in order to finance the future. if the pooling does not happen there will simply not
protectionism both without and within the region is dangerous. regional trade needs to increase. a financial architecture needs to be created with will help to allow this trade to occur. the GCC and CHINA are the only two places for funding today. the African countries need to reach out. there is need to be a difference between hot money FDI and development FDI. the one message is - in life the biggest risk is to not take a risk. the region needs to stop making plans and get going on the action. 95% of success comes from action, not planning. there needs to be a leadership shift to allow entrepreneurship to flourish and be celebrated. the gov't cannot continue to be the only source of ideas and inspiration.

Zuma [Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa] [http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1893561,00.html]
African leadership should be able to deal with the issues. African should have more opportunity than it does. fighting crime will be one of his priorities to help not only business but the country as a whole. there was more....

OK. i have been here before. when i walked into the lobby the memory of the last room came back. the only good thing about this hotel is the pool which has a veranda around it which is large and comfortable to sit and work with robust wifi. The service is miserable. it is an older hotel with the potential to be something special - it must have been once before. but the luster has gone the same way with the care for the meaning of hospitality.

there is a Westin across the street. that is the place to go if at the convention centre. otherwise one of the dozens of small hotels would be a better bet. The Cullinan is off my list.

https://www.southernsun.com:443/SSH/VHB/25383cf8de46a010VgnVCM100000650114acRCRD/43/47

Klaus opened the conference. 17th WEF on Africa. it started in Geneva in 1990. he stated a desire to part of the solution to the crises that are facing the world, and especially that which is facing Africa.

Jacob Zuma then spoke next. he welcomed every head of state by name and the rest of us. a slightly rambling start. he focused on the need for a reform of the global financial institutions. the crises provides an opportunity to correct the brain drain to reconstruct the continent. many African emigrants have realized that the grass is not greener on the other side. he noted that many global / international organizations need to change their configurations to reflect the new global order which is no longer centred in the north and west. he noted further that nations are looking more and more at their interests. it was a so-so speech.

Had a really interesting evening at the at abrahams event hosted by Arup on the theme of "collaborleaders". at abrahams is curated by abrahams and Claire Curtice Publicists with this event chaired by Sophie Howarth from the School of Life. The evening highlights were Philip Sheppard playing an impromptu cello solo and then later joining Steve Lodder and John Etheridge to show how three musicians can come together and improvise a piece of music - collaboration at its best. The video below is a bit shakey - i had to improvise ;-) but watch how the three are continually watching each other - to quote one of the general observations from the evening "the non verbal communication amongst the collaborators was visible".

atabrahams impromptu collaboration from Duncan Wilson on Vimeo.

Other highlights included:

re the cello "it's a Banks probably made near here in 1750" i wonder which of todays tools we will be using in 2250

re workshops - can you be forced to collaborate or do have to want to collaborate?

re architect and designer - "the collaboration only involved about 4 hours of working together with each other" but then many hours of the teams working together towards the finished product

re can it be built - "not yes you can, but yes we can"

re the ego in the collaboration - the economist does not have signed articles it is a team effort by the editing staff.

and finally... a poem by Roger McGough for the egotistical collaborator

The Leader

I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader

OK what shall we do?

The World Economic Forum on Africa are using our Drivers of Change voting application to solicit public opinion prior to the event on the challenges African countries need to be the most prepared for in the coming year. The highest ranked Drivers of Change will be used in a session during the event. 1200 votes had been cast by with one week to go before the public vote closes on Thursday 11th.

A global call to action and an invitation to urban dwellers to describe through photography the places and things they love about their cities, and those that they could do without.

Cutnpastecities launched this week out of the foresight team at Arup. The brief is to capture through photography what you really like in a city, what makes it tick, and what you would like to see more of in the future. They can be spaces or services, aspects of everyday life or temporary events. Alternatively, describe something that should be removed from the city, a building you could do without, a service that just doesn't work. These are a CUT. Things you like are a PASTE.

The project will culminate with an exhibition of curated insights, stories and speculations based on the images.

To get started all you need is a photo you have taken with a few keywords that highlight what is special about that place or aspect of the city, along with a description of what you would CUT or PASTE.

How do I submit a photo?

If you are a Flickr user add them to the cutnpastecities group. Or if email is easier then just send them to photo@cutnpastecities.com with the following information:

* is it a CUT or a PASTE?
* what you like or dislike, specifically
* add some tags that describe the content of the photo
* describe the location (address or city or geocode, adding to the map)

Any rules?

The photo must be one that you have taken, and one that we can use with your permission. The photo remains your intellectual property; cutnpaste cities will credit you as you wish. Any size and resolution is accepted.

To keep track of progress visit the flickr group or http://www.cutnpastecities.com/

ASA SATELLITE DETECTS RED GLOW TO MAP GLOBAL OCEAN PLANT HEALTH

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have conducted the first global analysis of
the health and productivity of ocean plants using a unique signal
detected by NASA's Aqua satellite.

Ocean scientists can now remotely measure the amount of fluorescent
red light emitted by phytoplankton and assess how efficiently these
microscopic plants turn sunlight and nutrients into food through
photosynthesis. Researchers also can study how changes in the global
environment alter these processes at the center of the ocean food
web.

Single-celled phytoplankton fuel nearly all ocean ecosystems, serving
as the most basic food source for marine animals. Phytoplankton
account for half of all photosynthetic activity on Earth and play a
key role in the balance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The
health of these marine plants affects the amount of carbon dioxide
the ocean can absorb from the atmosphere and how the ocean responds
to a changing climate.

"This is the first direct measurement of the health of the
phytoplankton in the ocean," said Michael Behrenfeld, a biologist who
specializes in marine plants at Oregon State University. "We have an
important new tool for observing changes in phytoplankton every week,
all over the planet."

I spent the weekend at the Yahoo Hackday last week. As Crave puts it

"The idea behind it was simple: you've got exactly 24 hours to hack together the most interesting, innovative, useful or fun piece of software or hardware, using developer tools from Yahoo, or anyone else for that matter. "

David Filo opened the event, I learnt alot about the Yahoo API's available - a great way for them to show me what i could be using... and thought the talk by Rasmus Lerdorf on hacking with PHP was great.

Next steps - how to organise a hackday at Arup for the virtual design, BIM, GIS and intranet communities...